Isidore of Seville
1
Isidore of Seville
This article is about the Archbishop of Seville. For the Spanish peasant and patron saint of Madrid, see Isidore the
Laborer.
Saint Isidore of Seville
St. Isidore, depicted by Murillo
Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church
Born
c. 560
Cartagena, Spain
Died
4 April 636
Seville, Spain
Honored in
Roman Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church
Canonized
1598, Rome by Pope Clement VIII
Feast
4 April
Attributes
bees; Bishop holding a pen while surrounded by a swarm of bees; bishop standing near a beehive; old bishop with a prince at
his feet; pen; priest or bishop with pen and book; with Saint Leander, Saint Fulgentius, and Saint Florentina; with his
Etymologiae
Patronage
the Internet, computer users, computer technicians, programmers, students
Saint Isidore of Seville (Latin: Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) served as Archbishop of Seville for more
than three decades and is considered, as the 19th-century historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "The
last scholar of the ancient world".[1]
At a time of disintegration of classical culture,[2] 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. He was influential in the inner circle of Sisebut, Visigothic king of Hispania.
Like Leander, he played a prominent role in the Councils of Toledo and Seville. The Visigothic legislation that
resulted from these councils influenced the beginnings of representative government.
His fame after his death was based on his Etymologiae, an etymological encyclopedia which assembled extracts of
many books from classical antiquity that would have otherwise been lost.
Isidore of Seville
2
Life
Childhood and education
Isidore was probably born in Cartagena, Spain to Severianus and Theodora. His father belonged to a Hispano-Roman
family of high social rank while his mother was of Visigothic origin and apparently, was distantly related to
Visigothic royalty.Wikipedia:Citation needed His parents were members of an influential family who were
instrumental in the political-religious manoeuvring that converted the Visigothic kings from Arianism to
Catholicism. The Catholic Church celebrates him and all his siblings as known saints:
• An elder brother, Saint Leander of Seville, immediately preceded Saint Isidore as Archbishop of Seville and,
while in office, opposed king Liuvigild.
• A younger brother, Saint Fulgentius of Cartagena, served as the Bishop of Astigi at the start of the new reign of
the Catholic King Reccared.
• His sister, Saint Florentina, served God as a nun and allegedly ruled over forty convents and one thousand
consecrated religious. This claim seems unlikely; however, given the few functioning monastic institutions in
Iberia during her lifetime, the claim could be creditable.[3]
Isidore received his elementary education in the Cathedral school of Seville. In this institution, the first of its kind in
Iberia, a body of learned men including Archbishop Saint Leander of Seville taught the trivium and quadrivium, the
classic liberal arts. Saint Isidore applied himself to study diligently enough that he quickly mastered at least a
pedestrian level of Latin,[4] a smattering of Greek, and some Hebrew.
Two centuries of Gothic control of Iberia incrementally suppressed the ancient institutions, classic learning, and
manners of the Roman Empire. The associated culture entered a period of long-term decline. The ruling Visigoths
nevertheless showed some respect for the outward trappings of Roman culture. Arianism meanwhile took deep root
among the Visigoths as the form of Christianity that they received.
Scholars may debate whether Isidore ever personally embraced monastic life or affiliated with any religious order,
but he undoubtedly esteemed the monks highly.
Bishop of Seville
After the death of Saint Leander of Seville on 13 March 600 or 601, Isidore
succeeded to the See of Seville. On his elevation to the episcopate, he
immediately constituted himself as protector of monks.
Saint Isidore recognized that the spiritual and material welfare of the people of
his See depended on assimilation of remnant Roman and ruling barbarian
cultures, and consequently attempted to weld the peoples and subcultures of the
Visigothic kingdom into a united nation. He used all available religious resources
toward this end and succeeded. Isidore practically eradicated the heresy of
Arianism and completely stifled the new heresy of Acephali at its very outset.
Archbishop Isidore strengthened religious discipline throughout his See.
Archbishop Isidore also used resources of education to counteract increasingly
influential Gothic barbarism throughout his episcopal jurisdiction. His
quickening spirit animated the educational movement centered on Seville. Saint
Isidore introduced Aristotle to his countrymen long before the Arabs studied
Greek philosophy extensively.
Statue of Isidore of Seville by José
Alcoverro, 1892, outside the
Biblioteca Nacional de España, in
Madrid.
In 619, Saint Isidore of Seville pronounced anathema against any ecclesiastic who in any way should molest either
the monasteries.
Isidore of Seville
3
Second Synod of Seville (November 618 or 619)
Through the enlightened statecraft of his two brothers, the Councils of Seville and Toledo emanated Visigothic
legislation which influenced the beginnings of representative government.Wikipedia:Citation needed
Saint Isidore presided over the Second Council of Seville, begun on 13 November 619, in the reign of King Sisebut.
The bishops of Gaul and Narbonne and the Hispanic prelates all attended. The Acts of the Council fully set forth the
nature of Christ, countering Arian conceptions.
Fourth National Council of Toledo
Main article: Fourth Council of Toledo
All bishops of Hispania attended the Fourth National Council of Toledo, begun on 5 December 633. The aged
Archbishop Saint Isidore presided over its deliberations and originated most enactments of the council.
Through Isidore's influence, this Council of Toledo promulgated a decree, commanding all bishops to establish
seminaries in their cathedral cities along the lines of the cathedral school at Seville, which had educated Saint Isidore
decades earlier. The decree prescribed the study of Greek, Hebrew, and the liberal arts and encouraged interest in
law and medicine.[5] The authority of the Council made this education policy obligatory upon all bishops of the
Kingdom of the Visigoths. The council granted remarkable position and deference to the king of the Visigoths. The
independent Church bound itself in allegiance to the acknowledged king; it said nothing of allegiance to the Bishop
of Rome.
Death
Saint Isidore of Seville died on 4 April 636 after serving more than 32 years as archbishop of Seville.
Work
Isidore's Latin style in the Etymologiae and elsewhere, though simple and lucid, reveals increasing local Visigothic
traditions.
Etymologiae
Main article: Etymologiae
Isidore was the first Christian writer to try to compile a summa of universal
knowledge, in his most important work, the Etymologiae (taking its title from the
method he uncritically 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 such Christian epitome—formed a huge compilation of
448 chapters in 20 volumes. In it, as Isidore entered his own terse digest of
Roman handbooks, miscellanies and compendia, he continued the trend towards
abridgements and summaries that had characterised Roman learning in Late
Antiquity. In the process, many fragments of classical learning are preserved
which otherwise would have been hopelessly lost; "in fact, in the majority of his
works, including the Origines, he contributes little more than the mortar which
connects excerpts from other authors, as if he was aware of his deficiencies and
had more confidence in the stilus maiorum than his own" his translator Katherine
Nell MacFarlane remarks;[6] on the other hand, some of these fragments were
lost in the first place because Isidore’s work was so highly regarded—Braulio
Page of Etymologiae, Carolingian
manuscript (8th century), Brussels,
Royal Library of Belgium
Isidore of Seville
4
called it quecunque fere sciri debentur, "practically everything that it is necessary to know"—[7] that it superseded
the use of many individual works of the classics themselves, which were not recopied and have therefore been lost:
"all secular knowledge that was of use to the Christian scholar had been winnowed out and contained in one handy
volume; the scholar need search no further".[8]
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
ten editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore's continued popularity in the Renaissance. Until the 12th
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.[9] The Etymologiae
was much copied, particularly into medieval bestiaries.Wikipedia:Citation needed
On the Catholic faith against the Jews
Isidore's De fide catholica contra Iudaeos furthers Augustine of Hippo'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.[10]
He contributed two decisions to the Fourth Council of Toledo: Canon 60 calling
for the forced removal of children from parents practicing Crypto-Judaism and
their education by Christians and Canon 65 forbidding Jews and Christians of
Jewish origin from holding public office.
Other works
Isidore's other works, all in Latin, include:
The medieval T-O map represents
the inhabited world as described by
Isidore in his Etymologiae.
• Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum, a history of the Gothic, Vandal and Suebi kings
• his Chronica Majora, a universal history
• De differentiis verborum, a brief theological treatise on the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, of
Paradise, angels, and men
• On the Nature of Things, a 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[11]
• De viris illustribus
• De ecclesiasticis officiis
Isidore of Seville
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Legacy
Isidore was one of the last of the ancient Christian philosophers; he was the last
of the great Latin Church Fathers and was contemporary with Maximus the
Confessor. 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 of Zaragoza, 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.
Isidore (right) and Braulio (left) in an
Ottonian illuminated manuscript
from the 2nd half of the 10th century.
Isidore was interred in Seville. His tomb represented an important place of
veneration for the Mozarabs during the centuries after the Arab conquest of Visigothic Hispania. In the middle of the
11th century, with the division of Al Andalus into taifas and the strengthening of the Christian holdings in the
Iberian peninsula, Fernando I of León found himself in a position to extract tribute from the fractured Arab states. In
addition to money, Abbad II al-Mu'tadid, the Abbadid rule of Seville (1042–1069), agreed to turn over St. Isidore's
remains to Fernando I.[12] A Catholic poet described al-Mutatid placing a brocaded cover over Isidore's sarcophagus,
and remarked, "Now you are leaving here, revered Isidore. You know well how much your fame was mine!"
Fernando had Isidore's remains reinterred in the then recently constructed Basilica of San Isidoro in
Leon.Wikipedia:Citation needed
Isidore 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 (X.130), Isidore is mentioned among theologians and Doctors of the Church alongside the Scot
Richard of St. Victor and the Englishman Bede the Venerable.
The University of Dayton has named their implementation of the Sakai Project in honor of Saint Isidore.[13]
Many of his bones are buried in the cathedral of Murcia, Spain.
His likeness is used in a trio including Leander of Sevile and Ferdinand III of Castile on Sevilla FC's crest badge.
To honour St. Isidore, a modern day knightly order was formed on January 1, 2000. Membership is open to all men
and women worldwide. One of the aims of the order is to honour Saint Isidore of Seville as the patron saint on the
internet and to promote Christian chivalry through the internet. Members receive a modern day knighthood.[14]
References
[1] 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.
[2] Jacques Fontaine, Isidore de Séville et la culture classique dans l'Espagne wisigothique (Paris) 1959
[3] Roger Collins, Early Medieval Spain. New York: St Martin's Press, 1995, pp. 79-86.
[4] "His literary style, though lucid, is pedestrian": Katherine Nell MacFarlane's observation, in "Isidore of Seville on the Pagan Gods (Origines
VIII. 11)", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 70.3 (1980):1-40, p. 4, reflects mainstream secular opinion.
[5] Isidore's own work regarding medicine is examined by William D. Sharpe, Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings (Transactions of the
American Philosophical Society 54.2) 1964.
[6] MacFarlane 1980:4; MacFarlane translates Etymologiae viii.
[7] Braulio, Elogium of Isidore appended to Isidore's De viris illustribus, heavily indebted itself to Jerome.
[8] MacFarlane 1980:4.
[9] St. Isidore of Seville (http:/ / www. newadvent. org/ cathen/ 08186a. htm)
[10] , books.google.com
Isidore of Seville
[11] Cesg.unifr.ch (http:/ / www. cesg. unifr. ch/ cesg-cgi/ kleioc/ g0010/ exec/ pagesmaframe/ "csg-0228_001. jpg"/ segment/ "body")
[12] Father Alban Butler. “Saint Isidore, Bishop of Seville”. Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints, 1866. Saints.SQPN.com. 2 April
2013. Web. 9 August 2014. Saints SQPN (http:/ / saints. sqpn. com/ butlers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-isidore-bishop-of-seville/ )
[13] Isidore.udayton.edu (http:/ / isidore. udayton. edu)
[14] The Order of St. Isidore of Seville (http:/ / www. st-isidore. org). Accessed 28 June 2014.
Primary sources
• The Etymologiae (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Isidore/home.html) (complete
Latin text)
• 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 0-521-83749-9, ISBN 978-0-521-83749-1.
• Castro Caridad, Eva and Peña Fernández, Francisco (translators). "Isidoro de Sevilla. Sobre la fe católica contra
los judíos". Sevilla:Universidad de Sevilla, 2012. ISBN 978-84-472-1432-7.
• Throop, Priscilla, (translator). Isidore of Seville's Etymologies. Charlotte, VT: MedievalMS, 2005, 2 vols. ISBN
1-4116-6523-6, 978-1-4116-6523-1; ISBN 1-4116-6526-0, 978-1-4116-6526-1.
• Throop, Priscilla, (translator). Isidore's Synonyms and Differences. (a translation of Synonyms or Lamentations of
a Sinful Soul, Book of Differences I, and Book of Differences II) Charlotte, VT: MedievalMS, 2012 (EPub ISBN
978-1-105-82667-2)
• Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries (http://hos.ou.edu/
galleries/03Medieval/Isidore/) High resolution images of works by Isidore of Seville in .jpg and .tiff format.
Secondary sources
• Henderson, John. The Medieval World of Isidore of Seville: Truth from Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007. ISBN 0-521-86740-1.
• Herren, Michael. "On the Earliest Irish Acquaintance with Isidore of Seville." Visigothic Spain: New Approaches.
James, Edward (ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. ISBN 0-19-822543-1.
• Englisch, Brigitte. "Die Artes liberales im frühen Mittelalter." Stuttgart, 1994.
• Henry Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography (http://www.ccel.org/w/wace/biodict/htm/TOC.htm),
ccel.org
• Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 edition: Isidore of Seville (http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/
Isidore_Of_Seville), 1911encyclopedia.org
•
"'St. Isidore of Seville" (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08186a.htm). Catholic Encyclopedia. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
Other material
• The Order of Saint Isidore of Seville (http://www.st-isidore.org), st-isidore.org
• Jones, Peter. "Patron saint of the internet" (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/08/
27/bobar20.xml), telegraph.co.uk., 27 August 2006 (Review of The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, Cambridge
University Press, 2006 (ISBN 0-521-83749-9)
• Shachtman, Noah. "Searchin' for the Surfer's Saint" (http://www.wired.com/news/culture/1,49995-0.html),
wired.com., 25 January 2002
• SaintIsidoreOfSeville.com (http://www.saintisidoreofseville.com)
6
Isidore of Seville
External links
•
Quotations related to Isidore of Seville at Wikiquote
•
Works written by or about Isidorus Hispalensis at Wikisource
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Article Sources and Contributors
8
Article Sources and Contributors
Isidore of Seville Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=623954296 Contributors: 12.31.6.xxx, 1exec1, A bit iffy, AMC0712, Adam Bishop, Aethralis, AidanP02, Aldux,
Alex299006, Almaliq, Ambrosius007, AnakngAraw, Anbu121, Andreas Kaganov, AndrewNJ, Andycjp, Anneyh, Antiquary, Antony-22, Arasaka, Arthena, Ashley Y, Attilios, Auntof6, Avjoska,
Barbatus, Bede735, Bill Thayer, Billinghurst, Blainster, Bryan Derksen, Buddhaamaatya, Bwpach, Carl.bunderson, CarolusAndreas, Charles Matthews, Chiswick Chap, Chris55, Cmontero,
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Image:Isidoro de Sevilla (José Alcoverro) 01.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Isidoro_de_Sevilla_(José_Alcoverro)_01.jpg License: Creative Commons
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