TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
* Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_.
* Small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS.
* Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected.
* Original spelling was kept, but variant spellings were made
consistent when a predominant usage was found, except the
variants “encyclopedia”, “encyclopaedia”, “encyclopædia”, and
their derivatives, which are preserved as printed.
* Footnotes have been numbered in a single series. Each footnote
is placed at the end of the paragraph which includes its anchor.
* Illustrations have been slightly moved so that they do not
break up paragraphs while remaining close to the text they
illustrate.
* Other emendations made:
p. 14: “Yerra” → “Terra”
p. 141: placement of anchor for note [267] conjectured. None
found.
p. 210: “25.” → “9.” and
“of the stock of Cham, who stock of Sem” → “of the stock
of Sem”, both after checking the Latin original.
p. 233: Added “[ON UNIVERSE AND EARTH]” as a general title to
“Books XIII and XIV” chapter, both in this page and in
the Table of Contents.
p. 243: placement of anchor for note [347] conjectured. None
found.
p. 264: Added “[ISIDORE’S USE OF THE WORD _TERRA_]” as a title
to Appendix I, taken from the Table of Contents.
AN ENCYCLOPEDIST OF THE
DARK AGES
ISIDORE OF SEVILLE
_In saeculorum fine doctissimus_
(_Ex concilio Toletano viii, cap. 2_)
BY
ERNEST BREHAUT, A. M.
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN THE
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
NEW YORK
1912
[Illustration]
PREFACE
The writer of the following pages undertook, at the suggestion of
Professor James Harvey Robinson, to translate passages from Isidore’s
_Etymologies_ which should serve to illustrate the intellectual
condition of the dark ages. It soon became evident that a brief
introduction to the more important subjects treated by Isidore would
be necessary, in order to give the reader an idea of the development
of these subjects at the time at which he wrote. Finally it seemed
worth while to sum up in a general introduction the results of this
examination of the _Etymologies_ and of the collateral study of
Isidore’s other writings which it involved.
For many reasons the task of translating from the _Etymologies_ has
been a difficult one. There is no modern critical edition of the
work to afford a reasonable certainty as to the text; the Latin,
while far superior to the degenerate language of Gregory of Tours, is
nevertheless corrupt; the treatment is often brief to the point of
obscurity; the terminology of ancient science employed by Isidore is
often used without a due appreciation of its meaning. However, the
greatest difficulty in translating has arisen from the fact that the
work is chiefly a long succession of word derivations which usually
defy any attempt to render them into English.
In spite of these difficulties the study has been one of great
interest. Isidore was, as Montalambert calls him, _le dernier savant
du monde ancien_, as well as the first Christian encyclopaedist. His
writings, therefore, while of no importance in themselves, become
important as a phenomenon in the history of European thought. His
resort to ancient science instead of to philosophy or to poetry is
suggestive, as is also the wide variety of his ‘sciences’ and the
attenuated condition in which they appear. Of especial interest is
Isidore’s state of mind, which in many ways is the reverse of that of
the modern thinker.
It is perhaps worth while to remark that the writer has had in mind
throughout the general aspects of the intellectual development of
Isidore’s time: he has not attempted to comment on the technical
details—whether accurately given by Isidore or not—of the many
‘sciences’ that appear in the _Etymologies_. The student of the
history of music, for example, or of medicine as a technical subject,
will of course go to the sources.
The writer is under the greatest obligation to Professors James
Harvey Robinson and James Thomson Shotwell for assistance and advice,
as well as for the illuminating interpretation of the medieval period
given in their lectures. He is also indebted to Mr. Henry O. Taylor
and Professors William A. Dunning and Munroe Smith for reading
portions of the manuscript.
E. B.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY, 1912.
CONTENTS
PART I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
ISIDORE’S LIFE AND WRITINGS
PAGE
1. Importance of Isidore 15
a. Place in history of thought 15
b. Influence 17
2. Historical setting 18
a. The Roman culture in Spain 18
b. Assimilation of the barbarians 18
c. Predominance of the church 19
3. Life 20
a. Family 20
b. Leander 20
c. Early years and education 21
d. Facts of his life 22
4. Impression made by Isidore on his contemporaries 23
Braulio’s account 23
5. Works 24
a. Braulio’s list 24
b. Works especially important as giving Isidore’s
intellectual outlook 25
(1) _Differentiae_ 26
Stress on words 26
(2) _De Natura Rerum_ 27
View of the physical universe 27
General organization of subject-matter 28
(3) _Liber Numerorum_ 29
Mysticism of number 29
(4) _Allegoriae_ 29
(5) _Sententiae_ 29
(6) _De Ordine Creaturarum_ 30
c. His main work—the _Etymologies_ 30
(1) Description 30
(2) Contents 31
(3) Antiquarian character 32
(4) Leading principle of treatment—word derivation 33
(5) Inconsistency of thought 34
(6) Circumstances of production 34
CHAPTER II
ISIDORE’S RELATION TO PREVIOUS CULTURE
1. Dependance on the past 35
2. Ignorance of Greek 35
3. Relation to Latin writers 37
a. The function of the Christian writers 37
b. The development of the pagan thought 37
(1) The encyclopædias 38
(a) Characteristics 38
Decay of thought 38
Epitomizing tendency 39
Literary scholarship 39
Scientific scholarship 40
(b) Method of production 40
(c) Acceptability of encyclopædias to the
church fathers 41
(d) Debt of Isidore to them 41
(2) The encyclopædias of education 43
4. The personal element contributed by Isidore 44
5. Sources used by Isidore 45
a. Confusion of the tradition 45
b. Investigations and their results 45
CHAPTER III
ISIDORE’S GENERAL VIEW OF THE UNIVERSE
1. Introductory considerations 48
a. The difficulties in ascertaining the world-view 48
(1) Inconsistencies 48
(2) Unexplained preconceptions 48
b. Conditions favoring the construction of a world-view 49
2. The physical universe 50
a. Form of the universe 50
Question of the sphericity of the earth 50
Greek cosmology versus Christian cosmology 54
b. Size of the universe 54
c. Constitution of matter 55
The four elements 55
Properties 55
Cosmological bearing 57
Bearing on the physical constitution of man 59
Use of the theory in medicine 59
Phenomena of meteorology explained by the theory 60
Seasons 61
d. Parallelism of man and the universe 62
3. The solidarity of the universe 63
a. Strangeness of Isidore’s thinking 63
b. The conception of solidarity 64
c. Number 64
d. Allegory 65
4. The supernatural world 67
a. Contrast between mediæval and modern views 68
b. Method of apprehending the supernatural world 68
c. Relative importance of natural and supernatural 68
(1) In nature 68
(2) In man 69
(3) Asceticism 70
d. Inhabitants of supernatural world 70
(1) Theology 70
(2) Angelology 70
(3) Demonology 72
5. View of secular learning 73
a. Philosophy 73
(1) Conception of philosophy 73
(2) Attitude toward pagan philosophy 74
b. Poetry 74
c. Science 75
(1) Attitude toward pagan science 75
(2) Condition of pagan science 76
(3) Low place accorded to science 76
(4) Science harmonized with religious ideas 77
(5) Perversity of pagan scientists 78
6. View of the past 79
a. Pagan past as a whole dropped 79
b. Idea of the past dominated by Biblical tradition 79
c. Importance of Hebrew history 80
CHAPTER IV
ISIDORE’S RELATION TO EDUCATION
1. Problem of Christian education 81
2. Cassiodorus’ solution 82
a. Theology 83
b. The seven liberal arts 83
3. The educational situation in Spain 84
4. Isidore’s solution 85
a. Attitude toward the secular subject-matter 85
b. Comprehensive educational scheme 86
(1) First eight books of the Etymologies 86
(2) The higher and the lower education 87
5. Bearing of Isidore’s educational scheme on the development
of the universities 88
PART II
THE ETYMOLOGIES
BOOK I
ON GRAMMAR
Introduction 89
Analysis 92
Extracts 95
BOOK II
1. ON RHETORIC (chs. 1–21)
Introduction 105
Analysis 107
Extracts 111
2. ON LOGIC (chs. 22–30)
Introduction 113
Analysis 115
Extracts 115
BOOK III
1. ON ARITHMETIC (chs. 1–9)
Introduction 123
Extracts (chs. 1–9) 125
2. ON GEOMETRY (chs. 10–14)
Introduction 131
Translation (chs. 10–14) 132
3. ON MUSIC (chs. 15–23)
Introduction 134
Extracts (chs. 15–23) 136
4. ON ASTRONOMY (chs. 24–71)
Introduction 140
Extracts (chs. 24–71) 142
BOOK IV
ON MEDICINE
Introduction 155
Extracts 158
BOOK V
1. ON LAWS (chs. 1–25)
Introduction 164
Extracts (chs. 1–25) 166
2. ON TIMES (chs. 28–39)
Introduction 173
Extracts (chs. 28–39) 175
BOOKS VI-VIII
[THEOLOGY]
Introduction 183
Analysis 184
Extracts—Book VI. On the Books and Services of the
Church 185
Extracts—Book VII. On God, the Angels and the
faithful 192
Extracts—Book VIII. On the Church and the different
sects 196
BOOK IX
ON LANGUAGES, RACES, EMPIRES, WARFARES, CITIZENS,
RELATIONSHIPS
Introduction 207
Analysis 208
Extracts 208
BOOK X
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WORDS
Extracts 214
BOOK XI
ON MAN AND MONSTERS
Analysis 215
Extracts 215
BOOK XII
ON ANIMALS
Introduction 222
Analysis 223
Extracts 223
BOOKS XIII AND XIV
[ON UNIVERSE AND EARTH]
Introduction 233
Analysis 233
Extracts—Book XIII. On the Universe and its parts 234
Extracts—Book XIV. On the Earth and its parts 243
BOOK XV
ON BUILDINGS AND FIELDS
Analysis 248
Extracts 249
BOOK XVI
ON STONES AND METALS
Analysis 252
Extracts 253
BOOK XVII
ON AGRICULTURE
Analysis 258
BOOK XVIII
ON WAR AND AMUSEMENTS
Analysis 258
Extracts 259
BOOK XIX
ON SHIPS, BUILDINGS AND GARMENTS
Analysis 261
BOOK XX
ON PROVISIONS AND UTENSILS USED IN THE HOUSE AND IN
THE FIELDS
Analysis 263
APPENDIX I
Isidore’s Use of the Word _Terra_ 264
APPENDIX II
Subdivisions of Philosophy 267
BIBLIOGRAPHY 270
PART I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
ISIDORE’S LIFE AND WRITINGS
The development of European thought as we know it from the dawn
of history down to the Dark Ages is marked by the successive
secularization and de-secularization of knowledge.[1] From the
beginning Greek secular science can be seen painfully disengaging
itself from superstition. For some centuries it succeeded in
maintaining its separate existence and made wonderful advances;
then it was obliged to give way before a new and stronger set of
superstitions which may be roughly called Oriental. In the following
centuries all those branches of thought which had separated
themselves from superstition again returned completely to its cover;
knowledge was completely de-secularized, the final influence in
this process being the victory of Neoplatonized Christianity.[2]
The sciences disappeared as living realities, their names and a few
lifeless and scattered fragments being all that remained. They did
not reappear as realities until the medieval period ended.
[1] _Cf._ S. Reinach, _Orpheus_, p. 36.
[2] Neoplatonism, the last phase in the decline of ancient
philosophy, profoundly influenced the Christian philosophy of
patristic and medieval times, for which it prepared the way. The
“first principle” of this philosophy was “the supra-rational,
that which lies beyond reason and beyond reality.” It was from
this source that Christian mysticism and contempt for empirical
knowledge were largely drawn. It has been said that Catholic
Christianity “conquered Neoplatonism after it had assimilated
nearly everything that it possessed.” Its influence was far
greater in the eastern than in the western empire. See Harnack,
_History of Dogma_, vol. i, App. 3, for a brief account of
Neoplatonism. See also _Encycl. Brit._, 11th edition, Art.
“Neoplatonism.”
This process of de-secularization was marked by two leading
characteristics; on the one hand, by the loss of that contact with
physical reality through systematic observation which alone had given
life to Greek natural science, and on the other, by a concentration
of attention upon what were believed to be the superior realities
of the spiritual world. The consideration of these latter became so
intense, so detailed and systematic, that there was little energy
left among thinking men for anything else.
At the point where this de-secularizing process was complete, at
the opening of the seventh century, lived the Spanish bishop and
scholar, Isidore of Seville. His many writings, and especially his
great encyclopedia, the _Etymologies_, are among the most important
sources for the history of intellectual culture in the early middle
ages, since in them are gathered together and summed up all such dead
remnants of secular learning as had not been absolutely rejected by
the superstition of his own and earlier ages; they furnish, so to
speak, a cross-section of the debris of scientific thought at the
point where it is most artificial and unreal.
The résumé that Isidore offers is strikingly complete. In this
respect he surpasses all the writers of his own and immediately
preceding periods, his scope being much more general than that of
his nearest contemporaries, Boethius and Cassiodorus. He goes back
here to the tradition of the encyclopedists of the Roman world,
Varro, Verrius Flaccus, Pliny, and Suetonius, by the last of whom he
is believed to have been especially influenced. Few writers of any
period cover the intellectual interests of their time so completely.
To understand Isidore’s mental world is nearly to reach the limits of
the knowledge of his time.[3]
[3] Nihil enim Isidorus intentatum reliquit: facultates omnes
attigit, scientias humanas divinasque pertractavit, scriptores
veteres profanos et sacros evolvit, atque in suum usum
descripsit; nec contentus etymologico suo opere scientiarum
encyclopaediam comprehendere, multa singillatim in sacrarum
litterarum interpretatione disseruit, multa in omni alio
theologiae genere, multa in philosophicis atque astronomicis
argumentis, multa in re litteraria, chronologica et historica.
Arevalo, _Prolegomena in Editionem S. Isidori Hispalensis_, cap.
1, 3.
The influence which he exerted upon the following centuries was
very great. His organization of the field of secular science,
although it amounted to no more than the laying out of a corpse,
was that chiefly accepted throughout the early medieval period. The
innumerable references to him by later writers,[4] the many remaining
manuscripts,[5] and the successive editions of his works[6] after the
invention of printing, indicate the great rôle he played.[7] From the
modern point of view the real benefit he conferred upon succeeding
centuries was that in his encyclopaedic writings he presented to
the intelligent the fact that there had been and might be such
a thing as secular science; while the blunders in which he was
continually involved, and the shallowness of his thinking, offered
a perpetual challenge to the critical power of all who read him.
There was contained in his writings also, as we shall see, the embryo
of something positive and progressive, namely, the organization of
educational subjects that was to appear definitely in the medieval
university and dominate education almost to the present day.
[4] Arevalo in his _Prolegomena_, cap. 33, collects passages
containing “laudes Isidori” from medieval writers, including
Fredegarius, Alcuin, William of Malmesbury, Vincent of Beauvais,
and others. Isidore is cited by Petrarch in a way which shows
that he was much read in his time. Petrarch is giving authorities
for his theory of poetry, and after mentioning Varro and
Suetonius, he says: “Then I can add a third name, which will
probably be better known to you, Isidore.” _Cf._ Robinson and
Rolfe, _Petrarch_, p. 263.
[5] Ac portenti quidem simile est, quot mihi antiquissimi Isidori
Codices in Urbis (Rome) bibliothecis sed maxime in Vaticana
occurrerint. Arevalo, _Prolegomena_, cap. 1, 7. Manuscripts of
Isidore’s works are numerous also in Spain and France.
[6] The editions of Isidore’s complete works are as follows:
(1) that of de la Bigne published at Paris in 1580; (2) that of
Grial, Madrid, 1599; (3) that of du Breul, Paris, 1601; that
of Arevalus, Rome, 1796. Arevalus, in the _Prolegomena_ to his
edition, enumerates ten editions of the _Etymologies_ between
1477 and 1577. Others of Isidore’s works appeared also in
frequent separate editions.
[7] See Cañal, _San Isidoro_, ch. 7.
For a fuller understanding of Isidore’s historical setting some
attention must be given to the country in which he lived. Spanish
culture in the early middle ages seems to have been relatively
superior. It is well known that the country had been thoroughly
Romanized. How complete the process had been may be judged from
the list of men of Spanish birth who had won distinction in the
wider world of the empire; it includes the two Senecas, Lucan,
Quintilian, Martial, Hyginus, Pomponius Mela, Columella, Orosius,
and the two emperors, Trajan and Hadrian. In fact Spain had lost its
individuality and had become an integral part of the Roman world,
little inferior in its culture even to Italy itself; and the close
of Roman rule found the people of Spain speaking the Latin language,
reading the Latin literature, and habituated to Roman institutions
and modes of thought.
Moreover the continuity of this ancient culture had been perhaps less
rudely disturbed in Spain than elsewhere by the shock of the barbaric
invasions. Here its geographical situation stood the country in good
stead; the barbarian frontier was far away and the chances were that
barbarians destined by fortune to enter Spain would first spend much
time in aimless wandering within the empire, with consequent loss of
numbers and some lessening of savagery. Such, at least, was the case
with the Visigoths, who alone of the barbarians proved a permanent
factor in the country’s development. They were first admitted to
the empire in 376, and must have passed largely into the second
generation before they began to penetrate into Spain, while the
real conquest by them did not begin until much later. “At the time
of their appearance as a governing aristocracy in Spain” they “had
become by long contact with the Romans to all intents and purposes a
civilized people.”[8] They were thus in a position to coalesce with
the Romanized natives, and that this was largely brought to pass is
shown by the conversion of the Arian Goths to orthodoxy, the removal
of the ban of intermarriage between the two races, the use of Latin
in all official documents, and finally by the establishment of a
common law for both peoples. The “sixty-one correct hexameters” of
the Visigothic king Sisebutus (612–620),[9] compared, for instance,
with the absolutely hopeless attempts of Charlemagne two centuries
later to learn the art of tracing letters,[10] show plainly that
Spanish culture had not sunk to the level of that of other parts of
the western empire.[11]
[8] Martin A. S. Hume, _The Spanish People_, p. 45.
[9] See Teuffel and Schwabe, _History of Roman Literature_, vol.
ii, sec. 495, 1, and _Poetae Latini Minores_, 5, 357.
[10] See Einhard, _Vita Caroli Magni_ in _Monumenta Germaniae
Historica, Scriptores_ (Pertz ed.), vol. ii, p. 456.
[11] Another factor in the history of Spain at this time that may
have had a slight influence on the culture of the country was
the reoccupation of the southeastern part of the country by the
Eastern Empire, which lasted from Justinian’s time down to 628.
The region so held included even Seville for some years.
In this cultural struggle which had taken place between the native
population and their Visigothic rulers the contest between orthodox
Christianity and Arianism had been of prime importance, and its
settlement of the utmost significance. Since the Spaniards upheld
the orthodox faith and the Visigoths were Arians, the victory of
orthodoxy was a victory of the native element over the newcomers. By
this victory, therefore, a position of predominance unusual for the
time was given to the Spanish church organization, and the bishops,
the leaders of the church in the struggle, became the most powerful
men in the nation. Their power was further strengthened by the
weakening of the secular power when the Visigothic royal line became
extinct and it proved impossible to secure a successor to it from
among the families of the turbulent nobility. From the conversion of
the Visigoths in 587 to the invasion of the Saracens, Spain was a
country dominated by bishops.[12]
[12] For the history of Spain under the Visigoths, see Lavisse
et Rambaud, _Histoire Générale_, vol. i, chap. 3 (by M. A.
Berthelot), and Altamira, _Historia de España_, vol. i, c. 1.
Of Isidore’s life surprisingly little is known, considering the bulk
and importance of his writings and his later fame.[13] All that
can be ascertained of his family is that it belonged originally
to Cartagena, that it was of the orthodox religion, and that the
names of its members are Roman.[14] It is extremely probable that
it belonged to the Hispano-Roman element of the population. That
Isidore and his two brothers were bishops may be taken to show that
of whatever origin the family was, it was one of power and influence.
[13] In the _Acta Sanctorum, Aprilis 1_ (April 4) is the life of
Isidore supposed to have been written by Lucas Tudensis (13th
century). Arevalo also gives a life by Rodericus Cerratensis
(also 13th century). These ‘lives’ are full of fables and cannot
be trusted as sole authorities for any detail of Isidore’s career.
[14] Severianus, Leander, Fulgentius, Florentina.
A word may be said of his elder brother, Leander, who was a man of
perhaps greater force than Isidore himself. Born at Cartagena, he
became a monk, and later, bishop of Seville. He was the chief leader
of the orthodox party in its struggle against “the Arian insanity”,
and in the heat of the conflict was obliged to absent himself from
Spain for a time. He visited Constantinople and there became the
friend of Gregory the Great.[15] Returning to Spain, we find him,
under king Reccared in 587, presiding over the council of Toledo, at
which the Visigothic kingdom turned formally from Arianism. Leander
was a man of action rather than a writer, but according to Isidore
he engaged in controversy with the heretical party, “overwhelming
the Arian impiety with a vehement pen and revealing its wickedness”.
He wrote also a little book, which we still have, “On the training
of nuns and contempt for the world”,[16] and contributed music and
prayers to the church service. There seems to be no doubt that
Leander was the foremost churchman of his time in Spain. The prestige
of his name must have made it easier for his successor, Isidore, to
devote himself to the intellectual rather than to the administrative
leadership of the church.[17]
[15] Gregory’s _Moralia_ is dedicated to Leander.
[16] _Sancti Leandri Hispalensis Episcopi Regula sive de
institutione virginum et contemptu mundi_, in Migne, _Patr.
Lat._, vol. 72, col. 866–898.
[17] Isidori _De Viris Illustribus Liber_, cap. 41.
As to Isidore’s early years our only authentic information is that
his parents died while he was still young, and left him in the care
of Leander. It is very probable, however, that he looked forward from
the beginning to the clerical life which his brothers had chosen and
that he therefore went through the educational routine as laid down
for churchmen, which was practically the only formal education of the
time. The best proof of this lies in the fact that Isidore wrote
text-books of the liberal arts—a task that would have been well-nigh
impossible to one who had not been drilled in them in his youth.[18]
[18] In one of Isidore’s letters, addressed to Duke Claudius
(Claudio duci), he says: “_Memento communis nostri doctoris
Leandri_.” This seems to point to formal instruction given by
Leander, and possibly to the existence of a school at Seville.
Migne, _P. L._ 83, col. 905.
Isidore succeeded his brother Leander in the bishopric of Seville
probably in the year 600.[19] His few remaining letters, written in
the stilted religious phraseology of the day, give the impression
that he was much consulted on ecclesiastical and political matters,
and that he held a position of primacy among the Spanish bishops;
but on the whole they contain remarkably little that is of personal
interest. From the records of the councils we learn that he presided
at the second council of Seville in 619, and probably also at the
fourth of Toledo in 633.[20] According to a contemporary account
written by a cleric named Redemptus, he died in April of 636. No
other details of importance are known about his life. His career must
have been a placid and uneventful one, and evidently much of his time
was spent on his voluminous writings, which were the means by which
he won his great ascendancy over the minds of his contemporaries.[21]
[19] Isidore, in his life of Leander (_De Viris Illustribus_,
cap. 41), says: “(Leander) fluorit sub Reccaredo (d. 601) ...
cujus etiam tempore vitae terminum clausit.” Ildephonsus, in his
life of Isidore (d. 636), says of him, “Annis fere quadraginta
tenens pontificatus honorem” (Migne, _P. L._ 82, col. 68).
Gregory the Great has a letter to Leander and one to Reccared
belonging to the year 598–599 (Migne, _P. L._ 77, col. 1050–1056).
[20] Gams, _Kirchengeschichte von Spanien_ ii, 2, pp. 89, 101.
[21] Contemporary sources for Isidore’s life are: the passage
in the _regula_ of his brother Leander (Migne, _P. L._ 72, col.
892); the correspondence of Isidore (Migne, _P. L._, 83, col.
893); Braulio’s _Introduction_ to Isidore’s works (Migne, _P. L._
82, col. 65); the life of Isidore given by Ildephonsus, bishop
of Toledo (d. 667) in his continuation of Isidore’s _De Viris
Illustribus_; and the letter of the clerk Redemptus, describing
Isidore’s death (Migne, _P. L._ 82, col. 68).
Perhaps the most reliable account of the impression which
Isidore made on the men of his own time is given in the somewhat
ponderous _Introduction_ to his works furnished by his friend and
correspondent, Braulio, bishop of Saragossa:[22]
[22] Sancti Braulionis, Caesaraugust. episcopi _Praenotatio
librorum Isidori_, Migne, _P. L._ 82, col. 65.
Isidore, a man of great distinction, bishop of the church
of Seville, successor and brother of bishop Leander,
flourished from the time of Emperor Maurice and King
Reccared. In him antiquity reasserted itself—or rather, our
time laid in him a picture of the wisdom of antiquity: a
man practiced in every form of speech, he adapted himself
in the quality of his words to the ignorant and the
learned, and was distinguished for unequalled eloquence
when there was fit opportunity.[23] Furthermore, the
intelligent reader will be able to understand easily from
his diversified studies and the works he has completed,
how great was his wisdom.... God raised him up in recent
times after the many reverses of Spain (I suppose to revive
the works of the ancients that we might not always grow
duller from boorish rusticity), and set him as a sort of
support. And with good right do we apply to him the famous
words of the philosopher:[24] “While we were strangers in
our own city, and were, so to speak, sojourners who had
lost our way, your books brought us home, as it were, so
that we could at last recognize who and where we were.
You have discussed the antiquity of our fatherland, the
orderly arrangement of chronology, the laws of sacrifices
and of priests, the discipline of the home and the state,
the situation of regions and places, the names, kinds,
functions and causes of all things human and divine.”
[23] The reference in this passage is undoubtedly to the
difference between the colloquial Latin and that of the scholar.
The same consideration may perhaps explain the decidedly peculiar
comment of Ildephonsus on Isidore as a public speaker: “Nam
tantae jucunditatis affluentem copiam in eloquendo promeruit, ut
ubertas admiranda dicendi ex eo in stuporem verteret audientes,
ex quo audita bis, qui audisset non nisi repetita saepius
commendaret.” Migne, _P. L._ 82, col. 68.
[24] This passage is found in Cicero, _Academica Posteriora_ 1,
3, and is addressed to Varro.
From this characterization, as well as from the very brief life by
another contemporary, Bishop Ildephonsus of Toledo, it is evident
that Isidore impressed his own age chiefly as a writer and man of
learning. Both Braulio and Ildephonsus give lists of his works. That
of the former, who was Isidore’s pupil and correspondent, is the
fuller, and may be regarded as the more reliable. With its running
comment on the content of each title, it is as follows:
I have noted the following among those works [of
Isidore] that have come to my knowledge. He wrote
the _Differentiae_, in two books, in which he subtly
distinguished in meaning what was confused in usage; the
_Proœmia_, in one book, in which he stated briefly what
each book of the Holy Scriptures contains; the _De Ortu
et Obitu Patrum_, in one book, in which he describes with
sententious brevity the deeds of the Fathers, their worth
as well, and their death and burial; the _Officia_, in
two books, addressed to his brother Fulgentius, bishop of
Astigi, in which he described in his own words, following
the authority of the Fathers, why each and every thing is
done in the church of God; the _Synonyma_, in two books, in
which Reason appears and comforts the Soul, and arouses in
it the hope of obtaining pardon; the _De Natura Rerum_, in
one book, addressed to King Sisebut, in which he cleared
up certain obscurities about the elements by studying
the works of the church Fathers as well as those of the
philosophers; the _De Numeris_, in one book, in which he
touched on the science of arithmetic, on account of the
numbers found in the Scriptures; the _De Nominibus Legis
et Evangeliorum_, in one book, in which he revealed what
the names of persons [in the Bible] signify mystically;
the _De Haeresibus_, in one book, in which, following the
example of the Fathers, he collected scattered items with
what brevity he could; the _Sententiae_, in three books,
which he adorned with passages from the _Moralia_ of Pope
Gregory; the _Chronica_, in one book, from the beginning
of the world to his own time, put together with great
brevity; the _Contra Judaeos_, in two books, written at
the request of his sister Florentina, a nun, in which he
proved by evidences from the Law and the Prophets all that
the Catholic faith maintains; the _De Viris Illustribus_,
in one book, to which we are appending this list; one book
containing a rule for monks, which he tempered in a most
seemly way to the usage of his country and the spirits of
the weak; the _De Origine Gothorum et Regno Suevorum et
etiam Vandalorum Historia_, in one book; the _Quaestiones_,
in two books, in which the reader recognizes much material
from the old treatments; and the _Etymologiae_, a vast
work which he left unfinished, and which I have divided
into twenty books, since he wrote it at my request. And
whoever meditatively reads this work, which is in every
way profitable for wisdom, will not be ignorant of human
and divine matters. There is an exceeding elegance in his
treatment of the different arts in this work in which he
has gathered well-nigh everything that ought to be known.
There are also many slight works, and inscriptions in the
church of God, done by him with great grace.[25]
[25] Braulio’s list mentions a _Liber de Haeresibus_ which
does not appear in Arevalo’s edition, and fails to mention the
_Liber de Ordine Creaturarum_ and the _Epistolae_, which are
included. Ildephonsus’s list is still less complete, leaving out
the _Proœmia_, _Allegoriae_, _Numeri_, _Officia_, _Regula_, _De
Ordine Creaturarum_, _Chronicon_, _De Viris Illustribus_, and the
_Epistolae_.
For the present purpose, which is to ascertain something of the
intellectual outlook of the dark ages, the _Etymologiae_ is, of
course, of prime importance, since it contains in condensed
form nearly everything that Isidore has written elsewhere. A
passing attention, however, should be given to some of his other
works, especially those of the more secular sort, in which his
characteristic ideas are frequently developed with greater fullness
than in the _Etymologies_ itself. These include in particular the
_Differentiae_, the _De Natura Rerum_, the _Liber Numerorum_, the
_Allegoriae_, the _Sententiae_, and the _De Ordine Creaturarum_.
The _Differentiae_ is in two books, the first of which treats of
differences of words, and the second, of differences of things. The
plan of the first book is alphabetical; words are ranged in pairs and
distinguished from each other. Usually these words are synonyms, and
directions are given for their proper use; as, _populus_ and _plebs_,
_recens_ and _novus_, _religio_ and _fides_; but frequently words
of similar sound are distinguished; as, _vis_ and _bis_, _hora_ and
_ora_, _hos_ and _os_, _marem_ and _mare_. From these latter valuable
hints on the Latin pronunciation of the time may be obtained.
The second book, _On Differences of Things_, treats in a brief way
of such distinctions as those between _deus_ and _dominus_; between
the nativity of Christ and of man; between angels, demons, and men;
angelic and human wickedness; _animus_ and _anima_; the grace of God
and the will of man; the life of action and that of contemplation.
The introductory remarks of the _Differentiae_ are worth translating,
since they reveal one of the most marked characteristics of Isidore’s
thinking, the stress that he laid on words. They are as follows:
Many of the ancients sought to define the differences of
words, making some subtle distinction between word and
word. But the heathen poets disregarded the proper meanings
of words under the compulsion of metre. And so, beginning
with them, it became the custom for writers to use words
without proper discrimination. But although words seem
alike, still they are distinguished from one another by
having each an origin of its own.[26] Cato was the first
of the Latins to write on this subject,[27] after whose
example I have in part written myself of a very few, and
have in part taken them from the books of the writers.[28]
[26] Quadam propria origine.
[27] Cato did not himself write on synonyms. But Isidore probably
got this idea from the fact that synonyms were excerpted from his
writings by later grammarians. See Teuffel, _History of Roman
Literature_, 121, 6.
[28] Migne, _P. L._ 83, col. 9.
The _De Natura Rerum_[29] is a work of great importance for an
understanding of Isidore’s view of the physical universe. The
preface is of especial interest as giving some hints of his methods
of literary work and of his attitude toward pagan writers. It is
addressed to Sisebutus, who was king of the Visigoths from 612 to
620.[30] It runs as follows:
[29] There is a critical edition of _De Natura Rerum_ by G.
Becker, Berlin, 1857.
[30] Isidore describes this ruler in his _History of the Goths_
as _scientia literarum magna ex parte imbutus_. See Migne, _P. L._
83, col. 1073.
Although, as I know, you excel in talent and eloquence and
in the varied accomplishments of literature (_vario flore
literarum_), you are still anxious for greater attainment,
and you ask me to explain to you something of the nature
and causes of things. I, on my part, have run over the
works of earlier writers, and am not slow to satisfy your
interest and desire, describing in part the system of the
days and months; the goals of the year, as well, and the
changes of the seasons; the nature also of the elements;
the courses of the sun and moon, and the significance of
certain stars;[31] the signs of the weather, too, and of
the winds; and besides, the situation of the earth, and the
alternate tides of the sea. And setting forth all things
as they are written by the ancients, and especially in the
works of catholic writers, we have described them briefly.
For to know the nature of these things is not the wisdom of
superstition, if only they are considered with sound and
sober learning. Nay, if they were in every way far removed
from the search for the truth, that wise king would by no
means have said: “Ipse mihi dedit horum quae sunt scientiam
veram ut sciam dispositionem coeli et virtutes elementorum,
conversionum mutationes, et divisiones temporum, annorum
cursus et stellarum dispositiones.”
[31] “The higher meaning.” Compare _De Natura Rerum_, chapter
26, 4: “Per hunc Arcturum, id est, Septentrionem, Ecclesiam
septenaria virtute fulgentem intelligimus.”
Wherefore, beginning with the day, whose creation appears first
in the order of visible things, let us expound those remaining
matters as to which we know that certain men of the heathen and
of the church have opinions, setting down in some cases both
their thoughts and words, in order that the authority of the
very words may carry belief.
The general organization of the matter treated by Isidore in the _De
Natura Rerum_ is worth noticing. The preface quoted above indicates
that the order of treatment is to follow the order of creation.
The first topic, therefore, suggested by the creation of light,
we should expect to be the phenomenon of light. Instead of this
it is the day, in the calendar sense, that is described, with the
natural sequel of the week, month, and year as collections of days.
This section really constitutes a brief account of the elements of
chronology. Next created are the heavens; so we have next astronomy,
presented in a condensed form, to which are appended a few chapters
on meteorological matters, such as thunder, clouds, the rainbow,
wind, and finally pestilence, which comes in appropriately here as
being “a corruption of the air”. The topic next in order, following
the first chapter of Genesis, is the sea; and after that, the dry
land. It should be noted that this view of the physical universe
according to the order of its creation, corresponds roughly to the
analysis of matter into the four elements, fire, air, water, earth.
As will be shown later, such correspondences are an important factor
in the intellectual outlook of the time. This was the kind of mental
connection with which people were familiar.[32]
[32] See p. 64.
The _Liber Numerorum_ contains nothing arithmetical in the modern
sense of the word, in spite of Braulio’s statement that in it
Isidore “touched on the science of arithmetic”.[33] Its fuller title
is “The book of the numbers which occur in the Holy Scriptures”,
and the body of the book is taken up with the mystic significance
of each number from one to twenty, omitting seventeen, and also
of twenty-four, thirty, forty, forty-six, fifty, and sixty. The
method of treatment indicates an advanced mysticism of numbers. The
book is not so much an attempt to show the significance of numbers
occurring in particular connections, as it is a generalized guide
to their mystical interpretation, laying down rules to govern the
interpretation of each number, no matter where it occurs. It should
be remarked that this was really “the science of number” of the dark
ages, and that Braulio’s use of the term “arithmetic” as applying to
it was in accordance with the best usage of the time.[34]
[33] See p. 24.
[34] See p. 126.
The _Allegoriae_ is of a character similar to the _Liber Numerorum_.
It contains in brief form the principal allegories which were read
into the books of the Old and the New Testaments, and is evidently
meant to constitute a sort of reference book for Scriptural allegory.
It possesses little interest.
One of the most important of the writings of Isidore is the
_Sententiae_, in three books. It is a systematic treatise on
Christian doctrine and morals,[35] and is culled chiefly from the
_Moralia_ of Gregory the Great. As might be guessed from its source,
it is not a work of an enlightened character. However, while it is
largely taken up with the technicalities of Christian thinking, it is
frequently valuable as affording fuller and more specific statements
on some matters of interest than are found elsewhere in Isidore’s
works. Isidore and Gregory were in substantial agreement in their
attitude toward life, but there are indications that in some respects
Isidore was not quite as thorough-going as his model.[36]
[35] “La Suma Teológica del Siglo VII.” Menéndez y Pelayo,
_Estudios de Crítica Literaria_, vol. 1, p. 149.
[36] If Isidore had been as thorough-going as Gregory in
depreciating the secular he certainly would not have written the
_Etymologies_. His strongest anti-secular spirit is shown in the
chapter (13) _de libris gentilium_ of the _Sententiae_ where,
following Gregory, he denounces “all secular learning.” It is
pretty plain, however, that he is here following his model rather
than working out his own position, and in the last section of the
chapter he modifies what he has said by admitting that grammar
may “avail for life if only it is applied to better uses.”
Among Christian scholars from the beginning there had been a
desire to bring the traditional ideas of pagan cosmography into
subordination to the Christian scheme. This impulse was strongly,
though blindly, felt by Isidore, and it led to his several attempts
at a comprehensive account of the universe. Perhaps the most
interesting of these is the _De Ordine Creaturarum_, which differs
from the others by including the spiritual as well as the material
universe. The difference did not make for rationality, and in this
short work Isidore is seen at his scientific worst. As in the _De
Natura Rerum_, the dominating factors in the description of the
physical universe are the first chapter of Genesis and the theory of
the four elements.
That one of Isidore’s books which is of by far the greatest
importance for an understanding of the secular thought of the day, is
the _Etymologies_. This is a sort of dictionary or encyclopedia of
all knowledge.[37] As Braulio puts it, it contained “about all that
ought to be known”, and it may be taken as representing the widest
possible scope of secular knowledge that an orthodox Spaniard of the
dark ages could allow himself. Indeed, so hospitable an attitude
toward profane learning as Isidore displayed was unparalleled in his
own period, and was never surpassed throughout the middle ages.
[37] It is not of great length—three hundred and twenty-eight
quarto pages in the reprint of Arevalo’s edition in Migne,
_Patrologiae Latinae_, with about one-fifth of each page occupied
by footnotes.
The encyclopedic character of the _Etymologies_ may best be realized
by a general view of its contents. The titles of the twenty books
into which it is divided are as follows:
Etymologiarum Libri XX.
1. de grammatica.
2. de rhetorica et dialectica.
3. de quattuor disciplinis mathematicis.
4. de medicina.
5. de legibus et temporibus.
6. de libris et officiis ecclesiasticis.
7. de Deo, angelis, et fidelium ordinibus.
8. de ecclesia et sectis diversis.
9. de linguis, gentibus, regnis, militia, civibus, affinitatibus.
10. vocum certarum alphabetum.
11. de homine et portentis.
12. de animalibus.
13. de mundo et partibus.
14. de terra et partibus.
15. de aedificiis et agris.
16. de lapidibus et metallis.
17. de rebus rusticis.
18. de bello et ludis.
19. de navibus, aedificiis et vestibus.
20. de penu et instrumentis domesticis et rusticis.
To the modern reader, familiar with the names of only the modern
sciences, this series of titles, which includes an almost complete
list of the ancient sciences, may not be very illuminating. For
this reason it is perhaps allowable to translate them, where it
is possible to do so, into their modern equivalents. Thus we have
grammar (Bk. 1), rhetoric and logic (Bk. 2), arithmetic, geometry,
music, astronomy (Bk. 3), medicine (Bk. 4), law and chronology
(Bk. 5), theology (Bks. 6–8), human anatomy and physiology (Bk.
11), zoölogy (Bk. 12), cosmography and physical geography (Bks.
13–14), architecture and surveying (Bk. 15 and part of Bk. 19),
mineralogy (Bk. 16), agriculture (Bk. 17), military science (Bk.
18). This partial enumeration of the subjects treated in Isidore’s
_Etymologies_ forms an imposing array, and serves to explain
something of the importance of the work in the history of thought.
The secret of this inclusiveness lay, however, not in an expanded,
but in a contracted interest. Although Isidore is not surpassed in
comprehensiveness by any one of the line of Roman encyclopedists
who preceded him, in the quality of his thought and the extent of
his information he is inferior to them all. Secular knowledge had
suffered so much from attrition and decay that it could now be
summarized in its entirety by one man.
In spite of this it is very clear that if Isidore had treated these
topics with any degree of reference to the actual realities of his
own time, he would have left us a work of inestimable value. But he
did not do so; he drew, not upon life, but upon books for his ideas;
there was no first-hand observation. Moreover, the books which he
consulted were, as a rule, centuries old.[38] He tells us practically
nothing concerning his own period, in which so many important changes
were taking place. For example, there are repeated and detailed
references to the founding and early history of Rome, but no direct
allusion to the political and social changes brought about by the
disintegration of the Roman Empire; trifles attributed to a period
thirteen centuries earlier seemed to interest him more than the
mighty developments of his own epoch. Again, although he writes upon
law, he does not appear to have heard of the Justinian code issued
a century before;[39] and in his chronology he fails to mention the
proposal for a new era in chronology made also a century before his
time by Dionysius the Less.[40]
[38] See p. 46.
[39] See p. 165.
[40] See p. 175.
Throughout the _Etymologies_ there is a leading principle which
guides Isidore in his handling of the different subjects, namely,
his attitude toward words. His idea was that the road to knowledge
was by way of words, and further, that they were to be elucidated by
reference to their origin rather than to the things they stood for.
This, in itself, gave an antiquarian cast to his work. His confidence
in words really amounted to a belief, strong though perhaps somewhat
inarticulate, that words were transcendental entities. All he had to
do, he believed, was to clear away the misconceptions about their
meaning, and set it forth in its true original sense; then, of their
own accord, they would attach themselves to the general scheme of
truth. The task of first importance, therefore, in treating any
subject, was to seize upon the leading terms and trace them back
to the meanings which they had in the beginning, before they had
been contaminated by the false usage of the poets and other heathen
writers; thus the truth would be found. It was inevitable that, with
such a preconception, Isidore’s method in the _Etymologies_ should be
to treat each subject by the method of defining the terms belonging
to it.
It is plain, then, that Isidore used the dictionary method in the
_Etymologies_ not as a matter of convenience, but on philosophic
grounds. His unthinking confidence in words was, however,
ill-rewarded. It merely furnished a plan of treatment which evaded
consecutive thought, and made it possible for his work to be a mass
of contradictions, as it really is in very many points. Indeed, the
task of combining in one work the ill-digested ideas of the school of
Christian thought of his day and conflicting ideas borrowed from the
pagans would not have been possible except to a writer who did not
reason on his material, but was satisfied, as was Isidore, to give
the derivation and meaning of his terms in the blind trust that a
harmonious whole was thus constituted.
We have some information in regard to the production of the
_Etymologies_.[41] It was a work undertaken at the request of
Braulio, bishop of Saragossa, and it occupied the last years of
Isidore’s life. Parts of it, however—presumably those that could be
used as text-books—were in circulation before his death. Braulio
is our authority for the statement that the work as a whole was
left unfinished, and that he himself divided it into twenty books,
Isidore having made no division except that by subjects. As the brief
preface, addressed to Braulio, informs us, the work was the product
of long-continued reading, and contained verbatim extracts from
previous writers, as well as Isidore’s own comments.
[41] The circumstances under which the _Etymologies_ was written
are referred to in Braulio’s _Introduction_ and in the life of
Isidore by Ildephonsus (both in Migne, _P. L._ 82, col. 65–68);
in the correspondence between Braulio and Isidore (Migne, _P. L._
83, col. 910–914); and in the preface of the _Etymologies_.
CHAPTER II
ISIDORE’S RELATION TO PREVIOUS CULTURE
It has been shown that by a combination of circumstances,
geographical, political, and religious, Spain in Isidore’s day was
more fortunately situated than the remainder of western Europe.
Conditions there were ripe for an expansion of intellectual interest
beyond the narrow bounds to which the growth of religious prejudice
and the uncertainties of life had reduced it. In this expansion, in
which it was Isidore’s part to lead, it was inevitable that the chief
element should be an attempt to re-appropriate what had been lost
in the preceding centuries, and to adapt it in some measure to the
changed conditions of life and thought which had arisen.
Isidore’s relation to previous culture must, therefore, be examined.
It appears certain, although perhaps it cannot be proved, that he was
completely cut off from that world of thought, both Christian and
pagan, which was expressed in the Greek language. The tradition of
wide linguistic learning which was attached to him after his death
and has not been questioned until recent times, has really nothing
to rest upon.[42] Isidore himself does not claim a knowledge of
Greek, and he seems to have relied on translations for whatever his
works contain that is of Greek origin.[43] He nowhere quotes a Greek
sentence, and since the _Etymologies_ and others of his works are
practically made up of quotations, it seems strange that he did not
do so if he had resorted at all to Greek authors. The detached Greek
words, and the Greek phrases that occur rarely in his works, are
practically all given as derivations of Latin words; and when it is
remembered that such detached words and phrases had been extremely
common in Latin literature for centuries, it becomes plain that their
use by Isidore does not necessarily indicate that he had a reading
knowledge of Greek. His case is similar to that of many intelligent
persons of the present day who are able to trace words to Latin and
Greek roots without being able to read these languages.[44]
[42] The oft-repeated expression, _Latinis, Graecis et Hebraicis
litteris instructus_, found in the _Vita Sancti Isidori_,
deserves no attention. There is no historical basis for the
assertion that Isidore knew Greek or Hebrew. In view of the
time, it would be more reasonable to demand proof that he did
know them rather than that he did not. As to his knowledge of
Greek, see Dressel, _De Isidori Originum Fontibus_ in _Rivista di
Filologia_, vol. iii (1874–75), p. 216. The legend of Isidore’s
wide linguistic learning persists, however, even in the 11th
edition of the _Encyclopedia Britannica_. See Art. “Encyclopedia.”
[43] _Cf._ _Etym._, 2, 2, 1; 2, 25, 1 and 9; 3, 2. See pp. 111, 120,
125.
[44] The point has been made that Isidore shows his ignorance
of the Greek language by the mistakes he made in the use of
Greek words in his derivations. A few examples selected almost
at random may be useful in this connection, although it must be
remembered that the possibility of corruption in the text is
always great.
(a) 3, 22, 6. “Chordas autem dictas a corde.”
(b) 3, 22, 8. “Lyra dicta ἀπὸ τὸ λυρεῖν a varietate vocum.”
(c) 12, 1, 35. “Camur enim Graecum verbum curvum significat.”
Why Isidore in (a) does not give the natural derivation from
χορδή is not clear unless his knowledge of Greek was very
slight. λυρεῖν, in (b), is a form that is not found in Greek.
In (c) _camur_ is not a Greek word written in Roman letters, as
Isidore apparently thought. See Harper’s _Latin Dictionary_.
Compare also the form in which Aristotle’s περὶ ἑρμηνείας is
cited: _de perihermeniis_, _praefatio perihermeniarum_, _in libro
perihermeniarum_ (2, 27). Isidore’s Greek has given his editors
much trouble. See Migne, _Patr. Lat._ 81, 328, for comment upon
it by Vulcanius, who edited the _Etymologies_ in 1577.
What aspects, then, of the Latin literary tradition, which alone
has to be taken into account, are of importance as giving an
understanding of Isidore and his works?
To him, no doubt, the literary past seemed to be filled chiefly
with the succession of Christian writers from Tertullian to
Gregory the Great. These, starting out with a religion to which a
primitive cosmology was tenaciously attached, were really engaged
in amalgamating with it the less hostile items of the Graeco-Roman
intellectual inheritance. Men like Augustine were occupied in
de-secularizing the knowledge of their times; that is, in reshaping
it so that it should fill a subordinate place in the religious scheme
and so support that scheme, or at least not be in opposition to it.
Orosius’ feat of reshaping history so that it was subservient to
religion, is a good example of what was going on in every field.
Such secular knowledge as was allowed to exist was brought into
more or less close relation to the religious ideas that dominated
thinkers, and whatever could not be thus reshaped tended to be
rejected and forgotten. The nearest approach to an exception to this
is found in the subjects that had formed the educational curriculum
of the Greeks and Romans. These offered robust opposition to
de-secularization; and though they were attenuated to almost nothing,
they succeeded in maintaining their separate existence. This process
of de-secularization was about complete by the time of Cassiodorus;
in him we have an intellectual outlook that recognizes, outside of
the religious scheme, only the seven liberal arts.[45]
[45] See p. 83.
On the other hand, there was the pagan literary tradition, which
owed all the value that it possessed to contact with Greek culture.
Except in the field of legal social relations, the Romans made no
original contribution to civilization. They had no proper curiosity
concerning the universe, and so could do no thinking of vital
importance concerning it. Anything approaching scientific thought in
the modern sense was absolutely unknown to them. Therefore, while
most of their writers were prosaic and secular in their habit of
mind and free from mystical leanings, the intellectual possession of
the Romans was not of the close-knit rational character which would
have enabled them to resist successfully the avalanche of Oriental
superstition which descended on the Western world in the centuries
after the conquest of the East.[46] Secular thought in the Roman
civilization was thus doomed to undergo a process of decay.
[46] For a brief account of Oriental influences in Roman
religion, see Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century of the
Western Empire_ (London, 1898), ch. 4.
The branch of pagan Latin literature which throws most light on
the character of Isidore’s _Etymologies_ is the succession of
encyclopedias which constituted so conspicuous a feature of literary
history under the Empire. The chief writers in this field, in order
of time, were Varro, Verrius Flaccus, the elder Pliny, Suetonius,
Pompeius Festus, and Nonius Marcellus. While the motives and causes
that impelled them to their task were doubtless many and intricate,
consideration of a few paramount influences by which they were
affected will explain much of the character of their work, and
will indicate the origin of the main peculiarities of Isidore’s
encyclopaedia.
In the first place, it is in these encyclopaedias, which profess to
cover the fields of literary scholarship and natural science, that
the intellectual decline most clearly reveals itself. They may be
regarded on the one hand as representing the successive stages in the
decay of the intellectual inheritance, and in them we may trace the
way in which the array of ordered knowledge was steadily losing in
both content and quality. Viewed, on the other hand, as a totality,
and considered with reference to the impulses that led to their
production, they are again symptomatic of degeneration; they stand
as the most thorough-going example of the epitomizing tendency which
permeated Roman thought and which evidenced its decline. Written as
they were by the intellectual leaders of their day, they represent
a curious reversal of the modern situation, since where the leaders
in the modern expansion of thought have devoted themselves to
specialized inquiry, those of the Roman empire gave their attention
to compiling and arranging the whole body of knowledge rather than to
extending it at any point. The conditions of their time drove them to
_generalize_ rather than to specialize.
These encyclopedias are pervaded by a tone of literary scholarship.
It was a peculiarity of Latin literature that philology was almost
as old as poetry. The Roman poetry was a mere reflection of the
Greek, the poets invariably knowing Greek and either translating
from it or following Greek models. Poetry so produced was inevitably
artificial and in need of elucidation. These conditions favored the
rapid growth of criticism; grammar, word derivation, philology,
antiquarian history were favorite studies from early times, engaging
the attention even of leading Romans. There was even a sort of
literary science; for example, Varro’s geography, which was meant to
include the geographical allusions of the poets. A mass of scholarly
lore was thus accumulated and this soon became unwieldy. It was the
function of Varro and Verrius Flaccus especially to reduce this mass
to order and to bring it into such shape that it could be referred
to readily. To effect the latter object Verrius Flaccus introduced
the method of alphabetical arrangement, using this for the first
time in his great work _De Verborum Significatu_. These two writers
gave, then, in their encyclopedic works a survey of the apparatus for
literary criticism, including a sort of literary science, and the
whole succession of encyclopedic writers was greatly influenced by
the example which they set.
In the works of Pliny and Suetonius, who followed Varro and Verrius
Flaccus, natural science is brought into the foreground. The change,
however, was but slight. The natural science of the Romans was
anything but scientific; neither experiment, systematic observation,
nor research had ever been practiced among them. Their science was
an affair of books and was of an authoritative character. Even
the poets were looked upon as possessing scientific knowledge and
were seriously quoted to maintain scientific theses. There was no
real distinction between the natural and philological sciences of
the time, and therefore the encyclopedia of literary criticism was
closely allied with that of natural science.
As illustrating the character of the encyclopedias it is worth while
to notice more fully the method by which they were produced. As
has been suggested, Roman scholars and scientists under the Empire
were little more than note-takers. Pliny the Elder is the typical
example of this tendency; a student of extraordinary diligence, his
study consisted in reading, making extracts, and compiling them.
Such was the origin of his _Natural History_. He left to his nephew,
in addition, the legacy of “one hundred and sixty common-place
books, written on both sides of the scroll and in very small
hand-writing”.[47] The full effect of the tendency thus illustrated
cannot be perceived, however, if we think merely of the process
as it was carried on by Pliny, for he consulted chiefly original
works; when, later, extracts began to be made from works that
were themselves compiled from extracts, when epitomes began to be
epitomized, a state of confusion and feebleness of thought inevitably
ensued. This is the condition which is exemplified in the two latest
of the Roman encyclopedists, Pompeius Festus and Nonius Marcellus,
and the tradition is continued in Isidore.
[47] Younger Pliny, _Epistles_, 3, 5.
The body of knowledge gathered together under all these influences
possessed little of a positive nature. It was informed by no general
ideas of a striking character and it entirely lacked the element
of reasoned proof. Since its science was a science of authority,
it was easy for the Christian writers to modify it by substituting
the authority of the Scriptures for that of pagan writers. In fact,
the encyclopedias furnished to the church fathers secular knowledge
in a particularly convenient and unobjectionable form. Augustine,
especially, made great use of Varro. It can be seen that this
literary form was better adapted than any other to pass with unbroken
continuity from ancient into medieval literature.
It is then to the succession of Roman encyclopedists that we
must go to explain the method, spirit, and content of Isidore’s
_Etymologies_. A comparison of the organization of the material
and of the sub-titles of Isidore’s work with those of the Roman
writers,[48] so far as they are known, shows the extent of his
indebtedness. The literary and philological flavor, the stress on
word history and derivation, the pseudo-science based on authority,
the conspicuous tendency to confusion and feebleness of thought, the
habit of heedless copying that we find in an aggravated form in the
_Etymologies_, all these are inherited characteristics that betray
the origin of the work.
[48] An outline of the contents of leading encyclopædic works, so
far as known, is here given for purposes of comparison with the
contents of the _Etymologies_.
Marcus Terentius Varro, 116–28 B.C.
_Antiquitatum Rerum Humanarum et Divinarum Libri XLI._
_Rerum Humanarum Libri XXV._
Bk. 1. Introduction.
2–7. de hominibus.
8–13. de locis (8, Rome; 11, Italy; 12, remaining Europe;
13, Asia and Africa).
14–19. de temporibus (14, introduction; 15, de saeculis; 16, de
lustris; 17, de annis; 18, de mensibus; 19, de diebus).
20–25. de rebus.
_Rerum Divinarum Libri XVI._
Bk. 26. Introduction.
27–29. de hominibus.
30–32. de locis.
33–35. de temporibus.
36–38. de rebus.
38–41. de diis.
This encyclopedia stands for the interests of the scholarly
antiquarian rather than for those of the man interested in
natural science. The work itself is lost, but the nature of its
contents is fairly well known, thanks to St. Augustine. For
further information regarding Varro’s encyclopedic works, see
Boissier, _Étude sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Varron_, Paris,
1861; and _Geschichte der Römischen Literatur_, Martin Schanz,
München, 1909, Erster Teil, Zweite Hälfte, 187, 188.
Verrius Flaccus (flourished under Augustus).
_De Verborum Significatu._
The work itself has been lost, as also the greater part of the
abbreviation of it to twenty books made by Pompeius Festus before
200 A.D. Festus’s abridgement was further abridged by Paulus
Diaconus in Charlemagne’s time. It is regarded as certain that
material in Isidore’s _Etymologies_ came directly or indirectly
from the _De Verborum Significatu_. Nettleship, _Lectures and
Essays_, Oxford, 1885.
Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.).
_Naturalis Historiae Libri XXXVII._
Bk. 1. Contents and lists of sources.
2. Description of the universe.
3–6. Geography.
7. Man.
8. Animals.
9. Fishes.
10. Birds.
11. Insects.
12–27. Trees, shrubs, plants, including medicinal botany.
27–32. Medicinal zoölogy.
32–37. Metals, colors, stones, and gems, especially from the
artist’s point of view.
Dressel, _De Isidori Originum Fontibus_, pp. 243–247, in _Rivista
di filologia_, 1874–75, gives an incomplete list of Isidore’s
borrowings from Pliny. He points out Isidore’s carelessness in
borrowing in one case where he shows that what Pliny tells us of
the _echineis_, Isidore hastily assigns to the _mullus_. _Cf._
Isidore 12, 6, 25, with Pliny, 32; 8, 9, 70, 138–39.
Suetonius Tranquillus (last of first century and first half of second).
_Prata._
This work is lost. It was an encyclopedia in at least ten books,
of which the titles of some books and fragments have been
recovered, a large portion of them from the _Etymologies_ and
_De Natura Rerum_. Among the subjects were _leges_, _mores_,
_tempora_, _mundus_, _animantium naturae_. Isidore quotes
Suetonius twice. See A. Reifferscheid, _C. Suetoni Tranquilli
Reliquiae_, Leipzig, 1860, pp. 155 _et seq._, and Schanz,
_Geschichte der Römischen Literatur_, Dritter Teil, pp. 47–66.
Nonius Marcellus (early fourth century).
_Compendiosa Doctrina ad Filium._
Bks. 1–12. Grammatical in character, including one book, (5)
_De Differentia Similium Significationum_.
13. de genere navigiorum.
14. de genere vestimentorum.
15. de genere vasorum vel poculorum.
16. de genere calciamentorum.
17. de coloribus vestimentorum.
18. de genere ciborum vel potorum.
19. de genere armorum.
20. de propinquitatum vocabulis.
This work is, in part, in dictionary form (Bks. 1–6). There is
much resemblance between passages in Nonius Marcellus and in the
_Etymologies_, which Nettleship believes to be due to the use of
a common source. Nettleship, “Nonius Marcellus,” in _Lectures and
Essays_. Lindsay, _Nonius Marcellus_, Oxford, 1901.
But though the example which was furnished by the Roman
encyclopedists was by far the strongest literary factor which
influenced Isidore in the composition of the _Etymologies_, it was
not the only one of importance. A minor type of encyclopedia, that
of education, occurs in Latin literature. The first example of it is
furnished by Varro in his _Disciplinarum Libri IX_;[49] this work
had, however, disappeared before Isidore’s time. Varro found no
successor until the fourth century, when Martianus Capella wrote his
account of the seven liberal arts,[50] giving thus a comprehensive
treatment of the subject-matter of education. He was followed in
the sixth century by Cassiodorus, whose _De Artibus et Disciplinis
Liberalium Litterarum_ Isidore certainly had before him when he
wrote the account of the seven liberal arts which occupies the first
three books of the _Etymologies_. Isidore’s work therefore appears
to be a fusion of the minor encyclopedia of education and the major
encyclopedia of all knowledge.
[49] _Disciplinarum Libri IX._ Bk. 1. Grammar. Bk. 2. Dialectic.
Bk. 3. Rhetoric. Bk. 4. Geometry. Bk. 5. Arithmetic. Bk. 6.
Astrology. Bk. 7. Music. Bk. 8. Medicine. Bk. 9. Architecture.
(Conjectural list of disciplines given by Ritschl, _Opusc._ 3, p.
312.)
[50] Martianus Capella, _De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_.
We are now in a position to form a clearer judgment of the
personal element which Isidore contributed to the composition of
the _Etymologies_. It is worth while in the first place to point
out that the essentials of the work are derived from the pagan,
not the Christian, side of the Latin tradition. This in itself
showed a commendable initiative, considering that it was the age of
Gregory the Great. It was Isidore’s function to adjust the secular
learning thus obtained to a new and lower level of thought and to
the Christian philosophy of the time. The way in which this was
accomplished constitutes the only original element in the treatment
of the subject-matter. The adjustment was secured partly by an
amalgamation of the pseudo-science of the church fathers with that
found in the encyclopedic writings, and by the inclusion of the three
books which deal with religious matters, but chiefly by the new
spirit in which secular knowledge was conceived. The works of Pliny
and Suetonius were surveys of what was known; that of Isidore was a
survey of “what ought to be known”. For his age secular knowledge was
valuable, not for itself, but for edification. In theory, at least,
it was Isidore’s notion that such knowledge might “avail for life if
applied to the better uses”.
The question of the actual sources used by Isidore in the
_Etymologies_ and in his other works of a secular nature is a
difficult one. The literary tradition of the period preceding
his, which was mainly a time of compiling and epitomizing, is so
complicated and confused that the student cannot be certain, when
he finds the exact wording of a writer in the work of another who
preceded him, that the former has borrowed from the latter. Both may
have borrowed from another source or even from two different sources
identical as respects the passage in question.[51] In the task of
ascertaining Isidore’s sources the difficulties already enumerated
are increased by the loss of important works upon which it is pretty
certain that he drew,[52] and also by his habit of quoting the
sources quoted by his authorities as if they were his own.[53]
[51] See p. 91.
[52] _E.g._ Suetonius, _Prata_.
[53] See pp. 106, 114.
However, although there has been no thorough-going investigation of
this question, much has been accomplished by students interested in
sections of the _Etymologies_, such, for example, as those on music
and law. Classical scholars also have investigated his sources in a
more general way, but their efforts have been not so much directed
to the elucidation of Isidore himself as inspired by the hope of
recovering some fragments of the classical authors. The varying
conclusions reached show that no great certainty has been attained,
but it is possible to give a tentative list of sources which will
indicate roughly the nature of the influences which contributed to
form Isidore’s ideas.[54] It seems probable that his working library
contained works of the following authors: Lactantius, Tertullian,
Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Orosius, Cassiodorus, Suetonius, Pliny,
Solinus, Hyginus, Sallust, Hegesippus, the abridger of Vitruvius,
Servius, the scholia on Lucan, and Justinus.
[54] Dressel, _De Isidori Originum Fontibus_, in _Rivista di
filologia_, 1874–75, discusses Isidore’s method of using his
sources, and gives a list of writers and works to which he
traces passages in Isidore, giving usually a list of the latter.
The writers include Sallust, Justinus, Hegesippus, Orosius,
Pliny, Solinus, the abridger of Vitruvius, Lucretius, Hyginus,
Cassiodorus, Servius, the scholia on Lucan.
Nettleship, _Lectures and Essays_, Oxford, 1885, devotes
attention chiefly to the encyclopedic tradition, treating of
Verrius Flaccus, the _Glosses_ of Placidus, the _Noctes Atticae_
of Gellius, Nonius Marcellus, and Servius. He treats of Isidore
only by the way, and lays stress on his debt to Suetonius,
_Prata_, and Verrius Flaccus, _De Verborum Significatu_. See pp.
330–336, and for opinion of Latin encyclopedic tradition, pp.
283–285.
Reifferscheid, _Suetoni Reliquiae_, recovers several passages of
Suetonius from Isidore.
C. Schmidt, _Quaestiones de musicis scriptoribus Romanis imprimis
de Cassiodoro et Isidoro_, traces Isidore’s _De Musica_ to an
unknown Christian writer.
G. Becker, editor of _De Natura Rerum_, Berlin, 1857, discusses
the sources of that work especially, tracing it to Suetonius,
Solinus, and Hyginus on the one hand, and Ambrose, Clement,
Augustine, on the other.
H. Hertzberg, _Die Chroniken des Isidors, Forsch. zur deutschen
Geschichte_, 15, 280 _et seq._, discusses the sources of
Isidore’s _Chronica_, which he traces to Jerome’s translation of
Eusebius with later continuations. The same writer also treats of
the sources of _The History of the Goths_ (Gött. 1874).
H. Usener, _Anecdoton Holderi_ (Bonn, 1877), p. 65, asserts that
Isidore did not use Cassiodorus’ encyclopedia of the liberal
arts.
M. Conrat, _Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des Römischen
Rechts im früheren Mittelalter_ (Leipzig, 1891) treats of the
sources of Isidore’s _Leges_, pp. 151 _et seq._; as also Voigt,
_Jus Naturale_, 1, 576 _et seq._, and Dirksen, _Hinterlassene
Schriften_, 1, 185 _et seq._
Arno Schenk, _De Isidori Hispalensis de natura rerum libelli
fontibus_, Jena, 1909, finds that Isidore wrote the _De Natura
Rerum_ and the _Etymologiae_ from his collection of excerpts
which is drawn from Ambrose, Clement, Augustine, Jerome, the
scholiast on Germanicus, Hyginus, Servius, the scholia on Lucan,
Solinus, Suetonius, and a number of the Roman poets. This
dissertation is largely meant to show that Reifferscheid in
his work, _Suetoni Reliquiae_, had gone too far in attributing
passages found in Isidore to Suetonius.
M. Klussman, _Excerpta Tertullianea in Isidori Hispalensis
Etymologiis_, Hamburg, 1892, gives a list of nearly seventy
passages borrowed by Isidore from Tertullian, at the same time
pointing out that credit for the passages is nowhere assigned to
the latter.
CHAPTER III
ISIDORE’S WORLD VIEW
Is it possible to ascertain from the writings of Isidore what was the
general view of the universe and the attitude toward life held in the
sixth and seventh centuries?
On first thought it seems doubtful. As has been indicated, his works,
and especially the _Etymologies_, form a mosaic of borrowings, whose
ultimate origin is to be traced to unnumbered writings in both Greek
and Latin, and in both Christian and pagan literatures. We find side
by side in Isidore the ideas of Aristotle, Nicomachus, Porphyry,
Varro, Cicero, Suetonius, Moses, St. Paul, Origen, and Augustine,
to mention only a few; and these ideas, although as a rule they
have undergone degeneration, are sometimes in the original words
or a close rendering of them. If viewed closely they are a mass of
confusion and incoherence. This is natural; such eclectism as had
existed for centuries in the Roman, pagan and Christian, systems
of thought is not compatible with consistency. Incoherence in the
intellectual possession was inevitable; equally inevitable was an
increasing indifference to incoherence and even inability to perceive
it. The words of a writer of such a period must therefore not be
pressed too hard. Too close an investigation would land the inquirer
in hopeless confusion.
Furthermore, even in writers far more consecutive in their thinking
than Isidore, there are often fundamental preconceptions which are
naively taken for granted, and which, although unstated, serve as
points around which to mass ideas. If the reader does not happen to
approach the subject with the same preconceptions, a misapprehension
is likely to result. It is the business of the critic to grasp
these preconceptions and place the reader on the same plane of
understanding, as it were, so that he can follow the meaning as
it lay in the mind of the writer. Sometimes this undertaking is
possible, but in the case of a writer like Isidore, whose ideas are
often hazy and whose work is a conglomerate of ten centuries, it may
easily be impossible.[55]
[55] For example, Isidore evidently had a theory as to the
origin and value of language, but he does not state it anywhere,
although innumerable times he approaches the subject in an
oblique sort of way. See p. 99. Again, he never tells us whether
he believed the earth to be flat or spherical; he uses at one
time language that belongs to the spherical earth, and at
another, language that can have sense only if he believed the
earth to be flat. Here we have not only no definite statement
of the conception—although it must have existed in his mind,
considering the frequency of his writings on the physical
universe—but we have in addition the puzzle of deciding which set
of expressions used in this connection was meaningless to him.
See pp. 50–54 and Appendix.
However, it must be remembered that such an absence of an acute
self-consciousness as is indicated in the condition just described,
is exactly the thing that enables men to perform feats of an
astonishing character in constructing a world-philosophy, if
perchance they have a taste in that direction. Their minds, not
being irritated or roused by any perception of inconsistency, rest
happy in the conviction that all is explained, and remain oblivious
of that sense of mystery which forms the background of modern
scientific thought. As tested from this point of view the medieval
period afforded the conditions for a complacent and authoritative
world-philosophy, such as in fact it did possess.
The difficulties in ascertaining the world view held by Isidore are,
then, considerable; but, since he was the leading representative of
the intellect of the dark ages, and the only important writer on
secular subjects in two centuries of western European history, the
attempt to ascertain it seems worth while. In making this attempt,
however, it is necessary to keep these difficulties of interpretation
in mind; the danger is that we shall lay too much stress on the minor
inconsistencies which he probably was not aware of, and so fail to
see that large general consistency which, because of his lack of
critical sensitiveness, he was able to believe that he found.
Isidore’s physical universe[56] in its form is geocentric, and is
bounded by a revolving sphere which he believed to be made of fire,
and in which the stars are fixed. The question of the number of
spheres he treats in an inconsistent way, sometimes speaking of seven
concentric inner spheres, and sometimes of only one.[57] The relative
size of sun, earth, and moon is accurately given—though, it appears,
not without misgiving[58]—and also the cause of eclipses of both the
sun and the moon.
[56] For Isidore’s physical universe in general, see _Etym._ 3,
24–71; 13, 4–6; _De Natura Rerum_, 9–27. See pp. 142–154, 234,
243.
[57] Isidore seems to have kept an open mind on the question
of the number of the spheres. He says: _de numero eorum_
[_coelorum_] _nihil sibi praesumat humana temeritas_. _D. N. R._,
13, 1.
[58] See 2, 24, 2 (p. 116).
The subject of greatest interest in this connection is, of course,
the question whether or not Isidore believed in the sphericity of the
earth. It is maintained by some authorities that this notion was not
lost at any time during the middle ages. Isidore certainly believed
that the heavens constituted a sphere or spheres, and that the sun
and moon revolved in circles around the earth. He states the theory
of the zones correctly in two passages,[59] applying it, however,
not to the spherical earth but to the sphere of the heavens. On the
other hand, he frequently gives expression to notions belonging to a
primitive cosmology.[60] The suspicion is aroused, therefore, that
when he was stating astronomical ideas, he was usually simply copying
what perhaps he did not understand. A passage that seems to settle
the matter is found in _De Natura Rerum_. It shows that the fact that
he could state such a theory as that of the zones correctly, is no
proof that he understood its application to the earth. A translation
of the passage follows:
[59] 3, 44; 13, 6. See p. 146.
[60] See Appendix I.
In describing the universe the philosophers mention five
circles, which the Greeks call παράλληλοι that is, zones,
into which the circle of lands is divided.... Now let us
imagine them after the manner of our right hand, so that
the thumb may be called the Arctic circle, uninhabitable
because of cold; the second, the summer circle, temperate,
inhabitable; the middle (finger), the equinoctial
(_Isemerinus_) circle, torrid, uninhabitable; the fourth,
the winter circle, temperate, inhabitable; the fifth, the
Antarctic circle, frigid, uninhabitable. The first of these
is the northern, the second, the solstitial, the third,
the equinoctial, the fourth, the winter circle, the fifth,
the southern.... The following figure shows the divisions
of these circles. (Fig. 1.) Now, the equinoctial circle is
uninhabitable because the sun, speeding through the midst
of the heaven, creates an excessive heat in these places,
so that, on account of the parched earth, crops do not grow
there, nor are men permitted to dwell there, because of
the great heat. But, on the other hand, the northern and
southern circles, _being adjacent to each other_, are not
inhabited, for the reason that they are situated far from
the sun’s course, and are rendered waste by the great rigor
of the climate and the icy blasts of the winds. But the
circle of the summer solstice which is situated _in the
east, between the northern circle and the circle of heat_,
and the circle which is placed _in the west, between the
circle of the heat and the southern circle_, are temperate
for the reason that they derive cold from one circle, heat
from the other. Of which Virgil [says]:
“Between these and the middle [zone] two are granted to
wretched mortals by the gift of the gods.”
Now, they who are next to the torrid circle are the
Ethiopians, who are burnt by excessive heat.[61]
[61] De Quinque Circulis.
“In definitione autem mundi circulos aiunt philosophi quinque,
quos Graeci παραλλήλους—id est, zonas—vocant, in quibus dividitur
orbis terrae.... Sed fingamus eas in modum dextrae nostrae, ut
pollex sit circulus ἀρτικός, frigore inhabitabilis; secundus
circulus θερινὸς, temperatus habitabilis; medius circulus
ἰσημερινὸς, torridus inhabitabilis; quartus circulus χειμερινὸς,
temperatus habitabilis; quintus circulus ἀνταρτικὸς, frigidus
inhabitabilis. Horum primus septentrionalis est, secundas
solstitialis, tertius aequinoctialis, quartus hiemalis, quintus
australis....
“Quorum circulorum divisiones talis distinguit figura (Fig. I).
3. “Sed ideo aequinoctialis circulus inhabitabilis est, quia
sol per medium coelum currens nimium his locis facit fervorem,
ita ut nec fruges ibi nascantur propter exustam terram, nec
homines propter nimium ardorem habitare permittantur. At contra
_septentrionalis et australis circuli sibi conjuncti_ idcirco non
habitantur, quia a cursu solis longe positi sunt, nimioque caeli
rigore ventorumque gelidis flatibus contabescunt.
4. “Solstitialis vero circulus, qui _in Oriente inter
septentrionalem et aestivum_ est collocatus, vel iste qui
_in Occidente inter aestivum et australem_ est positus, ideo
temperati sunt eo quod ex uno circulo rigorem, ex altero calorem
habeant. De quibus Virgilius:
“Has inter mediamque duae mortalibus aegris
Munere concessae divum.
“Sed qui proximi sunt aestivo circulo, ipsi sunt Aethiopes nimio
calore perusti.” _De Natura Rerum_, ch. x.
[Illustration: FIG. 1]
The explanation of the passage and of the figure which illustrates it
seems to be that Isidore accepted the terminology of the spherical
earth from Hyginus[62] without taking the time to understand it—if
indeed he had the ability to do so—and applied it without compunction
to the flat earth. He evidently thought that _zona_ and _circulus_
were interchangeable terms,[63] and his “circles” did not run around
the circumference of a spherical earth, but lay flat on a flat earth,
where they filled with sufficient completeness the _orbis terrae_
or circle of the land.[64] The adjustment of the two conflicting
theories was extremely crude, since it involved placing the arctic
and antarctic circles side by side, and the two temperate circles one
in the east and one in the west.
[62] The two passages in which Isidore states the theory of
the zones correctly are from Hyginus, _Poeticon Astronomicon_
(_Mythographi Latini_, ed. Muncker, Amsterdam, 1691). _Cf._ p.
146.
[63] For a similar confusion of _sphaera_ and _circulus_ see
Appendix I.
[64] That this was Isidore’s conception of the land surface is
evident from many passages (_e.g._, see p. 244) and is made
certain from his map (p. 5). This map is found in an old edition
of the _Etymologies_ (_Libri Etymologiarum ... et de Summo Bono
Libri III_, Venetiis, 1483) in the library of Union Theological
Seminary.
By such a blunder as this may be measured the stagnation of the
secular thought of the time. Of Greek science only remnants were in
existence, and these were regarded with indifference. Writers like
Isidore might use them, but they did not hesitate to mangle and
distort them. Moreover they were given only second place even in the
science of the day; the first place was held by the notions of the
natural world expressed in the Scriptures. Each one of these, no
matter how primitive or how figurative, had to be taken seriously
into account and given its proper weight in building up the general
scheme. In this intellectual activity Isidore is more at home than
when he is handling the ideas of the pagans, as may be perceived
from his discussion of the shape of the firmament: “As to its shape,
whether it covers the earth from above like a plate, or like an
egg-shell shuts the whole creation in on every side, thinkers take
opposite views. For the mention the Psalmist makes of this when
he says: _Extendas coelum sicut pellem_,[65] does not conflict
with either opinion, since when his own skin covers any animal, it
envelopes equally every part all around, and when it is removed from
the flesh and stretched out, there is no doubt that it can form a
chamber either rectangular or curved.”[66]
[65] _Cf. Psalms_, 104, 2.
[66] _De Ordine Creaturarum Liber_, 4, 1–2.
The vastness of the physical universe is an idea not presented in
Isidore’s writings. It was for his mind really a small universe, and
one limited sharply by definite boundaries both in time and space.
It had begun at the creation, its matter being constituted at that
time out of nothing, and it was to have an end as sharply marked. It
extended from the earth to the sphere of the heavens which revolved
about the earth, and what was beyond scarcely appears even as a
question. It was a universe in which high winds might, and sometimes
did, dislodge particles from the fiery heavens;[67] and in which the
sun approached so close to some of the inhabitants of the earth as to
scorch them.[68] In truth, Isidore’s universe was reduced to rather
stifling proportions.
[67] 3, 71, 3.
[68] _De Natura Rerum_, ch. 10.
A fundamental part of Isidore’s world-philosophy was his view of the
constitution of matter. This is closely bound up with his conception
of the form of the universe, and it is also the most important of his
ideas in the field of natural science.
He believed in the existence of the four elements, earth, air, fire,
and water,[69] and that they were the visible manifestations of one
underlying matter.[70] They were not mutually exclusive but “all
elements existed in all”, and it was possible for one element to be
transmuted into another. Their properties were not invariable, but
as a rule fire is spoken of as hot and dry; air, hot and wet; water,
wet and cold; earth, cold and dry. It will be observed that each
successive pair of elements had a common quality: thus fire and air
shared the quality of ‘hot’; air and water, that of ‘wet’; water
and earth, that of ‘cold’; earth and fire, that of ‘dry’. It was
by the aid of these common qualities, which served as means, that
the elements could be more easily thought of as passing into each
other.[71]
[69] For a clear account of the theory of the four elements
in medieval thought see _Les Quatre Elements_, J. Leminne in
_Mémoires couronées par l’Académie Royale de Belgique_, v. 65,
Bruxelles, 1903.
[70] _Etym._, 13, 3. _Cf. D. N. R._, 11.
[71] The theory of atoms is also stated by Isidore. See p. 235.
It is not used, however, and is not fully stated. The part played
in the theory by atoms of different sizes is not mentioned, and
although “the void” is mentioned, its importance is not brought
out.
It should be remarked that the general idea is the same as that of
modern chemistry in so far as it assumes that there are elements and
attributes properties to them. The difference is that the modern
chemist insists that the properties shall be fixed for each element,
while Isidore has no consciousness of such a necessity. For instance,
in a chapter of _De Natura Rerum_ he attributes two separate sets
of properties to the four elements, without realizing at all the
confusion of such a procedure. Again, from the point of view of the
best ancient conception of the four elements, Isidore is equally at
fault. For Aristotle the names given to them had been merely labels.
He perceived in the natural world two significant sets of opposing
qualities, namely, hot and cold, wet and dry. These sets of opposing
qualities interpenetrated one another: the result was four possible
combinations, namely, hot and dry, hot and wet, cold and wet, cold
and dry. His elements designated merely these combinations and were
nothing more than conventional names for them. Isidore, however, took
the names of the elements in a literal sense.[72] The label itself
had become important, while what stood behind it and gave it its
value was regarded as almost meaningless. What has happened here is
typical of the whole development of ancient thought down to Isidore’s
time.
[72] See Art. “Chemistry,” _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 11th
edition.
Of Aristotle’s conception of a fifth element, the _quinta essentia_,
or ether, superior to the others and permeating them, Isidore shows
merely a trace. He says in one passage that “ether is the place
where the stars are, and it signifies that fire which is separated on
high from all the universe”.[73] He offers also another definition in
which he confuses three of the elements of Aristotle: “Ether is the
upper, fiery air”.[74]
[73] _Etym._, 13, 5, 1.
[74] _Diff._, 1, 82.
The theory of the four elements, as has been already indicated, has
a cosmological bearing. In the universe at large the elements were
thought of as tending to arrange themselves in strata according to
weight. Isidore says it is proved “that earth is the heaviest of all
things created; and therefore, they say, it holds the lowest place in
the creation, because by nature nothing but itself can support it.
And we perceive that water is heavier than air in proportion as it is
lighter than earth.... Fire, too, is apprehended to be in its nature
above air, which is easily proved even in the case of fire that burns
in earthy substance, since as soon as it is kindled, it directs its
flame toward the upper spaces which are above the air, where there is
an abundance of it, and where it has its place.”[75]
[75] _De Ordine Creat. Liber_, 4, 5–6. _Cf. D. N. R._, 11. The
problem of “the waters above the firmament,” which occupied the
minds of the church fathers so much, and which is at variance
with the cosmological side of the theory of the four elements,
Isidore seems inclined to settle by regarding it as a miracle.
_Cf. D. N. R._, 14.
Thus the physical universe consists of the four kinds of matter,
stratified according to the principle of weight. The notion was
one in frequent use,[76] and it was brought into relation with
animate existence by assigning to each of the four strata a peculiar
population. Thus the fiery heavens were occupied by angels; the air,
by birds and demons; the water, by fishes; the earth, by man and
other animals.[77]
[76] In the _De Natura Rerum_ and the _De Ordine Creaturarum_, as
well as in Books XIII-XIV of the _Etymologies_, Isidore follows
the order of the four elements in describing the universe. His
fidelity to this order, as well as the variations of emphasis and
of minor treatment which he introduced into it, are of interest.
These may be exhibited in parallel form as follows:
_Etymologies_ _De Natura _De Ordine
_Books xiii and xiv_ Rerum_ Creaturarum_
xiii, chaps. 4–6 chaps. 9–27 4–6
Fire Astronomy Astronomy, fuller Astronomy, briefer,
(the with an account of
heavens) the angels, the
inhabitants of the
element of fire
xiii, 7–12 28–39 7–8
Air The atmosphere and The same, fuller The same, briefer,
meteorological with an account of
phenomena demons, the
inhabitants of
the air
xiii, 12–22 40–44 9
Water A description of The same in very The same, briefer,
water with a much abbreviated without the
geography form geography
of the water
surface of the
earth
xiv, 1–9 45–48 10–15
Earth A description of the The same in very The same, briefer than
dry land with a much abbreviated in _De Natura Rerum_,
geography of the form with an account
land surface of of men as the
the earth inhabitants of this
element, their
nature and future
life
This table indicates the great stress Isidore laid upon the
cosmological side of the theory of the four elements, as well
as his tendency to use his large general ideas in relating the
individual branches of knowledge. Here astronomy, meteorology,
and geography are thus grouped together, and angelology is put
into relation with astronomy and demonology with meteorology.
[77] _Etym._, 13, 3, 3, and 8, 11, 17.
The theory of the four elements was fertile in every branch of the
natural science of medieval times. Isidore uses it, for example, to
explain the physical constitution of man:
Man’s body is divided among the four elements. For he has
in him something of fire, of air, of water, and of earth.
There is the quality of earth in the flesh, of moisture
in the blood, of air in the breath, of fire in the vital
heat. Moreover, the four-fold division of the human body
indicates the four elements. For the head is related to the
heavens, and in it are two eyes, as it were the luminaries
of the sun and moon. The breast is akin to the air, because
the breathings are emitted from it as the breath of the
winds from the air. The belly is likened to the sea,
because of the collection of all the humors, the gathering
of the waters as it were. The feet, finally, are compared
to the earth, because they are dry like the earth. Further,
the mind is placed in the citadel of the head like God
in the heavens, to look upon and govern all from a high
place.[78]
[78] _Diff._, 2, 17, 48.
In another passage Isidore tells us that fire has its seat in the
liver, and that “it flies thence up to the head as if to the heavens
of our body. From this fire the rays of the eyes flash, and from the
middle of it, as from a center, narrow passages lead not only to the
eyes but to the other senses”.[79]
[79] _Diff._, 2, 17, 67.
Naturally the four elements play a great part in medicine. They are
related to the four humors, blood, yellow bile, black bile, and
phlegm. “Each humor imitates its element; blood, air;[80] yellow
bile, fire; black bile, earth; phlegm, water. Health depends on the
proper blending of these humors.”[81] It appears to have been the
belief of the time that the humors possessed each the same qualities
as the corresponding element. Medical reasoning might confine itself
to the four humors or it might go back of them to the four elements,
as in the explanation of vertigo, where the diagnosis indicates,
apparently, the transmutation of one element into another. Isidore
says: “The _arteriae_ [air passages] and veins produce a windiness in
man’s head from a resolving of moisture, and make a whirling in his
eyes whence it is called vertigo”.[82]
[80] Here blood and the element, air, are related; the passage
quoted in the preceding paragraph shows a similar relation
between blood and the element water. Such inconsistencies are
extremely common.
[81] _Etym._, 4. 5.
[82] _Etym._, 4, 7, 4.
That notions of such a loose, semi-philosophical nature should
survive while the solid empirical content of medical science faded
away, is characteristic of the decline of thought which culminated
in the dark ages. The science of medicine had cut itself loose from
concrete things, and attached itself almost exclusively to the vague
philosophical conceptions from which even the best Greek thinkers had
not been able to free it.
The phenomena of meteorology, also, were explained largely by the
four elements. The upper air was believed to be akin to the fire
above it, and was therefore calm and cloudless; while the lower air
was supposed to be cloudy and disturbed by storms because of its
proximity to water, the next element below it in the series.[83]
Further, the belief in the possibility of the transmutation of
elements was of use here. Air, for example, might be transmuted
into water, or water into air.[84] As Isidore puts it: “[air]
being contracted, makes clouds; being thickened, rain; when the
clouds freeze, snow; when thick clouds freeze in a more disordered
way, hail; being spread abroad, it causes fine weather, for it is
well-known that thick air is a cloud, and a rarified and spread-out
cloud is air.”[85]
[83] _Etym._, 13, 7, 1.
[84] _Etym._, 13, 3.
[85] _Etym._, 13, 7. Almost side by side with this explanation of
rain is another which says that rains “arise from an exhalation
from land and sea, which being carried aloft falls in drops on
the lands, being acted upon by the sun’s heat, or condensed by
strong winds,” 13, 10, 2. Lightning is explained as caused by the
collision of clouds (13, 9, 1); thunder, by their bursting (13,
8); the rainbow, by the sun shining into a hollow cloud (13, 10,
1).
[Illustration: FIG. 2]
The most remote fields are invaded by the four elements. It is
by reference to them that the seasons are explained. Here use is
made rather of their properties than of the elements themselves.
“The spring is composed of moisture and heat; the summer, of fire
and dryness; the autumn, of dryness and cold; the winter, of cold
and moisture.”[86] From this the transition is easy to another
far-fetched application of the theory. The four quarters of the
universe, East, West, North, and South, are connected with the four
seasons, and thus with the four elements. This conception seemed to
Isidore so important that he introduced a figure to illustrate it.
(_Fig. II._)
[86] _D. N. R._, 7, 4. _Cf. Etym._, 5, 35, 1.
[Illustration: FIG. 3]
The old notion that man is a microcosm or parallel of the universe
on a small scale, was familiar to Isidore. As has been shown, he
believed that man was composed of the same four elements as the
universe, and that they were distributed in him in much the same way
as in it. It was going only a step further for him to declare that
“all things are contained in man, and in him exists the nature of all
things”;[87] after which it was easy “to place man in communion with
the fabric of the universe”[88] by means of a figure. (_Fig. III._)
[87] _Sent._, 1, 11, 1.
[88] “Mundus est universitas omnis, quae constat ex coelo
et terra.... Secundum mysticum sensum, mundus competenter
homo significatur, quia sicut ille ex quatuor concretus est
elementis, ita et iste constat quatuor humoribus uno temperamento
commistis. Unde et veteres hominem in communionem fabricae
mundi constituerunt. Siquidem Graece mundus κόσμος, homo autem
μικρόκοσμος, id est minor mundus, est appellatus.” _D. N. R._, 9,
2, and 3. _Cf._ 11, 3.
The idea of the parallelism of man and the universe, when thus
literally conceived, was a fruitful one. Man could be explained by
the universe. And the process could be reversed and the universe
also explained by man, since man may be observed in his entirety and
his life history may be easily followed, while that of the universe
may not. Isidore doubtless took this view, for he says: “The plan of
the universe is to be inquired into according to man alone. For just
as man passes to his end through definite ages, so too the universe
is passing away during this prolonged time, since both man and the
universe decay after they reach their growth.”[89] The division of
the life of the universe, for example, into six definite ages, which
he incorporated into his chronology, was given greater certainty and
meaning from the similar division of man’s life into six ages.
[89] _Sentent._, 1, 8, 1–2.
The wide scope assigned by Isidore to the action of the four
elements—which scope includes the immaterial as well as the
material—is completely alien to the modern way of thinking; as is,
also, the bringing of the universe, the year, and man, into so
intimate and specific a connection. Still more difficult is it for us
to grasp such an idea as that the ounce “is reckoned a lawful weight
because the number of its scruples measures the hours of the day
and night”;[90] or that “the Hebrews use twenty-two letters of the
alphabet, following the [number of] books in the Old Testament”.[91]
And the climax is reached when he expresses the notion that a man
bursts into tears as soon as he casts himself down on his knees,
because the knees and the eyes are close together in the womb.[92]
[90] _Etym._, 16, 25, 19.
[91] _Etym._, 1, 3, 4. _Cf._ 6, 1, 3.
[92] _Etym._, 11, 1, 109. _Cf. Diff._, 2, 17, 56 and 71.
Although these examples of Isidore’s thinking afford excellent
proof of his incoherence and lack of logical consecutiveness,
their explanation goes deeper. Like all primitive thinkers, those
of medieval times were firmly convinced of the solidarity of the
universe; they felt its unity much more strongly than they did its
multiplicity; what we regard as separate kinds of phenomena and
separate ways of viewing the universe they regarded as of necessity
closely inter-related. There were no categories of thought that
were for them mutually exclusive; they carried their ideas without
hesitation from the material into the immaterial, and from the
natural into the supernatural. No conception established in one
sphere seemed impertinent in any other. It was this state of mind
that enabled the medieval thinker to take such erratic leaps from one
sphere of thought to another, without any feeling of uncertainty or
any fear of getting lost.[93]
[93] While this mode of viewing the universe had its origin
in pagan antiquity, and even earlier, its scope was greatly
enlarged by Christian thinkers. Living in a world whose general
constitution and purpose they thought they thoroughly understood,
they were confident that even in its smallest details there could
be perceived a conscious adaptation to the whole. This idea they
often carried so far as seemingly to leave no place for chance
or convention. Each trifling matter was given a meaning that was
greater than itself.
Perhaps nothing illustrates more clearly the erratic thinking to
which this idea of the solidarity of the universe led, than the way
in which Isidore reasons about number. To his mind the fact, for
instance, that “God in the beginning made twenty-two works” explains
why there are twenty-two sextarii in the bushel; and that “there
were twenty-two generations from Adam to Jacob, and twenty-two books
of the Old Testament as far as Esther, and twenty-two letters of
the alphabet out of which the divine law is composed”,[94] were
additional explanations for the same thing. A like connection is
found in his statement that “the pound is counted a kind of perfect
weight because it is made up of as many ounces as the year has
months”.[95]
[94] _Etym._, 16, 26, 10.
[95] _Etym._, 16, 25, 20.
Isidore’s conceptions in regard to number, indeed, deserve to be
ranked closely after the theory of the four elements as affording
to him “paths of intelligence” through the universe, material and
immaterial. Both in the world at large and in the microcosm of man
the harmony of “musical numbers” is an essential;[96] and number is
also an essential factor in every part and aspect of the universe.
“Take number from all things,” he says, “and all things perish.”[97]
However, his idea of the importance of number in the world is equaled
only by the vagueness with which he conceived its operations as a
working principle. Here he takes absolute leave of the logic which,
in his account of the four elements, he had already so often left
behind. The best he could do, in describing the actual operation of
this principle, was to make lists of instances in which the same
number occurred, and no matter how unrelated the spheres of thought
thus connected, to assume their close interrelation and explanation
of one another.
[96] _Etym._, 3, 23, 2.
[97] _Etym._, 3, 4, 3.
It is now clear that according to Isidore’s way of thinking, a fact
belonging to one set of phenomena might be caused or explained by
something totally different in another sphere. This being so, it was
inevitable that there should be an effort to pass from the known to
the unknown along the path thus suggested. When we reflect that, for
the medieval thinker, there were three kinds of knowledge—namely,
knowledge of the material, the moral, and the spiritual—and that
they were in an ascending scale of value, it will appear equally
inevitable that this effort to pass from the known to the unknown
should be mainly an effort to pass from the material and obvious to
the intangible and unseen, though more real, spiritual world. In this
consideration we have the chief explanation of medieval allegory.[98]
[98] The explanation suggested accounts for the prevalence of
allegory in medieval times. Among the less comprehensive and
not characteristically medieval causes for it must be reckoned
the influence of the parables that are explained in the New
Testament, the occasional grossness of Biblical characters and
language which called for an interpretation that would remove
offence and offer edification, the congenial activity which
allegorizing offered to the pious mind, and, finally, the fact
that by a clever use of allegorical interpretation some desired
end might be obtained.
In Isidore we find that allegorical interpretation is a thing
of little spontaneity. The allegorizing of the Scriptures had
long before his time settled down into a system. In his _Certain
Allegories of the Holy Scriptures_ a list is given of the most
noted mystical interpretations of Scripture, a dry enumeration,
with now and then an interesting side-light upon the opinion of the
time. The extent to which the Scripture was subject to allegorizing
may be guessed from the fact that Isidore specifies that “the ten
commandments must be taken literally”.[99] Allegory is applied also
to the phenomena of nature. In _De Natura Rerum_ Isidore makes
a regular practice of first giving the explanation of natural
phenomena and following this with the “higher meaning”. Thus the
sun has Christ for its allegorical meaning; the stars, the saints;
thunder is “the rebuke from on high of the divine voice”, or it may
be “the loud preaching of the saints, which dins with loud clamor in
the ears of the faithful over all the circle of the lands”.[100] In
the _Etymologies_ this “higher meaning” of natural objects is rarely
given.
[99] Migne, _P. L._, 83, col. 303. “Inter haec igitur omnia
decem praecepta solum ibi quod de Sabbato positum est figurate
observandum praecipitur. Quam figuram nos intelligendam, non
etiam per otium corporale celebrandam, suscipimus. Reliqua tamen
ibi praecepta proprie praecepta sunt, quae sine ulla figurata
significatione observantur. Nihil enim mystice significant,
sed sic intelliguntur ut sonant. Et notandum quia sicut decem
plagis percutiuntur Aegyptii, sic decem praeceptis conscribuntur
tabulae, quibus regantur populi Dei.” The Scriptures were for
Isidore _un vasto simbolismo_ (Cañal, _San Isidoro_, p. 51).
[100] _D. N. R._, 29, 2.
The view held in the dark ages of the natural and the supernatural
and of their relative proportions in the outlook on life, was
precisely the reverse of that held by intelligent men in modern
times. For us the material universe has taken on the aspect of
order; within its limits phenomena seem to follow definite modes of
behavior, upon the evidence of which a body of scientific knowledge
has been built up. Indeed at times in certain branches of science
there has been danger of a dogmatism akin to, if the reverse of, that
which prevailed in medieval times with reference to the supernatural.
On the other hand, the certainty that once existed in regard to
the supernatural world has faded away; no means of investigating
it that commands confidence has been devised, and any idea held
in regard to it is believed to be void of truth if inconsistent
with the conclusions reached by science. In all these respects the
attitude of Isidore and his time is exactly opposite to ours. To
him the supernatural world was the demonstrable and ordered one.
Its phenomena, or what were supposed to be such, were accepted as
valid, while no importance was attached to evidence offered by the
senses as to the material. It may even be said that the supernatural
universe bulked far larger in the mind of the medieval thinker than
does the natural in that of the modern, and it was fortified by an
immeasurably stronger and more uncritical dogmatism.
It is evident, therefore, that if we compare the dogmatic world-view
of the medieval thinker with the more tentative one of the modern
scientist, allowance must be made for the fact that they take hold
of the universe at opposite ends. Their plans are so fundamentally
different that it is hard to express the meaning of one in terms of
the other.
Isidore’s method of apprehending the supernatural world can hardly
be called mysticism. With mysticism we associate intuition and
exalted feeling, and the examples that have been given of Isidore’s
thinking in terms of allegory and number, show that he thought of the
supernatural in the same prosaic and literal way as he did of the
natural; there was no break for him between them, nor was there any
change of intellectual atmosphere when he crossed the line. So the
higher sense at least of the term ‘mystic’ must be denied him. His
share in the mysticism of his age, which he accepted unquestioningly,
was not a positive one; he exhibits rather the negative side of
mysticism, the intellectual haziness, slothfulness and self-delusion
by which it was so often accompanied in medieval times.
Isidore believed that in point of time the supernatural preceded the
natural. He says that God “created all things out of nothing”,[101]
and, again, that “the matter from which the universe was formed
preceded the things created out of it not in time, but in origin, in
the same sense as sound precedes music”.[102] It is evident that he
regarded the material as an emanation from the spiritual. With such
an origin the material world was naturally subservient to spiritual
control, and miracles caused little wonder. They “are not contrary
to nature, because they are caused by the divine will, and the will
of the Creator is the nature of each created thing.... A miracle,
therefore, does not happen contrary to nature, but contrary to
nature as known.”[103] The supernatural thus not only preceded, but
dominated, the natural. Finally, the universe was to disappear at the
end of six ages, and all was to be reabsorbed in the supernatural.
The world of nature, then, was merely a passing incident in a greater
reality that contained it.
[101] _De Natura Rerum_, 14, 2.
[102] _Sent._, 1, 8, 6.
[103] _Etym._, 11, 3, 1 and 2.
As in the universe at large, so in man the supernatural completely
overshadows the natural. The soul is all-important and theory in
regard to it is precise and dogmatic. “As to the soul,” Isidore says,
“the philosophers of this world have described with great uncertainty
what it is, what it is like, where it is, what form it has, and what
its power is. Some have said it is fire; others, blood; others that
it is incorporeal and has no shape. A number have believed with rash
impiety that it is a part of the divine nature. But we say that it is
not fire nor blood, but that it is incorporeal, capable of feeling
and of change; without weight, shape, or color. And we say that the
soul is not a part, but a creature of God, and that it is not of the
substance of God, or of any underlying matter of the elements, but
was created out of nothing.”[104] He says further, that the soul “has
a beginning but cannot have an end”.[105] All the activities by which
life is manifested are considered as parts or functions of the soul.
Dum contemplatur, spiritus est; dum sentit, sensus est; dum sapit,
animus est; dum intelligit, mens est; dum discernit, ratio est; dum
consentit, voluntas est; dum recordatur, memoria est; et dum membra
vegetat, anima est.[106]
[104] _Diff._, 2, 100.
[105] _Diff._, 2, 92.
[106] _Diff._, 2, 97.
In contrast with the soul the body scarcely deserves to be spoken
of except with disparagement. Its goods are to be unhesitatingly
sacrificed to those of the supernatural element in man, or rather,
they are not regarded as goods at all. “It is advantageous,” Isidore
says, “for those who are well and strong to become infirm, lest
through the vigor of their health they be defiled by illicit passions
and the desire for luxury”.[107] The present life of the body has no
value; it is brief and wretched. “Holy men desire to spurn the world
and devote the activity of their minds to things above, in order to
convey themselves back to the place from which they have come, and
withdraw from the place into which they have been cast.”[108] Thus
philosophy of the supernatural culminated in asceticism.
[107] _Sentent._, 3, 3, 5.
[108] _Sentent._, 3, 16, 5.
Isidore’s supernatural world has its inhabitants, and in dealing with
these he has a theology, an angelology, and a demonology; in all of
which fields his ideas are more precise and clear-cut than where he
speaks of the material world.
His theology is of little interest; it consists in the orthodox view
of the time, accepted without a shadow of criticism. He says, “We
are not permitted to form any belief of our own will, or to choose
a belief that someone else has accepted of his own. We have God’s
apostles as authorities, who did not themselves choose anything of
what they should believe, but they faithfully transmitted to the
nations the teaching received from Christ. And so even if an angel
from heaven shall preach otherwise, let him be anathema”.[109]
[109] _Etym._, 8, 3, 2–3.
The minor inhabitants of Isidore’s supernatural world, the angels and
demons, offer a more practical interest. They represent the stage
of development at which the old polytheism of the Jews had adjusted
itself to monotheism, but had by no means faded out of existence.
Indeed, it is plain that at this time the immediate concern of the
ordinary man was with these spirits, good and bad; while between man
and God there were, for the most part, only mediate relations.
The number of these spirits was very great; each place had its angel,
as had each man,—and, presumably, a demon as well. The seraphim,
the highest order in the hierarchy of angels, were a multitude in
themselves. We may surmise that for Isidore, as for Jerome, the
entire human population of the world was as nothing compared with the
entire population of spirits.[110]
[110] Jerome, _In Isaiam_, Lib. xi, ch. 40. “Ita universa gentium
multitudo supernis ministeriis et angelorum multitudini comparata
pro nihilo ducitur.” _Cf. Etym._, 7, 5, 19.
The good angels are marshalled in a hierarchy of nine orders, to
which they were assigned in order of merit at the beginning of the
world, and to each of these a specified task is given. For example,
the order named virtues (_virtutes_) has charge of miracles; and the
business of the seraphim is “to veil the face and feet of God”.[111]
The nature of the angels is described succinctly in a paragraph of
the _Differentiae_:
[111] _Etym._, 7, 5, 24.
Angels are of spiritual substance; they were created before
all creatures and made subject to change by nature, but
were rendered changeless by the contemplation of God.
They are not subject to passion, they possess reason, are
immortal, perpetual in blessedness, with no anxiety for
their felicity, and with foreknowledge of the future. They
govern the world according to command; they take bodies
from the upper air;[112] they dwell in the heavens.[113]
[112] For appearance to man. _Cf._ Angeli corpora in quibus
hominibus apparent, de superno aere sumunt. _Sentent._, 1, 10, 19.
[113] _Diff._, 2, 41.
The special virtue of the good angels is subjection to God. “There is
no greater iniquity for them than to wish to glory not in God but in
themselves”.[114] The gaps in their ranks caused by the fall of the
bad angels were to be filled from the number of the elect.[115]
[114] _Sentent._, 1, 10, 16.
[115] _Sentent._, 1, 10, 13.
The demons, or bad angels, were created along with the good; indeed
the devil, their leader, was first created of all the angels. It
was “before the time of the visible universe” that their fall took
place; at that time they lost “all the good of their natures” and all
possibility of pardon.[116] They are the “enemies of mankind” and
are “sent on the service of vengeance”. The only restraint on their
malignity is that they are obliged to obey God. Isidore sums up their
activities in a fear-inspiring way:
[116] _De Ord. Creat._, 8, 7–10.
They unsettle the senses, stir low passions, disorder
life, cause alarms in sleep, bring diseases, fill the mind
with terror, distort the limbs, control the way in which
lots are cast, make a pretence at oracles by their tricks,
arouse the passion of love, create the heat of cupidity,
lurk in consecrated images; when invoked they appear; they
tell lies that resemble the truth; they take on different
forms, and sometimes appear in the likeness of angels.[117]
[117] _Diff._, 2, 41.
Their capacity for evil tasks is increased by their superior
intelligence, which retains “the keen perception of the angelic
creation”.[118] Their power of foreknowledge, and, in addition,
the duration of their experience, make the struggle against them
a hopeless one for man. They are also incredibly persistent: “The
devil never rests from his attack on the just man”, who is “sometimes
reduced to straits of despair”.[119]
[118] _Sentent._, 1, 10, 17.
[119] _Sentent._, 3, 5, 35–36.
It is evident that these demons were an all-pervading factor in the
life of the time. They were conceived of as entering the mind, both
waking and sleeping, and furnishing it with the very material for
thought and action. The Christian, by the aid of the good angels,
was alone able to defeat them, and, moreover, he alone realized the
necessity of combating them. The pagans of the pre-Christian era, on
the other hand, were believed to have been willing victims. The trail
of demonic influence could be found in every department of their life
and thought, especially in their religion, which was very close to
demon worship, and in their philosophy and poetry.[120]
[120] See pp. 199–206.
It is of interest to notice in detail Isidore’s scale of values for
secular learning, as shown in opinions expressed throughout his
works. How did the fields of thought that had filled the horizon of
the thinker of classical times, appear in the perspective of the dark
ages?
Philosophy,[121] in the first place, no longer stands for any active
principle; all its old aspect of metaphysical and ethical inquiry
has been lost. It is merely a container in which minor subjects
are arranged in a comprehensive plan, and the only interest which
it presents, as philosophy, is to be found in the question of what
minor subjects are included and how they are grouped. Here Isidore is
more inconsistent than usual. He gives three plans of the field of
knowledge, all substantially differing from one another in details
and all strikingly different from his own marshaling of all knowledge
in the _Etymologies_. The only reflection of value suggested by
the treatment of philosophy in Isidore’s works is that in being
de-secularized it has completely lost its essential content. It can,
therefore, no longer be a source of offence to any Christian.
[121] Four definitions are given, 2, 24, 3 and 9. _Cf._ 8, 6, 1;
_Diff._, 2, 149. See pp. 116–119. For the marshaling of the minor
subjects under philosophy see Appendix II.
The pagan philosophy, however, was a different thing. It was known
to have been concerned with the same problems as was Christian
theology. It had thus a certain right to exist and a certain value,
but this terminated with the appearance of Christianity. As Isidore
puts it, “the philosophers of this world certainly knew God, but the
humility of Christ displeased them and they went astray”; “they fell
in with wicked angels and the devil became their mediator for death
as Christ became ours for life”.[122] After Christian theology had
settled beyond the shadow of a doubt the problems that had occupied
the pagan philosophers, these latter could cause only trouble. Pagan
philosophy now stood only for a perversion of the wisdom which was
found in its true form in the books of the Scriptural canon and the
works of the church Fathers. Its “errors” were believed to be the
source of the heresies in the church. “The same material is used and
the same errors are embraced over and over again by philosophers and
heretics”.[123]
[122] _Sentent._, 1, 17, 1–4.
[123] _Etym._, 8, 6, 23. In books VII and VIII of the
_Etymologies_, where the subjects taken up appear to be treated
in the order of merit, the place of the pagan philosophers in
the list is an instructive one. The list is as follows: God,
the persons of the Trinity, angels, patriarchs, prophets and
martyrs, the clergy, the faithful, heretics, pagan philosophers,
poets, sibyls, magi, the heathen, and heathen gods, who are the
equivalent of demons. See p. 196, note.
Isidore’s idea of the function of poetry is a peculiar one. “It is
the business of the poet,” he says, “to take veritable occurrences
and gracefully change and transform them to other appearances by a
figurative and indirect mode of speech”.[124] From this it might
be inferred that he thought that the use of poetry was to furnish
material for allegorical interpretation. He ranks the poets of
pagan antiquity below the philosophers, and brings serious charges
against them. He asserts that they have “disregarded the proper
meanings of words under the compulsion of metre” and have thus been
guilty of introducing a great amount of confusion into thought
and language.[125] His most vigorous indictment of pagan poetry,
however, is that it had its origin in the pagan religions, which he
identifies with demon worship. He quotes Suetonius to establish this
point: “When men ... first began to know themselves and their gods,
they used for themselves a modest way of living and only necessary
words, while for the worship of their gods they devised magnificence
in each”. This “magnificence” of speech is alleged to have been
poetry.[126] With such opinions, he naturally desired the ostracism
of poetry. “The Christian is forbidden to read their lies.”[127]
[124] 8, 7, 10.
[125] See p. 26.
[126] 8, 7, 1.
[127] _Sentent._, 3, 13, 1. It seems extremely probable that
Isidore did not quote from the poets directly but merely
appropriated along with other material the quotations contained
in the sources which he consulted.
Toward pagan philosophy and poetry, then, Isidore’s attitude is
hostile, and it is very improbable that he ever wasted any time
on them. But in the field of secular knowledge apart from these
subjects he has, within limits, a use for the inheritance left by
pagan Rome. It is his chief claim to recognition that he was not
absolutely content with the de-secularized science that he found in
Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, but had the independence to go behind
it and draw upon its original sources in Roman literature. The spirit
in which he did this, however, was not the spirit of revolt, but
apparently only a natural desire for more extended information. His
critical faculty did not warn him that in seeking this information
from pagan sources he was passing from one intellectual atmosphere
to another; his mind was too literal and plodding and dwelt too much
on details to notice when it was on dangerous ground. His resort
to pagan science was not always happy in its result; but the many
blunders which he made cannot affect the merit of his enterprise in
going beyond the circle of Christian writers; and it must be said
for his version of secular knowledge, as contained in his secular
writings, that, poor as it was, it was one without which the middle
ages would have been a great deal poorer.
As a matter of fact, Isidore did not leave the science of the Roman
Empire in a state much worse than that in which he found it. It had
been undergoing a process of decay for centuries. At their best the
Roman men of science had been unable even to appropriate the more
abstract parts of Greek science. They were governed throughout by a
short-sighted practicality, as when, for instance, in the case of the
mathematical sciences they tried to take over results without taking
the method of reaching or verifying them. In the natural sciences
their inferiority was only less marked. Here the absence of critical
method permitted the incorporation of many superstitious notions.
As has been pointed out, the Roman science was wholly a science of
authority, and the greatest scientist was the greatest accumulator
of previous authorities. Thus throughout its course in the Roman
world science had been beating a retreat. By Isidore’s time these
forces of short-sighted utilitarianism, the spirit of subservience to
authority, and superstition, had brought it to a state of inoffensive
feebleness such that it was more welcome to the Christian than was
either poetry or philosophy.
This Roman pseudo-science could not, however, hold an important
place in the thinking of the time: the fundamental conceptions that
prevailed forbade it. The material world held a low place, as we have
seen; on every side evidence can be found of an ascending scale of
values from the material through the moral to the spiritual. Upon
this idea is founded “the triple method of interpretation”[128] used
in the Scriptures and elsewhere, and with it is connected the triple
division of knowledge into natural science, ethics, and theology.
There was not only an ascending scale of value for the different
sorts of knowledge, but an ascending scale of validity. Spiritual
truth and moral truth transcended the truth of material facts, whose
stubbornness had been forgotten and had not yet been re-discovered.
Yet, with all this depreciation of the material, it in some measure
reasserted itself: as the literal meaning had to be grasped in the
Scriptures before the higher meaning could be educed, so the material
world had to be recognized before its higher meaning could be
ascertained. This was the basis for science in the philosophy of the
dark ages.
[128] “Illud trimodum intelligentiae genus,” _Diff._, 2, 154.
_Cf._ “Tripliciter autem scribitur, dum non solum historialiter
vel mystice sed etiam moraliter quid in unum quodque gerere
debeat edocetur.” _Contra Judaeos_, 2, 20. See also _De Ord.
Creat._, 10, 4–7 and _Etym._, 6, 1, 11 (p. 186).
In this way Isidore’s pseudo-science was brought into harmony with
religion. Natural science was, indeed, concerned with the lowest
and faintest form of reality, namely, the material world; but even
material things had their spiritual implications, and because of
this were worthy of an orderly survey. The _De Natura Rerum_, in
which each term is explained first as it relates to the natural
world and then as to its higher meaning, shows how science played
the subordinate part just indicated. It is of great interest at this
point to notice that Isidore’s successor, Rabanus Maurus, in his
comprehensive encyclopedia _De Universo_, which follows Isidore’s
_Etymologies_ closely, adds, however, the higher meanings which
Isidore had left out in his work.[129] It is the importance of
natural science from this point of view that Isidore has in mind in a
passage in the _Sententiae_: “It does no harm to anyone if, because
of simplicity, he has an inadequate idea of the elements, provided
only he speaks the truth of God. For even though one may not be able
to discuss the incorporeal and the corporeal natures, an upright life
with faith makes him blessed.”[130]
[129] _De Universo_ is published in Migne, _Patr. Lat._, 3.
In the preface Rabanus says: “Much is set forth in this work
concerning the natures of things and the meanings of words and
also as to the mystical signification of things. Accordingly
I have arranged my matter so that the reader may find the
historical and mystical explanations of each thing set together
(_continuatim positam_); and so may be able to satisfy his desire
to know both significations.” Isidore’s _Etymologies_ is said to
have been left unfinished (quamvis imperfectum ipse reliquerit.
Braulio’s _Introduction_. See p. 25). The conjecture may be
offered that the finishing of the work might have meant chiefly
the insertion of “the higher meaning”.
[130] _Sentent._, 2, 1, 14.
He is far, however, from expressing complete approval of pagan
science; the perversity of the pagan scientists forbids this. “The
philosophers of the world are highly praised for the measuring of
time, and the tracing of the course of the stars, and the analysis
of the elements. Still, they had this only from God. Flying proudly
through the air like birds, and plunging into the deep sea like
fishes, and walking like dumb animals, they gained knowledge of the
earth, but they would not seek with all their minds to know their
Maker”.[131]
[131] _Sentent._, 1, 17, 2.
In judging the quality of Isidore’s science as science, we must
remember that he is separated from Pliny, his great predecessor in
the encyclopedic field, by nearly six centuries, and that those six
centuries form a period of continuous intellectual decline; and,
further, we must bear in mind the fact that Pliny himself sometimes
copied what he did not understand, and was so little of a scientist
as even to welcome the marvelous.[132] After this, what can be
expected from Isidore? That he wrote what he did write, at the time
he did, is in itself the astonishing fact. His work is the only
symptom of intellectual life in two centuries of Western European
history.
[132] Cuvier, _Histoire des Sciences Naturelles_, vol. i, pp.
260–280.
Isidore’s view of the past was as simple and dogmatic as his
view of the universe at large; in fact it was conditioned by his
world-view. The acceptance of Christianity and the new scale of
values thus introduced had of necessity involved the projection of
the new interests into the past. The legendary background of the new
religion had accelerated the process. The past, as seen by writers
of the pagan civilization and as reflecting the interests of that
civilization, now became of no service, and, as a whole, was dropped.
The pagan histories were regarded as written by men whose point
of view was wholly false and mischievous, even though sometimes
their facts might be correct. They were approached by the Christian
re-adjusters of history in much the same spirit as that in which
the modern historian goes to the medieval chronicle, though with an
opposite aim: the modern historian is after what is social and human,
while Augustine and Orosius were after illustrations of the ways of
God to man.[133]
[133] _Cf._ Isidore’s attitude: “The histories of the gentiles do
no harm where they tell of what is profitable,” 1, 41, 1. See p.
103.
By Isidore’s time, then, the Christian view of the past had
become completely de-secularized. Biblical tradition dominated
all historical thinking. On the six days of creation was centered
special attention. This point, at which the natural emanated from
the supernatural, fascinated the medieval thinker as the doctrine
of evolution does the modern. It formed the touch-stone by the aid
of which was interpreted not only the material world,[134] but also
the course of history. In parallelism with the six days and the six
periods in man’s life, the history of the world was divided with
absolute definiteness into six ages. Isidore himself was living in
the sixth and last of these, “the residue of which was known to God
alone”.[135] His view of the past had no perspective; or rather, it
had an inverted perspective, because the increasing confusion of
every department of the sublunar world led him to dwell in preference
upon the earlier time when the course of history was confined to the
pure stream of Hebrew tradition, when the supernatural manifested
itself more frequently, and when even the names of personages were
charged with prophetic meaning.
[134] See p. 28 and note.
[135] 5, 38, 5; 5, 39.
In this inverted perspective the history of the Hebrews naturally
formed a prominent part. The Hebrew people of antiquity and their
language, which is traced back to Adam, were _the_ original race
and language. It was only “at the building of the tower after the
flood that the diversity of languages arose”. On this occasion not
only did the different languages of later history appear, but at
the same time and as a result, the different races of mankind were
constituted.[136] All languages, then, and all races, are variants
of the Hebrew type. Isidore believed that even in his time some of
the nations could be traced back and identified with the original
Hebrew stock by etymologizing on their names. Others, however, had
cast aside their old names and taken others, “either from kings or
countries or customs or other causes”, and the genealogy of these he
believed to be irretrievably lost.[137]
[136] 9, 1, 1.
[137] 9, 2, 132.
CHAPTER IV
ISIDORE’S RELATION TO EDUCATION
The question of perpetuating the pagan range of educational subjects
presented a great difficulty to the leaders of patristic and early
medieval thought, so great a difficulty that some of them were almost
more ready to discard education than to try to separate it from its
heathen entanglements. In both the Greek and Roman worlds formal
education had been late in developing; as a consequence its tone was
wholly secular. Its object was to put the youth of the ruling classes
in touch with the culture and life of the time. The subjects found
most serviceable for study were literature, rhetoric, and philosophy.
The sciences known to the ancients gradually gained a foot-hold also,
and instruction began to be given in a number of them, including
geometry, music, arithmetic, astronomy, medicine, and architecture.
Finally, the subject-matter of education settled down to the
stereotyped list of seven subjects, known as “the seven liberal
arts”, from which there was apparently little deviation in later
Roman and medieval times.[138] This formal education of the Romans
was so well established and enjoyed such prestige that in spite of
Christian hostility it continued to flourish until the increasing
disorganization of society in the fifth and sixth centuries made the
continuance of secular schools impossible.
[138] The basis on which the canon of the seven liberal arts
was formed is indicated by a passage in Martianus Capella, who
makes Apollo say in regard to the exclusion of medicine and
architecture from it that “their attention and skill is given to
mortal and earthly things, and they have nothing in common with
the ether and the gods; it is not unseemly to reject them with
loathing.” (Ed. Eyssenhardt, IV, 13). The Christian Isidore held
much the same notion as the pagan Capella. He believed that the
order of the seven liberal arts terminating in astronomy was one
whose object was “to free souls entangled by secular wisdom from
earthly matters and set them at meditation upon the things on
high” (3, 71, 41). See also pp. 65, 77. It is plain enough that
education in both the pagan and Christian spheres was strongly
affected by the mystical tendency of the time, and it is not too
much to say that the seven liberal arts stand not so much for the
impracticality of a “gentleman’s” education as for that desirable
in the education of a mystic.
Upon their disappearance the whole burden of maintaining education
fell upon the church. In the church organization the effective
bodies for such an activity were the groups of clergy attached to
cathedrals and to monasteries. There was no system established
by a central authority and enforced by public opinion to guide
the efforts made by these bodies, and it is plain that in each
case educational facilities for the training of priests would be
provided in accordance with the intelligence and character of the
different bishops and abbots. Where the ecclesiastical authorities
were ignorant or careless, the training of the priest or monk must
have degenerated to a sort of apprenticeship. The evidence which we
possess of the illiteracy[139] of the clergy would lead us to infer
that in the dark ages education, in any sense worthy of the name, was
sporadic, the product of the happy coincidence of opportunity and an
ecclesiastic intelligent enough to realize it.[140]
[139] _Cf._ Cañal, _San Isidoro_ (Sevilla, 1897), p. 23.
[140] _Cf._ Roger, _L’Enseignement des lettres classiques
d’Ausone à Alcuin_ (Paris, 1905), pp. 126–129.
The first comprehensive effort[141] to deal with the educational
situation from the Christian standpoint was made by Cassiodorus
and was designed expressly to meet the needs of the inmates of a
monastery in Southern Italy. Naturally he put forth his main endeavor
on the side of what may be called theology, but, in addition, he felt
impelled to give very brief and vague accounts of the seven liberal
arts, which he was reluctantly forced to consider as an indispensable
preparation for the former study.[142]
[141] Of Augustine’s treatises on grammar, dialectic, rhetoric,
geometry, arithmetic, and music, all but that on music were
lost within a very short time. They could have had but little
influence. _Cf. Retract._, 1, c. 6, and Teuffel and Schwabe,
_History of Roman Literature_, Sect. 440, 7.
[142] M. Aurelii Cassiodori, _De Institutione Divinarum
Litterarum_ and _De Artibus ac Disciplinis Liberalium
Litterarum_. In Migne, _P. L._, vol. 70.
Cassiodorus’ attitude toward these preliminary studies is a curious
one. He believed that their subject-matter was to be found scattered
through the Scriptures and that “the teachers of secular learning”
had gathered together the disjointed bits of information and
organized them into the seven liberal arts. As a consequence he
thought that a knowledge of these arts was of assistance when any
passage relating to them was met in the reading of the Scriptures.
In spite of this, however, it seems to have been his opinion that
the less use made of them the better, and that, if ignorance of the
liberal arts was a fault, it was certainly one of a minor character
and had the advantage of not endangering the Christian’s faith.[143]
With Cassiodorus the problem of education was little more than that
of securing a training sufficient to enable one to read and study
the Scriptures. The speculation cannot be avoided as to whether,
if Christianity had depended, like Druidism, on an oral tradition,
Cassiodorus might not have been willing to dispense with education
altogether.
[143] Cassiodorus, _De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum_,
Migne, _P. L._, 70, 1108 and 1141. In the former of these
passages Cassiodorus discusses also the question whether there
should be absolute reliance on divine aid in the interpretation
of the Scriptures—in which connection he cites miraculous
interpretations by illiterate persons—or “whether it is better
to continue in the use of the ordinary learning.” He decides on
the whole for the latter course. The fact that Cassiodorus wrote
an account of the seven liberal arts shows perhaps that he was
more benighted in his theory than in his practice. Gregory the
Great, however, was more consistent and thorough-going. He stands
as the typical example of extreme illiberality in the history
of European education. His position is shown in the notorious
letter addressed to the Bishop of Vienne: “A report has reached
us which we cannot mention without a blush, that thou expoundest
grammar to certain friends; whereat we are so offended and
filled with scorn that our former opinion of thee is turned to
mourning and sorrow.... If hereafter it be clearly established
that the rumor which we have heard is false and that thou art not
applying thyself to the idle vanities of secular learning (_nugis
et secularibus litteris_), we shall render thanks to our God.”
Gregory the Great, Ep. ix. 54. The translation is that given in
R. Lane-Poole, _Medieval Thought_.
Isidore is the second writer to deal comprehensively with the
subject-matter of Christian education. Before giving an account,
however, of the way in which he met the problems that were presented
to him, it is necessary to glance at the educational situation as
it then existed in Spain. It appears from the enactments of the
councils of Toledo in the sixth and seventh centuries that the clergy
as a body were beginning to be concerned for the education of their
order.[144] An article of the council of 531 directs that as soon as
children destined for the secular clergy are placed under the control
of the bishop, “they ought to be educated in the house of the church
under the direction of the bishop by a master appointed for the
purpose”.[145] Another article[146] says that “those who receive such
an education” should not presume to leave their own church and go to
another “since it is not fair that a bishop should receive or claim
a pupil whom another bishop has freed from boorish stupidity and the
untrained state of infancy”. It is further directed that those who
were “ignorant of letters” should not become priests. An article
of the fourth council of Toledo in 633, at which Isidore probably
presided, orders that “whoever among the clergy are youths should
remain in one room of the atrium, in order that they may spend the
years of the lustful period of their lives not in indulgence but in
the discipline of the church, being put in charge of an older man of
the highest character as master of their instruction and witness of
their life”.[147] These passages all refer to cathedral schools, but
there is evidence equally good of the existence of similar schools in
the monasteries.[148] Such, then, were the practical conditions, as
far as known, which determined the educational activity of Isidore’s
time.
[144] The second council of Toledo (531) devoted especial
attention to the subject of preparation for the priesthood. See
Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum Collectio_ (Florence, 1764), vol. 8
(_Concilium Toletanum II_).
[145] Mansi, vol. 8, p. 785.
[146] Cap. 2.
[147] Mansi, vol. 10, p. 626 (_Concilium Toletanum_, IV, Cap. 24).
[148] Isidore’s _Regula Monachorum_, 20, 5.
The spirit in which Isidore approached the task of furnishing a
comprehensive treatment of the secular subject-matter of education
was the one proper to his age. He held that its place was a
subordinate one. He seems to be expressing his own and not a borrowed
view when he says that “grammarians are better than heretics, for
heretics persuade men to drink a deadly draught, while the learning
of grammarians can avail for life, if only it is turned to better
uses”.[149] The same depreciation of the independent value of
secular studies is reflected in his statement that the order of the
seven liberal arts in the curriculum was one intended to secure a
progressive liberation of the mind from earthly matters and “to set
it at the task of contemplating things on high”.[150] He evidently
believed that it was the function of the seven liberal arts to raise
the mind from a lower or material to a higher or spiritual plane of
thought.[151]
[149] See p. 30.
[150] _Etym._, 3, 71, 41.
[151] To this conception of the time, that the secular side of
education was a necessary evil, of which a minimum use must
be made, the school disciplines had in reality been adapting
themselves for centuries by their growing formalism and loss
of content. Among the seven liberal arts rhetoric is the
best example of the former characteristic. It was so purely
conventional a discipline in Isidore’s time that, even though
he wrote of it, he confesses that it made no impression on him,
either good or bad. “When it is laid aside,” he says, “all
recollection vanishes.” The loss of content, on the other hand,
is best seen in Isidore’s account of the four mathematical
sciences, especially in that of geometry, which consists of
nothing more than a few definitions.
In the _Etymologies_, as has been noticed, Isidore has combined
the encyclopedia of education, as exemplified in the works of
Martianus Capella and Cassiodorus, and the encyclopedia of the
whole range of knowledge, of which the works of Varro, Pliny, and
Suetonius are leading examples. The first three of the twenty books
which are comprised in the _Etymologies_ are evidently educational
texts; the last twelve as evidently belong to the encyclopedia of
all knowledge.[152] The question is in which of these divisions
the intervening books should be classed. If we look to Isidore’s
predecessors for guidance on this point, we find that Capella gives
only the seven liberal arts, while Cassiodorus gives not only a
comprehensive account of preparatory studies in the form of the seven
liberal arts, but adds in his _De Institutione Divinarum Litterarum_
a treatment of the higher, or religious, education of the monk. The
supposition that Isidore followed the example of Cassiodorus is the
more natural one. Their educational purpose was much the same:
Cassiodorus had in mind the training of the monk, while Isidore
was concerned with the education of the priest. It is, all things
considered, more natural to suppose that Isidore is giving in Books
I-VIII of his _Etymologies_ a comprehensive survey of the education
of the secular clergy, than to suppose that his educational texts
stopped short at the end of the seven liberal arts.
[152] See p. 31 for outline of contents.
If this supposition is correct, the outline of this survey is
as follows: Grammar (Bk. I), Rhetoric and Dialectic (Bk. II),
Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy (Bk. III), Medicine (Bk. IV),
Laws and Times (Bk. V), the books and services of the church (Bk.
VI), God, the angels, and the orders of the faithful (Bk. VII), the
church and the different sects (Bk. VIII). The inclusion of medicine,
law, and chronology, which were not in the corresponding plan of
Cassiodorus,[153] meant merely an enlargement of his scheme to fit
it for the slightly different purpose which Isidore had in mind. The
reason for the inclusion of these subjects is the practical one: in
the absence of any other educated class priests were obliged to have
some slight knowledge of medicine and law, while the intricacy of the
church calendar of the time made chronology a professional necessity.
[153] However, Cassiodorus had in the _De Institutione Divinarum
Litterarum_ a chapter entitled “On monks having the care of the
infirm”. In this he urged upon them the reading of a number of
medical works (those of Dioscorides, Hippocrates, Galen, Caelius
Aurelianus, and “various others”. Migne, _P. L._, 70, 1146).
At first sight this plan of educational subjects would seem to be at
variance with our accepted idea that the seven liberal arts covered
the whole field of preparatory training. A closer examination shows,
however, that in form at least Isidore kept them in a class by
themselves; and when he passes from them to medicine he is careful
to specify that it is not one of the liberal arts, but forms a
“second philosophy”.[154] By this he means that medicine—and the same
may be assumed for laws and times—is placed in the higher and not the
preparatory stage of education, and that in this sphere it plays a
minor part.
[154] 4, 13. See also p. 163.
If, then, this view of the subject-matter of the first eight books of
the _Etymologies_ is correct, it will be admitted that in Isidore’s
organization of education a significant step has been taken. In
the education of the Greek and Roman world there was nothing to
parallel the medieval and modern university development, which has
been characterized until recently by the three professional schools
of law, medicine, and theology. In Isidore’s plan we have, for the
first time, as professional studies, first, what corresponds to the
later theology, and, in subordination to this, the subjects of law,
medicine and chronology. It is evident, therefore, that we have here
in embryo, as it were, the organization of the medieval university;
law and medicine have only to be secularized and freed from their
subordination to theology, and the medieval university in its
complete form appears.
PART II
THE ETYMOLOGIES
BOOK I
ON GRAMMAR
INTRODUCTION
Grammar did not appear as a separate body of knowledge until a
late period in the Greek civilization. The merest ground-work of
the science had sufficed to meet all the demands of education, of
philosophy, and of a literature in course of production; for its
development it was necessary to await a period of literary criticism.
When the Alexandrian scholars began to compare the idiom of Homer
with that of their own day, the requisite stimulus for the scientific
study of language was given, and grammar may be regarded as dating
from the Alexandrian age.
What was at that time termed grammar, γραμματική, included far more
than the modern science; it was the study of literature at large. The
grammarian might have nothing to do with what we call grammar, but
be a student of textual criticism or mythology. Any sort of study
undertaken for the purpose of elucidating the poets was grammatical.
Like the modern professor of literature, the only invariable
characteristic of the grammarian was his literary point of view.[155]
[155] See Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_, pp. 6–10.
The grammatical studies of the Romans were patterned closely after
those of the Greeks; the Greek terminology and organization of the
science were adopted without change. The Roman interest in the
subject was no doubt heightened by the fact that the Roman culture
was a bilingual one; thus a broad basis for the study was furnished,
and naturally much attention was given to the derivation of words.
A large number of scholarly works was produced, and the inferiority
of the borrowed Roman culture is perhaps less noticeable in this
department than in any other.
It was inevitable that this ‘grammar’, in a condensed form, should
come to be used in common education. Its outlines, however, were
rather vague, and many of its departments did not lend themselves
to the concise statement necessary in a text-book. The first Greek
school grammar, the τεχνὴ γραμματικὴ[156] of Dionysius Thrax, which
was destined to be the basis of all the school grammars of antiquity,
appeared about 80 B.C. It is noticeable that although the definition
of grammar that is given[157] is the definition of the grammar of
the scholars, the subjects actually treated are little more than the
parts of speech. It was natural that there should be this gap between
promise and performance. For a long time no doubt this mere outline
was filled in by the oral interpretation of the masterpieces in
the manner of the scholars; but when these ceased to be studied, in
the early medieval period, the study of grammar was confined to the
material offered in the text-books.[158]
[156] It is still in existence. The best text is that of Uhlig,
1883 (Leipzig).
[157] “Grammar is a practical knowledge of the usages of
language as generally current among poets and prose writers. It
is divided into six parts: (1) trained reading with due regard
to prosody; (2) explanation according to poetical figures; (3)
ready statement of dialectical peculiarities and allusions; (4)
discovery of etymology; (5) an accurate account of analogies;
(6) criticism of poetical productions, which is the noblest
part of grammatic art.” _The Grammar of Dionysius Thrax_,
translated by T. Davidson (St. Louis, 1874), p. 3. In contrast
to this definition the body of the work is devoted to reading,
punctuation, the alphabet, syllables, and the parts of speech.
[158] The older definition or its substance was still retained,
however. See p. 97. Its retention is rather an evidence of
conservatism than a proof of the continued study of the poets.
The first of the Romans to produce a school grammar was Remmius
Palaemon, who flourished in the first half of the first century. He
had many successors in the later centuries of the Roman Empire, and
the literary tradition of the school grammar continued unbroken into
the Middle Ages. The most influential exponent of the subject was
Aelius Donatus, whose _Ars_, written in the fourth century, was used
throughout the Middle Ages. The chief writers of grammatical texts in
the centuries preceding Isidore were Victorinus, Donatus, Diomedes,
Charisius, and Martianus Capella in the fourth; Consentius and Phocas
in the fifth; and Cassiodorus in the sixth. No new contributions
were being made to the science, and these writers had no other
resource than to copy their predecessors, which they did in a slavish
manner.[159] The verbal similarity in all of them is so strong that
it is impossible to trace with certainty the immediate source of any
one of the later writers.
[159] The following list of passages gives some idea of the way
in which grammatical works were produced in this age.
Vox sive sonus est aer ictus, id est percussus, sensibilis
auditu quantum in ipso est. Probi, _Instituta Artium_ in Keil,
_Grammatici Latini_, vol. vi, p. 4, 13.
Vox est aer ictus sensibilis auditu, quantum in ipso est. Donati,
_Ars Grammatica_. _Ibid._, vol. iv, p. 367, 5.
Vox est aer ictus sensibilis auditu, verbis emissa, et exacta
sensus prolatio. Sergii, _Explanationum in artem Donati, Liber
I._, _Ibid._, vol. iv, p. 487, 4.
Vox est aer auditu percipibilis quantum in ipso est. Marius
Victorinus, _Ars Grammatica_. _Ibid._, vol. vi, p. 4, 13.
Vox quid est? Aer ictus sensibilisque auditu quantum in ipso est.
Maximus Victorinus, _Ars Grammatica_. _Ibid._, vol. vi, p. 189, 8.
Vox articulata est aer percussus sensibilis auditu quantum in
ipso est. Cassiodorus, _Institutio de Arte Grammatica_. _Ibid._,
vol. vii, p. 215, 4.
Vox est aer ictus sensibilis auditu, quantum in ipso est.
Isidore, _Etymologiae_, 1, 15.
These grammars are almost altogether made up of definitions which
had become stereotyped.
Isidore’s account of grammar is of somewhat more than the average
length[160] found in these text-books, but its lack of solid
substance, in which it differs from the books of the fourth century,
measures the decline in intellectual grasp and thoroughness of the
two intervening centuries. Donatus, Servius, and even Capella, stick
closely to the technique of the subject and are thorough-going; their
books are calculated to afford a severe discipline to the student.
But in Isidore a feebleness in handling the subject is evident; he
is apparently unaware of the superior importance of such subjects as
conjugation and declension, and he is very easily led into confusion
by the trains of thought suggested by his frequent derivations.[161]
[160] The greater length of his treatment is due to the fact
that he includes more subjects than do the preceding writers of
text-books. A comparison of his table of contents with those of
Cassiodorus, Martianus Capella, Donatus, and Servius shows that
he professes to cover much more than they; he has ten topics that
do not appear in Donatus’ _Ars Grammatica_, and a greater number
that do not appear in Servius, Capella, or Cassiodorus.
[161] See especially his definition of verbum, 1, 9, 1.
ANALYSIS[162]
[162] The analysis is meant to indicate briefly the formal
organization of the subject. It is followed by selected
passages in translation, which, while illustrating the
technical treatment, are meant rather to give what is of more
general interest. It must be remembered that this treatment by
selected passages fails to give a just idea of the meagerness,
attenuation, and confusion of the material considered as a whole.
A. Introductory.
1. Definition of _ars_ and _disciplina_ (ch. 1).
2. Definition of the seven liberal arts (ch. 2).
3. The Hebrew and Greek alphabets (ch. 3).
4. The Latin alphabet (ch. 4).
B. Grammar.
1. Definition and divisions[163] (ch. 5).
2. Parts of speech (chs. 6–14).
a. _de nomine_ (ch. 7).
_Propria_ (four sub-classes of proper nouns are
given).
_Appellativa_ (twenty-eight sub-classes of common
nouns are given).
_Nominis comparatio_ (comparison of adjectives).
_Genera_ (genders).
_Numerus._
_Figura_ (simple and compound nouns).
_Casus._[164]
b. _de pronomine_[165] (ch. 8).
c. _de verbo_ (ch. 9).
_Formae_ (desiderative, inchoative and
frequentative verbs).
_Modi_ (indicative, imperative, optative,
conjunctive, infinitive, impersonal).
_Conjugationes._[166]
_Genera_ (active, passive, neuter, common, and
deponent verbs).
d. _de adverbio_[167] (ch. 10).
e. _de participio_ (the participle) (ch. 11).
f. _de conjunctione_ (ch. 12).
g. _de praepositionibus_ (ch. 13).
h. _de interjectione_ (ch. 14).
3. Articulate speech (ch. 15).
4. The syllable (ch. 16).
5. Metrical feet[168] (ch. 17).
6. Accent[169] (chs. 18, 19).
7. Punctuation (ch. 20).
8. Signs and abbreviations (_Notae_) (chs. 21–26).
a. _Notae sententiarum_ (critical marks used in
manuscripts).
b. _Notae vulgares_ (shorthand).
c. _Notae militares_ (abbreviations used in military
rolls).
d. _Notae litterarum_ (cipher-writing).
e. _Notae digitorum_ (sign language).
9. Orthography (ch. 27).
10. Analogy[170] (ch. 28).
11. Etymology (ch. 29).
12. Glosses (ch. 30).
13. Synonyms (ch. 31).
14. Barbarisms, solecisms[171] and other faults[172] (chs. 32–34).
15. Metaplasms (poetic license in changing the forms of words)
(ch. 35).
16. _Schemata_ (rhetorical figures) (ch. 36).
17. Tropes[173] (ch. 37).
18. Prose (ch. 38).
19. Metres[174] (ch. 39).
20. The fable (ch. 40).
21. History (chs. 41–44).
[163] See p. 97.
[164] A set of terms unfamiliar to the modern student of grammar
is given under this head. Nouns having six distinct case-forms
are called _hexaptota_; those having five, _pentaptota_, and so
on. See 1, 7, 33.
[165] Pronouns are classified according to use into _finita_,
_infinita_, _minus quam finita_, _possessiva_, _relativa_,
_demonstrativa_; and according to origin into _primigenia_ and
_deductiva_.
[166] Three conjugations are given.
[167] Note part of the definition: “Adverbium autem sine verbo
non habet plenam significationem, ut hodie: adjicis illi verbum,
hodie scribo, et juncto verbo implesti sensum.” 1, 10, 1.
[168] Isidore asserts that there are one hundred and twenty-four
sorts of metrical feet, “four of two syllables, eight of three,
sixteen of four, thirty-two of five, sixty-four of six.” 1, 17, 1.
[169] The ten so-called accents of the grammarians are described:
the acute, the grave, the circumflex, the marks to indicate long
and short vowels, the hyphen, the comma, the apostrophe, the
rough and smooth breathing.
[170] This section is to be explained by reference to the
chief controversy in the history of the science of grammar in
classical times, that between analogy and anomaly, or whether
grammatical regularity or irregularity was the more basic
phenomenon. In Capella’s grammar _analogia_ is the heading under
which declensions of nouns and conjugations of verbs are given,
while exceptions are grouped under the heading _anomala_. See
Martianus Capella, Eyssenhardt, pp. 75–97. Also Sandys, _History
of Classical Scholarship_, Index.
[171] Solecism is “the failure to put words together according to
the correct method”, while barbarism includes blunders in the use
of single words. 1, 33, 1.
[172] Chiefly a parade of long words, like _perissologia_,
_macrologia_, _tapinosis_, _cacosyntheton_, etc. 1, 34.
[173] A large number of poetical figures are described. This
section is probably nothing but an evidence of conservatism,
since Isidore certainly did not include a study of the poets in
his scheme of education.
[174] A number of metres are described and some attention is
given to different kinds of poetry, such as the elegiac, bucolic,
hymn, cento, etc.
EXTRACTS
Chapter 2. On the seven liberal arts.[175]
[175] Du Breul has _disciplinis_, not _artibus_.
1. The disciplines belonging to the liberal arts are seven. First,
grammar, that is, practical knowledge of speech. Second, rhetoric,
which is considered especially necessary in civil causes because of
the brilliancy and copiousness of its eloquence. Third, dialectic,
called also logic, which separates truth from falsehood by the
subtlest distinctions.
2. Fourth, arithmetic, which includes the significance and the
divisions of numbers. Fifth, music, which consists of poems and
songs.
3. Sixth, geometry, which embraces measurements and dimensions.
Seventh, astronomy, which contains the law of the stars.
Chapter 3. On the ordinary letters.
1. The foundations of the grammatic art are the ordinary letters,
which elementary teachers[176] are occupied with, instruction in
which is, as it were, the infancy of the grammatic art. Whence Varro
calls it _litteratio_. Letters are signs of things, symbols of words,
whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the
words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the
ear.
[176] _Librarii et calculatores._
2. The use of the letters was invented in order to remember things.
For things are fettered by letters in order that they may not escape
through forgetfulness. For in such a variety of things all could not
be learned by hearing and held in the memory.
4. Latin and Greek letters have evidently come from the Hebrew. For
among the latter _aleph_ was first so named; then [judging] by the
similarity of sound it was transmitted to the Greeks as _alpha_;
likewise to the Latins as _a_. For the borrower fashioned the letter
of the second language according to similarity of sound, so that we
can know that the Hebrew language is the mother of all languages and
alphabets.[177]
[177] From Jerome, _ad Soph._, in Migne, _Patr. Lat._, 6, 7, 30.
7. The letter Υ Pythagoras of Samos first made, after the model of
human life, whose lower stem denotes the first of life, which is
unsettled and has not yet devoted itself to the vices or the virtues.
The double part which is above, begins in youth; of which the right
side is steep, but leads to the blessed life; the left is easier, but
leads down to ruin and destruction....
8. Among the Greeks there are five mystic letters.[178] The first
is Υ, which denotes human life, of which we have just spoken. The
second is Θ, which denotes death. For judges used to place this
letter, theta, at the names of those whom they condemned to death;
and it is called theta ἀπὸ τοῦ θανάτου, _i.e._, from death. Whence
also it has a weapon through its middle, _i.e._, the sign of death.
Of which a certain one speaks thus:
O multum ante alias infelix littera theta!
[178] This sentence, as many others, is in the accusative and
infinitive without any governing verb.
9. The third is Τ, indicating the shape of the cross of the Lord....
The remaining two, the first and the last, Christ claims for himself.
For he is himself the beginning, himself the end, saying: “I am α
and ω,” for they pass into one another in turn, and alpha passes in
regular succession to ω and again ω returns to alpha; in order that
the Lord might show in himself that he was the way from the beginning
to the end and from the end to the beginning.
Chapter 4. On the Latin alphabet.
17. The nations gave the names of the letters in accordance with the
sound in their own language, noting and distinguishing the sounds of
the voice. After they had noted them, they gave them names and forms;
and they made the forms in part at pleasure, in part according to the
sound of the letters; as, for example, i and o, of which one has a
slender stem, just as it has a thin sound; the sound of the other is
gross (_pinguis_), just as its form is full.
Chapter 5. On grammar.
1. Grammar is the science of speaking correctly, and is the source
and foundation of literature.[179] This one of the disciplines was
discovered next after the ordinary letters, so that those who have
already learned the letters may learn by it the method of speaking
correctly. Grammar took its name from letters, for the Greeks call
letters γράμματα.
[179] _Liberalium litterarum._
4. The divisions of the grammatic art are enumerated by certain
authorities as thirty; namely, eight parts of speech, the articulate
voice, the letter, the syllable, metrical feet, accent, marks
of punctuation, signs and abbreviations, orthography, analogy,
etymology, glosses, synonyms, barbarisms, solecisms, [other] faults,
metaplasms, schemata, tropes, prose, metres, fables, histories.
Chapter 6. On the parts of speech.
1. Aristotle first taught two parts of speech, the noun and the verb.
Then Donatus defined eight. But all revert to these two chief ones,
that is, to the noun and the verb, which indicate the person and the
act. The remainder are appendages, and trace their origin to these.
2. For the pronoun arises from the noun and performs its function,
as _orator_, _ille_. The adverb arises from the noun, as _doctus_,
_docte_. The participle from the noun and verb, as _lego_, _legens_.
But the conjunction and preposition and interjection are included in
those mentioned.[180] Many therefore have defined five parts because
these are superfluous.
[180] _In complexum istarum cadunt._
Chapter 21. On critical marks (_notae sententiarum_).
1. In addition there were certain marks in the writings of
celebrated authors, which the ancients set in poems and histories to
discriminate among the passages. A mark is a separate form placed
like a letter, to indicate some judgment about a word, thought or
verse. There are twenty-six marks used in annotating verses, which
are enumerated below with their names.[181]
[181] See _Etym._, 1, 21, 2–28.
Chapter 22. On shorthand.
1. Ennius[182] first invented 1,100 shorthand signs. The use of the
signs was that scribes wrote whatever was said in public meeting
or in court, several standing by at one time and deciding among
themselves how many words and in what order each should write.
At Rome Tullius Tiro, Cicero’s freedman, was the first to invent
shorthand, but only for prepositions.[183]
[182] The grammarian.
[183] _Notas sed tantum praepositionum._ Probably abbreviations
for prepositions and other connectives that were in frequent use.
2. After him Vipsanius Philargius and Aquila, Maecenas’s freedman,
each added a number of signs. Then Seneca, collecting them all and
arranging them and increasing their number, raised the total to
5,000. The signs (_notae_) are so-called because they _denote_ words
or syllables by marks,[184] and bring them again to the _notice_
of readers, and they who have learned them are now properly called
_notarii_.
[184] _Praefixis characteribus._
Chapter 27. On orthography.
1. Orthography is Greek, and it means in the Latin correct writing;
for ὀρθή in the Greek means correct, and γραφή means writing.
This branch of knowledge teaches us how we ought to write. For as
the art[185] treats of the inflection of the parts of speech, so
orthography deals with the knowledge of writing, as, for example,
_ad_, when it is a preposition, takes the letter _d_; when it is a
conjunction, the letter _t_.
[185] Among the seven liberal arts grammar is the art _par
excellence_.
2. _Haud_, when it is an adverb of negation, is terminated by
the letter _d_ and is aspirated at the beginning; but when it is
a conjunction, it is written with the letter _t_ and is without
aspiration.
7. Forsitan ought to be written with _n_ at the end, because its
uncorrupted form is _forte si tandem_.
Chapter 29. On etymology.
1. Etymology is the derivation of words,[186] when the force of a
verb or a noun is ascertained through interpretation. This Aristotle
called σύμβολον, and Cicero, _notatio_, because it explains the names
of things;[187] as, for example, _flumen_ is so called from _fluere_,
because it arose from flowing.
[186] _Cf. Quintilian_, 1, 6, 28.
[187] Quia nomina et verba rerum nota facit.
2. A knowledge of etymology is often necessary in interpretation,
for, when you see whence a name has come, you grasp its force
more quickly. For every consideration of a thing is clearer when
its etymology is known. Not all names, however, were given by the
ancients in accordance with nature, but certain also according to
whim, just as we sometimes give slaves and estates names according to
our fancy.
3. Hence it is that the etymologies of some names are not found,
since certain things have received their name not according to the
quality in which they originated, but according to man’s arbitrary
choice. Etymologies are given in accordance with cause, as _reges_
from _regere_, that is, _recte agere_; or origin, as _homo_ because
he is from the earth (_humus_); or from contraries, as _lutum_ (mud)
from _lavare_—since mud is not clean—and _lucus_ (sacred grove),
because being shady it has little light (_parum luceat_).
4. Certain words also were formed by derivation from other words; as
_prudens_ from _prudentia_. Certain also from cries, as _graculus_
(jackdaw) from _garrulitas_. Certain also have sprung from a Greek
origin, and have changed over into the Latin, as _silva_,[188]
_domus_.
[188] _Cf._ 17, 6, 5, where _silva_ (_xilva_) is derived from
ξύλον (wood).
5. Other things have derived their names from the names of places,
cities, or rivers. Many also are drawn from the languages of foreign
peoples; whence their derivation is perceived with difficulty; for
there are many barbarous words unknown to the Greeks and Latins.
Chapter 32. On barbarism.
1. Barbarism is the uttering of a word with an error in a letter or
in a quantity: a letter, as _floriet_, when _florebit_ is correct; a
quantity, if the first syllable is prolonged instead of the middle
one, as _latebrae_, _tenebrae_. And it is called barbarism from the
barbarian peoples, since they were ignorant of the purity of Latin
speech; for each nation becoming subject to the Romans, transmitted
to Rome along with their wealth their faults, both of speech and of
morals.
Chapter 37. On tropes.
1. Tropes are so named by the grammarians from a Greek word which
in Latin means _modi locutionum_. They are turned from their own
meaning to a kindred meaning that is not their own. And it is very
difficult to comment on the names of them all, but Donatus gave for
practice a list of thirteen selected from the whole number.
2. Metaphor is the assumption of a transfer of meaning in some word,
as when we say _segetes fluctuare_ (the grain-fields billow), _vites
gemmare_, when we do not find any waves or gems in these things, but
the words are transferred from the old application to a new one.
These and other tropical forms of speech are veiled with figurative
cloaks with reference to the things to be understood, with the view
that they may exercise the intelligence of the reader, and may not be
cheap because they are unadorned and easily apprehended.
22. Allegory is the saying of things that do not belong to the
matter in hand (_alienoloquium_), for one thing is said, another is
understood; as, _tres in littore cervos conspicit errantes_, where
the three leaders of the Punic war, or the three Punic wars are
indicated; and in the _Bucolics_, _aurea mala decem misi_, _i.e._,
ten pastoral eclogues to Augustus. There are many species of this
figure, of which seven are conspicuous: irony, antiphrasis, enigma,
charientismus, paroemia, sarcasmus, astysmus.
23. It is irony where the thought is given a contrary meaning by the
manner of speech. By this figure something is said cleverly, either
in the way of accusation or insult, as the following:
Vestras, Eure, domos, illa se jactet in aula
Aeolus, et clauso ventorum carcere regnet.
And why _aula_ (palace) if it is _carcer_ (prison)! It is made
clear by the manner of speech, for the manner of speech says
_carcer_. _Jactet in aula_ is irony, and the whole is expressed in a
contradictory manner of speech by the figure of irony which mocks by
praising.
24. Antiphrasis is language to be understood to the contrary, as,
_lucus_ (sacred grove), since it is without light (_lux_) because of
the excessive gloom of the woods....
25. Between irony and antiphrasis there is this difference, that
irony indicates by the manner of speaking alone what is meant,
as when we say to a man doing ill, “Bonum est quod facis”. But
antiphrasis indicates the contrary not by the voice of the speaker,
but only in the words, whose derivation is the opposite [of their
meaning].
Chapter 39. On metres.
4. Whatever is measured by verse feet is a poem (_carmen_). It
is thought that the name was given because it was pronounced
rhythmically (_carptim_), or ... because they who sang such things
were supposed to be out of their minds (_mente carere_).
9. ... [The hexameter] excels the rest of the metres in authority,
being alone of them all fitted as well to the greatest tasks as to
the small, and with an equal capacity for sweetness and delight....
It is also older than the other metres. It is proved that Moses
was the first to use it in the song of Deuteronomy, long before
Pherecydes and Homer. Whence also it is evident that the making of
poems was older among the Hebrews than among the nations. Since Job,
too, who goes back as far as Moses, sang in hexameter verse, [using]
the dactyl and the spondee.
12. Hecataeus of Miletus is said to have been the first among the
Greeks to compose this metre; or, as others think, Pherecydes of
Syros, and this metre before Homer was called Pythian, after Homer,
heroic.
17. It is manifest that David the prophet was the first to compose
and sing hymns in praise of God. Later among the nations Timothoe who
(_quae_) lived in the time of Ennius, long after David, wrote the
first hymns in honor of Apollo and the Muses. _Hymni_ is translated
from the Greek to the Latin as _laudes_.
25. Among grammarians they are wont to be called _centones_ who
[take] from the poems of Homer and Virgil with a view to their own
works, and put together in patchwork fashion many bits found here and
there to suit each subject.
26. Proba, wife of Adelphos, composed at great length a cento from
Virgil about the structure of the universe and the gospels,[189] the
subject-matter being made up verse by verse, and the verses being
arranged appropriately to suit the subject-matter. And a certain
Pomponius, among other poems (_otia_) of his own pen, wrote _Tityrus_
from the same poet in honor of Christ.
[189] _De Fabrica mundi et Evangeliis._
Chapter 41. On history.
1. History is the story of what has been done, and by its means what
has taken place in the past is perceived. It is called in the Greek
_historia_, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱστορεῖν, that is from seeing (_videre_) and
learning (_cognoscere_). For among the ancients no one wrote history
unless he had been present and witnessed what was to be described.
For we understand what we see better than we do what we gather by
hearsay.
2. For what is seen is told without lying. This discipline belongs
to grammar because whatever is worth remembering is entrusted to
letters....
Chapter 42. On the first writers of history.
1. Moses was the first among us to write a history of the beginning
of the world. Among the nations Dares Phrygius was the first to
publish a history of the Greeks and Trojans, which they say was
written by him on palm-leaves.
2. And after Dares, Herodotus is considered the first historian in
Greece. After whom Pherecydes was famous, at the time when Esdras
wrote the law.
Chapter 43. On the usefulness of history.
1. Histories of the heathen do no harm to their readers where they
tell what is useful. For many wise men have put past deeds into their
histories for the instruction of the present.
2. Besides, in history the total reckoning of past times and years is
embraced and many necessary matters are examined in the light of the
succession of consuls and kings.
Chapter 44. On the sorts of history.
1. There are three sorts of history. The doings of one day are called
_ephemeris_. Among us this name is _diarium_....
2. What is arranged according to separate months is called
_kalendaria_.
3. _Annales_ are the deeds of the years, one by one. For whatever was
related in the commentaries from year to year as worthy of memory, in
peace and war, by sea and land, they named annals from the deeds of a
year.
4. But history is a thing of many years or times, and through
diligence in it the yearly commentaries are put into books. Between
history and annals there is this difference, that history belongs to
the times which we see, and annals belong to years which our age does
not know. Whence Sallust is made up of history; Livy, Eusebius and
Hieronymus of annals and history.
BOOK II
ON RHETORIC
INTRODUCTION
Rhetoric held a position in the ancient world that the modern reader
has difficulty in understanding. Democratic government, including
the popular administration of justice, at a time when all discussion
was necessarily oral, created an ideal condition in Athens and the
other Greek states for the development of oratory. In the life of the
Roman republic, too, there was enough of the popular element to make
public speaking of the greatest importance. The art of rhetoric was
therefore in close touch with the real interests of life. It was not
merely a school discipline, but a preparation for a definite activity
that held a high place in the esteem of the people, and it embodied
a set of sensible ideas on public speaking in which the tendency
to over-elaboration and artificiality characteristic of scholastic
disciplines was kept in check by the wholesome influences that came
from practical application.
With the establishment of the Roman Empire public discussion of
political matters quickly disappeared, and forensic oratory for the
same reason tended to decline. Thus the chief element which had
given vitality to ancient rhetoric was eliminated. Roman oratory,
however, died hard. It nursed itself on various pretences and shows.
Much of the old interest in oratory turned back on rhetoric, which
was thus exposed to a double danger, as an educational discipline
that had lost connection with practical life and as a subject that
had become too fashionable. When once the new influence had gained
headway a strong tendency to artificiality was revealed. Rhetoric
became scholastic and ridiculously overburdened with classification
and terminology; it grew more lifeless as it grew more systematic.
Interest then gradually subsided. Treatises grew shorter and drier,
and consisted largely of long lists of terms defined without critical
understanding of their meaning. The subject now held its place by the
mere force of authority.
This was the state of rhetoric in Isidore’s time, and his treatment
reflects the condition to which it had been reduced. He says that
“it is easy for the reader to admire but impossible to understand”
the books on rhetoric, and, further, that when they are laid aside
“all recollection vanishes.” From a writer with this attitude little
need be expected. His few miserable pages, compared with Quintilian’s
interesting treatise, measure fully the decline of rhetoric during
the first six centuries A.D. What Isidore gives is merely a summary,
so cursory and disjointed that it frequently cannot be understood
without liberal reference to the fuller treatises of his predecessors.
In Isidore’s _De Rhetorica_ practically the whole of Cassiodorus’
text-book on this subject is incorporated without acknowledgment. Two
authorities, Victorinus and Cicero, are quoted,[190] but on referring
to Cassiodorus it becomes plain that even here Isidore is merely
copying his authority’s citation of authority. However his brief
chapter on law cannot be paralleled in any extant treatise before his
time and its insertion must be credited to his initiative.
[190] Isidore, _Etym._, 2, 19, 14, “Praeterea secundum Victorinum
enthymematis est altera definitio. Ex sola propositione, sicut
jam dictum est, ita constat. ‘Si tempestas vitanda est, non est
navigatio requirenda.’”
Cassiodorus, _De Rhet._ Halm, _Rhetores Latini_, p. 500.
“Praeterea secundum Victorinum enthymematis est altera definitio.
Ex sola propositione, sicut jam dictum est, ita constat
enthymema, ut est illud: ‘si tempestas vitanda est, non est
navigatio requirenda.’”
Isidore, _Etym._, 2, 9, 18. “Hunc Cicero ita facit in arte
rhetorica.”
Cass. in Halm, p. 500, 18. “Hunc Cicero facit in arte rhetorica.”
ANALYSIS[191]
[191] The analytical treatment of this subject is obviously
carried to an absurd degree. The whole activity of the orator is
analyzed into five parts: _inventio_, _dispositio_, _elocutio_
(wording), _memoria_, _pronuntiatio_. The whole subject-matter
is analyzed into three parts: deliberative, epideictic,
forensic. All court cases are analyzed from the point of view
of the defence, according to _status_, that is, according to
the nature of the leading point in the case. The speech itself
(_oratio_) is analyzed into four parts: introduction, narrative,
argument and conclusion. All cases are analyzed again according
to the psychological impression they make on the audience. All
arguments are analyzed into regular and irregular syllogisms.
Even negation, giving the lie, is analyzed into several sorts.
Rhetorical figures are analyzed elaborately.
I. Definition (ch. 1).
II. Chief writers (ch. 2).
III. Divisions (ch. 3).
1. _Inventio._
2. _Dispositio._
3. _Elocutio._
4. _Memoria._
5. _Pronuntiatio._
IV. The three kinds of cases (ch. 4).
1. _Deliberativum._[192]
2. _Demonstrativum._[193]
3. _Judiciale._[194]
V. The two-fold status of cases[195] (ch. 5).
1. _Rationalis._
a. _Conjectura._[196]
b. _Finis._[197]
(1) _Juridicialis._[198]
(a) _Absoluta._[199]
(b) _Assumptiva._[200]
(_a_) _Concessio._[201]
_Purgatio._[202]
_Deprecatio._[203]
(_b_) _Remotio criminis._[204]
(_c_) _Relatio criminis._[205]
(_d_) _Comparatio._[206]
(2) _Negotialis._[207]
c. _Qualitas._[208]
d. _Translatio._[209]
2. _Legalis._
a. _Scriptum et voluntas._[210]
b. _Leges contrariae._[211]
c. _Ambiguitas._[212]
d. _Collectio._[213]
e. _Definitio legalis._[214]
VI. The three-fold division of controversies[215] (ch. 6).
1. Simple.
2. Compound.
3. Complex.
VII. The four parts of a speech[216] (ch. 7).
1. _Exordium._
2. _Narratio._
3. _Argumentatio._
4. _Conclusio._
VIII. The five modes of cases[217] (ch. 8).
1. _Honestum._
2. _Admirabile._[218]
3. _Humile._
4. _Anceps._
5. _Obscurum._
IX. Argumentation (ch. 9).
1. _Inductio._
2. _Ratiocinatio._[219]
a. _Enthymema._
b. _Epicherema._
c. _Mendacium._[220]
X. Law[221] (ch. 10).
XI. The sententious saying (ch. 11).
XII. Confirmation and denial (ch. 12).
XIII. Personification and expression of character (chs. 13–14).
XIV. Kinds of subjects (ch. 15).
_Finitum._
_Infinitum._
XV. Style and diction (ch. 16).
XVI. The three ways of speaking (ch. 17).
_Humile._
_Medium._
_Grandiloquium._
XVII. Parts of a sentence (ch. 18).
XVIII. Faults to be avoided[222] (chs. 19–20).
XIX. Figures[223] (ch. 21).
[192] “In which there is discussion of what ought or ought not
to be done in regard to any of the practical affairs of life.”
2, 4, 1. The _genus deliberativum_ is divided into _suasio_ and
_dissuasio_, and each of these again, under the three headings,
_honestum_, _utile_, _possibile_.
[193] Epideictic; divided into _laus_ and _vituperatio_, 2, 4.
[194] Forensic rhetoric.
[195] Under this heading we have the chief effort of ancient
rhetoric to be helpful to the defense in cases brought before
the courts. The term _status_ meant the crucial point in a case,
and its subdivisions are intended to include the chief kinds of
crucial points upon which the advocate must base his speech. The
inference in both Isidore and Cassiodorus is that there is only
one status in a case, but Quintilian (3, 6, 21) expressly says
that there are more than one, and that the chief status in a case
“is the strongest point in it on which the whole matter chiefly
turns.”
In this section Isidore borrows from Cassiodorus almost without
change in the wording. In one case he has made a serious blunder
in copying: the subdivisions that Cassiodorus places under
_qualitas_, Isidore has placed under _finis_. (Cass., _De Rhet._,
Halm, p. 496.)
[196] “When an act that is imputed to a person is denied by
another” (2, 5, 3), and the balancing of evidence is the method
of deciding.
[197] “When it is maintained that the act that is the matter of
accusation is not that [specified], and its nature is shown by
the use of definitions.” 2, 5, 3.
[198] “In which the nature of justice and right and the abstract
grounds of reward and punishment are gone into.” 2, 5, 5.
[199] Term left undefined.
[200] “Which of itself offers no satisfactory ground for defence
but seeks for defence beyond its own limits.” 2, 5, 5.
[201] “When the accused does not deny the act but demands that it
be pardoned.” 2, 5, 6.
[202] “When the deed is confessed but guilt is denied” on the
ground of ignorance, accident, or necessity. 2, 5, 8.
[203] “When the accused confesses that he has committed the wrong
and has done so purposely, and still demands that he be pardoned,
which kind can be of very rare occurrence.” 2, 5, 8.
[204] “When the accused endeavors energetically to divert the
charge made against him from himself and his guilt to another.”
2, 5, 6.
[205] “When it is urged that there is justification because
another had committed a wrong before.” 2, 5, 7.
[206] “When some other honorable or expedient act of another is
alleged, for the accomplishing of which the act specified in the
accusation is asserted to have been done.” 2, 5, 7.
[207] “In which there is discussion of what is just in view of
civil custom and equity.” 2, 5, 5.
[208] “When the nature of the case is inquired into; and since
the dispute is concerned with the real meaning and classification
of the matter at stake, this is called the _constitutio
generalis_.” 2, 5, 3. This is the general heading under which all
the sub-heads classified under _finis_ should have been placed.
Isidore made a mistake in copying from Cassiodorus, in whom the
classification is correct.
[209] “When the case depends on this, that it is not the proper
person who brings the action, or that it is not before the proper
court, at the proper time, according to the proper law, charging
the proper crime, demanding the proper punishment.” 2, 5, 4.
[210] “When the words seem to be at variance with the intention
of the writer.” 2, 5, 9.
[211] “When two or more laws are perceived to be in conflict with
one another.” 2, 5, 9.
[212] “When what is written seems to have two or more meanings.”
2, 5, 10.
[213] “When from what is written another thing also which is not
written is inferred.” 2, 5, 10.
[214] “When inquiry is made as to what is the force of a word.”
2, 5, 10.
[215] A division applying only to the _genus deliberativum_.
[216] Six are usually given. Cassiodorus has _exordium_,
_narratio_, _partitio_, _confirmatio_, _reprehensio_,
_conclusio_. Halm, _Rhetores Latini Minores_, p. 497.
[217] An analysis of cases according to the emotional effect they
are likely to have on the audience.
[218] “Ut admirentur (judices) quenquam ad defensionem eius
accedere.” Halm, 316, 34, from Sulpitius Victor.
[219] The irregular syllogism. Each sub-head is exhaustively
analyzed.
[220] Giving the lie as conclusion of an irregular syllogism.
[221] A short account of the nature of law. This sub-head is not
found in the text-books on rhetoric before Isidore’s time.
[222] In the use of letters, words, and sentences.
[223] _Figurae verborum et sententiarum._ Samples of the former
are _anadiplosis_, _paradiastole_, _antimetabole_, _exoche_;
of the latter (forty-seven in all), _coenonesis_, _parrhesia_,
_aposiopesis_, _aetiologia_, _epitrochasmus_. Cf. p. 107, note.
EXTRACTS
Chapter 1. On rhetoric and its name.
1. Rhetoric is the science of speaking well in civil questions for
the purpose of persuading to what is just and good. It is called
rhetoric in the Greek ἀπὸ τοῦ ῥητορίζειν, that is, from eloquence of
speech. For speech among the Greeks is called ῥῆσις, and the orator
ῥήτωρ.
2. Rhetoric is allied to the grammatic art. For in grammar we learn
the science of speaking correctly, and in rhetoric we discover in
what way to express what we have learned.
Chapter 2. On the discoverers of the art of rhetoric.
1. This discipline was invented by Gorgias, Aristotle and Hermagoras
among the Greeks, and translated into Latin by Tullius and
Quintilian, but with such eloquence and variety that it is easy for
the reader to admire, impossible to understand.
2. For while he holds the parchment the connected discourse as it
were cleaves to his memory, but presently when it is laid aside all
recollection vanishes. Perfect knowledge of this discipline makes the
orator.
Chapter 3. On the name of the orator and the parts of rhetoric.
1. The orator is the good man skilled in speaking. ‘The good man’
means nature, character, accomplishments (_artibus_). ‘Skilled in
speaking’ means studied eloquence, which consists of five parts:
invention, ordering, diction and style, memory, delivery, and the
purpose, which is to persuade of something.
2. Skill in speaking consists in three things: nature, learning,
practise; nature, that is, talent; learning, knowledge; practice,
continuous labor. These are the things that are looked to not only in
the orator but in every artist with a view to accomplishment.
Chapter 4. The three kinds of causes.
1. There are three kinds of causes: deliberative, epideictic,
judicial. The deliberative kind is that in which there is a
discussion as to what ought or ought not to be done in regard to
any of the practical affairs of life. The epideictic, in which a
character is shown to be praiseworthy or reprehensible.
2. The judicial, in which opinion as to reward or punishment with
reference to an act of an individual is given.
Chapter 16. Style and diction.
2. One must use good Latin and speak to the point. He speaks good
Latin who constantly uses the true and natural names of things, and
is not at variance with the style and literary refinement of the
present time. Let it not be enough for him to be careful of what he
says, without saying it in a clear, attractive manner; nor that only,
without saying what he says wittily also.
Chapter 21. On figures.
1. Speech is amplified and adorned by the use of figures. Since
direct, unvaried speech creates a weariness and disgust both of
speaking and hearing, it must be varied and turned into other forms,
so that it may give renewed power to the speaker, and become more
ornate and turn the judge from an aloof countenance and attention.
ON DIALECTIC
INTRODUCTION
In tracing the fortunes of logic through the period of decadence and
the dark ages the effect upon it of a transition from a pagan to a
Christian environment need scarcely be taken into consideration.
Such marks of degeneration as it shows must be attributed simply to
the general decay of thought, which was marked in both pagan and
Christian spheres. By its character logic was well adapted to pass
from the service of Greek philosophy and science to that of Christian
theology: it had been worked out mainly as a method of Greek science,
which was especially backward in the fields where induction plays a
large part; consequently the Greek logic is not inductive. It is the
logic of universals ready-made, and it has nothing to do with their
making; it receives universals as authoritative. It was therefore
most welcome to Christian thinkers, since it was precisely adapted to
“the task of drawing out the implications of dogmatic premises.”[224]
[224] H. W. Blunt, Art. “Logic,” in _Encycl. Brit._, 11th ed.
See also Rashdall, _Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_
(Oxford, 1895), vol. i, p. 36.
It was not until a very late period that logic appeared in the Latin
language in the form of a school text. In fact, with the exception
of Varro’s Dialectic in his “Nine Books of the Disciplines,” which
has been lost, there were no writings on logic in the Latin down to
the fourth century. Instruction in the subject was apparently given
in Greek and to but few pupils. In the fourth century, however,
Greek was going out of use, and it became necessary, if logic was
to be saved in the schools, to have Latin text-books.[225] The need
was met by a line of text-writers, of whom Marius Victorinus (c.
350) was the first. The oldest Latin school-book on logic that has
survived, however, is that of Martianus Capella. Neither he nor his
two successors, Cassiodorus and Isidore, were versed in the subject;
they were merely compilers of educational encyclopedias. Such was the
perfunctory origin of the Latin text-books on logic.[226]
[225] It was thought that the Latin vocabulary was not well
suited to the expression of the ideas of logic. _Cf._ Martianus
Capella, _De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_ (ed. Eyssenhardt)
where Dialectica is about to speak: “Ac mox Dialectica, quanquam
parum digne latine loqui posse crederetur, tamen promptiore
fiducia restrictisque quadam obtutus vibratione luminibus etiam
ante verba formidabilis, sic exorsa.”
[226] It is true that the works of Boethius, which were not
school texts, served to revivify the subject, but his influence
was very slight in this respect until long after Isidore’s
time. M. Manitius, _Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des
Mittelalters_ (München, 1911), pp. 29–32.
The reader of Isidore’s account of logic is struck by the enthusiasm
displayed. Speaking of Aristotle’s Categories he says: “This work
of Aristotle’s should be read attentively, since, just as is stated
therein, all that a man says is included in the ten categories.”[227]
Further on he quotes the saying that “Aristotle dipped his pen in
intellect when he wrote the _Perihermeniae_.”[228] Again, a study of
Apuleius “will introduce the reader advantageously with God’s help to
great paths of understanding.”[229] All of these passages, however,
come word for word from Cassiodorus. Isidore’s enthusiasm as well as
his bibliography seems to lack genuineness.[230]
[227] 2, 26, 15. _Cf._ Cass. Migne, _P. L._, vol. lxx, col. 1170.
[228] 2, 27, 1. _Cf._ Cass. Migne, _P. L._, vol. lxx, col. 1170.
[229] 2, 28, 22. _Cf._ Cass. Migne, _P. L._, vol. lxx, col. 1173.
[230] The substance of Isidore’s _De Dialectica_ is taken chiefly
from Cassiodorus. A number of passages seem to be based on
Martianus Capella: for example, _Etym._, 2, 31, 1, on Martianus
Capella (Eyssenhardt), 118, 8 ff.; _Etym._, 2, 31, 4–5, on M. C.,
118, 15–25; _Etym._, 2, 31, 7, on M. C., 120, 9 ff.
ANALYSIS
I. Definition of dialectic (chs. 22, 23).
1. Distinction between dialectic and rhetoric.
II. Definition of philosophy (ch. 24).
III. The Isagoges[2] of Porphyry (ch. 25).
1. The five predicables: genus, species, differentia, proprium,
accidens.
IV. The Categories of Aristotle (ch. 26).
V. Aristotle’s _De perihermeniis_[231] (ch. 27).
1. Thought as expressed in language.
VI. The syllogisms (ch. 28).
1. Categorical syllogisms.
2. Hypothetical syllogisms.
VII. Definition (ch. 29).
The fifteen kinds of definition.
VIII. Arguments (_topica_) (ch. 30).
The twenty-two _loci_ of arguments.
IX. Opposites (ch. 31).
[231] Isidore’s ignorance of Greek has been inferred from his use
of the forms, _isagogae_ and _perihermeniae_. See p. 36.
EXTRACTS
Book II, Chapter 22. On dialectic.
1. Dialectic is the discipline elaborated with a view of ascertaining
the causes of things. In itself it is the sub-division of philosophy
that is called logical, _i.e._, rational, capable of defining,
enquiring and expressing precisely. For it teaches in the several
kinds of questions how the true and false are separated by discussion.
2. The first philosophers used dialectic in their discourses, but
they did not reduce it to the practical form of an art. After them
Aristotle systematized the subject-matter of this branch of learning,
and called it dialectic, because there is discussion of words
(_dictis_) in it; for λεκτὸν means _dictio_. And dialectic follows
after the discipline of rhetoric because they have many things in
common.
Chapter 23. On the difference between the dialectical and the
rhetorical art.
1. Varro, in the nine books of the _Disciplinae_, distinguished
dialectic and rhetoric by the following simile: “Dialectic and
rhetoric are as in man’s hand the closed fist and the open palm, the
former drawing words together, the latter scattering them.”
2. If dialectic is keener in expressing things precisely, rhetoric
is more eloquent in persuading to the belief it desires. The former
seldom appears in the schools, the latter goes without a break [from
the schools] to the law-court. The former gets few students, the
latter often whole peoples.
3. Before they come to the explanation of the Isagoge, philosophers
are wont to give a definition of philosophy, in order that the things
which concern it may be shown more easily.
Chapter 24. On the definition of philosophy.
1. Philosophy is the knowledge of things human and divine, united
with a zeal for right living. It seems to consist of two things,
knowledge and opinion.
2. It is knowledge when anything is known with definiteness;
opinion, when a thing lurks as yet in uncertainty and seems in no
way established, as for example, whether the sun is [only] as large
as it seems or greater than all the earth; likewise whether the moon
is a sphere or concave; and whether the stars adhere to the heavens
or pass in free course through the air; of what size the heaven
itself is and of what material it is composed; whether it is quiet
and motionless or revolves with incredible speed; how great is the
thickness of the earth, or on what foundations it continues poised
and supported.
3. The word philosophy, translated into Latin, means _amor
sapientiae_. For the Greeks call amor φιλὸν, and sapientiae σοφίαν.
The sub-division of philosophy is three-fold: first, natural
philosophy, which in Greek is called _physica_, in which there is
discussion of the search into nature; the second, moral, which
in Greek is called _ethica_, in which the subject is morals; the
third, rational, which in the Greek is called _logica_, in which the
discussion is as to how the truth itself is to be sought in respect
to the causes of things or the conduct of life.
4. In physics, then, the cause of inquiry, in ethics, the manner of
living, in logic, the method of understanding, are concerned. Among
the Greeks, Thales of Miletus, one of the seven wise men, was the
first to search into natural philosophy. For this man first regarded
with contemplative thought the causes of the heavens and the force of
the things of nature. And this division of philosophy Plato afterward
divided into four separate parts, namely, into arithmetic, geometry,
music, astronomy.
5. Socrates first established ethics with a view to correcting and
ordering conduct, and he devoted all his attention to the discussion
of right living, dividing it into the four virtues of the soul,
namely, wisdom, justice, fortitude, temperance.
6. Wisdom is engaged with things, and by it the evil is distinguished
from the good. Fortitude, by which adversity is endured with
calmness. Temperance, by which lust and concupiscence are bridled.
Justice, by which through righteous judgment his own is rendered to
each.
7. Plato added logical philosophy, which is called rational, and by
it he analyzed the causes of things and of conduct, and examined
their force in a rational way, dividing it into dialectic and
rhetoric. It is called logical, that is, rational, for among the
Greeks λόγος means both word and reason.
8. The divine utterances also consist of these three kinds of
philosophy. For they are wont to discuss nature, as in Genesis or
Ecclesiastes; or conduct, as in Proverbs and here and there in all
the books; or logic, instead of which our [philosophers] assert the
claim of theology,[232] as in the Song of Songs or the Gospels.
[232] Du Breul has _theologia_; Arevalus, _theorica_.
9. Likewise some of the teachers have defined philosophy in its
name and parts as follows: “Philosophy is the probable knowledge of
divine and human affairs, as far as is possible for man.” Otherwise:
“Philosophy is the art of arts and the science of sciences.” Again:
“Philosophy is the meditation upon death, a definition which better
suits the Christians, who trampling on worldly ambition, live in the
intercourse of learning after the likeness of their future country.”
10. Others have defined the scheme of philosophy as made up of
two parts, of which the former is contemplative, the latter
practical. The contemplative (_inspectiva_) is divided into natural,
theoretical, and divine. Theoretical is divided into four parts, into
arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.
11. Practical (_actualis_) philosophy is divided into moral,
economic, and civil. Contemplative is the name given that in which,
passing beyond the visible, we enjoy some contemplation of the divine
and celestial, and behold them with the mind alone, since they pass
beyond the bodily gaze.
12. Natural philosophy is the name given when the nature of each and
every thing is discussed, since nothing arises contrary to nature
in life, but each thing is assigned to those uses for which it was
purposed by the Creator, unless perchance by God’s will it is shown
that some miracle appears.
13. It is called divine philosophy when we discuss the ineffable
nature of God or the spiritual beings that are in some degree of a
lofty nature.
14. The science which considers abstract quantity is called
theoretical. For that is called abstract quantity which we separate
from the material, or from other accidents, by the intellect, and
treat by reasoning alone, as _e.g._, equal, unequal, and other
matters of this kind....
16. Further, that is called practical philosophy which by its
workings makes problems clear, of which there are three parts, moral,
economic, and civil. That is called moral by which an honorable
custom (_mos_) of living is sought and practices tending to virtue
are established. That is called economic (_dispensativa_) in which
the order of domestic affairs is wisely arranged. That is called
civil by which the advantage of a whole state is secured.
Chapter 25. On the Isagoges of Porphyry.
1. After the definitions of philosophy in which all things are
embraced under general heads, let us now describe the Isagoges of
Porphyry. Isagoge in the Greek means _introductio_ in the Latin,
being meant for those, it is plain, who are beginning philosophy, and
containing an explanation of first principles. In regard to anything
whatever it is made clear what its nature is, by unfailing definition
of the substance.
2. For setting down first the genus, then the species, we subjoin
also other things that are possibly related, and by setting aside
common qualities we make distinctions, continually interposing
differences until we arrive at the proper quality of that which we
are examining, its meaning being made definite, as, for example:
_Homo est animal rationale, mortale, terrenum, bipes, risus capax_.
3. When the genus _animal_ is mentioned the substance of man is
declared. For with reference to man the genus is animal; but since
it has a wide application, the species, _terrenum_, is added and now
what belongs to the air or water is excluded. And a difference is
added, as, for example, _bipes_, which is given on account of the
animals that go on several feet. Likewise _rationale_, because of the
animals which lack reason; and _mortale_, because man is not an angel.
4. Afterwards, when the common qualities had been set aside, the
property was added at the end, for it is the characteristic of man
alone to laugh. In this way the complete definition to indicate man
was reached. Aristotle and Tully held that the full definition of
this science consisted of genus and differences.
5. Later certain authorities, expressing their position more fully,
in their teaching divided perfect substantial definition into five
divisions, as if into five organic parts. And the first of these
deals with genus, the second with species, the third with difference,
the fourth with proper quality, the fifth with accident.
Chapter 26. On the categories of Aristotle.
1. Next follow the categories of Aristotle, which in Latin are called
_praedicamenta_, within which all discourse is embraced throughout
its various meanings.
5. There are ten sorts of categories, namely, _substantia_,
_quantitas_, _qualitas_, _relatio_, _situs_, _locus_, _tempus_,
_habitus_, _agere_, _pati_.
15. This work of Aristotle ought to be read with attention, since,
as has been observed, whatever man speaks is included within the ten
categories. It will help also to the understanding of the books that
are devoted either to rhetoric or to logic.[233]
[233] This passage is copied from Cassiodorus and is not an
indication that Isidore had read the work of Aristotle that is
mentioned.
Chapter 27. On Interpretation (_de Perihermeniis_).
1. There follows next the book On Interpretation, which is extremely
subtle and guarded in its various formulas and repetitions, of which
it is said: “Aristotle when he wrote the Perihermeniae dipped his pen
in intellect.”
Chapter 28. On syllogisms.
1. Next follow the syllogisms of dialectic, wherein the advantage and
excellence of that whole art is exhibited, the inferences of which
greatly aid the reader in searching out the truth, so that the common
error of deceiving an adversary by the sophisms of false conclusions
disappears.
2. There are three formulae of categorical syllogisms. To the first
formula belong nine modes....
12. To the second formula belong four modes....
16. To the third formula belong six modes.
22. Let him who desires to understand fully these formulas of
the categorical syllogisms read the book entitled _Apuleii
Perihermeniae_, and he will learn matters that are treated with
subtlety.[234] And by their clearness and well-weighed character
they will introduce the reader advantageously with God’s help to
great paths of understanding. Now let us come to the hypothetical
syllogisms in order.
23–25. The modes of the hypothetical syllogisms that have a
conclusion are seven.... If anyone desires to know more fully the
modes of the hypothetical syllogisms let him read Marius Victorinus’
book entitled _De Syllogismis Hypotheticis_.[234]
[234] A recommendation copied word for word from Cassiodorus.
26. Next let us approach the topic of dialectical definitions, which
have such surpassing worth that they may rightly be called the clear
manifestations of speech, and in a sense the guides to expression.
Chapter 29. On the division of definitions, abbreviated from the book
of Marius Victorinus.
1. The definition of the philosophers is that which in describing
things sets forth what the thing in itself is—not, of what sort it
is—and how it ought to be made up of its parts. For it is a brief
statement separating the nature of each thing from its class, and
marking it off by its peculiar meaning. Definitions are divided
into fifteen sorts. The first kind of definition is the substantial
(οὐσιώδης), which is named definition in the proper and true
sense, as, for example, _Est homo animal rationale, mortale, risus
disciplinaeque capax_. This definition descends through species and
differences and comes to the property, and expresses most fully what
man is.
16. Now let us come to the _topica_, which are the seats of
arguments, the fountains of ideas, and the sources of speech.
Chapter 30. On the topics.
1. _Topica_ is the science of finding arguments. The division
of the _topica_ or the _loci_ from which arguments are derived
is three-fold. For some inhere in the very thing that is under
discussion; there are others, called _affecta_ (closely connected),
which are known to be derived in a certain sense from other things;
others, which are taken from outside [the subject]....
18. It is clearly a wonderful thing that whatever the nimbleness and
variety of the human mind could discover, searching for ideas in
different cases, could have been gathered into unity; that free and
spontaneous intelligence is limited. For wherever it turns, whatever
thoughts it enters on, the mind must fall upon some of those that
have been described.
BOOK III
ON THE FOUR MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
ON ARITHMETIC
INTRODUCTION
In examining Isidore’s _De Arithmetica_ two peculiarities of the
development of the subject should be borne in mind. In the first
place, the predominant position among the mathematical sciences which
Isidore claims for arithmetic was one acquired by it comparatively
late. Owing perhaps to the awkwardness of the Greek notation of
number[235] geometry had been developed first, and historically
arithmetic was an off-shoot from geometry and borrowed its
terminology largely from it.[236] It was not given an independent
form until the time of Nicomachus (fl. 100 A.D.) whose _Introductio
Arithmetica_ was “the first exhaustive work in which arithmetic
was treated quite independently of geometry.”[237] Once it become
independent, arithmetic, instead of geometry, came to be regarded as
the fundamental mathematical science. The old tradition is reflected
in Martianus Capella’s order of subjects, in which geometry is
placed first and arithmetic second, while the newer tradition is seen
in the order of Cassiodorus and Isidore, who both have passages also
emphasizing the fundamental character of arithmetic.
[235] “The cumulative evidence is surely very strong that the
alphabetic numerals were first employed in Alexandria early
in the third century B.C.” J. Gow, _A Short History of Greek
Mathematics_ (Cambridge, 1884), p. 48.
[236] We have in Isidore, for example, the terms _numerus
trigonus_, _numerus quadratus_, _numerus quinquangulus_, and
_linealis_, _superficialis_, and _circularis numerus_.
[237] Cajori, _Hist. of Math._, p. 72.
The second peculiarity is one which will surprise the modern reader
who is familiar with arithmetic as a utilitarian study. The ancient
_arithmetica_ had nothing to do with the art of reckoning, which was
called _logistica_.[238] The science and the art of numbers were
completely divorced and the latter was excluded from the higher
education as we have it in the seven liberal arts. Consequently we
can expect nothing practical in Isidore’s _De Arithmetica_. Nothing
is said of methods of calculation, elementary or advanced, and, as a
matter of course, nothing is to be found here on such topics as the
use of the abacus[239] or the method of computing Easter, though the
latter was the greatest mathematical problem of the time.
[238] Gow, speaking of the Greek ἀριθμητική, says: “Its aim was
entirely different from that of the ordinary calculator, and it
was natural that the philosopher who sought in numbers to find
the plan on which the creator worked, should begin to regard with
contempt the merchant who wanted only to know how many sardines
at ten for an obol he could buy for a talent.” Gow, _op. cit._,
p. 72.
[239] Cantor believes that the use of the abacus had been
forgotten before Isidore’s time, _cf._ “calculator a calculis,
id est a lapillis minutis quos antiqui in manu tenentes numeros
componebant.” _Etym._, 10, 43. See Cantor, _Vorlesungen über
Geschichte der Mathematik_ (Leipzig, 1894–1900), vol. i, p. 774.
Isidore’s source in the _De Arithmetica_ was Cassiodorus,[240] whom
he copies with little change; while Cassiodorus’ work was apparently
a bare abstract of Boethius’ translation of Nicomachus. Isidore’s
account is of great brevity and contains a number of unexplained
technical terms.
[240] Isidore adds to the account as found in Cassiodorus a few
remarks about numbers in the Scriptures, some derivations of
numbers, and the sections on the means and on infinity.
EXTRACTS
PREFACE. Mathematics is called in Latin _doctrinalis scientia_. It
considers abstract quantity. For that is abstract quantity which
we treat by reason alone, separating it by the intellect from the
material or from other non-essentials, as for example, equal,
unequal, or the like. And there are four sorts of mathematics,
namely, arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Arithmetic is the
science of numerical quantity in itself. Geometry is the science of
magnitude and forms.[241] Music is the science that treats of numbers
that are found in sounds. Astronomy is the science that contemplates
the courses of the heavenly bodies and their figures, and all the
phenomena of the stars. These sciences we shall next describe at a
little greater length in order that their significance may be fully
shown.
[241] Du Breul has _magnitudinis et formarum_; Arevalo,
_magnitudinis formarum_.
Chapter 1. On the name of the science of arithmetic.
1. Arithmetic is the science of numbers. For the Greeks call number
ἀριθμός. The writers of secular literature have decided that it is
first among the mathematical sciences since it needs no other science
for its own existence.
2. But music and geometry and astronomy, which follow, need its aid
in order to be and exist.