Saint Isidore of Seville (
Spanish: or ,
Latin: )
(c.
560 – April 4, 636) was Archbishop of Seville
for more
than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it
in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien" ("the
last scholar of the ancient world"). Indeed, all the later
medieval history-writing of Hispania (the
Iberian
Peninsula
, comprising
modern Spain
and Portugal
) were based
on his histories.
At a time of disintegration of classical culture, and aristocratic
violence and illiteracy, he was involved in the conversion of the
royal
Visigothic Arians to Catholicism, both assisting his brother
Leander of Seville, and
continuing after his brother's death. Like Leander, he played a
prominent role in the
Councils of
Toledo and Seville. The Visigothic legislation which resulted
from these councils is regarded by modern historians as exercising
an important influence on the beginnings of representative
government.
Life
Childhood and education
Isidore
was born in Cartagena,
Spain
, to Severianus and Theodora, part of an influential
family who were instrumental in the political-religious manoeuvring
that converted the Visigothic kings from Arianism to Catholicism,
and were all awarded sainthoods:
- His elder brother, Leander, was his immediate predecessor in
the Catholic Metropolitan See of Seville, and while in office
opposed king Liuvigild
- A
younger brother, Fulgentius, was
awarded the Bishopric of Astigi
at the start
of the new reign of the Catholic King Reccared.
- His sister Saint Florentina was
a nun, and is said to have ruled over forty convents and one
thousand religious.
Isidore received his elementary education in the Cathedral school
of Seville. In this institution, which was the first of its kind in
Hispania, the
trivium and
quadrivium were taught by a body of
learned men, among whom was the archbishop, Leander. With such
diligence did he apply himself to study that in a remarkably short
time mastered Latin,
Greek, and
Hebrew.
Whether Isidore ever embraced monastic life or not is still an open
question, but though he himself may never have been affiliated with
any of the religious orders, he esteemed them highly — on his
elevation to the
episcopate he
immediately constituted himself protector of the monks and in 619
he pronounced anathema against any ecclesiastic who should in any
way molest the monasteries.
Bishop of Seville
After the death of Leander, Isidore succeeded to the
See of Seville.
His long incumbency in this office was spent in a period of
disintegration and transition. The ancient institutions and classic
learning of the
Roman Empire were fast
disappearing. For almost two centuries the
Goths had been in full control of Hispania, and their
barbarous manners and contempt of learning threatened greatly to
put back her progress in civilization.
Realizing that the spiritual as well as the material well-being of
the nation depended on the full assimilation of the foreign
elements, Isidore set himself to the task of welding into a
homogeneous nation the various peoples who made up the Gothic
kingdom. To this end he availed himself of all the resources of
religion and education. His efforts were attended with complete
success.
Arianism, which had taken deep
root among the
Visigoths, was eradicated,
and the new
heresy of Acephales was
completely stifled at the very outset; religious discipline was
everywhere strengthened.
Second Synod of Seville (November 618 or 619)
Isidore presided over the Second Council of Seville, begun November
13, 619, in the reign of King
Sisebut. The
bishops of Gaul and Narbonne attended, as well as the Hispanic
prelates. In the Council's Acts the nature of Christ is fully set
forth, countering Arian conceptions.
Fourth National Council of Toledo
At this council, begun December 5, 633, all the bishops of Hispania
were in attendance. Isidore, though far advanced in years, presided
over its deliberations, and was the originator of most of its
enactments.
The council probably expressed with tolerable accuracy the mind and
influence of Isidore. The position and deference granted to the
king is remarkable. The Church is free and independent, yet bound
in solemn allegiance to the acknowledged king: nothing was said of
allegiance to the
Bishop of Rome.
It was at the Fourth National Council of Toledo and through his
influence that a decree was promulgated commanding and requiring
all bishops to establish seminaries in their Cathedral Cities,
along the lines of the school associated with Isidore already
existing at Seville. Within his own jurisdiction he had availed
himself of the resources of education to counteract the growing
influence of Gothic barbarism. His was the quickening spirit that
animated the educational movement of which Seville was the centre.
The study of Greek and Hebrew, as well as the liberal arts, was
prescribed. Interest in
law and
medicine was also encouraged. Through the authority
of the fourth council this policy of education was made obligatory
upon all the bishops of the kingdom.
Works
Isidore's Latin style in the
Etymologiae and elsewhere,
though simple and lucid, cannot be said to be classical, affected
as it was by local Visigothic traditions. It discloses most of the
imperfections peculiar to all ages of transition and particularly
reveals a growing Visigothic influence.
Etymologiae
Isidore was the first
Christian writer to
essay the task of compiling for his co-religionists a summa of
universal knowledge, in the form of his most important work, the
Etymologiae (taking its title
from the method he used in the transcription of his era's
knowledge). It is also known by classicists as the
Origines (the standard abbreviation being
Orig.).
This
encyclopedia — the first known to
be compiled in medieval civilization —
epitomized all learning, ancient as well as modern,
forming a huge compilation of 448 chapters in 20 volumes. In it
many fragments of classical learning are preserved which otherwise
would have been hopelessly lost but, on the other hand, some of
these fragments were lost in the first place because Isidore’s work
was so highly regarded that it superseded the use of many
individual works of the classics themselves, which were not
recopied and have therefore been lost.
The fame of this work imparted a new impetus to encyclopedic
writing, which bore abundant fruit in the subsequent centuries of
the
Middle Ages. It was the most popular
compendium in
medieval libraries. It was
printed in at least 10 editions between 1470 and 1530, showing
Isidore's continued popularity in the
Renaissance. Until the twelfth century brought
translations from Arabic sources, Isidore transmitted what western
Europeans remembered of the works of
Aristotle and other Greeks, although he understood
only a limited amount of Greek. The
Etymologiae was much
copied, particularly into medieval
bestiaries.
The shape of the Earth
Isidore taught in the
Etymologiae that the Earth was
round. His meaning was ambiguous and some writers think he referred
to a disc-shaped Earth; his other writings make it clear, however,
that he considered the Earth to be globular. He also admitted the
possibility of people dwelling at the
antipodes, considering them as legendary and
noting that there was no evidence for their existence. Isidore's
disc-shaped analogy continued to be used through the Middle Ages by
authors clearly favouring a spherical Earth, e.g. the 9th century
bishop
Rabanus Maurus who compared
the habitable part of the northern hemisphere (
Aristotle's northern temperate clime) with a
wheel, imagined as a slice of the whole sphere. See also:
Flat Earth.
On the Catholic Faith against the Jews
Isidore's
De fide catholica contra Iudaeos furthers St.
Augustine's ideas on the Jewish presence in Christian society. Like
Augustine, Isidore accepted the necessity of the Jewish presence
because of their expected role in the anticipated
Second Coming of Christ. In
De fide
catholica contra Iudaeos, Isidore exceeds the anti-rabbinic
polemics of earlier theologians by criticizing Jewish practice as
deliberately disingenuous.
Other works
His other works include
- Historia de
regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum (a history of the
Goths, Vandals and Suebi kings)
- his Chronica Majora (a universal history)
- De differentiis verborum, which amounts to brief
theological treatise on the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of
Christ, of Paradise, angels, and men.
- On the Nature of Things (not the poem of Lucretius, but the book of astronomy and natural
history dedicated to the Visigothic king Sisebut)
- Questions on the Old Testament.
- a mystical treatise on the allegorical meanings of numbers
- a number of brief letters
- Sententiae libri tres ( Codex Sang. 228, 9th century)
Afterlife
Isidore was the last of the ancient Christian philosophers, as he
was the last of the great Latin
Church
Fathers. Some consider him to be the most learned man of his
age, and he exercised a far-reaching and immeasurable influence on
the educational life of the Middle Ages.
His contemporary and
friend, Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa
, regarded him as a man raised up by God to save the
Iberian peoples from the tidal wave of barbarism that threatened to
inundate the ancient civilization of Hispania. The Eighth
Council of Toledo (653) recorded its admiration of his character in
these glowing terms: "The extraordinary doctor, the latest ornament
of the Catholic Church, the most learned man of the latter ages,
always to be named with reverence, Isidore". This tribute was
endorsed by the Fifteenth Council of Toledo, held in 688.
In 712, as
Seville was overrun during the Arab conquest of Spain, his remains
were transferred to the Basilica of San Isidoro
in Leon
.
He was
canonized a
saint by the
Roman
Catholic Church in 1598 by
Pope
Clement VIII and declared a
Doctor of the Church in 1722 by
Pope Innocent XIII.
In
Dante's
Paradise (
Paradiso' X.130), he is
mentioned among theologians and Doctors of the Church alongside the
Scot
Richard of St. Victor and
the Englishman
Bede the Venerable.
In 2003 he was proposed as the
patron
saint of the Internet, but was not among the top six vote
totals in an Italian Internet poll.
The University of Dayton
has named their implementation of the Sakai Project in honor of Saint
Isidore.
References
- Montalembert, Charles F. Les Moines d'Occident depuis Saint
Benoît jusqu'à Saint Bernard [The Monks of the West from
Saint Benoit to Saint Bernard]. Paris: J. Lecoffre, 1860.
- Isidore, Etymologiae, XIV.ii.1[1]; Wesley M. Stevens, "The Figure of the Earth in
Isidore's De natura rerum", Isis, 71(1980): 268-277.
- Isidore, Etymologiae, XIV.v.17[2].
- Isidore, Etymologiae, IX.ii.133[3].
- Santi e Beati
- http://isidore.udayton.edu
External links
Primary sources
- Barney, Stephen A., Lewis, W. J., Beach, J. A. and Berghof,
Oliver (translators). The Etymologies of Isidore of
Seville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN
0521837499, ISBN 9780521837491. (This is the first complete English
translation of the Etymologiae.)
Secondary sources
Other material
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