PART IINTRODUCTION

PART IINTRODUCTIONCHAPTER IIsidore’s Life and Writings

Isidore’s Life and Writings

Thedevelopment of European thought as we know it from the dawn of history down to the Dark Ages is marked by the successive secularization and de-secularization of knowledge.[1]From the beginning Greek secular science can be seen painfully disengaging itself from superstition. For some centuries it succeeded in maintaining its separate existence and made wonderful advances; then it was obliged to give way before a new and stronger set of superstitions which may be roughly called Oriental. In the following centuries all those branches of thought which had separated themselves from superstition again returned completely to its cover; knowledge was completely de-secularized, the final influence in this process being the victory of Neoplatonized Christianity.[2]The sciences disappeared as living realities, their names and a few lifeless and scatteredfragments being all that remained. They did not reappear as realities until the medieval period ended.

This process of de-secularization was marked by two leading characteristics; on the one hand, by the loss of that contact with physical reality through systematic observation which alone had given life to Greek natural science, and on the other, by a concentration of attention upon what were believed to be the superior realities of the spiritual world. The consideration of these latter became so intense, so detailed and systematic, that there was little energy left among thinking men for anything else.

At the point where this de-secularizing process was complete, at the opening of the seventh century, lived the Spanish bishop and scholar, Isidore of Seville. His many writings, and especially his great encyclopedia, theEtymologies, are among the most important sources for the history of intellectual culture in the early middle ages, since in them are gathered together and summed up all such dead remnants of secular learning as had not been absolutely rejected by the superstition of his own and earlier ages; they furnish, so to speak, a cross-section of the debris of scientific thought at the point where it is most artificial and unreal.

The résumé that Isidore offers is strikingly complete. In this respect he surpasses all the writers of his own and immediately preceding periods, his scope being much more general than that of his nearest contemporaries, Boethius and Cassiodorus. He goes back here to the tradition of the encyclopedists of the Roman world, Varro, Verrius Flaccus, Pliny, and Suetonius, by the last of whom he is believed to have been especially influenced. Few writers of any period cover the intellectual interests of their time so completely. To understand Isidore’s mental world is nearly to reach the limits of the knowledge of his time.[3]

The influence which he exerted upon the following centuries was very great. His organization of the field of secular science, although it amounted to no more than the laying out of a corpse, was that chiefly accepted throughout the early medieval period. The innumerable references to him by later writers,[4]the many remaining manuscripts,[5]and the successive editions of his works[6]after the invention of printing, indicate the great rôle he played.[7]From the modern point of view the real benefit he conferred upon succeeding centuries was that in his encyclopaedic writings he presented to the intelligent the fact that there had been and might be such a thing as secular science; while theblunders in which he was continually involved, and the shallowness of his thinking, offered a perpetual challenge to the critical power of all who read him. There was contained in his writings also, as we shall see, the embryo of something positive and progressive, namely, the organization of educational subjects that was to appear definitely in the medieval university and dominate education almost to the present day.

For a fuller understanding of Isidore’s historical setting some attention must be given to the country in which he lived. Spanish culture in the early middle ages seems to have been relatively superior. It is well known that the country had been thoroughly Romanized. How complete the process had been may be judged from the list of men of Spanish birth who had won distinction in the wider world of the empire; it includes the two Senecas, Lucan, Quintilian, Martial, Hyginus, Pomponius Mela, Columella, Orosius, and the two emperors, Trajan and Hadrian. In fact Spain had lost its individuality and had become an integral part of the Roman world, little inferior in its culture even to Italy itself; and the close of Roman rule found the people of Spain speaking the Latin language, reading the Latin literature, and habituated to Roman institutions and modes of thought.

Moreover the continuity of this ancient culture had been perhaps less rudely disturbed in Spain than elsewhere by the shock of the barbaric invasions. Here its geographical situation stood the country in good stead; the barbarian frontier was far away and the chances were that barbarians destined by fortune to enter Spain would first spend much time in aimless wandering within the empire, with consequent loss of numbers and some lessening of savagery. Such, at least, was the case with the Visigoths, who aloneof the barbarians proved a permanent factor in the country’s development. They were first admitted to the empire in 376, and must have passed largely into the second generation before they began to penetrate into Spain, while the real conquest by them did not begin until much later. “At the time of their appearance as a governing aristocracy in Spain” they “had become by long contact with the Romans to all intents and purposes a civilized people.”[8]They were thus in a position to coalesce with the Romanized natives, and that this was largely brought to pass is shown by the conversion of the Arian Goths to orthodoxy, the removal of the ban of intermarriage between the two races, the use of Latin in all official documents, and finally by the establishment of a common law for both peoples. The “sixty-one correct hexameters” of the Visigothic king Sisebutus (612–620),[9]compared, for instance, with the absolutely hopeless attempts of Charlemagne two centuries later to learn the art of tracing letters,[10]show plainly that Spanish culture had not sunk to the level of that of other parts of the western empire.[11]

In this cultural struggle which had taken place between the native population and their Visigothic rulers the contest between orthodox Christianity and Arianism had been of prime importance, and its settlement of the utmost significance. Since the Spaniards upheld the orthodox faithand the Visigoths were Arians, the victory of orthodoxy was a victory of the native element over the newcomers. By this victory, therefore, a position of predominance unusual for the time was given to the Spanish church organization, and the bishops, the leaders of the church in the struggle, became the most powerful men in the nation. Their power was further strengthened by the weakening of the secular power when the Visigothic royal line became extinct and it proved impossible to secure a successor to it from among the families of the turbulent nobility. From the conversion of the Visigoths in 587 to the invasion of the Saracens, Spain was a country dominated by bishops.[12]

Of Isidore’s life surprisingly little is known, considering the bulk and importance of his writings and his later fame.[13]All that can be ascertained of his family is that it belonged originally to Cartagena, that it was of the orthodox religion, and that the names of its members are Roman.[14]It is extremely probable that it belonged to the Hispano-Roman element of the population. That Isidore and his two brothers were bishops may be taken to show that of whatever origin the family was, it was one of power and influence.

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 inthe 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 ponderousIntroductionto 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 booksbrought 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 theDifferentiae, in two books, in which he subtly distinguished in meaning what was confused in usage; theProœmia, in one book, in which he stated briefly what each book of the Holy Scriptures contains; theDe 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; theOfficia, 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; theSynonyma, in two books, in which Reason appears and comforts the Soul, and arouses in it the hope of obtaining pardon; theDe 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; theDe Numeris, in one book, in which he touched on the science of arithmetic, on account of the numbers found in the Scriptures; theDe Nominibus Legis et Evangeliorum, in one book, in which he revealed what thenames of persons [in the Bible] signify mystically; theDe Haeresibus, in one book, in which, following the example of the Fathers, he collected scattered items with what brevity he could; theSententiae, in three books, which he adorned with passages from theMoraliaof Pope Gregory; theChronica, in one book, from the beginning of the world to his own time, put together with great brevity; theContra 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; theDe 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; theDe Origine Gothorum et Regno Suevorum et etiam Vandalorum Historia, in one book; theQuaestiones, in two books, in which the reader recognizes much material from the old treatments; and theEtymologiae, 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, theEtymologiaeis, of course, of prime importance, since it containsin 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 theEtymologiesitself. These include in particular theDifferentiae, theDe Natura Rerum, theLiber Numerorum, theAllegoriae, theSententiae, and theDe Ordine Creaturarum.

TheDifferentiaeis 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,populusandplebs,recensandnovus,religioandfides; but frequently words of similar sound are distinguished; as,visandbis,horaandora,hosandos,maremandmare. 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 betweendeusanddominus; between the nativity of Christ and of man; between angels, demons, and men; angelic and human wickedness;animusandanima; the grace of God and the will of man; the life of action and that of contemplation.

The introductory remarks of theDifferentiaeare worth translating, since they reveal one of the most marked characteristics of Isidore’s thinking, the stress that he laid on words. They are as follows:

Many of the ancients sought to define the differences of words, making some subtle distinction between word and word. But the heathen poets disregarded the proper meanings of words under the compulsion of metre. And so, beginning with them, it became the custom for writers to use words without properdiscrimination. But although words seem alike, still they are distinguished from one another by having each an origin of its own.[26]Cato was the first of the Latins to write on this subject,[27]after whose example I have in part written myself of a very few, and have in part taken them from the books of the writers.[28]

TheDe Natura Rerum[29]is a work of great importance for an understanding of Isidore’s view of the physical universe. The preface is of especial interest as giving some hints of his methods of literary work and of his attitude toward pagan writers. It is addressed to Sisebutus, who was king of the Visigoths from 612 to 620.[30]It runs as follows:

Although, as I know, you excel in talent and eloquence and in the varied accomplishments of literature (vario flore literarum), you are still anxious for greater attainment, and you ask me to explain to you something of the nature and causes of things. I, on my part, have run over the works of earlier writers, and am not slow to satisfy your interest and desire, describing in part the system of the days and months; the goals of the year, as well, and the changes of the seasons; the nature also of the elements; the courses of the sun and moon, and the significance of certain stars;[31]the signs of the weather,too, and of the winds; and besides, the situation of the earth, and the alternate tides of the sea. And setting forth all things as they are written by the ancients, and especially in the works of catholic writers, we have described them briefly. For to know the nature of these things is not the wisdom of superstition, if only they are considered with sound and sober learning. Nay, if they were in every way far removed from the search for the truth, that wise king would by no means have said: “Ipse mihi dedit horum quae sunt scientiam veram ut sciam dispositionem coeli et virtutes elementorum, conversionum mutationes, et divisiones temporum, annorum cursus et stellarum dispositiones.”Wherefore, beginning with the day, whose creation appears first in the order of visible things, let us expound those remaining matters as to which we know that certain men of the heathen and of the church have opinions, setting down in some cases both their thoughts and words, in order that the authority of the very words may carry belief.

Wherefore, beginning with the day, whose creation appears first in the order of visible things, let us expound those remaining matters as to which we know that certain men of the heathen and of the church have opinions, setting down in some cases both their thoughts and words, in order that the authority of the very words may carry belief.

The general organization of the matter treated by Isidore in theDe Natura Rerumis worth noticing. The preface quoted above indicates that the order of treatment is to follow the order of creation. The first topic, therefore, suggested by the creation of light, we should expect to be the phenomenon of light. Instead of this it is the day, in the calendar sense, that is described, with the natural sequel of the week, month, and year as collections of days. This section really constitutes a brief account of the elements of chronology. Next created are the heavens; so we have next astronomy, presented in a condensed form, to which are appended a few chapters on meteorological matters, such as thunder, clouds, the rainbow, wind, and finally pestilence, which comes in appropriately here as being “a corruption of the air”. The topic next in order, following the first chapter of Genesis, is the sea; and after that, the dry land.It should be noted that this view of the physical universe according to the order of its creation, corresponds roughly to the analysis of matter into the four elements, fire, air, water, earth. As will be shown later, such correspondences are an important factor in the intellectual outlook of the time. This was the kind of mental connection with which people were familiar.[32]

TheLiber Numerorumcontains nothing arithmetical in the modern sense of the word, in spite of Braulio’s statement that in it Isidore “touched on the science of arithmetic”.[33]Its fuller title is “The book of the numbers which occur in the Holy Scriptures”, and the body of the book is taken up with the mystic significance of each number from one to twenty, omitting seventeen, and also of twenty-four, thirty, forty, forty-six, fifty, and sixty. The method of treatment indicates an advanced mysticism of numbers. The book is not so much an attempt to show the significance of numbers occurring in particular connections, as it is a generalized guide to their mystical interpretation, laying down rules to govern the interpretation of each number, no matter where it occurs. It should be remarked that this was really “the science of number” of the dark ages, and that Braulio’s use of the term “arithmetic” as applying to it was in accordance with the best usage of the time.[34]

TheAllegoriaeis of a character similar to theLiber Numerorum. It contains in brief form the principal allegories which were read into the books of the Old and the New Testaments, and is evidently meant to constitute a sort of reference book for Scriptural allegory. It possesses little interest.

One of the most important of the writings of Isidore is theSententiae, in three books. It is a systematic treatiseon Christian doctrine and morals,[35]and is culled chiefly from theMoraliaof Gregory the Great. As might be guessed from its source, it is not a work of an enlightened character. However, while it is largely taken up with the technicalities of Christian thinking, it is frequently valuable as affording fuller and more specific statements on some matters of interest than are found elsewhere in Isidore’s works. Isidore and Gregory were in substantial agreement in their attitude toward life, but there are indications that in some respects Isidore was not quite as thorough-going as his model.[36]

Among Christian scholars from the beginning there had been a desire to bring the traditional ideas of pagan cosmography into subordination to the Christian scheme. This impulse was strongly, though blindly, felt by Isidore, and it led to his several attempts at a comprehensive account of the universe. Perhaps the most interesting of these is theDe Ordine Creaturarum, which differs from the others by including the spiritual as well as the material universe. The difference did not make for rationality, and in this short work Isidore is seen at his scientific worst. As in theDe Natura Rerum, the dominating factors in the description of the physical universe are the first chapter of Genesis and the theory of the four elements.

That one of Isidore’s books which is of by far the greatest importance for an understanding of the secular thought of the day, is theEtymologies. This is a sort of dictionary or encyclopedia of all knowledge.[37]As Braulio puts it, it contained “about all that ought to be known”, and it may be taken as representing the widest possible scope of secular knowledge that an orthodox Spaniard of the dark ages could allow himself. Indeed, so hospitable an attitude toward profane learning as Isidore displayed was unparalleled in his own period, and was never surpassed throughout the middle ages.

The encyclopedic character of theEtymologiesmay best be realized by a general view of its contents. The titles of the twenty books into which it is divided are as follows:

Etymologiarum Libri XX.

To the modern reader, familiar with the names of only the modern sciences, this series of titles, which includes an almost complete list of the ancient sciences, may not be very illuminating. For this reason it is perhaps allowable to translate them, where it is possible to do so, into their modern equivalents. Thus we have grammar (Bk. 1), rhetoric and logic (Bk. 2), arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy (Bk. 3), medicine (Bk. 4), law and chronology (Bk. 5), theology (Bks. 6–8), human anatomy and physiology (Bk. 11), zoölogy (Bk. 12), cosmography and physical geography (Bks. 13–14), architecture and surveying (Bk. 15 and part of Bk. 19), mineralogy (Bk. 16), agriculture (Bk. 17), military science (Bk. 18). This partial enumeration of the subjects treated in Isidore’sEtymologiesforms an imposing array, and serves to explain something of the importance of the work in the history of thought.

The secret of this inclusiveness lay, however, not in an expanded, but in a contracted interest. Although Isidore is not surpassed in comprehensiveness by any one of the line of Roman encyclopedists who preceded him, in the quality of his thought and the extent of his information he is inferior to them all. Secular knowledge had suffered so much from attrition and decay that it could now be summarized in its entirety by one man.

In spite of this it is very clear that if Isidore had treated these topics with any degree of reference to the actual realities of his own time, he would have left us a work of inestimable value. But he did not do so; he drew, not upon life, but upon books for his ideas; there was no first-handobservation. Moreover, the books which he consulted were, as a rule, centuries old.[38]He tells us practically nothing concerning his own period, in which so many important changes were taking place. For example, there are repeated and detailed references to the founding and early history of Rome, but no direct allusion to the political and social changes brought about by the disintegration of the Roman Empire; trifles attributed to a period thirteen centuries earlier seemed to interest him more than the mighty developments of his own epoch. Again, although he writes upon law, he does not appear to have heard of the Justinian code issued a century before;[39]and in his chronology he fails to mention the proposal for a new era in chronology made also a century before his time by Dionysius the Less.[40]

Throughout theEtymologiesthere is a leading principle which guides Isidore in his handling of the different subjects, namely, his attitude toward words. His idea was that the road to knowledge was by way of words, and further, that they were to be elucidated by reference to their origin rather than to the things they stood for. This, in itself, gave an antiquarian cast to his work. His confidence in words really amounted to a belief, strong though perhaps somewhat inarticulate, that words were transcendental entities. All he had to do, he believed, was to clear away the misconceptions about their meaning, and set it forth in its true original sense; then, of their own accord, they would attach themselves to the general scheme of truth. The task of first importance, therefore, in treating any subject, was to seize upon the leading terms and trace them back to the meanings which they had in the beginning, before they had been contaminated by the false usage of the poets and other heathen writers; thus the truth wouldbe found. It was inevitable that, with such a preconception, Isidore’s method in theEtymologiesshould be to treat each subject by the method of defining the terms belonging to it.

It is plain, then, that Isidore used the dictionary method in theEtymologiesnot as a matter of convenience, but on philosophic grounds. His unthinking confidence in words was, however, ill-rewarded. It merely furnished a plan of treatment which evaded consecutive thought, and made it possible for his work to be a mass of contradictions, as it really is in very many points. Indeed, the task of combining in one work the ill-digested ideas of the school of Christian thought of his day and conflicting ideas borrowed from the pagans would not have been possible except to a writer who did not reason on his material, but was satisfied, as was Isidore, to give the derivation and meaning of his terms in the blind trust that a harmonious whole was thus constituted.

We have some information in regard to the production of theEtymologies.[41]It was a work undertaken at the request of Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, and it occupied the last years of Isidore’s life. Parts of it, however—presumably those that could be used as text-books—were in circulation before his death. Braulio is our authority for the statement that the work as a whole was left unfinished, and that he himself divided it into twenty books, Isidore having made no division except that by subjects. As the brief preface, addressed to Braulio, informs us, the work was the product of long-continued reading, and contained verbatim extracts from previous writers, as well as Isidore’s own comments.

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