Answers from church history on today's questions
What Christian writers said, from about AD 100 to 1957.
71 passages · 32 writers · 11 centuries
Few writers in this collection treat gambling at length. Of the 71 passages here, 23 state a position on it and 48 mention it in passing, often in lists of faults. The writers who state a position describe dice and games of chance played for money as wrong, harmful, or dangerous, and they give different reasons, among them idleness, anger and quarrels, covetousness, and gain taken from another person's loss. Early canons require clergy who are addicted to dice to stop or be deposed, the Council in Trullo (692) forbids dice to clergy and laypeople alike, and Aquinas and Calvin cite such canons. Aquinas names the conditions under which winnings are unlawful, such as winning from minors or by cheating, and Francis de Sales calls games of hazard bad in themselves while allowing a person to join them out of courtesy. G. K. Chesterton (1908) treats betting as a distorted form of the human instinct for adventure.
5 passages · 5 writers · 200s to 1500s
Canons from the Apostolic Canons to the Council in Trullo set penalties for clergy who play dice, and later writers cite them.
If a bishop or presbyter, or deacon, is addicted to dice or drinking, let him either give it over, or be deposed. If a subdeacon, reader, or singer, commits the same things, let him either give over, or be excommunicated. So also laymen.
Anonymous canons (appendix to Trullo), Appendix to the Canons of the Synod in Trullo 4
42. Let a bishop, or presbyter, or deacon who indulges himself in dice or drinking, either leave off those practices, or let him be deprived. 43. If a sub-deacon, a reader, or a singer does the like, either let him leave off, or let him be suspended; and so for one of the laity.
Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Constitutions of the Holy Apostles 9.6
No one at all, whether cleric or layman, is from this time forward to play at dice. And if any one hereafter shall be found doing so, if he be a cleric he is to be deposed, if a layman let him be cut off.
Synod in Trullo, Canons of the Council in Trullo 3.51
On the contrary, We read in the Canons of the apostles (Can. xli, xlii): "A bishop, priest or deacon who is given to drunkenness or gambling, or incites others thereto, must either cease or be deposed; a subdeacon, reader or precentor who does these things must either give them up or be excommunicated; the same applies to the laity."
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q150.A2
22. We come now to the second part of discipline, which relates specially to the clergy. It is contained in the canons, which the ancient bishops framed for themselves and their order: for instance, let no clergyman spend his time in hunting, in gaming, or in feasting; let none engage in usury or in trade; let none be present at lascivious dances, and the like.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.12
7 passages · 6 writers · 100s to 1900s
Writers address winnings taken from the unwary, minors, or those cheated, gain sought without labor, and the eighth commandment.
The game of dice is to be prohibited, and the pursuit of gain, especially by dicing, which many keenly follow. Such things the prodigality of luxury invents for the idle. For the cause is idleness, and a love for frivolities apart from the truth.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3.11
But as to the profits from games of chance, there would seem to be something unlawful as being contrary to the Divine Law, when a man wins from one who cannot alienate his property, such as minors, lunatics and so forth, or when a man, with the desire of making money out of another man, entices him to play, and wins from him by cheating.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q32.A7
Then again there would seem to be something unlawful as being against the positive civil law, which altogether forbids any such profits. Since, however, a civil law does not bind all, but only those who are subject to that law, and moreover may be abrogated through desuetude, it follows that all such as are bound by these laws are bound to make restitution of such gains, unless perchance the contrary custom prevail, or unless a man win from one who enticed him to play, in which case he is not bound to restitution, because the loser does not deserve to be paid back: and yet he cannot lawfully keep what he has won, so long as that positive law is in force, wherefore in this case he ought to give it away in alms.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q32.A7
The only pleasure in gambling is to win, and this cannot be a satisfactory pleasure, since it can only be enjoyed at the expense of your antagonist. Once, when he was very ill, S. Louis heard that his brother the Comte d’Anjou and Messire Gautier de Nemours were gambling, and in spite of his weakness the King tottered into the room where they were, and threw dice and money and everything out of the window, in great indignation.
Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 3.32
A. The sins forbidden in the eighth commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, theft, robbery, man-stealing, and receiving anything that is stolen; fraudulent dealing, false weights and measures, removing landmarks, injustice and unfaithfulness in contracts between man and man, or in matters of trust; oppression, extortion, usury, bribery, vexatious lawsuits, unjust enclosures and depredation; engrossing commodities to enhance the price; unlawful callings, and all other unjust or sinful ways of taking or withholding from our neighbor what belongs to him, or of enriching ourselves; covetousness; inordinate prizing and affecting worldly goods; distrustful and distracting cares and studies in getting, keeping, and using them; envying at the prosperity of others; as likewise idleness, prodigality, wasteful gaming; and all other ways whereby we do unduly prejudice our own outward estate, and defrauding ourselves of the due use and comfort of that estate which God hath given us.
Westminster Assembly, Westminster Larger Catechism 142
Gambling falls under the same category where advantage is taken of the unwary or unskilful, to deprive them of their property without compensation.
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology III.19.12
When commerce becomes speculation, which is the polite name for gambling, which, again, is a synonym for stealing, it may yield much more dainty fare than bread to some for a time, but is sure to bring want sooner or later to individuals and communities.
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Second Kings to Ecclesiastes 1.8.32
5 passages · 4 writers · 1600s to 1900s
Writers differ on whether games of hazard are wrong in themselves, wrong because of their effects, or acceptable in some circumstances.
DICE, cards, and the like games of hazard, are not merely dangerous amusements, like dancing, but they are plainly bad and harmful, and therefore they are forbidden by the civil as by the ecclesiastical law. What harm is there in them? you ask. Such games are unreasonable:—the winner often has neither skill nor industry to boast of, which is contrary to reason. … Who exercises a more dismal, painful attention than the gambler?
Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 3.32
Thus certain games of chance, bad in themselves, cease to be so to you, if you join in them merely out of a due courtesy. I have been much comforted by reading in the Life of S. Carlo Borromeo, how he joined in certain things to please the Swiss, concerning which ordinarily he was very strict; as also how S. Ignatius Loyola, when asked to play, did so.
Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 3.34
Still less does the example of the apostles authorize games of hazard, or lotteries, which are positively evil, and attended with ruinous consequences, apart from any inquiry about the lawfulness of the lot. They either originate in, or promote covetousness, neglect of regular industry, envy, jealousy, disappointment, dissipation, bankruptcy, falsehood, and despair.
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible Acts 1:26
Gambling in all its forms is rank folly.
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Second Kings to Ecclesiastes 1.8.13
To take an obvious instance, it would not be worth while to bet if a bet were not binding. The dissolution of all contracts would not only ruin morality but spoil sport. Now betting and such sports are only the stunted and twisted shapes of the original instinct of man for adventure and romance, of which much has been said in these pages. And the perils, rewards, punishments, and fulfilments of an adventure must be real, or the adventure is only a shifting and heartless nightmare. If I bet I must be made to pay, or there is no poetry in betting.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy 7
6 passages · 5 writers · 300s to 1900s
Writers warn of quarrels, anger, blasphemy, avarice, temptation, and the habit of small stakes.
If I let you go, and if I dismiss this assembly, some will run to the dice, where they will find bad language, sad quarrels and the pangs of avarice. There stands the devil, inflaming the fury of the players with the dotted bones, transporting the same sums of money from one side of the table to the other, now exalting one with victory and throwing the other into despair, now swelling the first with boasting and covering his rival with confusion.
Basil of Caesarea, The Hexæmeron 9
Dice-playing, again, is exempt from all their punishments: nor did any one among them ever incur penalty for it. … Yet of the lawgivers not one hath punished this fault. What can be worse than this madness?
John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 13
Again, to go to the theatres, or to survey the horse-race, or to play at dice, does not seem, to most men, to be an admitted crime; but it introduces into our life an infinite host of miseries. … And a passion for dice-playing hath often caused blasphemies, injuries, anger, reproaches, and a thousand other things more fearful still.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues 17
For instance, if I know that gaming leads me to passion and blasphemy, and that all play is a temptation to me, I sin each and every time that I play, and I am responsible for all the temptations which may come upon me at the gaming table.
Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life 4.6
This man spends his life without weariness in playing every day for a small stake. Give him each morning the money he can win each day, on condition he does not play; you make him miserable. … He must get excited over it and deceive himself by the fancy that he will be happy to win what he would not have as a gift on condition of not playing; and he must make for himself an object of passion, and excite over it his desire, his anger, his fear, to obtain his imagined end, as children are frightened at the face they have blackened.
Blaise Pascal, Pensées 2
‘What harm is there in betting a shilling? I can well afford to lose it, and I can keep myself from the feverish wish to risk more.’ Yes, and you are thereby helping to hold up that gambling habit which is ruining thousands.
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Romans and Corinthians 2.19
12 passages · 8 writers · 100s to 1900s
Gambling is named in lists of faults and sins, often next to drunkenness, covetousness, and lust.
I am silent as to the Neros and Apicii and Rufi. I will give a cathartic to the impurity of a Scaurus, and the gambling of a Curius, and the intemperance of an Antony.
Tertullian, On the Pallium 5
Whole Churches have imposed tribute en masse on themselves. I know not whether it is matter for grief or shame when among hucksters, and pickpockets, and bath-thieves, and gamesters, and pimps, Christians too are included as taxpayers in the lists of free soldiers and spies.
Tertullian, De Fuga in Persecutione 1
10. You who judge others, be for once also a judge of yourself; look into the hiding-places of your own conscience; nay, since now there is not even any shame in your sin, and you are wicked, as if it were rather the very wickedness itself that pleased you, do you, who are seen clearly and nakedly by all other men, yourself also look upon yourself. For either you are swollen with pride, or greedy with avarice, or cruel with anger, or prodigal with gambling, or flushed with intemperance, or envious with jealousy, or unchaste with lust, or violent with cruelty; and do you wonder that God’s anger increases in punishing the human race, when the sin that is punished is daily increasing?
Cyprian of Carthage, The Treatises of Cyprian 5
And until that is effected, they are made the means of exercising not only the forbearance, but also the compassion of those who are already holding by the right way. Accordingly, you will have to witness many drunkards, covetous men, deceivers gamesters, adulterers, fornicators, men who bind upon their persons sacrilegious charms and others given up to sorcerers and astrologers, and diviners practised in all kinds of impious arts.
Augustine of Hippo, On the Catechising of the Uninstructed 25
We never need be ashamed of poverty, unless our own sins have brought it upon us. We never ought to despise others, because they are poor. It is disgraceful to be a gambler, or a drunkard, or a covetous man, or a liar; but it is no disgrace to work with our own hands, and earn our bread by our own labor.
J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark 6:1-6
It is disgraceful to be covetous, or proud, or a cheat, or a gambler, or a drunkard, or a glutton, or unclean. But it is no disgrace to be poor.
J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark 1:9-20
Though not called now to cast out evil spirits from the body, he must be ever ready to resist the devil's devices, and to denounce his snares for the soul. He must expose the tendency of races, theaters, balls, gambling, drunkenness, Sabbath-profanation, and sensual gratifications.
J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark 3:13-21
How many on every side are total slaves, although they do not acknowledge it! They are led captive by their besetting corruptions and infirmities, and seem to have no power to get free. Ambition, the love of money, the passion for drink, the craving for pleasure and excitement, gambling, gluttony, illicit relationships--all these are so many tyrants among men.
J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on John 8:31-36
I lost at cards, consumed the labor of the peasants, sentenced them to punishments, lived loosely, and deceived people. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, murder — there was no crime I did not commit, and in spite of that people praised my conduct and my contemporaries considered and consider me to be a comparatively moral man.
Leo Tolstoy, A Confession 2
I need not dwell upon the evils rampant amongst us, which have to be dealt with, and, as I believe, may best if not only, be dealt with, upon Christian principles. Think of drink, lust, gambling, to name but three of them, the hydra-headed serpent that is poisoning the English nation. Now it seems to me to be a deplorable, but a certainly true thing, that not only are these evils not attacked by the Churches as they ought to be, but that to a very large extent the task of attacking them has fallen into the hands of people who have little sympathy with the Church and its doctrines.
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Matthew IX to XVIII 1.28
"The Genevese," says the eminent church historian, Philip Schaff, "were a light-hearted, joyous people, fond of public amusements, dancing, singing, masquerades, and revelries. Recklessness, gambling, drunkenness, adultery, blasphemy, and all sorts of vice abounded.
Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 40
Sin, the old master, is still about, but the slave who served him has been put to death and so is out of reach and his members are unemployed. The gambler’s hand is unemployed, the swearer’s tongue is unemployed, and these members are now available to be used instead “as instruments of righteousness unto God” (Romans 6:13).
Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life 4.3
5 passages · 4 writers · 300s to 1900s
Gaming appears as a way of wasting money and time or of ruining a household.
But it makes a great difference, whether on account of lust you bestow your money on harlots, or on account of benevolence on the wretched; whether profligates, gamesters, and pimps squander your money, or you bestow it on piety and God; whether you expend it upon your own appetite, or lay it up in the treasury of justice. As, therefore, it is a vice to lay it out badly, so it is a virtue to lay it out well.
Lactantius, The Divine Institutes 6.17
And yet nevertheless they are without excuse. We do not excuse them when they have lost their clothes by gaming; and how then, if we lose this garment, shall God pardon us?
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 14
Some men bury their money in the earth, others in their bellies, and in pleasure and drunkenness; together with injustice adding to themselves the punishment of wantonness. Some minister with their substance to parasites and flatterers, others to dice and harlots, others to different expenses of the same kind, cutting out for themselves ten thousand roads that lead to hell, but leaving the right and sanctioned road which leads to heaven.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 89
Yet these few ought to lay to heart the lessons of this passage. They should economize their health as a talent, and not squander it away like gamblers. They should be content with spending their daily income of strength, and should not draw recklessly on their principal.
J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Mark 6:30-34
Here, for example, is a course that I am quite sure, if I pursue it, will land me in evil. Does the drunkard take a glass the less, because he knows that if he goes on he will have a drunkard’s liver and die a miserable death? Does the gambler ever take away his hand from the pack of cards or the dice-box, because he knows that play means, in the long run, poverty and disgrace?
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Deuteronomy to Second Kings 2.2.24
10 passages · 7 writers · 300s to 1900s
Dice-players are described as cheats, and gambling is named among unjust ways of getting money.
“With every wind,” saith he, “by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error.” The word “sleight” means the art of gamesters.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 12
In another way, in making money by unjust means, whether by using violence on the living, as robbers do, or by despoiling the dead, or by preying on one's friends, as gamblers do. Reply to Objection 5: Just as liberality is about moderate sums of money, so is illiberality. Wherefore tyrants who take great things by violence, are said to be, not illiberal, but unjust.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II.Q118.A8
The Greek word κυβεία, which I have translated cunning, is taken from players at dice, who are accustomed to practice many arts of deception. The words, ἐν πανουργίᾳ, by craftiness, intimate that the ministers of Satan are deeply skilled in imposture; and it is added, that they keep watch, in order to insnare, (πρὸς τὴν μεθοδείαν τὢς πλάνης.)
John Calvin, Commentary on Galatians and Ephesians Ephesians 4.3
1. That which is won ill will never wear well, for a curse attends it which will waste it, and the same corrupt dispositions which incline men to the sinful ways of getting well incline them to the like sinful ways of spending: Wealth gotten by vanity will be bestowed upon vanity, and then it will be diminished. That which is got by such employments as are not lawful, or not becoming Christians, such as only serve to feed pride and luxury, that which is got by gaming or by the stage, may as truly be said to be gotten by vanity as that which is got by fraud and lying, and will be diminished.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 13.11
They had not cheated the people with falsehood instead of truth. Some think the apostle alludes to the deceit which treacherous gamesters use, or that of hucksters in the market, who mix bad wares with good.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Second Corinthians 4.1
We must take care of this, and of being tossed to and fro, like ships without ballast, and carried about, like clouds in the air, with such doctrines as have no truth nor solidity in them, but nevertheless spread themselves far and wide, and are therefore compared to wind. By the sleight of men; this is a metaphor taken from gamesters, and signifies the mischievous subtlety of seducers: and cunning craftiness, by which is meant their skilfulness in finding ways to seduce and deceive; for it follows, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, as in an ambush, in order to circumvent the weak, and draw them from the truth.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Ephesians 4.2
By the sleight of men - By their "cogging the dice;" so the original word implies.
John Wesley, Notes on the Bible 10.4
by—Greek, "in"; expressing "the evil atmosphere in which the varying currents of doctrine exert their force" [Ellicott]. sleight—literally, "dice playing." The player frames his throws of the dice so that the numbers may turn up which best suit his purpose. of men—contrasted with Christ (Eph 4:13). cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive—Translate as Greek, "craftiness tending to the methodized system of deceit" ("the schemes of error") [Alford].
Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Ephesians 4
It is never weary of reiterating ‘In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread’; and it condemns all swift modes of getting riches without labour. No doubt the primitive simplicity of life as set forth in this book seems far behind the many ingenuities by which in our days the law is evaded. How much of Stock Exchange speculation and ‘Company promoter’s gambling would survive the application of the homely old law?
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Second Kings to Ecclesiastes 1.8.29
Suppose a servant had embezzled his master’s money through gambling, and then expected God to help him to get the money to pay back into the till. … All sin takes a man out from the shelter of the divine protection, and the shape the protection has to take then is chastisement.
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Psalms 1.19
4 passages · 2 writers · 300s to 1800s
Dice and gaming are named alongside theatres, taverns, and other places and pastimes.
For, tell me, suppose thou hadst a son, and, that he, disregarding the well-disposed part of thy household, should associate with them that have distressed thee, with them that have been expelled his father’s house, with them that spend their time at the gaming table, and that he should go on so doing to the very last; will he not be disinherited? It is plain enough he will. And so too shall we; if, disregarding the Angels who have well pleased our Father and whom He hath set over us, we have our conversation with the devil, inevitably we shall be dis inherited, which God forbid; but let us engage in the war we have to wage with him.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Ephesians 23
If your son has learnt to say, “Believe me;” he will not be able to go up to the theatre, or to enter a tavern, or to spend his time at dice; for that word, lying upon his mouth instead of a bridle, will make him however unwilling feel shame and blush. But if at any time he should appear in these places, it will quickly compel him to retreat.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Statues 22
How long do we set sluggards and belly-gods for our judges? They can prove dicers well, drunkards, those who live for the belly, but as for virtue and vice, they cannot imagine so much as a dream.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 78
The eye of that unslumbering vigilance which was upon them in their own land, or in the country neighborhood where their conduct was known to all, is now withdrawn. No one will know it if they visit the theater; no one will see them who will make report if they are found in the gambling room, or the place of dissipation.
Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible Daniel 1:21
7 passages · 4 writers · 1st c. to 1800s
Gaming is named among the faults that bar a person from a bishopric, from a Sanhedrin seat, from giving testimony, or from being a prophet.
Does a prophet play at gaming-tables and dice? Does a prophet lend money on interest? Let them confess whether these things are allowable or not. For my part, I will prove that these practices have occurred among them.
Anonymous, Remains of the Second and Third Centuries 14
Does a prophet play with dice and tables?
Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men 3.42
What could these men do, who are profane, and given up to their own pleasures and enjoyments? In short, what could gamesters and panders do? for such are almost all the Papal bishops.
John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations 29.20
If one was not a drunkard, he was a fornicator; if one was free from this vice, he was either a gambler or sportsman, or a loose liver in some respect. For there are lighter faults which, according to the ancient canons, exclude from the episcopal office.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.5
So in the present day, though most excellent laws have been made, they remain buried in writing. Meanwhile, the general and approved practice is (and it is carried on as it were systematically), that drunkards, fornicators, gamblers, are everywhere promoted to this honour; nay, this is little: bishoprics are the rewards of adulterers and panders: for when they are given to hunters and hawkers, things may be considered at the best.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.5
A member of the Sanhedrim must be wise, modest, God-fearing, truthful, not greedy of filthy lucre, given to hospitality, kindly, not a gambler, nor a usurer, nor one who traded in the produce of Sabbatical years, nor yet one who indulged in unlawful games (Sanh. iii. 3).
Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life 19
Still more to the point are the provisions of the Jewish law as to those who lent money on interest, or took usury. “The following,” we read in Rosh Hash. 8. 8, “are unfit for witness-bearing: he who plays with dice (a gambler); he who lends on usury; they who train doves (either for betting purposes, or as decoys); they who trade in seventh year’s products, and slaves.”
Alfred Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish Social Life 13
1 passage · 1 writer · 1600s
Two writers mention anger or rage brought on by games of chance.
Remove from thyself all provocations and incentives to anger; especially, I. Games of chance and great wagers.
Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living 4.9.6
2 passages · 2 writers · 300s to 1500s
Dice and draughts are named as pastimes that take the place of prayer or reading.
For which of you when in his house takes some Christian book in hand and goes over its contents, and searches the Scriptures? None can say that he does so, but with most we shall find draughts and dice, but books nowhere, except among a few.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 34
Suppose a priest ( sacrificus ) shall have proposed to recite the godly prayers of his breviary, and, when scarcely three words have been said, his mind shall be occupied with dishes, shall run away now to his cups, now to dicing, or other pastimes, still, as if his task were performed, he will boast that he has offered worship to God.
John Calvin, Harmony of the Law 2.10.15
2 passages · 1 writer · 1700s
Commentators connect games of chance with the sacred use of the lot and with Sabbath rules.
Lots should be cast with prayer, because they are a solemn appeal to Providence, and by them we beg of God to direct and determine us ( Acts i. 24 ), for which reason some have condemned games that depend purely upon lot or chance as making too bold with a sacred thing.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on First Samuel 14.4
To prevent quarrels Canaan was divided by lot; and, if lusory lots had not profaned this way of appeal to Providence, perhaps it might be very well used now for the deciding of many controversies, both to the honour of God and the satisfaction of the parties, provided it were done with prayer and due solemnity, this and some other scriptures seeming to direct to it, especially Acts i. 26 . If the law be a lottery (as some have called it), it were as well that a lottery were the law.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Proverbs 18.17
2 passages · 1 writer · 1200s
Narratives about a temple-keeper, a dice-player who challenges Saint Francis, and a monk who had been a player.
If it be true that Francis be a saint, let a sword rive me through my body this day, and if he be no saint, that it escape safely. And when the playing at dice was ended, because he had made that prayer in sin, he said injury to his nephew, and he took his sword and stack it through his belly and slew him anon.
Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend 31
A monk that had been a ribald in the world and a player, tempted by a wicked spirit, would return again to the world. And as S. Bernard retained him, he demanded him whereof he should live. And he answered to him that he could well play at the dice, and should well live thereby. … And he went forth, and lost all, and came again all confused tofore the gate. … And he said: Father, I have won nothing, but have lost your chattel; receive me, if it please you, to be your chattel.
Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend 2
3 passages · 3 writers · 1700s to 1900s
Commentators note soldiers casting lots or dice at the crucifixion and captives distributed by lot or dice.
2. The garments of those that were crucified, being, as with us, the executioners' fee, the soldiers cast lots upon his garments ( v. 24 ), threw dice (as our soldiers do upon a drum-head), for them: so making themselves merry with his misery, and sitting at their sport while he was hanging in pain.
Matthew Henry, Commentary on Mark 15.3
If there was a penitent, there was an impenitent thief; if there was a convinced centurion, there were gambling soldiers; if there were hearts touched with compassion, there were mockers who took His very agonies and flung them in His face as a refutation of His claims.
Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Mark 1.73
Vivid contrast this to the rude gambling of the soldiers.
A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament 5.19
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