Editing Isidore of Seville (section)

===''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—that it superseded the use of many individual works of the classics themselves, which were not recopied and have therefore been lost: "all secular knowledge that was of use to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>