An encyclopedist of the dark ages: Isidore of Seville

by Ernest Brehaut

A word may be said of his elder brother, Leander, who was a man of perhaps greater force than Isidore himself. Born at Cartagena, he became a monk, and later, bishop of Seville. He was the chief leader of the orthodox party in its struggle against “the Arian insanity”, and in the heat of the conflict was obliged to absent himself from Spain for a time. He visited Constantinople and there became the friend of Gregory the Great.[15] Returning to Spain, we find him, under king Reccared in 587, presiding over the council of Toledo, at which the Visigothic kingdom turned formally from Arianism. Leander was a man of action rather than a writer, but according to Isidore he engaged in controversy with the heretical party, “overwhelming the Arian impiety with a vehement pen and revealing its wickedness”. He wrote also a little book, which we still have, “On the training of nuns and contempt for the world”,[16] and contributed music and prayers to the church service. There seems to be no doubt that Leander was the foremost churchman of his time in Spain. The prestige of his name must have made it easier for his successor, Isidore, to devote himself to the intellectual rather than to the administrative leadership of the church.[17]

As to Isidore’s early years our only authentic information is that his parents died while he was still young, and left him in the care of Leander. It is very probable, however, that he looked forward from the beginning to the clerical life which his brothers had chosen and that he therefore went through the educational routine as laid down for churchmen, which was practically the only formal education of the time. The best proof of this lies in the fact that Isidore wrote text-books of the liberal arts—a task that would have been well-nigh impossible to one who had not been drilled in them in his youth.[18]

Isidore succeeded his brother Leander in the bishopric of Seville probably in the year 600.[19] His few remaining letters, written in the stilted religious phraseology of the day, give the impression that he was much consulted on ecclesiastical and political matters, and that he held a position of primacy among the Spanish bishops; but on the whole they contain remarkably little that is of personal interest. From the records of the councils we learn that he presided at the second council of Seville in 619, and probably also at the fourth of Toledo in 633.[20] According to a contemporary account written by a cleric named Redemptus, he died in April of 636. No other details of importance are known about his life. His career must have been a placid and uneventful one, and evidently much of his time was spent on his voluminous writings, which were the means by which he won his great ascendancy over the minds of his contemporaries.[21]

Perhaps the most reliable account of the impression which Isidore made on the men of his own time is given in the somewhat ponderous Introduction to his works furnished by his friend and correspondent, Braulio, bishop of Saragossa:[22]

Isidore, a man of great distinction, bishop of the church of Seville, successor and brother of bishop Leander, flourished from the time of Emperor Maurice and King Reccared. In him antiquity reasserted itself—or rather, our time laid in him a picture of the wisdom of antiquity: a man practiced in every form of speech, he adapted himself in the quality of his words to the ignorant and the learned, and was distinguished for unequalled eloquence when there was fit opportunity.[23] Furthermore, the intelligent reader will be able to understand easily from his diversified studies and the works he has completed, how great was his wisdom.... God raised him up in recent times after the many reverses of Spain (I suppose to revive the works of the ancients that we might not always grow duller from boorish rusticity), and set him as a sort of support. And with good right do we apply to him the famous words of the philosopher:[24] “While we were strangers in our own city, and were, so to speak, sojourners who had lost our way, your books brought us home, as it were, so that we could at last recognize who and where we were. You have discussed the antiquity of our fatherland, the orderly arrangement of chronology, the laws of sacrifices and of priests, the discipline of the home and the state, the situation of regions and places, the names, kinds, functions and causes of all things human and divine.”

From this characterization, as well as from the very brief life by another contemporary, Bishop Ildephonsus of Toledo, it is evident that Isidore impressed his own age chiefly as a writer and man of learning. Both Braulio and Ildephonsus give lists of his works. That of the former, who was Isidore’s pupil and correspondent, is the fuller, and may be regarded as the more reliable. With its running comment on the content of each title, it is as follows:

I have noted the following among those works [of Isidore] that have come to my knowledge. He wrote the Differentiae, in two books, in which he subtly distinguished in meaning what was confused in usage; the Proœmia, in one book, in which he stated briefly what each book of the Holy Scriptures contains; the De Ortu et Obitu Patrum, in one book, in which he describes with sententious brevity the deeds of the Fathers, their worth as well, and their death and burial; the Officia, in two books, addressed to his brother Fulgentius, bishop of Astigi, in which he described in his own words, following the authority of the Fathers, why each and every thing is done in the church of God; the Synonyma, in two books, in which Reason appears and comforts the Soul, and arouses in it the hope of obtaining pardon; the De Natura Rerum, in one book, addressed to King Sisebut, in which he cleared up certain obscurities about the elements by studying the works of the church Fathers as well as those of the philosophers; the De Numeris, in one book, in which he touched on the science of arithmetic, on account of the numbers found in the Scriptures; the De Nominibus Legis et Evangeliorum, in one book, in which he revealed what the names of persons [in the Bible] signify mystically; the De Haeresibus, in one book, in which, following the example of the Fathers, he collected scattered items with what brevity he could; the Sententiae, in three books, which he adorned with passages from the Moralia of Pope Gregory; the Chronica, in one book, from the beginning of the world to his own time, put together with great brevity; the Contra Judaeos, in two books, written at the request of his sister Florentina, a nun, in which he proved by evidences from the Law and the Prophets all that the Catholic faith maintains; the De Viris Illustribus, in one book, to which we are appending this list; one book containing a rule for monks, which he tempered in a most seemly way to the usage of his country and the spirits of the weak; the De Origine Gothorum et Regno Suevorum et etiam Vandalorum Historia, in one book; the Quaestiones, in two books, in which the reader recognizes much material from the old treatments; and the Etymologiae, a vast work which he left unfinished, and which I have divided into twenty books, since he wrote it at my request. And whoever meditatively reads this work, which is in every way profitable for wisdom, will not be ignorant of human and divine matters. There is an exceeding elegance in his treatment of the different arts in this work in which he has gathered well-nigh everything that ought to be known. There are also many slight works, and inscriptions in the church of God, done by him with great grace.[25]

For the present purpose, which is to ascertain something of the intellectual outlook of the dark ages, the Etymologiae is, of course, of prime importance, since it contains in condensed form nearly everything that Isidore has written elsewhere. A passing attention, however, should be given to some of his other works, especially those of the more secular sort, in which his characteristic ideas are frequently developed with greater fullness than in the Etymologies itself. These include in particular the Differentiae, the De Natura Rerum, the Liber Numerorum, the Allegoriae, the Sententiae, and the De Ordine Creaturarum.

The Differentiae is in two books, the first of which treats of differences of words, and the second, of differences of things. The plan of the first book is alphabetical; words are ranged in pairs and distinguished from each other. Usually these words are synonyms, and directions are given for their proper use; as, populus and plebs, recens and novus, religio and fides; but frequently words of similar sound are distinguished; as, vis and bis, hora and ora, hos and os, marem and mare. From these latter valuable hints on the Latin pronunciation of the time may be obtained.

The second book, On Differences of Things, treats in a brief way of such distinctions as those between deus and dominus; between the nativity of Christ and of man; between angels, demons, and men; angelic and human wickedness; animus and anima; the grace of God and the will of man; the life of action and that of contemplation.