All about St Isidore

St Isidore of Seville

Feast Day April 4th

Isidore was born in Cartagena, Spain, about 560 AD.

His long incumbency as Bishop of Seville was spent in a period of disintegration and transition. The ancient institutions and classic learning of the Roman Empire were fast disappearing. In Spain a new civilization was beginning to evolve itself from the blending racial elements that made up its population. Realizing that the spiritual as well as the material well-being of the nation depended on the full assimilation of the foreign elements, St. Isidore set himself to the task of welding into a homogeneous nation the various peoples who made up the Hispano-Gothic kingdom.

He was the first Christian writer to essay the task of compiling for his co-religionists a summa of universal knowledge. This encyclopedia, the "Etymologiae" or "Origines" as it is sometimes called, epitomized all learning, ancient as well as modern. In it many fragments of classical learning are preserved which otherwise had been hopelessly lost.Throughout the greater part of the Middle Ages it was the textbook most in use in educational institutions. So highly was it regarded as a depository of classical learning that in a great measure, it superseded the use of the individual works of the classics themselves.

Isidore has been described as the last of the ancient Christian Philosophers, as he was the last of the great Latin Fathers. Seen by many as the most learned man of his age, he exercised a far-reaching and immeasurable influence on the educational life of the Middle Ages.

So how does Saint Isidore of Seville become the patron saint for the Internet?

The Roman Catholic Church, drawing on the work of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, researched the Internet and related technologies to select a patron saint that best reflected the concerns and ideals of computer designers, programmers and users.

The saint chosen was Saint Isidore. "The saint who wrote the well-known 'Etymologies' (a type of dictionary), gave his work a structure akin to that of the database. He began a system of thought known today as 'flashes;' it is very modern, notwithstanding the fact it was discovered in the sixth century. Saint Isidore accomplished his work with great coherence: it is complete and its features are complementary in themselves."

You can read more about the saint and his work here.