DIVINE ISIDORE

BISHOP OF SEVILLE

ETYMOLOGIES

BOOK ELEVEN

ON MAN, AND PORTENTS.

CHAPTER ONE

On man, and his parts.

1. Nature Natura is named from the fact that it causes something to be born nasci. For it is capable of engendering and making. Some have said that this is God, by whom all things were created, and exist.
2. Genus Genus is named from engendering gignendo, from which the name is derived from the earth terra, from which all things are engendered; for gē is said in Greek for earth.
3. Life Vita is named on account of vigor, or because it holds the power of being born and growing. Hence even trees are said to have life, because they are engendered and grow.
4. Man Homo is so called because he was made from humus humo earth/soil, as it is said in Genesis, And God created man from the humus of the earth. It is, however, used improperly to mean the whole man consisting of both substances, that is, from the association of soul and body.
5. For properly, man comes from humus. But the Greeks [call] man...

Chapter 1, no. 1. "Nature is named..." These are the words of Servius on the Georgics 2, regarding the words "For nature underlies the soil itself." GRIAL.
Ibid. "Some have said that this..." From Lactantius, book 2, chapter 1. GRIAL.
Ibid. "Although the Etymologies..." As I noted at the end of the previous book, [the works] are divided into two parts in some manuscripts, yet the books proceed in the same numerical order, so that this book, which is the first of the second part, is called the eleventh book. AREVALUS.
3. The origin of the word "life" is more correctly derived from the Greek "bios". AREVALUS.
4. "Man from the humus of the earth." Thus all the oldest books, and [the translation] follows (as is usual) the Seventy Interpreters. GRIAL.
Ibid. The Vulgate of Genesis, chapter 2, verse 7: "The Lord God therefore formed man from the slime of the earth." Isidore discusses this same opinion in Book 1 of his Sentences, chapter 12, to which passage Loaisa's annotation is beautiful. AREVALUS.
5. "For properly, man from humus." Jerome, Joel 2. GRIAL.
Ibid. "But the Greeks [call] man..." From the codex.