Isidore of Seville Biography

ISIDORE OF SEVILLE (560–636), bishop of Seville (603–636), proclaimed "eminent teacher and an honor to the church" by the Council of Toledo of 653. Member of an eminent Andalusian family, Isidore was prepared to inherit the see of Seville by his older brother Leandro, also bishop of Seville. In his youth the king, Leovigild (r. 569–586), was able to stabilize the Visigothic kingdom, in which a minority of Visigoths (Germanic peoples who entered the Iberian Peninsula in the fifth century) and a vast majority of ancient inhabitants (the Hispano-Romans) coexisted. Under Reccared (d. 601) the Goths abjured the Arian doctrine and embraced the Catholic faith (c. 589). In 614 the Jews were forced by Sisebut to convert to Christianity.

Through his pastoral leadership, Isidore imbued the Visigothic church with the same concerns that dominate his writings: respect for the political authority of the Goths, incitation for increasing participation of the Hispano-Romans in the life of the church, and an overriding intellectual and moral commitment. A famous orator, he presided at the Council of Seville of 619 and at the Council of Toledo of 633. Mild and conciliatory, Isidore was a man of great human and Christian optimism; he struggled with his own strict education and with the intransigent atmosphere of the church after the triumph of catholic orthodoxy against the Arians, and over tensions with Jews after 614.

Isidore's writings, cataloged by his friend Braulio (d. 651), bishop of Zaragoza, may be grouped as follows:

1. biblical studies;
2. handbooks for clergy and monks: Concerning the Ecclesiastical Offices, A Monastic Rule, Vademecum of the Catholic Faith for Use in Discussion with the Jews, and Catalog of Heresies;
3. guides for personal and public spiritual development: Synonyms and Sentences;
4. works on civic education: About the Universe, an explanation of the system of the world and of natural phenomena for the purpose of preventing fear and superstition;
5. works extolling the national glory: History of the Goths, Vandals, and Suevi; Praise of Spain; Chronicle of the World; and Catalog of Illustrious Men, an innovation in this genre insofar as it introduces persons distinguished by their pastoral activity; and
6. works on general education, based largely upon linguistic or grammatical explanations: Differences between Words, his first writing, and Etymologies, on which he labored until his death and which was completed by Braulio.

He also wrote poems and letters, and he probably took part in preparing the Collectio canonica Hispana (Collection of church councils), covering both ecumenical and Spanish councils. Both Christian and non-Christian authors are cited in Isidore's writings with admiration and appreciation.

Isidore is best known through his Synonyms (known in manuscripts as "Soliloquies," a dialogue between humanity and its reason), which employed a new technique of parallel phrases with progressive variation of words. This work was simultaneously a source of practical vocabulary and a mechanism of catharsis that promoted in the reader a unified spirituality. It includes simple moral teaching and formulas for spiritual enlightenment. In three books, Sentences (On the Greatest Good in manuscripts) summarizes the spiritual organization of the human community by duties and obligations. It is in the form of easily memorized proverbs based upon Christian authors, and it combines moral knowledge with living experience. Etymologies (also named Origines), in twenty books, classifies and defines, according to a personal system of etymological interpretation, all the knowledge of Isidore's time as drawn from ancient sources through commentaries, glosses, and scholastic handbooks. In the Middle Ages it was considered the basic reference work for understanding texts and for coherently interpreting the world.

An extensive critical introduction and systematic bibliography can be found in my introduction to San Isidoro de Sevilla, Etimologías, vol. 1, edited by José Oroz Reta, "Biblioteca de autores cristianos" (Madrid, 1982). See also J. N. Hillgarth's "The Position of Isidorian Studies," Studi medievali 24 (1983): 817–905. In French, see Jacques Fontaine's Isidore de Séville et la culture classique dans l'Espagne wisigothique, 2 vols. and suppl. (Paris, 1983); "Isidore de Séville," in the Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. 7 (Paris, 1971); and Isidore de Séville. Genèse et originallé de la culture hispanique au temps des visigoths (Turnhout, Belgium, 2000).