By Isidore’s time, then, the Christian view of the past had become completely de-secularized. Biblical tradition dominated all historical thinking. On the six days of creation was centered special attention. This point, at which the natural emanated from the supernatural, fascinated the medieval thinker as the doctrine of evolution does the modern. It formed the touch-stone by the aid of which was interpreted not only the material world,[134] but also the course of history. In parallelism with the six days and the six periods in man’s life, the history of the world was divided with absolute definiteness into six ages. Isidore himself was living in the sixth and last of these, “the residue of which was known to God alone”.[135] His view of the past had no perspective; or rather, it had an inverted perspective, because the increasing confusion of every department of the sublunar world led him to dwell in preference upon the earlier time when the course of history was confined to the pure stream of Hebrew tradition, when the supernatural manifested itself more frequently, and when even the names of personages were charged with prophetic meaning.
In this inverted perspective the history of the Hebrews naturally formed a prominent part. The Hebrew people of antiquity and their language, which is traced back to Adam, were the original race and language. It was only “at the building of the tower after the flood that the diversity of languages arose”. On this occasion not only did the different languages of later history appear, but at the same time and as a result, the different races of mankind were constituted.[136] All languages, then, and all races, are variants of the Hebrew type. Isidore believed that even in his time some of the nations could be traced back and identified with the original Hebrew stock by etymologizing on their names. Others, however, had cast aside their old names and taken others, “either from kings or countries or customs or other causes”, and the genealogy of these he believed to be irretrievably lost.[137]
CHAPTER IV
Isidore’s Relation to Education
The question of perpetuating the pagan range of educational subjects presented a great difficulty to the leaders of patristic and early medieval thought, so great a difficulty that some of them were almost more ready to discard education than to try to separate it from its heathen entanglements. In both the Greek and Roman worlds formal education had been late in developing; as a consequence its tone was wholly secular. Its object was to put the youth of the ruling classes in touch with the culture and life of the time. The subjects found most serviceable for study were literature, rhetoric, and philosophy. The sciences known to the ancients gradually gained a foot-hold also, and instruction began to be given in a number of them, including geometry, music, arithmetic, astronomy, medicine, and architecture. Finally, the subject-matter of education settled down to the stereotyped list of seven subjects, known as “the seven liberal arts”, from which there was apparently little deviation in later Roman and medieval times.[138] This formal education of the Romans was so well established and enjoyed such prestige that in spite of Christian hostility it continued to flourish until the increasing disorganization of society in the fifth and sixth centuries made the continuance of secular schools impossible.
Upon their disappearance the whole burden of maintaining education fell upon the church. In the church organization the effective bodies for such an activity were the groups of clergy attached to cathedrals and to monasteries. There was no system established by a central authority and enforced by public opinion to guide the efforts made by these bodies, and it is plain that in each case educational facilities for the training of priests would be provided in accordance with the intelligence and character of the different bishops and abbots. Where the ecclesiastical authorities were ignorant or careless, the training of the priest or monk must have degenerated to a sort of apprenticeship. The evidence which we possess of the illiteracy[139] of the clergy would lead us to infer that in the dark ages education, in any sense worthy of the name, was sporadic, the product of the happy coincidence of opportunity and an ecclesiastic intelligent enough to realize it.[140]
The first comprehensive effort[141] to deal with the educational situation from the Christian standpoint was made by Cassiodorus and was designed expressly to meet the needs of the inmates of a monastery in Southern Italy. Naturally he put forth his main endeavor on the side of what may be called theology, but, in addition, he felt impelled to give very brief and vague accounts of the seven liberal arts, which he was reluctantly forced to consider as an indispensable preparation for the former study.[142]
Cassiodorus’ attitude toward these preliminary studies is a curious one. He believed that their subject-matter was to be found scattered through the Scriptures and that “the teachers of secular learning” had gathered together the disjointed bits of information and organized them into the seven liberal arts. As a consequence he thought that a knowledge of these arts was of assistance when any passage relating to them was met in the reading of the Scriptures. In spite of this, however, it seems to have been his opinion that the less use made of them the better, and that, if ignorance of the liberal arts was a fault, it was certainly one of a minor character and had the advantage of not endangering the Christian’s faith.[143] With Cassiodorus the problem of education was little more than that of securing a training sufficient to enable one to read and study the Scriptures. The speculation cannot be avoided as to whether, if Christianity had depended, like Druidism, on an oral tradition, Cassiodorus might not have been willing to dispense with education altogether.
Isidore is the second writer to deal comprehensively with the subject-matter of Christian education. Before giving an account, however, of the way in which he met the problems that were presented to him, it is necessary to glance at the educational situation as it then existed in Spain. It appears from the enactments of the councils of Toledo in the sixth and seventh centuries that the clergy as a body were beginning to be concerned for the education of their order.[144] An article of the council of 531 directs that as soon as children destined for the secular clergy are placed under the control of the bishop, “they ought to be educated in the house of the church under the direction of the bishop by a master appointed for the purpose”.[145] Another article[146] says that “those who receive such an education” should not presume to leave their own church and go to another “since it is not fair that a bishop should receive or claim a pupil whom another bishop has freed from boorish stupidity and the untrained state of infancy”. It is further directed that those who were “ignorant of letters” should not become priests. An article of the fourth council of Toledo in 633, at which Isidore probably presided, orders that “whoever among the clergy are youths should remain in one room of the atrium, in order that they may spend the years of the lustful period of their lives not in indulgence but in the discipline of the church, being put in charge of an older man of the highest character as master of their instruction and witness of their life”.[147] These passages all refer to cathedral schools, but there is evidence equally good of the existence of similar schools in the monasteries.[148] Such, then, were the practical conditions, as far as known, which determined the educational activity of Isidore’s time.