The Bible
Some early modern people sought advice by turning to a page of the Bible at random, and interpreting their situation based on the first passage their eyes fell upon. This was termed ‘Sortes Bilicae’ by the Genevan scholar Jean Le Clerc in the later 17th century, and was later referred to as ‘Bibliomancy’. Le Clerc explained that the practice was an ancient one: ‘Sometimes [the ancients] opened a book at a venture, and the first verse they dipped upon passed for the oracle. Thus Spartian tells us that Adrian, while yet a private person, opened Virgil’s Aeneid, and found those verses which presaged his future advancement to the Roman Empire.’1Jean Le Clerc, Reflections upon what the World Commonly Call[s] Good-luck and Ill-luck with Regard to Lotteries, translated edn (London, 1699), p. 99.
Bibliomancy was a contested practice. Seeking advice from the Bible, as God’s word and the ultimate source of religious knowledge, made sense. But the religious establishment was mistrustful of divination; many clerics considered it presumptuous to attempt to pry into God’s secrets. As far back as the late fourth century, Augustine of Hippo had advised that bibliomancy could be used for spiritual matters, but not for personal ones.2Jean Le Clerc, Reflections upon what the World Commonly Call Good-luck and Ill-luck with Regard to Lotteries, translated edn (London, 1699), pp. 100-2. Nevertheless, bibliomancy seems to have remained fairly common, in part because of the wide availability of English-language bibles in the seventeenth century.
A popular related practice was divination by the ‘book and key’, generally used to identify thieves. Typically a key was placed in the Bible, and pieces of paper bearing names were inserted into its hollow end while a psalm was read. When the guilty party’s name was inserted the Bible – or, according to other commentators, the key – would start to move.
Title page of the 1611 first edition of the King James Bible.3Wikimedia Commons.
Think of a question, then click the drop-down menu below to see a random verse from the King James Bible. Does it offer any insight?
A 1633 edition of the King James Bible – the first full edition to be printed in Scotland. There was protest over the elaborate illustrations, which were considered reminiscent of Catholicism.4Glasgow University Library Special Collections, Euing Dv-i.3.
A sceptical interpretation by the Swiss theologian Jean Le Clerc, first published in French in 1696.5Jean Le Clerc, Reflections upon what the World Commonly Call[s] Good-luck and Ill-luck with Regard to Lotteries, translated edn (London, 1699), pp. 105-6.
…several who used [bibliomancy] did not content themselves with consulting one single book, but took several, one after the other … If they found nothing to the purpose at their opening the Prophets, they tried the Gospels next, and then the Epistles, till something offered … Now we may easily conceive, that they would not miss of something which they looked for, after so many experiments; and especially, when they contented themselves with strained and unnatural interpretations…
An 18th-century key.6Smithsonian Design Museum, Wikimedia Commons.
The Methodist Joanna Turner recalls an episode from her boarding school in the 1740s.7Mary Wells, The Triumph of Faith (Bristol, 1787), pp. 21-2.
One of the servants at school wanted to borrow a shilling of me, at a time when all my money was spent … [I] was too proud to tell her I had none, therefore took an opportunity to steal a shilling out of the drawer of a young lady who slept in the same chamber with me … when I was tried with the bible and key, as was the custom, to see whose hand shook most, I recollect … crying mightily to God, to preserve me from shame … he did not suffer it to be discovered!
A Welsh scholar’s 1711 reflections on the evil of practising the book and key.8T. P., Cas Gan Gythraul, ed. and trans. Lisa Tallis (Newport, 2015 [1711]), pp. 100-1.
Another evil custom commonly practised … [is] that some take the Holy Bible when they have lost something of their wealth or possessions in order to divine who stole their belongings from them. They place a key (or opener) inside and close the book on the key, placing it to be held between two men. They then recite some verse from the Bible, after which they name anyone who they suppose caused their loss, and they pray for the book to turn if the person they name stole such things from them. If they don’t perceive it turning they name someone else. But when they touch or hit upon the name of the thief, it is said the book does usually turn, and you cannot persuade some men to believe that such practices are evil … Try to think how adverse it is for you to take the Holy Bible, and put it to use as an instrument of prognostication. This is the greatest insult that anyone can give to the Scriptures … Doubtless such practices give much pleasure to the Devil, besides which, who do you think turns the book when the thief is named? As one related to me as he went to perform this kind of evil practice when a thief took his clothes: and when he named someone whom he suspected had stolen them, the book (with him holding it by the key) did turn in his hand, and he had such a fright until he almost couldn’t stand on his feet.
