Isidore of Seville on time, eternity, events, and history: The unfolding of salvation history

This dissertation demonstrates that Church Fathers from Justin Martyr (100-165) through Isidore of Seville (560-636) developed a Christian philosophy of time, eternity, events, and history that was sufficiently universal in scope that it was used by Christian historians to appropriate much of the history and many of the cultural traditions of Hebrew, Greek and Roman civilizations. Isidore and the Church Fathers integrated these appropriated elements into unified accounts of salvation history, wherein they demonstrated that God was the lord of time, the overseer of events, and the director of history. Isidore and the Church Fathers subordinated specific events and actors in history to their own apologetic, heresiological or theological purposes, and focused on those events and actors that advanced or retarded the course of salvation. Isidore also considered historical topics and religious issues that were important in seventh-century Spain: the Catholic faith, the Goths, the Empire, heresies, and the Jews. He described the Goths as a people poisoned by heresy and driven from their homeland; yet a remnant of the Goths settled in Spain, where they finally converted to the true Catholic faith, and where they could become guardians of God's holy and Catholic Church.