I have said that the third part of mangany is lots. A lot was formerly called phur, as is clear from the book of Esther, chapter 9, verse 26; most want this to be a Persian or Susa word. I agree rather with St. Jerome that it is Hebrew and derived from the Hebrew phur, “to fall” or “to slip down,” even according to Furst, because lots thrown into the urn fall down. From this too comes the Hebrew feast Phurim, not Phrurim. Josephus is corrupt in this word, or bent it according to Greek custom. A lot, according to St. Thomas, is threefold: divinatory, consultatory, and divisory.
[margin: Esther 9:26; Jerome, Furst, and Josephus on phur and Phurim; Thomas Aquinas, Secunda Secundae, question 95, article 8, on the three kinds of lots]
A divinatory lot can be called cleromancy. It is prohibited by its kind, according to St. Gregory, book 7, letter 110, book 9, letter 47; in the Decretals, chapter 1 on sortilege; St. Thomas at the cited article 8. Such was the casting of lots in Jonah, as Franciscus Ribera explains very well there after Lyra and Ferus. It too is manifold.
[margin: Gregory, book 7, and book 9, epistle 47; Decretals, chapter 1 de sortilegiis; Thomas Aquinas, the cited article 8; Lyra, Ferus, and Franciscus Ribera on divinatory lots and Jonah]
One divinatory lot is the same as an oracle, as were the Delian, Lycian, Antiate, Praenestine, and similar lots. Seneca took it in this sense:
After fates, at last, faith in the impure lot.
And in Oedipus:
Awakened by Phoebean lot.
Most of the other lots take their name from their material, such as palomancy, pessomancy, and astragalomancy, which used little rods, dice, little bones, little balls, or inscribed tablets thrown up or into an urn.
Third, similar to these was cubomancy or dice-divination, as in Propertius:
For me too, when I sought Venus by favorable dice, the ruinous dogs always leapt up.
The emperors Augustus and Tiberius were very devoted to this practice, according to Suetonius, as was Attalus, king of Pergamum. The Greeks used such a lot at Bura in Achaia, according to Pausanias, and at the spring of Aponus in Italy, according to Suetonius in Tiberius.
[margin: Delian, Lycian, Antiate, and Praenestine lots; Seneca; Propertius; Suetonius on Augustus and Tiberius; Pausanias on Bura; Suetonius on the spring of Aponus]
Fourth is palomancy or rhabdomancy, which Tacitus attributes to the Germans. He says: “Their custom of lots is simple. They cut a rod from a fruit-bearing tree into little pieces, mark them with certain signs, and scatter them at random over a white cloth. Then, if consultation is public, the priest of the state; if private, the father of the household, after praying to the gods and looking up to heaven, takes up three pieces one at a time. Once taken up, he interprets them according to the mark previously impressed.” Very similar and very frequent among the Chinese today is a divination of two equal pieces of wood, which Gonzalo de Mendoza describes at length, and likewise that of the Philippine or Lusitanian people in India, according to Martin Ignatius in his Itinerary.
[margin: Tacitus, Germania, on rod-lots; Gonzalo de Mendoza, History of China, book 2, chapter 4, on Chinese wooden lots; Martin Ignatius, Itinerary, chapter 8, on Philippine or Indian lots]
In Sacred Scripture I find some lots pertaining here, such as that of arrows in Ezekiel, and another of rods in Hosea, and, according to some, in Moses. The words of Ezekiel are: “For the king of Babylon stood at the fork, at the head of the two ways, seeking divination, mixing arrows. He asked idols, he consulted entrails. At his right hand was the divination over Jerusalem.” This divination is explained variously, the diversity arising because interpreters do not agree on the meaning of the verb qlql, which St. Jerome rendered “he mixed”; the Seventy, “to boil up” and “a casting of the rod,” which Polychronius nevertheless teaches was said in Hebrew idiom for “he sent” or “he cast arrows.”
St. Jerome in his commentary explains the mode of divination: “He will stand at the very crossroads and, according to the rite of his nation, consult the oracle, mixing his arrows in the quiver and mixing them inscribed or marked with the names of each, to see whose arrow comes out and which city he ought first to attack. The Greeks call this belomancy or rhabdomancy.” He adds afterward that here the Seventy differ from the Vulgate not so much in sense as in words. For the word “to boil up” or “to rise” means nothing other than to come out or ascend swiftly. Others think it means another kind of divination: that the mixed arrows were thrown strongly into the air, and it was observed in which direction they fell, whether right or left, toward Rabbath or toward Jerusalem. Thus Rabbi Joseph, and, as it seems, the Chaldean Paraphrast. Both our translation and the Greek translation permit that interpretation very well. Finally, because qlql also means “to smooth” or “to polish,” they explain it as “he smoothed or polished the arrows,” for they want to signify a catoptromantic kind of divination, by which augurs saw future things in a shining point as if in crystal or a fingernail. But since this is an invention of more recent writers, it is better to follow St. Jerome and the Seventy.
[margin: Ezekiel 21; Jerome, the Septuagint, Polychronius, Rabbi Joseph, and the Chaldean Paraphrast on arrow lots, belomancy, and rhabdomancy]
The other passage is Deuteronomy 18:11, vechober chaber, which our translator renders “enchanter.” Recent writers render it “joining a joining,” to express a species of xylomancy by which divination was done through fragments of wood coming together again. But the Seventy confirm our translation: pharmakos epaeion epoiden, “a poisoner chanting an incantation,” and rightly. For enchanters are called chabarim from chabar, which means “to associate oneself”; one might call them associates, namely of demons, with whom they unite themselves by pact or covenant. Therefore our Vulgate translator renders far more clearly than those recent writers; and Pagninus rightly retained the translation of the Seventy interpreters.
The third passage is Hosea 4:12: “My people consulted in wood, and its staff announced to them.” It is not clear of what kind this is said. Among the Hebrews, Rabbi Moses son of Maimon, in his explanation of negative precept 52, records this rite: they stripped a wooden staff on one side only, then threw it into the air. If by chance on the first throw the stripped side appeared uppermost, and on the second throw the side still clothed in bark appeared uppermost, they augured a prosperous outcome; if, on the contrary, the clothed side first appeared, an unhappy one; if on both throws the clothed or stripped side was uppermost, they promised themselves a mixed outcome. They think this is signified by Hosea. St. Jerome, however, wants the same kind to be treated as in Ezekiel, and here calls rhabdomancy what there he called belomancy, for he took these as the same. Theophylact on Hosea thinks this too, but explains the rite differently: “Setting up two rods, they muttered songs or certain incantations; then, when the rods fell by the operation or effect of demons, they considered in what direction each one fell, whether forward or backward, to the right or the left. Thus at last, from the falls of the rods, they gave responses to foolish people. Nebuchadnezzar prophesied in the same way, as Ezekiel has it.” Add to these what was said above, Section 1, Superstition 17.
[margin: Deuteronomy 18, Pagninus, Hosea 4, Moses Maimonides, and Theophylact on rod lots, xylomancy, and the Hebrew terms in these passages]
Fifth, a species is geomancy. Its laborious industry lies by pretending to be an art; for it marks out the names of sixteen figures in the ground or on a counting board, from sixteen different arrangements of points added together, names which they think answer to their respective stars. Haly once included this in writing, and the famous magician Oliver of Malmesbury in a published book; afterward Gerard of Cremona, Bartholomaeus of Parma, and Gaspar Peucer, follower of Luther, did the same. Their books are prohibited. I marvel that Peucer pursued it so diligently, since he most truly confesses that there is no reason at all, no appearance of truth, beneath that whole inquiry. The arch-magician Cornelius too, in a later writing, testified that his geomancy, different from that of others, was equally false and lying. Picus sang of it:
And frequently the point pierces the thirsty sand.
Pictorius described this in the Epitome on Magic, chapter 8. What madness, then, to devote oneself to things condemned by their own authors? Among pious and Catholic writers, those often already cited have learnedly refuted it: Franciscus Picus, book 6 On Foreknowledge, chapter 3; Conrad Wimpina, who drew very many things from Picus in his whole little work, book On Divination, chapter 5; and Julius Sirenius, book 9 On Fate, chapter 38.
[margin: Geomancy authorities and critics: Haly; Oliver of Malmesbury in a published book; Gerard of Cremona; Bartholomaeus of Parma; Gaspar Peucer, whose prohibited books treat it while admitting the inquiry has no reason or appearance of truth; Cornelius Agrippa’s later geomancy; Francesco Pico’s verse and On Foreknowledge, book 6, chapter 3; George Pictorius, Epitome of Magic, chapter 8; Conrad Wimpina, On Divination, chapter 5; Julius Sirenius, On Fate, book 9, chapter 38]
Sixth, they call stichomancy. It was first done by opening a book of Homer or Virgil and attending to the first verse that met the eye of the one looking. Thus Socrates conjectured the day of his death; thus Claudius, Macrinus, Gordian the Younger, and other emperors conjectured the time of their reign or life. Among Christians there afterward succeeded to this Gentile vanity the opening of the Old and New Testament, which by a notable blasphemy they call the Lots of the Apostles. This was used by the emperor Heraclius in Cedrenus; Romanus Diogenes in Cuspinian; Andronicus the elder in Gregoras; Chrannus, son of the king of the Franks, in Gregory of Tours; St. Theodora of Alexandria, not yet well catechized, in Simeon Metaphrastes on September 11; and Merovech in Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book 5, chapter 14. There another rite is also expressed: three codices of Sacred Scripture are placed on St. Martin’s tomb, and each is opened separately. Finally Gundulph used this, according to Ranulph, book 7 of the Polychronicon, chapter 6, as did the man who praised his own deed, Jerome Cardano, On Variety, book 14.
This superstition was condemned by decrees of more than one council of the Catholic Church. Some refer here those certain Ephesian letters joined with magical words, by which those who carried them were supposed to make all attempts effective. By the benefit of these words they say Croesus was freed from the pyre. These belong to Question 6. And let no one object to either St. Augustine’s act in the Confessions or Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book 5, chapter 47 and following. For the saints then opened the book not so that they might be rendered more certain about future things, but so that they might find something consolatory or exhortatory in the sacred page, as Gregory himself testifies. Thus today many pious men, when tempted, are accustomed to open that golden little book of Thomas a Kempis, On the Contempt of the World, because something always occurs in it by which they feel themselves strengthened and confirmed. That is certainly free of superstition. Augustine too was led to this by divine admonition; see book 9 of the Confessions, last chapter.
[margin: Stichomancy: opening Homer or Virgil; Socrates, Claudius, Macrinus, Gordian Junior, and other emperors; Christian misuse of Scripture as “Lots of the Apostles” by Heraclius in Cedrenus, Romanus Diogenes in Cuspinian, Andronicus the Elder in Gregoras, book 8, Chrannus in Gregory of Tours, History, book 4, chapters 16 and 20, Theodora of Alexandria in Simeon Metaphrastes on September 11, Merovech in Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, book 5, chapter 14, Gundulph in Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, book 7, chapter 6, and Jerome Cardano, De varietate, book 14; conciliar condemnations; Ephesian letters; Augustine, Confessions, book 9, final chapter, Gregory of Tours, and Thomas a Kempis on non-divinatory sacred-page consolation]
There are those who want two exceptions to this rule: first, if someone does it compelled by grave necessity, to settle a grave dispute or doubtful counsel; they cite St. Augustine, letter 180 to Honoratus, and On Christian Doctrine, book 1, chapter 28. Second, if it is done with due reverence and with prayers poured out to God, as Bede wants in the first chapter of Acts. Above all, I would admit these conditions not taken separately, but jointly, and therefore as one only. For I think that both the necessity of the matter and recourse to God are required together; the Fathers do not exclude one but suppose it when they express only the other. Augustine considered only the gravity of the matter, for he was treating the abandonment of the flock because of danger of death; therefore he wanted a lot to be cast among the pastors to decide who should flee and who should remain. Bede expressly requires both. Nor was the cause light for St. Francis, namely his own salvation and that of his neighbors; nor had no prayers, or cold or lukewarm prayers, preceded when he used a consultatory lot; nor was divine revelation lacking to prompt this.
St. Bonaventure narrates in his life of Francis, chapter 13, which St. Antoninus drew from him piecemeal and mutilated. Bonaventure writes: “It was put into his mind by divine oracle that in the opening of the Gospel book it would be opened to him by Christ what would be most acceptable to God in him and about him. Therefore, after prayer had first been made with great devotion, he caused the sacred book of the Gospels, taken from the altar, to be opened in the name of the Holy Trinity by a companion, a man devout and holy to God. Since in the threefold opening of the book the Passion of the Lord always occurred, the man full of God understood that, as he had imitated Christ in the actions of life, so he ought to be conformed to him in the afflictions and pains of the Passion before he passed from this world,” etc.
Therefore those two conditions must concur for someone lawfully to use this lot. If true revelation has been added, or if it alone preceded, there is nothing either to fear or to accuse. Bede teaches clearly enough that all these things were present in the lot of blessed Matthias, and besides that the custom of choosing the high priest in his turns had not yet been abolished. Therefore, if either revelation, or the other two causes together without revelation, moved the archdeacon of Bath to test what he says in letter 30 after the threefold recurrence of the same dream about a friend, which I would readily believe to have been a divine vision, namely “without affection of curiosity to examine more diligently the outcome of the vision by lots of human curiosity and by turning the Psalter,” and that verse first met his eyes, “Moses and Aaron among his priests,” etc., then I would judge with our John Buseus that Peter of Blois can be excused. Otherwise it cannot be denied that the matter should be judged not of the best example.
[margin: Augustine, letter 180 to Honoratus, and On Christian Doctrine; Bede on Acts; Francis, Bonaventure, and Antoninus; Matthias, Peter of Blois, and John Buseus on lawful or excusable lots]
There is a quite different Lot of the Apostles, plainly lawful and not forbidden, of which Caesarius writes in book 8 of the Miracles, chapter 56: “It is customary, especially among the matrons of our province, that by such a lot they choose a special apostle for themselves. On twelve candles the names of the twelve apostles are written, one on each; after they have been blessed by the priest, they are placed together on the altar. The woman approaches, and she gives more honor and service than to the rest to the apostle whose name she draws by the candle.” Indeed, I find in the Mexican History of Francisco Lopez de Gomara, chapter 21, that when Ferdinand Cortes cast such a lot in Spain, blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, the second rock of the Roman or truly apostolic Church, for Jesus is the first, fell to him. It was fitting that the one who was going to plant the Gospel there should be favored by the one who waters; when he waters, Christ Jesus always gives growth.
[margin: Caesarius on a lawful Lot of the Apostles; Francisco Lopez de Gomara on Ferdinand Cortes and the apostle Peter]
In the seventh place comes the Game described in the Dodecahedron, and another which it calls the Shepherds’ Game. These two, harmful through France and Germany, are solemn for many people for knowledge of future marriage, wealth, dignities, children, and so forth.
Nor can or should I pass over here undiscussed a certain dangerous statement of Andrea Cesalpino, On the Investigation of Demons, chapter 12, where he says: “There are those who consult books written on good and bad fortune, falling by lot onto a part of the little book in which what is asked is explained. Speaking of books such as I mentioned, he says: ‘But these by their own force are for the most part found vain among others, true among those for whom a demon cooperates.’” Is the demon, then, so foreknowing of future things of this kind that he knows how to direct those things, which at least as to their means ordinarily depend on free will, to a certain and true outcome? No one skilled in true theology will grant this. He should therefore have said that when the demon cooperates, then they more often seem true because of the demon’s cleverness in conjecturing; not that they are for the most part true if the demon cooperates, unless he added an explanation why then rather than at other times.
[margin: The Dodecahedron and the Shepherds’ Game; Andrea Cesalpino, On the Investigation of Demons, chapter 12, on fortune books and demonic cooperation]
Eighth comes alectryomancy. In this a defined place is marked into equal parts, and to each part a single letter of the alphabet is assigned. Then on each letter a grain of wheat is placed. Afterward a cock trained for this is brought in, which eats the grains. Finally the letters are noted from which it first eats the grains. For example, if the letters P, E, T are involved, then Peter, Petronius, Petrucci, and those whose names begin in a similar way are believed to be indicated.
In this way the emperor Valens was deceived when the philosophers were asking about his successor. Because the cock had eaten the grains marked theta, epsilon, omega, delta, he ordered all Theodores, Theodosiuses, Theodotes, and Theodules to be killed; and yet Theodosius the Great succeeded him in the empire. Although some from Zonaras want this to have been done through alectryomancy, Socrates openly says it was done through necromancy; Sozomen says by an oracle from the device of a laurel tripod, and Nicephorus follows him. Cassiodorus agrees with Socrates, but by error wants Valens himself to have used the demon’s work to inquire about his successor. Zonaras wants this to have been done by Iamblichus and Libanius. But it is plain from Ammianus, a writer of those times, that all these are deceived. Ammianus names Fidustius, Irenaeus, Pergamius, and Hilarius as defendants in the sought prophecy, and says that they gathered certain other men skilled in prophecy, whom he does not name and who perhaps were Libanius and Iamblichus. He then recites the words of Hilarius, already dedicated to the side-rack:
We constructed, most magnificent judges, in likeness to the Delphic cauldron and under dire auspices, this ill-fated little table which you see, from laurel twigs; and by imprecations of secret songs and many long ritual preparations, we at last set it in motion. The manner of moving it, whenever consultation was made about hidden matters, was this. It was placed in the middle of a house cleansed with Arabian odors, and a round dish, wholly pure and made by art from different metallic materials, was placed above it. On its outer circumference, the written forms of the twenty-four elements were skillfully cut, divided by carefully measured intervals. A man clothed in linen garments, and likewise shod with linen shoes, with a fillet twisted about his head and bearing vervains of fortunate trees, after sacrifice had been made with fixed songs to the deity who is author of foreknowledge, stood over the little cauldron with ceremonial knowledge, balancing a hanging ring by a very fine Carpathian thread, initiated in mystic disciplines. By falling at intervals upon the single letters set apart, the ring produced heroic verses in harmony with the questions, fully concluded according to numbers and measures, such as are read from the Pythian responses or those given from the oracles of the Branchidae. Therefore when we asked who would succeed the present empire, since it was said that he would be polished in every respect, the ring, settling, struck two syllables, and when the last letter was added, someone present cried out, “Theodorus,” etc.
He adds that they were also asked whether they had inquired what hung over themselves, and that they recited verses by which capital punishment for them and burning for the prince were foretold; all these things happened in this way. For Theodosius did succeed, these men were beheaded, and Valens was burned alive by the Goths. So much so that I suspect all these things were revealed by the Devil, God permitting it, for vengeance upon so many crimes. From Ammianus’ words it is clear that Socrates, Cassiodorus, and Zonaras narrated things not learned by them and not very true.
[margin: Alectryomancy and the Valens succession oracle: Zonaras, tome 3, on Valens; Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, book 4, chapter 15, says the inquiry was by necromancy; Sozomen says by an oracle from a laurel tripod; Nicephorus follows him; Cassiodorus, Tripartite History, chapter 35, follows Socrates but misstates Valens’s own role; Ammianus, book 26, names Fidustius, Irenaeus, Pergamius, and Hilarius, and records the laurel-table and suspended-ring procedure; Del Rio notes possible but unnamed involvement of Libanius and Iamblichus]
The ninth kind is onomancy, which is sought from the name of the person consulting by arranging the elements of the name in different ways and indicating something favorable or contrary as if by anagram. This was a Pythagorean invention; for example, if you resolve Ioannes Magnus into magnus animose. By this they think that at Rome Apollonius raised a girl who had died on the day of her wedding.
[margin: Philostratus, book 4, on Apollonius and the Ioannes Magnus/magnus animose name-anagram example]
The tenth was called arithmancy. It was twofold: one kind belonged to the Greeks, who considered the value of letters and augured the future victor to be the one whose name contained the greater numbers; for this reason Hector was overcome by Achilles. The other belonged to the Chaldeans, who distribute the alphabet into three decades, with certain letters repeated; and, after resolving the names of those seeking into numbers, they change them into numbers and assign individual numbers to their planets. To this must be referred the Kabbalah of recent Jews, which they divide into two parts: a certain theomancy full of blasphemies, and this most vain arithmancy. Read Tegnius refuting it in his book On True Christian Study.
Not far from this is Plato’s arithmetical prophecy, criticized by Aristotle in book 5 of the Politics. Certainly the apostle and evangelist St. John in the Apocalypse signified the name of Antichrist by the number 666, as it had been revealed to him by God, but perhaps the talents of all men have so far labored in vain to find that man out. Whoever wants many things may read Ribera on the Apocalypse, Sanders on Antichrist, Feuardentius on Irenaeus, and Raymond, discussing Antichrist very fully from chapter 20 to chapter 25. Raymond, however, attributed somewhat more to arithmancy than was fitting, from the fictions of the Platonists. That passage of the apostle does not confirm arithmancy; it only weaves prophecy with arithmetical wrappings of numbers, which would be lawful for us too if the Holy Spirit inspired it. But to attribute any divine force or natural property to numbers themselves is erroneous.
[margin: Arithmancy: Terentianus Maurus, cited by Del Rio with a cross-reference to his own fuller discussion in the Opinions on Accius’ Astyanax; Tegnius, On True Christian Study, against the Jewish Kabbalah’s arithmancy; Plato, Republic, book 8, on the arithmetical prophecy; Aristotle, Politics, book 5, criticizing it; Apocalypse 13 on the name of Antichrist signified by the number 666; Ribera on the Apocalypse; Sanders on Antichrist; Feuardentius on Irenaeus; Raymond, On Antichrist, chapters 20-25; Del Rio says Raymond conceded too much to arithmancy from Platonic fictions, and rejects any divine force or natural property in numbers themselves]
Eleventh can be the practice which Pliny attributes to Pythagoras: in proper names one should consider the number of vowels; an even number is prosperous, while an odd number is an indication of childlessness or lameness. A book of Alchindrina circulates on these and similar trifles, plainly superstitious and most worthy of flames. They pretend that he was a disciple of Aristotle. To this and the preceding species should commonly be referred that circular figure in whose middle, between half-moons, various arithmetical numbers stand in an area; in the next circle are inscribed the words life, good fortune, bad fortune, death, illness, health; in the following circle, the names of the planets with certain numbers; in the third, the alphabet in Latin capital letters; in the fourth, certain arithmetical numbers. Certain people use it in Germany, and if George Pictorius had not displayed its form and explained its use, he would have acted far more wisely.
[margin: Onomancy and arithmetical name-divination: Pliny on the Pythagorean rule counting vowels in proper names; the superstitious Alchindrina falsely linked with Aristotle; George Pictorius on the circular arithmetical figure used in Germany, with half-moon area, numerical circles, words of fortune, planetary names, and the Latin alphabet]
Perhaps among the Gentiles another kind of onomancy was also in use, when they took an omen from the very meaning of a name, or divined some future thing from it, as I have elsewhere taught, in my Opinions on the fragments of the tragedians, that the Greeks did in the name Astyanax, and Augustus in the name Nicon. Read above, book 3, part 2, question 4, section 4. To this I would refer what Prudentius reports, that the martyr blessed Hippolytus was thus mocked by the tyrant:
The tyrant, sitting with neck bent back, said: “What is he called?” They affirm that he is called Hippolytus. “Then let him be Hippolytus: let him be shaken and thrown into confusion by horses, and let him perish torn apart by savage horses.”
For, as Ausonius somewhere records, it was a species of divination among the ancients to compose a name that was an indication of fortune, character, or death.
Those are not free from this superstition who think that human fortunes and future outcomes depend on names imposed by the choice of parents, and from that reason out what will happen. They are free of fault who, with careful diligence, compare certain names imposed through angels or holy men by a prophetic spirit with the office, virtues, or end of life of those on whom they were imposed, and show that the names agree with the realities. The orthodox Fathers once did this with Abel, Enoch, Noah, and the rest; on these read St. Isidore, Etymologies, book 7, chapter 6. The angel in the Gospel history goes before us in this, Matthew 1:21 and Luke 1:13-14, as does Jesus himself imposing the name Cephas on Simon, John 1:42 compared with Matthew 16:18. Father Nicolas Serarius noted something similar from Gorionides on the name Maccabee in the first preface to Maccabees; certainly that name could have been prophetically given by his father, who foresaw the great strength and heart that Judah would have. To impose the names of saints on children so that they may entrust themselves and their affairs especially to the patronage of those saints, and imitate their morals, is pious and religious. For the same reason the custom of Roman pontiffs, already for some centuries changing their former name along with the dignity of the high priesthood, is most praiseworthy.
[margin: Name-omens and lawful name interpretation: Prudentius on Hippolytus; Ausonius on fortune, character, and death in names; Isidore on etymological meanings; Matthew, Luke, and John on divinely significant names; Nicolas Serarius and Gorionides on prophetic and pious naming]
In the last place, John Leo, a diligent writer, lists a certain sortiary ornithomancy. In a box constructed in the shape of a little counting board, they feed certain little birds. Those who seek counsel come to these, and offer a small coin. A bird takes the coin, carries it in its beak into the box, then returns and brings the response back to the consultant on a little paper. Let this suffice concerning these superstitious lots, partly divinatory, partly consultatory.
[margin: John Leo Africanus, Description of Africa, book 8, on sortiary ornithomancy]