Isidore's Latin style in the
Etymologiae and elsewhere, though simple and lucid, reveals increasing local Visigothic traditions.
Etymologiae manuscript (8th century),
Brussels,
Royal Library of Belgium Isidore was the first Christian writer to try to compile a
summa of universal knowledge, in his most important work, the
Etymologiae (taking its title from the method he uncritically used in the transcription of his era's knowledge). It is also known by classicists as the
Origines (the standard abbreviation being
Orig.). This
encyclopedia—the first such Christian
epitome—formed a huge compilation of 448 chapters in 20 volumes. In it, Isidore entered his own terse digest of Roman handbooks, miscellanies and compendia. He continued the trend towards abridgements and summaries that had characterised Roman learning in
late antiquity. In the process, many fragments of classical learning are preserved that otherwise would have been hopelessly lost; "in fact, in the majority of his works, including the
Origines, he contributes little more than the mortar which connects excerpts from other authors, as if he was aware of his deficiencies and had more confidence in the
stilus maiorum than his own", his translator Katherine Nell MacFarlane remarks.—that it superseded the use of many individual works of the classics themselves, which were not recopied and have therefore been lost: "all secular knowledge that was of use to the Christian scholar had been winnowed out and contained in one handy volume; the scholar need search no further". Book VIII of the
Etymologiae covers religion, including the Christian Church, Judaism, heretical sects, pagan philosophers, sibyls, and magi. In this section, Isidore documents pre-Christian religious and magical beliefs, preserving knowledge about ancient magical practices, even while condemning them as superstition. His writings serve as one of the few surviving records of magical thought in early medieval Europe, helping to transmit classical esoteric ideas into the Middle Ages. The fame of this work imparted a new impetus to encyclopedic writing, which bore abundant fruit in the subsequent centuries of the
Middle Ages. It was the most popular compendium in
medieval libraries. It was printed in at least ten editions between 1470 and 1530, showing Isidore's continued popularity in the
Renaissance. Until the 12th century brought translations from Arabic sources, Isidore transmitted what western Europeans remembered of the works of
Aristotle and other Greeks, although he understood only a limited amount of Greek. The
Etymologiae was much copied, particularly into medieval
bestiaries.
On the Catholic Faith against the Jews represents the inhabited world as described by Isidore in his
Etymologiae Isidore's
De fide catholica contra Iudaeos furthers
Augustine of Hippo's ideas on the Jewish presence in the Christian society of the ancient world. Like Augustine, Isidore held an acceptance of the Jewish presence as necessary to society because of their expected role in the anticipated
Second Coming of Christ. But Isidore had access to Augustine's works, out of which one finds more than forced acceptance
of but rather broader reasons than just an endtime role
for Jews in society: :[D]iversities in the manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained [are not scrupled in the heavenly city for which we strive, while its citizens sojourn on earth], but recognizing that, however various they are, they all tend to one and the same end of earthly peace. :[The heavenly city] is therefore so far from rescinding and abolishing these diversities, that it even preserves and adopts them, so long only as no hindrance to the worship of the one supreme and true God is thus introduced...and makes this earthly peace bear upon the peace of heaven; for this alone can be truly called and esteemed the peace of the reasonable creatures, consisting as it does in the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God and of one another in God. (
City of God, Book 19, Chapter 17) According to Jeremy Cohen, Isidore exceeds the anti-rabbinic polemics of earlier theologians by criticising Jewish practice as deliberately disingenuous in
De fide catholica contra Iudaeos. But once again Isidore's same predecessor, Augustine, seems to have written of at least the possibility of Jewish rabbinical practice along that subject's content's purportedly deceptive lines in the same work cited above: :They say that it is not credible that the seventy translators [of the
Septuagint] who simultaneously and unanimously produced one rendering, could have erred, or, in a case in which no interest of theirs was involved, could have falsified their translation, but that the Jews, envying us our translation of their Law and Prophets, have made alterations in their texts to undermine the authority of ours. (
City of God, Book 15, Chapter 11) He also contributed Canon 65 thought to forbid Jews and Christians of Jewish origin from holding public office.
Other works , 1778 Isidore's authored more than a dozen major works on various topics including mathematics, holy scripture, and monastic life, all in Latin: •
Historia de regibus Gothorum, Vandalorum et Suevorum, a history of the Gothic, Vandal and Suebi kings. The longer edition, issued in 624, includes the
Laus Spaniae and the
Laus Gothorum. •
Chronica Majora, a
universal history •
De differentiis verborum, a brief theological treatise on the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, of Paradise, angels, and men •
De natura rerum (
On the Nature of Things), a book of
astronomy and
natural history dedicated to the Visigothic king
Sisebut •
Questions on the Old Testament •
Liber numerorum qui in sanctis Scripturis occurrunt, a mystical treatise on the allegorical meanings of numbers • a number of brief letters •
De viris illustribus •
De ecclesiasticis officiis •
De summo bono or
Sententiae libri tres •
De ortu et obitu patrum •
Regula Monachorum ==Veneration==