Many [things] are not evil of their own kind which nonetheless are sometimes forbidden, sometimes permitted. The eating of hare’s flesh and swine’s flesh has nothing evil of its own kind, yet was of old forbidden to the Israelites by God (Lev. 11:2, 6, 26). Of other flesh-meats too, today, in fasts: there is no vice in the eating of itself, yet [it is] excluded by the Church on those days, [but] on others indeed allowed. I say therefore
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I say therefore, first: Forbidden [are] all those lots in which the crimes of certain men are inquired out — for example, thefts, fornications, and the like (title On Sacrileges, ch. In tabulis; and 26, q. 5, ch. Sortes). And the reason is, because there is no power at all in the lot to indicate any crime, unless God effect it in a special way, as was said above. But that he thus effects it, is uncertain; and therefore the knowledge cannot be certain from which it would be allowed to condemn a man of a crime, and to bring either his life or his fame into peril. It is another matter when it is certain that God concurs to an indication of this kind by a special efficiency — as when he commands the lot, as in this place, in the detecting of Achan’s sacrilege; or when there is present, from elsewhere, some very great conviction of a special divine concurrence, as [in] 1 Sam. 14, [and] perhaps also Jonah 1. Otherwise it can not rarely happen that the lot condemn innocence.
II: The lots of the saints too [are] forbidden (ch. Aliquanti, 26, q. 5; and ch. Si quis clericus, there, from the Council of Agde, ch. 42; and [the First Council] of Orléans, ch. 32; and the chapter Sortilegi, q. 1, the same Cause 26; and in Burchard, bk. 19, ch. 5). But it must be observed that “lots of the saints” is used in two ways. First: those by which we cast lots for [choosing] some of the saints, as it were masters of the virtues to be imitated, and our patrons to be invoked. And that these flourished of old, and flourish in our time among the pious, I said above (qq. 17 and 19). Secondly: those by which the saints were said to be used [i.e. invoked], but falsely, since they contained superstitions and demonic frauds and impostures. And of these the cited Canons speak, as is plain from their words. For in one [it says]: “They are zealous for auguries, and under the name of a feigned religion, through those [lots] which they call ‘lots of the saints,’ they profess the science of divination.” In the other: “the lots which they falsely claim to be the saints’.” And from these the name “lot-caster” [sortilegus], when it is criminal, is drawn, Isidore says (bk. 8, ch. 9). And to these belong [the lots] which by others were called, by a more special word, “lots of the Apostles” — as though, in the opening of books, or in other impious and superstitious lot-castings (of which above, q. 19), [the Apostles] had foretold the future, uncovered secrets, [and] chosen Matthias. Just as [is] also that falsehood which I saw painted in a certain large manuscript volume of a distinguished Abbess in the monastery of St. Odilia near Molsheim — [the volume] of Herrad of Hohenburg — by a painter, while he painted the election of St. Matthias: namely, that a dice-lot [aleatoria sors] was employed by the Apostles.
III: For the choosing of the prelates of the Church, all lots — as much mediate as immediate — are forbidden (ch. Ecclesia vestra, title On Lot-casting), where Honorius [says] thus: “We forbid, by a perpetual condemnation, the use of the lot in elections.” I said “as much mediate as immediate,” because those to whom Honorius writes had not chosen a Bishop by lot, but by compromise [delegated agreement]; but the one who was to choose the compromise-delegates [compromissarii] they had themselves delegated by lot, and so the lot was carried immediately, indeed, upon the elector of the compromise-delegates, but mediately upon the Bishop at last. But what [is] the cause of this prohibition? Abulensis brings forward one (in this place, q. 36): because, while a magistrate is created by election, not by lot, Christians are the more trained to trust in God. For we know that he himself has care of the least little sparrows (Luke 12) — how much more of the greatest good of the Commonwealth and the Church? We know likewise, from Jeremiah (ch. 10), that our actions are directed by God, and (from Prov. 21) that the King’s heart is in his hand. Therefore [God] is to be trusted [to] be present at the elections, and to instruct and bend minds and wills to the choosing of this [man] or that. But someone might answer, first: [that] God is indeed to be trusted; but that this trust is exercised so much the more in casting lots, the less it has of human regards, and the more simply and entirely the verdict is expected from God. Secondly: [that] by this reasoning not only Ecclesiastical magistracies could not be made, but also Political ones — for example, that Kings, Dukes, [and] Judges could not be created by lot — against St. Thomas (in the cited article) and the present-day experience in the Republic of the Venetians (Contarini attesting, bk. 1 On the Same Republic), and in other places too, as Panormitanus notes (on the last ch. On Lot-casting). It must therefore be said [that] the government of the Church’s not being committed to lots is rightly disapproved, for three reasons. The first: Because, after the Apostle Matthias [was] chosen, there was never afterward any use of lots in Ecclesiastical elections. The second: Because the Fathers had warned that that example [is] by no means to be imitated — St. Jerome (on Jonah 1) and the Venerable Bede (on Acts 1), adduced [in Gratian] (26, q. 2, ch. Non statim and ch. Non exemplo). Thirdly: Human affairs are always to be conducted, so far as is permitted, by human counsel and prudence, and not to be committed to that thing [the lot] which is blind, which rashly does this or that, having no fixed reason why it should pronounce this [man] rather than that. Therefore, much more, in the same way, are sacred matters to be handled; and with human counsel and wisdom are prayers to be joined, and the other ways of conciliating God. And this Abulensis intimates at the end. But Cajetan clearly affirms [it] in the place cited. First: indeed, because the end of an Ecclesiastical principate is far holier and higher. Secondly: Because its matter, about which one ought to be occupied, [is] likewise far holier and more august. Thirdly: Although God could also give counsel in the lot, yet it befitted Christians — if not in every matter, yet at least in the creations of the sacred Prelates, on whom the most of good or evil depends — to be called away from the uncertain, and often fallacious and dangerous, use of lots. Fourthly: Many wise men have disapproved the lot even in the creations of Political magistrates. Therefore, even if the Church tolerates it, yet in its own governance it rightly prescribes a wiser, safer, and more reasonable mode.
That antecedent is plain, first, from the History of Tacitus (bk. 4), where Helvidius — a weighty [man], both a Philosopher and a Senator — discourses [that] “morals are not discerned by lot and urn: [that] votes, and the judgment of the Senate, were devised, that they might penetrate the life and reputation of each one.” Philo, at the beginning of the book On the Appointment of a Prince, [says], no less truly than eloquently: “It pleases some,” he says, “that princes be created by lot — [but] surely to no advantage of the subjects. For the lot pertains to good fortune, not to virtue. And so it often happens that the lot raises to the principate those whom a good man would not tolerate in the number of his subjects: for even lesser Princes, who by others are called Lords, do not take all home-born or purchased [slaves] into their household service, but only the obedient and compliant; the rest — the refractory and incorrigible — they sometimes put up in a herd to the spear and the auction, as unworthy even to serve in the household of a good man. How much less does it befit
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to commit the Lordship, and the principate of whole cities and nations, to the lot — [a slippery matter], hanging on unstable fortune. Certainly, in the curing of the sick no one thinks of lots; for physicians are not taken by lot, but each most skilled [one] is chosen. Likewise, when it is a question of the prosperity and safety of seafarers, it is not decided by lot who shall go up to steer the stern — lest perchance some unskilled [man] contract shipwreck even in calm and serene [weather] — but someone is sought who has learned the art of steering from youth: that is, one who has often sailed, and has traversed either all or most seas, who well knows the markets, the harbor-anchorages, [and] the havens, whether they be on the mainland or on the several [islands]; who also knows how to find paths in the sea, from the observation of the stars, skilled in the constellations, and directing his courses to their motions — so that he makes a way through pathless [waters], and, in a new manner, opens the seas to a land-animal, and renders the crossing easy; and afterward [governs] great cities, populous, full of inhabitants, and their administration, and the care of private and public affairs, sacred and profane — [an art] which one might deservedly call the art of arts and the science of sciences: [and this] shall we commit to an uncertain and fortuitous thing, the examination of the truth being cast aside?
St. Ambrose (bk. 5 of the Hexaemeron, ch. 21): “In lots there is an outcome, not a judgment; and often, by an irrational chance, by the lot the very last is preferred to the better [men].” St. Chrysostom (on Ephesians, homily 2):
ὁ κλῆρος οὐκ ἀρετῆς ἐστι ἀλλὰ συντυχίας· ὡς ἄν τις εἴπῃ, ὡς ἂν εἰ ἔλεγε κλήρῳ γενομένους ἡμᾶς ἐξελέξατο, τὸ δ᾽ ὅλον ἀπὸ τῆς προαιρέσεως προειδώς, τουτέστιν, ἑαυτῷ ἐκλεξάμενος ἀφώρισεν, οἷον ἑώρα ἡμᾶς περὶ γενέσθαι κεκληρωμένους. θαυμαστὴ γὰρ ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ πρόγνωσις, καὶ πάντα εἰδυῖα πρὶν γενέσεως αὐτῶν.
[Chrysostom: “The lot is not of virtue but of chance — as one might put it, as though he had said, ‘having become [ours] by lot, he chose us out’; but the whole [truth is that], foreknowing [us] from [our] purpose [proairesis] — that is, having chosen [us] for himself, he set [us] apart — [he chose us] such as he saw we should be, [as if] allotted. For wondrous is the foreknowledge of God, which knows all things before their coming-to-be.”]
And therefore, in bk. 1 On Divination, Cicero [says]: “What magistrate, or what more illustrious man, uses lots?” But in the other places lots have almost grown cold [fallen into disuse].
One example can be objected — of St. Matthias the Apostle, chosen (Acts 1). Some answer that the Apostles were not yet then filled with the Holy Spirit (the Venerable Bede, on Acts 1). Next, that it was their privilege, which cannot make a common law. The same Bede, cited (q. 2, ch. Non statim, 26); and St. Jerome (on Jonah 1), cited (ch. Non exemplo, in the same q. 2, 26); [and] Abulensis (q. 41). But I answer, first: [that] this example avails to prove that opinion which I handed down in q. 19 — namely, that the very kind of lot is not evil by its own nature. [For] how would the Apostles, all together, in council, with prayers employed, dare publicly to attempt and effect a thing condemned by its own evil [nature]? Secondly: The number of the Apostles ought to be twelve — not more nor fewer, [but just] some one [man to fill it]. Out of the whole number of disciples, two were, for the filling-up of that number, chosen not by lot, but by counsel and reason — Matthias and Joseph [Barsabbas]: but each [was] of such great virtues and divine ornaments, that the one could not be preferred to the other, [nor] be discerned, by human judgment and prudence. It was permitted, therefore, to run to some more divine mode, by which the election — begun, and carried down to these two — might be completed by God’s reckoning-pebble [vote], as indeed was done. Thirdly: No lot-casting of this kind [existed] while [it] was disapproved and forbidden by law. But now, as was said above, [it is] otherwise. Before the flesh of hare or of swine, and the eating of other animals — as much swimming as walking and creeping — was forbidden to the Jews, rightly could their Patriarchs and forebears, or they themselves in Egypt — Moses, Aaron, and all the Jews — eat of them. But after the law was passed, to eat [them was] a sin. So [it happened] in the communion under both species: of old, through the Manichaeans, and again in the previous century, through the Bohemian and German heresies, [it came about] that it was forbidden to the laity. Before, it had always been in each one’s choice.
Fourthly: If, in so great a necessity, [and] with so great care, so many fit for the Episcopate and the government of the Church had been chosen with so great care, and [if] a discernment so difficult, and (to human counsel) impossible, arose among them, it would be permitted [to use lots] — with this hope too, [the same hope] which the Apostles [had]. Because, at such a point of necessity and human prudence, the human law would now seem not to bind — as is manifest from those things which are wont to be taught concerning the obligation of positive law. And this Cajetan intends in the Summula, when he says: “From the matter of the elections of spiritual ministers too, if the prohibition of positive law be set aside, I see no sin, if [the choice] were committed to lots over certain chosen and suitable [men], as was done in the election of the Apostle Matthias.” And this Origen also thoroughly teaches, cited just now on this book (homily 23), saying that even the Apostles themselves were holier and more prudent than those who choose Bishops today.
IV: To lots is wont to be recalled the die [dice-play], under which are contained all games which depend on doubtful chance. And it [dice-play] is variously forbidden by various [laws], as may be seen in the Pandects (title On the Die and Dice-players), and in the Code (On Dice-players and the Playing of Dice, bk. 3, tit. 43). Let there be consulted Gregory of Toulouse (Syntagma [bk.] 1, [ch.] 39, ch. 3), Aerodius (bk. 3, tit. 9), [and] Molina (On Law and Justice, Disputations 509, 510, 511, 512). A pleasant riddle indeed about these dice was circulated in the previous days: [that] the bones of the dead revive, which, pricked with certain marks, give very many [men] to death [ruin].
V: All those lots [are] unpermitted which lack the due causes or circumstances; the others [are] permitted. But causes or circumstances of this kind will be more conveniently relegated to the following question.