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.