Note 309.1 — BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST
Reading edition
Early Trav., 158. The casting of lots is divination—an appeal to supernatural powers to decide the event. Such divination (frequently glossed as the ballot) took place at the election of Matthias to succeed Judas Iscariot in the apostolate (Acts i. 23). It seems to have been a not uncommon practice in the Middle Ages for the election of ecclesiastical dignitaries. It is expressly reprehended in a tract De decem præceptis, published in the year 1439, by Thomas Ebendorfer of Haselbach, Court Chaplain and Privy Councillor of the Emperor Frederick III (Zeit. des Vereins, xii. 11).