Riccoldo resolved doubt through the sortes biblicae random scripture-opening practice
Evidence
In the final two of the five letters on the fall of Acre, Riccoldo accepts the inscrutable justice of God’s ways. No longer viewing the massacre of Acre’s friars as unjust, he now presents it as the glorious conferral of the crown of martyrdom. His final letter is his description of the “response” he received from God to his first four letters. He was reading Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job and prayed to Gregory, asking why he had received no reply to his letters and insistent prayers. He then heard a voice in his heart saying “Take it and read!”; in obedience to this voice, he opened Gregory’s book and placed his finger on a random passage. Here he read that God does not directly answer the doubts and prayers of each individual, because he has answered them once and for all in Scripture. Riccoldo thanks God for this clear response, yet admits that a doubt remains: he has read in the Bible that sometimes God chastises people as “friends,” in order to make them repent; others he crushes as enemies, as if to begin their eternal punishment in this life. Which is the case, he asks, of the oriental Christians? Are they your friends, receiving a particularly bitter lesson? If so, when will you liberate them from their Saracen oppressors? Or are the oriental Christians rather your enemies? — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1243
Categorization
- QUESTION: Riccoldo used the ‘Take it and read’ (tolle lege) random-page method Augustine made famous — worth checking whether he deliberately echoes Augustine’s conversion scene.
- XREF: Connects to the broader medieval-Christian debate over mass suffering as chastisement of friends vs. punishment of enemies.