April IV

St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville

From his works and those of SS. Braulio and Ildefonse, his disciples. His life, compiled by Luke, bishop of Tuy, in Galicia, in 1236, extant in Mabillon, Sæc. Ben. 2, shows not that accuracy and judgment which we admire in the books of that author against the Albigenses: nor is it here made use of.

A. D. 606.

St. Isidore is honored in Spain as the most illustrious doctor of that church, in which God raised him, says St. Braulio,¹ to stem the torrent of barbarism and ferocity which everywhere followed the arms of the Goths, who had settled themselves in that kingdom, in 412. The eighth great council of Toledo, fourteen years after his death, styles him “the excellent doctor, the late ornament of the Catholic church, the most learned man, given to enlighten the latter ages, always to be named with reverence.” The city Carthagena was the place of his birth, which his parents, Severian and Theodora, persons of the first quality in the kingdom, edified by the example of their extraordinary piety. His two brothers, Leander and Fulgentius, bishops,* and his sister Florentina, are also honored among the saints. Isidore having qualified himself in his youth for the service of the church by an uncommon stock of virtue and learning, assisted his brother Leander, archbishop of Seville, in the conversion of the Visigoths from the Arian heresy. This great work he had the happiness to see perfectly accomplished by his indefatigable zeal and labors, which he continued during the successive reigns of the kings Reccared, Liuba, Witeric, Gundemar, Sisebut, and Sisemund. Upon the decease of St. Leander, in 600, or 601, he succeeded him in the see of Seville.^† He restored and settled the discipline of the church of Spain in several councils, of all which he was the oracle and the soul. The purity of their doctrine, and the severity of the canons enacted in them, drawn up chiefly by him, are incontestable monuments of his great learning and zeal.^‡ In the council of Seville, in 619, in which he presided, he, in a public disputation, convinced Gregory (a bishop of the Acephali) of his error, who was come over from Syria; and so evidently did he confute the Eutychian heresy, that Gregory, upon the spot, embraced the Catholic faith. In 610, the bishops of Spain, in a council held at Toledo, agreed to declare the archbishop of that city primate of all Spain, as they say, he had always been acknowledged; which decree king Gundemar confirmed by a law the same year; and St. Isidore subscribed the same Yet we find that in the fourth council of Toledo, in 633, the most famous of all the synods of Spain, though Justus, the archbishop of Toledo, was present, St. Isidore presided, not by the privilege of his see, but on the bare consideration of his extraordinary merit; for he was regarded as the eminent doctor of the churches of Spain. The city of Toledo was honored with the residence of the Visigoth kings.

St. Isidore, to extend to posterity the advantages which his labors had procured to the church, compiled many useful works: in which he takes in the whole circle of the sciences, and discovers a most extensive reading, and a general acquaintance with the ancient writers, both sacred and profane. In the moral parts his style is pathetic and moving, being the language of a heart overflowing with sentiments of religion and piety: and though elegance and politeness of style were not the advantage of that age, the diction of this father is agreeable and clear.* The saint was well versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.

St. Ildefonse says, that this saint governed his church near forty years, but cannot mean above thirty-six or thirty-seven. When he was almost fourscore years old, though age and fatigues had undermined and broken into his health, he never interrupted his usual exercises and labors. During the last six months of his life, he increased his charities with such profusion, that the poor of the whole country crowded his house from morning till night. Perceiving his end to draw near, he entreated two bishops to come to see him. With them he went to the church, where one of them covered him with sackcloth, the other put ashes on his head. Clothed with the habit of penance, he stretched his hands towards heaven, prayed with great earnestness, and begged aloud the pardon of his sins. He then received from the hands of the bishops the body and blood of our Lord, recommended himself to the prayers of all that were present, remitted the bonds of all his debtors, exhorted the people to charity, and caused all the money which he had not as yet disposed of to be distributed among the poor. This done, he returned to his own house, and calmly departed this life on the fourth day after, which was the 4th of April, in the year 636, as is expressly testified by Ædemptus, his disciple, who was present at his death. His body was interred in his cathedral, between those of his brother, St. Leander, and his sister, St. Florentina. Ferdinand, king of Castile and Leon, recovered his relics from the Moors, and placed them in the church of St. John Baptist, at Leon, where they still remain.

All who are employed in the functions of Martha, or of an exterior active life, must always remember that action and contemplation ought to be so constantly intermingled, that the former be always animated and directed by the latter, and amid the exterior labors of the active life, we constantly enjoy the interior repose of the contemplative, and that no employments entirely interrupt the union of our souls to God; but those that are most distracting serve to make us more closely, more eagerly, and more amorously, plunge our hearts in Him, embracing him in himself by contemplation, and in our neighbor by our actions.

St. Plato, Abbot

He was born about the year 734. A pestilence that raged at Constantinople depriving him of his parents when he was no more than thirteen years of age, the care of his education devolved upon an uncle, who was high treasurer. Plato, while yet young, dispatched the business of that high office for his uncle with surprising readiness and assiduity. His remarkable dexterity in writing shorthand, may be reckoned among his inferior accomplishments, seeing by the daily progress he made in the more sublime parts of knowledge and religion, he far outstripped all his equals in age, and went beyond the greatest expectation of his masters. These eminent qualifications, joined to his elevated birth, extensive wealth, and unblemished probity, introduced him to the notice of the great, and opened to him the highest preferments in the state. Persons in the highest stations at court wished to make him their son-in-law: but his whole heart being attached to heavenly things, he looked with contempt on the pomps and vanities of this world. Prayer and retirement were the chief objects of his delight, nor was he fond of paying any visits except to churches and monasteries. He prevailed on his three brothers to devote themselves to God, and live in a state of celibacy: he made all his slaves free, and having sold his large estates, he portioned his two sisters, who, marrying, became the mothers of saints: the remainder of the purchase-money he distributed among the poor. Being thus disengaged, he bid adieu to his friends and country at twenty-four years of age. He took with him one servant as far as Bithynia, but there sent him also back, having given him all his clothes, except one coarse black suit; and in this manner he walked alone to the monastery of Symboleon, upon mount Olympus, in that country. From the moment he was admitted into that house, no one was more humble, more devout, more exact in every duty, or more obedient and mortified. The holy abbot Theoctistus, to furnish him with opportunities of heroic acts of virtue, often reproved and punished him for faults of which he was not guilty: which treatment St. Plato received with silence and joy, in patience and humility. Prayer and pious reading were the delight of his soul. In the hours allotted to labor he rejoiced to see the meanest employments assigned to him, as to make bread water the ground, and carry dung, though his most usual province was to copy books of piety. Theoctistus dying in 770, St. Plato was chosen abbot of Symboleon, being only thirty-six years old. He had opposed his exaltation to the utmost of his power, but seeing himself compelled to take upon him that burden, he became the more humble and the more austere penitent. He never drank any thing but water; and this sometimes only once in two days: his diet was bread, beans, or herbs without oil: and this refection he never took even on Sundays before None. He would never eat or wear any thing which was not purchased by the labor of his own hands; by which he also maintained several poor. His retreat protected him from the persecution of Constantine Copronymus. The year after the death of that tyrant, in 775, St. Plato took a journey to Constantinople on business, where it is incredible with what esteem he was received, and how much he promoted piety in all ranks, states, and conditions; how successful he was in banishing habits of swearing and other vices, and inspiring both the rich and poor with the love of virtue. The patriarch, not Tarasius, as Fleury mistakes, but his predecessor, Paul, endeavored to make him bishop of Nicomedia; but such was the saint’s humility, that he made all haste back to his desert of Symboleon. He would never take holy orders; and indeed at that time the generality of monks were laymen. The whole family of his sister Theoctista, embracing a religious state, and founding the monastery of Saccudion, near Constantinople, St. Plato was with difficulty prevailed upon to leave Symboleon, and to take upon him the direction of this new abbey, in 782; but when he had governed it twelve years, he resigned the same to his nephew, St. Theodorus. The emperor Constantine repudiated his empress, Mary, and took to his bed Theodota, a relation of St. Plato. The patriarch, St. Tarasius, endeavored to reclaim him by exhortations and threats; but SS. Plato and Theodorus proceeded to publish among the monks a kind of sentence of excommunication against him. Joseph, the treasurer of the church, and several other mercenary priests and monks, endeavored to draw over St. Plato to approve the emperor’s divorce; but he resisted their solicitations, and the emperor himself to his face, and courageously suffered imprisonment and other hardships till the death of that unhappy prince, in 797. The Saracens making excursions as far as the walls of Constantinople, the monks of Saccudion abandoned their settlement, and chose that of Studius, which abbey had been almost destroyed by the persecution of Constantine Copronymus. There St. Plato vowed obedience to his nephew Theodorus, living himself a recluse in a narrow cell, in perpetual prayer and manual labor, having one foot fastened to the ground with a heavy iron chain, which he carefully hid with his cloak when any one came to see him. In 806, St. Nicephorus, a layman, though a person of great virtue, was preferred to the patriarchal dignity by the emperor of the same name. St. Plato judged the election of a neophyte irregular, and on that account opposed it. In 807 he fell under a new persecution. Joseph, the priest who had married the adulteress to the emperor Constantine, was restored to his functions and dignity of treasurer of the church, by an order of the emperor Nicephorus. St. Plato considered this indulgence as a scandalous enervation of the discipline of the church, and a seeming connivance at his past crimes; and loudly condemned it. The emperor, provoked at his zeal, caused him to be guarded a whole year by a troop of insolent soldiers and false monks; after which he obliged him to appear before a council of court bishops, by which he was unjustly condemned, and treated with many indignities, and at length, with the most flagrant injustice, pronounced guilty of the fictitious crimes laid to his charge; in consequence of which sentence the emperor banished him, and commanded that he should be ignominiously conducted from place to place in the isles of Bosphorus for the space of four years. Notwithstanding he was at the same time afflicted with many distempers, the saint endured the fatigues of his exile with an extraordinary degree of constancy and courage which had such an effect on Nicephorus, that he had resolved to recall him with honor, and pay him the respect such distinguished piety merited, but, unhappily, the emperor’s being surprised and murdered by the Bulgarians, in 811, frustrated those good intentions. But his successor, Michael I., a lover of justice and virtue, immediately gave orders that St. Plato should be honorably discharged. The saint was received at Constantinople with all possible marks of respect and distinction: but privately retired to his cell. After some time, perceiving himself near his end, he directed his grave to be dug, and himself to be carried to it and laid down by it. Here he was visited by the chief persons of the city, especially by the holy patriarch, St Nicephorus, who had satisfied him as to his conduct in receiving the priest Joseph, and who came to recommend himself to his prayers. St. Plato happily expired on the 19th of March, in 813, near the close of the seventy-ninth year of his age. His funeral obsequies were performed by the patriarch St. Nicephorus. His memory is honored both by the Latins and Greeks on the 4th of April. Fortitude in suffering for the sake of justice, is the true test of virtue and courage; and the persecution of the saints is the glorious triumph of the cross of Christ. Humility, patience, and constancy, shine principally on such occasions. Their distresses are like the shades in a fine picture, which throw a graceful light on the brighter parts of the piece, and heighten its beauties. See the life of St. Plato, by his nephew St. Theodorus the Studite. Also the Commentary and Notes of Papebroke, t. 1. Apr. p. 364; Fleury, l. 45.

¹ Prænot. lib. Isidor.

* F. Flores proves this St. Fulgentius, bishop of Ecija, suffragan of Seville, to have never been translated to the see of Carthagena, as Card. Belluga and some others have advanced upon incompetent modern authorities. Flores, Espana Sagrada, t. 5, p. 97. Dissertacion Critica sobre si S. Fulgencio fue Obispo de Carthagena.

^† Not in 595, as Cave, &c. say; for St. Gregory wrote to St. Leander in 599, l. 9, ep. 60, 61.

^‡ See on the councils the dissertations of the learned cardinal d’Aguirre.

* The Latin and Greek languages are a necessary introduction to learning, they are requisite to open to us the sources of sacred studies, and are adopted by the church in her liturgies to prevent the inconveniences and dangerous consequences of continual alterations and variations: they are likewise the key which unlock to us the original and most accomplished masters of polite literature, and almost all the sciences. These and other reasons moved St. Isidore to cultivate the study of those languages. The Latin tongue, though degenerating from its purity ever since the reign of Domitian, still continued the living language among the old Roman inhabitants of Spain; but began to be embased by the mixture of the Goths: and this alteration was afterwards much increased by the irruption of the Moors, and by the commerce of other barbarous nations. To preserve the knowledge of the Latin tongue, St. Isidore wrote several treatises on grammar. He compiled others on philosophy, on the holy scriptures, and on various subjects of piety, as on prayer, penance, and the contempt of the world. He has likewise left us a list of ninety-two ecclesiastical writers from Pope Sixtus III., with whom St. Jerom concluded his catalogue, a chronicle from the beginning of the world down to his own time, and a history of the Goths. F. Flores has favored us with a new complete edition of St. Isidore’s book, De Viris Illustribus, with a preliminary dissertation, in an appendix to the fifth tome of his Espana Sagrada, p. 440. Also of this father’s Historia de Regibus Gothorum, Wandalorum et Suevorum, ibid. t. 6. Appead. 12, p. 474. The most famous of St. Isidore’s works are twenty books of Etymologies, or Origins, in which he lays down the principles of the different sciences, beginning from grammar. His three books of the Sentences, or on the Summum Bonum, are a summary of theology on the divine attributes, on virtues and vices, consisting of sentences gleaned from the writings of SS. Austin, Gregory, &c. In his two books on the divine or ecclesiastical Offices, he explains the canonical hours, ceremonies, feasts, and fasts of the church. He says that our fathers established the festivals of the apostles and martyrs to excite us to an imitation of their virtues, to associate us to their merits, and that we may be assisted by their prayers; yet to none of them do we offer sacrifice, but only to the God of martyrs, (1. 1, c. 34.) Among the fast-days he mentions two which are not now observed, viz. the first days of January and November. His monastic rule, which be addressed to the monks of Honori, resembles that of St. Bennet. In it he orders mass to be said for every deceased brother, and on Monday in Whitsun-week for all the faithful departed. He prescribes that the monks prostrate themselves at the end of each psalm in the divine office. St. Isidore put the finishing hand to the Mosarabic missal and breviary, which St. Leander had begun to revise. Le Brun thinks it was compiled by the latter. Flores takes it to have been the ancient Roman and African missal introduced among the Goths in Spain, by St. Leander, with some few things from the old Spanish liturgy See Flores, Espana Sagrada, t. 3. De la Missa antiqua de Espagna, pp. 187, 193. F. Lesley, a Jesuit, who has given a new edition of the Mosarabic liturgy at Rome, in 1755. with curious notes, brings many arguments to show that it was the old Spanish liturgy, used probably from the beginning of that church with some additions, which Saint Leander adopted for the use of the Goths. See Lesley. Præf ib.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) II, 25-29.