Reconsidering Roger Bacon's Apocalypticism in Light of His Alchemical and Scientific Thought

Abstract

“Since you have commanded me to write on the wisdom of philosophy, I shall cite to your Clemency the opinions of the sages, especially since this knowledge is absolutely necessary to the Church of God against the fury of Antichrist.”1 So wrote Roger Bacon to Clement IV. The pope had commanded Bacon to send writings of which Roger had spoken when Clement was still Cardinal Guy Folques.2 Clement's letter does not mention Antichrist, nor does it specify the subject matter of the aforementioned conversation. Still, since Bacon mentions Antichrist in what was likely a prefatory letter to either the Opus maius or Opus minus,3 the specter of Antichrist that lurks throughout Bacon's Opera and other works may not have come as a surprise. Yet, amid the clamor of Joachite apocalypticism that quickly coiled itself around the Franciscan Order in the latter half of the thirteenth century,4 Roger Bacon's own apocalyptic opinions remain underappreciated. This is not to say that Bacon's apocalypticism has gone unrecognized. Scholars have long agreed, as Brett Whalen has said recently, that Bacon “layered his writings with a sense of apocalyptic expectation.”5 Yet the historiographical tendency to separate Bacon's scientific writings from his religious beliefs and practices appears to have obscured Bacon's own radical ideas about the end of days.6