Editing Isidore of Seville (section)

== Criticisms and contemporary appraisal ==

Contemporary researchers have criticised Isidore—specifically, his work in the ''Etymologies.'' The historian Sandro D'Onofrio has argued that "job consisted here and there of restating, recapitulating, and sometimes simply transliterating both data and theories that lacked research and originality."<ref>Sandro D'Onofrio, "Isidore of Seville," in Henrik Legerlund, ed., ''Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, 500–1500'' (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), 574.
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In this view, Isidore—considering the large popularity his works enjoyed during the Middle Ages and the founding role he had in [[Scholasticism]]—would be less a brilliant thinker than a Christian gatekeeper making etymologies fit into the Christian worldview. "[H]e prescribed what they should mean," asserts D'Onofrio.

The researcher Victor Bruno has countered this argument. According to him, it was not the meaning of the ''Etymologies'', or of Isidore's work as a whole, to give a scientific or philological account of the words, as a modern researcher would do. "It is obvious that, from a material point of view," argues Bruno, "Isidore's practical knowledge on etymology, geography, and history are considered outdated; his methods, from the current academic and scientific standpoint, are questionable, and some of his conclusions are indeed incorrect. But Isidore is less concerned about being etymologically or philologically right than being ''ontologically'' right."<ref>Victor Bruno, "St. Isidore of Seville and Traditional Philosophy," ''Sacred Web'' 49 (2022): 99.
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Therefore, Isidore, despite living in the [[Early Middle Ages]], is an [[Mircea Eliade|archaic]] or "traditional" thinker. Being religiously inclined, Isidore would be concerned with the redeeming meaning of words and history, the ultimate quest of religions. The same researcher also found parallels between Isidore's interpretation of the word "year" (''annus'') and the meaning of the same words in the ''Jāiminīya-Upaniṣad-Brāmaṇa''.<ref>Bruno, "St. Isidore of Seville and Traditional Philosophy," 101.
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