AND THE LOT FELL ON MATTHEW... SOME REMARKS ON THE LATE ANTIQUE ATTITUDE TOWARDS DRAWING LOTS AND AN EPISODE OF THE EARLY BEGINNINGS OF THE CHURCH (Polish title below)

(Polish title: 'I los padl na Macieja...' Kilka uwag o poznoantycznym stosunku do losow i pewnym epizodzie z poczatkow Kosciola). In Late Antiquity the choice of a bishop was widely treated as an attempt to discover God's will, and the method by which Matthias was chosen to replace Judas as the twelfth apostle, namely by drawing lots, as described in Ac 1,15-26, would seem to have provided a model solution for recognizing God's intention. But such selections by drawing lots never gained wider acceptance. This paper explains this method's lack of popularity and shows how Christian authors such as John Chrysostom, Theodoret, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine justified the difference between the contemporary practice of episcopal elections and the biblical example. This leads to some observations about the attitude of Late Antique Christians towards the ideal community presented in the first chapters of Acts.