The world according to Isidore’s chronology was in its 5825th year. Although Isidore professes to start the sixth age with the birth of Christ, he really starts it with the beginning of the reign of Augustus. See Chronicon; Migne, P. L., vol. 83, col. 1038.
[309] These three books are not grouped by Isidore under one name. There apparently was no name in existence by which to designate them, as theologia was not applied, commonly at least, to Christian doctrine before Abelard’s time.
[310] The sources of bks. vi-viii differ from those of the remaining books of the Etymologies in being almost exclusively Christian. Isidore himself, in his non-secular writings, covers more fully the subjects which he here treats in a summary fashion. Compare bk. vi, chaps. 1 and 2, with Proemia in Libros Veteris ac Novi Testamenti; bk. vii, chaps. 6 and 7, with Expositiones Mysticorum Sacramentorum and De Ortu et Obitu Patrum; bk. viii, chaps. 1–5, with Sententiarum Libri Tres; bk. vi, chap. 19, and bk. vii, chaps. 12, 13, with De Ecclesiasticis Officiis.
[312] Of the alphabet.
[313] This passage is preceded by a table indicating the date of Easter for 95 years (627–721). It is clear that although Isidore was not acquainted with the plan of Dionysius Exiguus to institute the Christian era, he was acquainted with the essentials of his Easter table. Dionysius had given the dates for Easter in five 19-year cycles, dating from 525; in Isidore this is continued for the years 627 to 721. Isidore’s table consists merely of parallel columns of the days of the month and corresponding days of the moon on which Easter fell. Each date is marked C or E, abbreviations for communis annus and embolismus which describe respectively the year of twelve and that of thirteen lunar months in use in the Hebrew chronology. A further abbreviation, B, stands opposite each fourth year, to mark the leap-years. The years are not numbered according to any era, and the assignment of dates, 627–721, is inferred from the dates given for Easter. See Ideler, Chronologie, vol. ii, p. 290 (Berlin, 1826). Isidore does not make it plain that he understood the mathematics of the computation of Easter. It is of interest that in 643 the fourth synod of Toledo passed an enactment to secure a common observance of Easter throughout the Spanish churches, no doubt according to this Easter-table. See Gams, Die Kirchengeschichte von Spanien (Regensburg, 1874), vol. ii, part 2, p. 94.
[314] It is worth noticing that in bks. vii and viii Isidore gives a list of the whole hierarchy of supernatural and human existences beginning with God and ending with the devil. An inspection of the order of subjects will suggest to the reader that he was arranging them in order of merit. If this supposition is correct, the table of contents of these two books is a very significant one, as throwing light upon Isidore’s scale of values for the divine, the human and the demonic.
[315] A list of heresies precedes.
[316] Du Breul, hominum instead of omnium.
[317] Reading secreta for decreta.