Note 36 — Chapter I

If Isidore had been as thorough-going as Gregory in depreciating the secular he certainly would not have written the Etymologies. His strongest anti-secular spirit is shown in the chapter (13) de libris gentilium of the Sententiae where, following Gregory, he denounces “all secular learning.” It is pretty plain, however, that he is here following his model rather than working out his own position, and in the last section of the chapter he modifies what he has said by admitting that grammar may “avail for life if only it is applied to better uses.”