Bacon used astrology to explain religious differences and predict Christianity’s victory

Evidence

And these predictions correspond with the thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse. For it says that the number of the beast is 663, which is thirty years less than the above number. But scripture in many places subtracts something from a complete number, because this is the custom of Scripture, as Bede says. And thus, perhaps, God wished it, that the things expressed in the Apocalypse not be expressed completely, but that they be somewhat concealed. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1161 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Dearest son, over a hundred years ago it was discovered in our pages, and in all books of the pagans, that the Christian nation would be over us and would everywhere defeat us, and reign over pagans, and our nation would everywhere be subject to them; but I did not know if it is to be now or rather in the future. And I, sorrowing, did not desist from following you to Aleppo, that beautiful city, where, pointing and acutely investigating, I looked at the stars in the sky, and sagaciously deliberating and with sedulous mind observing the planets, and the twelve signs of the zodiac, and innumerable lots, in all these things I saw that the Christian nation would be victorious everywhere. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 638 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval thinkers speculated about astrological causes of religious difference.; Bacon reconciled astronomy with Revelation by invoking biblical numerical concealing — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1161; Crusade chroniclers invented pagan astrologers predicting Christian victory (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Bacon reconciled astronomy with Revelation by invoking biblical numerical concealing #complicates (0.85) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1161
• Medieval Christians imagined even pagan astrologers prophesying Christian triumph #complicates (0.85) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 638
• Medieval Christians credited even Saracen astrologers with predicting Christianity’s imminent triumph #complicates (0.85)
• Crusade chroniclers invented pagan astrologers predicting Christian victory #complicates (0.80)
• Medieval Christian theologian Bacon saw other religions as imperfect stages toward truth, not evil #complicates (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1151
• Roger Bacon predicted Islam’s end within thirty years using apocalyptic math #complicates (0.80)
• Bacon’s scientific framing removed Satan as the explanation for Muhammad unlike earlier polemicists #complicates (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1149
• Bacon saw Christianity as intellectually indebted to its infidel enemies #complicates (0.75) — R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle…, 346
• Roger Bacon held Islam as imperfect Christianity from ignorance, not evil #complicates (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1151