Translations of Kepler’s Astrological Writings Part I. Kepler as Practising Astrologer Section 3. Historical Charts Subsection 1. The Nativities of Mohammed and Martin Luther, 1604

Abstract

This excerpt is taken from a longer discourse on a commentary by Johann Paul Sutorius (ca. 1562-1599), a pastor, theologian and astrologer, on the nativity of Mohammed, among other things. Kepler begins with a discussion of the birthchart for Mohammed proposed by Sutorius. Helisaeus Röslin, the doctor who had first interpreted Kepler’s own chart, wrote a commentary on Sutorius’s proposed chart, in which he corrected Sutorius’s ‘astronomical errors’ and correctly recalculated the chart for the date and time given by Sutorius: 23 April 594 at 10 a.m. Kepler acknowledges that Roslin’s calculations are correct, but is skeptical of the date itself (one reason being that it would make Mohammed far too young to have done what he did by 622, when he made the flight from Mecca – the Hejira – with his followers; he also wonders where Sutorius got the date in the first place). Kepler mentions other proposed dates for Mohammed: 569 A.D. (from Mercator); 21 September 571 (from a Chronicle of the Koran, which Kepler accepts later in the excerpt); and 23 April 596 (from ‘others’, not specified).2 Though Kepler gives the positions of his own proposed chart for Mohammed in this excerpt, a drawing of it has not survived. Extant is a square form of the chart for the date Sutorius proposed. After discussing Roslin’s and Sutorius’s attempts, Kepler moves on to his own thoughts about Mohammed’s nativity.