Editing Isidore of Seville (section)

==Works==
{{Catholic philosophy}}
Isidore's Latin style in the ''[[Etymologiae]]'' and elsewhere, though simple and lucid, reveals increasing local Visigothic traditions.

===''Etymologiae''===
{{Main|Etymologiae}}

[[Image:Isidoro di siviglia, etimologie, fine VIII secolo MSII 4856 Bruxelles, Bibliotheque Royale Albert I, 20x31,50, pagina in scrittura onciale carolina.jpg|thumb|upright|A page of ''Etymologiae'', [[Carolingian dynasty|Carolingian]] manuscript (8th century), [[Brussels]], [[Royal Library of Belgium]]]]
[[File:Isidori Hispalensis Opera Omnia.tif|thumb|upright|''Isidori Hispalensis Opera Omnia'' (1797)]]

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.<ref name="auto">MacFarlane 1980:4; MacFarlane translates ''Etymologiae'' viii.</ref>

In it, 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 that 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.<ref name="auto"/>

Some of these fragments were lost in the first place because Isidore's work was so highly regarded—[[Braulio of Zaragoza|Braulio]] called it ''quaecunque fere sciri debentur'', "practically everything that it is necessary to know"<ref>Braulio, ''Elogium'' of Isidore appended to Isidore's ''[[De viris illustribus]]'', heavily indebted itself to [[Jerome]].</ref>—that it superseded the use of many individual works of the classics themselves, which were not recopied and have therefore been lost: "all secular knowledge that was of use to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".<ref>MacFarlane 1980:4.</ref>

Book VIII of the ''Etymologiae'' covers religion, including the Christian Church, Judaism, heretical sects, pagan philosophers, sibyls, and magi.<ref>{{Cite book | title=The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville | last1=Barney | first1=Stephen A. | last2=Lewis | first2=W. J. | last3=Beach | first3=J. A. | last4=Berghof | first4=O. | publisher=Cambridge University Press | year=2006 | edition=1st | isbn=978-0-511-21969-6 |pages=173–190}}</ref> In this section, Isidore documents pre-Christian religious and magical beliefs, preserving knowledge about ancient magical practices, even while condemning them as superstition. His writings serve as one of the few surviving records of magical thought in early medieval Europe, helping to transmit classical esoteric ideas into the Middle Ages.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Otto |first1=B. |last2=Stausberg |first2=M. |year=2014 |title=Defining Magic: A Reader |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1317545033}}</ref>

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.<ref name="CatEncy">{{cite web|title=Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Isidore of Seville|url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08186a.htm|access-date=2020-07-27|website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref> The ''Etymologiae'' was much copied, particularly into medieval [[bestiary|bestiaries]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Epistemology of the Monstrous in the Middle Ages|last=Verner|first=Lisa|publisher=Routledge|year=2005|isbn=978-0415972437|pages=94–95}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0691154916|editor-last=Green|editor-first=Roland|edition=4th}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Bestiary : Being an English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764: With All the Original Miniatures Reproduced in Facsimile|last=Barber|first=Richard W.|publisher=Boydell & Brewer|year=1992|location=Woodbridge, Suffolk, England|pages=8, 13}}</ref>

===''On the Catholic Faith against the Jews''===
[[Image:Diagrammatic T-O world map - 12th century.jpg|thumb|upright|The medieval [[T-O map]] represents the inhabited world as described by Isidore in his ''Etymologiae'']]

Isidore's ''De fide catholica contra Iudaeos'' furthers [[Augustine of Hippo]]'s ideas on the Jewish presence in the Christian society of the ancient world. Like Augustine, Isidore held an acceptance of the Jewish presence as necessary to society because of their expected role in the anticipated [[Second Coming of Christ]].

But Isidore had access to Augustine's works, out of which one finds more than forced acceptance ''of'' but rather broader reasons than just an endtime role ''for'' Jews in society:

:[D]iversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained [are not scrupled in the heavenly city for which we strive, while its citizens sojourn on earth], but recognizing that, however various they are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace.

:[The heavenly city] is therefore so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced...and makes this earthly peace bear upon the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called and esteemed the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in God. (''City of God'', Book 19, Chapter 17)<ref name=cog>Marcus Dods, translator.</ref>

According to Jeremy Cohen, Isidore exceeds the anti-rabbinic polemics of earlier theologians by criticising Jewish practice as deliberately disingenuous in ''De fide catholica contra Iudaeos''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cohen |first=Jeremy |title=Living Letters of the Law |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r3NfOL9Q0i4C |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |location=Berkeley |year=1999 |isbn=978-0520218703 |page=97}}</ref>

But once again Isidore's same predecessor, Augustine, seems to have written of at least the possibility of Jewish rabbinical practice along that subject's content's purportedly deceptive lines in the same work cited above:

:They say that it is not credible that the seventy translators [of the [[Septuagint]]] who simultaneously and unanimously produced one rendering, could have erred, or, in a case in which no interest of theirs was involved, could have falsified their translation, but that the Jews, envying us our translation of their Law and Prophets, have made alterations in their texts to undermine the authority of ours. (''City of God'', Book 15, Chapter 11)<ref name=cog/>

He contributed two decisions to the [[Fourth Council of Toledo]]: Canon 60 calling for the forced removal of children from parents practising [[Crypto-Judaism]] and their education by Christians on the basis that while their parents were concealing themselves under the guise of Christians, they had presumably allowed their children to be baptised with intent to deceive. This removal was an exception to the general rule of the treatment of Jewish children according to the 13th century ''Summa Theologica'', "[I]t was never the custom of the Church to baptize the children of Jews against the will of their parents...."<ref>[[Thomas Aquinas|Aquinas]], St. Thomas (1274). ''Summa Theologica'', p. II of p. IInd, "Treatise on Faith, Hope and Charity", Question 10, Article 12, Answer.  Quote continues: "..., although in times past there have been many very powerful catholic princes like [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]] and [[Theodosius I|Theodosius]], who would certainly not have failed to obtain this favour from them if it had been at all reasonable."</ref>

He also contributed Canon 65 thought to forbid Jews and Christians of Jewish origin from holding public office.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Isidore of Seville: His attitude towards Judaism and his impact on early Medieval Canonical law |author=Bar-Shava Albert |journal=The Jewish Quarterly Review |year=1990 |volume=XXX 3,4 |issue=3/4 |pages=207–220 |jstor=1454969}}</ref>

===Other works===
Isidore's authored more than a dozen major works on various topics including mathematics, holy scripture, and monastic life,<ref name="Lowney2012">{{cite book|author=Christopher Lowney|title=A Vanished World: Medieval Spain's Golden Age of Enlightenment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yHNYF96QXZAC&pg=PA17|date=2012|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=978-0743282611|page=17}}</ref> all in Latin:
* ''[[Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum]]'', a history of the Gothic, Vandal and Suebi kings. The longer edition, issued in 624, includes the ''Laus Spaniae'' and the ''Laus Gothorum''.
* ''Chronica Majora'', a [[Universal history (genre)|universal history]]
* ''De differentiis verborum'', a brief theological treatise on the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, of Paradise, angels, and men
* ''De natura rerum'' (''On the Nature of Things''), a book of [[astronomy]] and [[natural history]] dedicated to the Visigothic king [[Sisebut]]
* ''Questions on the Old Testament''
* ''Liber numerorum qui in sanctis Scripturis occurrunt'',<ref>Migne, [https://mlat.uzh.ch/browser?path=/xanfang.php&text=8214 Patrologia], 83, 179.</ref> a mystical treatise on the allegorical meanings of numbers
* a number of brief letters
* ''Sententiae libri tres'' Codex Sang. 228; 9th century<ref>{{cite web|title=e-codices – Virtuelle Handschriftenbibliothek der Schweiz|url=https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/list/csg|access-date=2020-07-27|website=www.e-codices.unifr.ch}}</ref>
* ''De viris illustribus''
* ''De ecclesiasticis officiis''
* ''De summo bono''
* ''De ortu et obitu patrum''
* ''Regula Monachorum<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dyer |first=Joseph |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195124538.001.0001 |title=The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |editor-last=Baltzer |editor-first=Rebecca A. |location=New York |pages=75 |chapter=Observations on the Divine Office in the Rule of the Master |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195124538.001.0001 |isbn=0195124537 |editor-last2=Fassler |editor-first2=Margot E. |url-access=subscription}}</ref>''