April 4: Saint Isidore of Seville, Doctor of the Church

The Saint who united faith and culture

Saint Isidore is the last of the Latin Fathers of the Church and is credited with having guided the society of the Iberian Peninsula, a center of culture and learning, by unifying the Roman Catholic inhabitants with the Arian Goths.

He belonged to a noble family of Spanish-Roman origin, of Catholic religion, who lived in Cartagena. In the year 554, his father Severianus with his wife and his three children Leandro, Fulgentius and Florentina, left Cartagena and settled in Seville, where Isidore was born around 560.

His parents died early and Isidore was raised and educated by his older brother Leandro.

Isidore was highly intelligent and cultured and devoted himself to writing. Among his books were a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a history of the Goths and a history of the world starting from Creation. He completed the Mozarabic liturgy, which is still in use in Toledo, Spain.

In 602, upon the death of his brother Leandro, who was Bishop of Seville, he was chosen as his successor. During Isidore’s episcopate, he constructed seminaries in each diocese, wrote a Rule for religious Orders, and founded schools.

Isidore established a systematic and extensive education of the clergy, seeing it as necessary formation to contrast the false doctrines permeating the times. His most important work, the Etymologiae, divided into 20 books, was the first Catholic encyclopedia. It was used for centuries in seminaries and schools. He was known as a charitable pastor, who gave much of his possessions to the poor. During the last six months of his life, he continued to give, so much so that his house was always full of people in need. He died on April 4, 636 and was buried in the same tomb with his siblings Leandro and Florentina.