Letter 8

From: Isidore of Seville, bishop and scholar To: Braulio of Zaragoza, bishop Date: ~635 AD Context: Isidore responds to Braulio's scholarly queries with commentary on his sources and methods, and raises some theological questions of his own. To Braulio, most beloved brother, Your corrections have reached me and I have read them carefully. You are right on the mathematics, and I am embarrassed about it — the intermediary source I used for that section was not one I should have relied on without checking further. I will send you a corrected passage. On the passage about fetal formation, I believe my source was a late compilation that claimed to be summarizing Galen and was not; I am less certain what to replace it with and I will need to think further about it. On the buildings and measurements: I confess that by the time I reached Book XV I was tired and perhaps less careful than I should have been. The sources for Roman engineering are scattered and the most comprehensive are not easy to obtain here in Seville. What would you substitute? I raise in turn a question that has been occupying me. In preparing my commentary on the Song of Songs, I have been wrestling with the problem of allegory and literal interpretation. Origen's approach is by now so deeply embedded in the tradition that it is difficult to read against it, and yet there are passages in the Song where the literal meaning seems to me to carry real theological weight that the allegorizing obscures. Do you have views on this? I value your judgment. Write soon. Distance is the enemy of proper discussion. Isidore