Cast lots

Cleromancy is a form of sortition, casting of , in which an outcome is determined by means that normally would be considered random, such as the rolling of dice, but are sometimes believed to reveal the will of God, or other supernatural entities.

In ancient Rome fortunes were told through the casting of lots or sortes.

Casting of lots occurs relatively frequently in the Bible, and many biblical scholars think that the Urim and Thummim served this purpose. The Hebrew Bible contains several examples of the casting of lots as a means of determining God's will:

Other places in the Hebrew Bible relevant to divination include:

A notable example in the New Testament occurs in the Acts of the Apostles where the eleven remaining apostles cast lots to determine whether to select Matthias or Barsabbas (surnamed Justus) to replace Judas.

The Eastern Orthodox Church still occasionally uses this method of selection. In 1917 Metropolitan Tikhon became Patriarch of Moscow by the drawing of lots. The Coptic Orthodox Church uses drawing lots to choose the Coptic Pope - most recently done in November 2012 to choose Pope Tawadros II. German Pietist Christians in the 18th Century often followed the New Testament precedent of drawing lots to determine the will of God. They often did so by selecting a random Bible passage. The most extensive use of drawing of lots in the Pietist tradition may have come with Count von Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brethren of Herrnhut, who drew lots for many purposes, including selection of church sites, approval of missionaries, the election of bishops and many others. This practice was greatly curtailed after the General Synod of the worldwide Moravian Unity in 1818 and finally discontinued in the 1880s. Many Amish customarily select ordinary preachers by lot. (Note that the Greek word for "lot" (kleros) serves as the etymological root for English words like "cleric" and "clergy" as well as for "cleromancy".)

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