Nathan Mordecai

French physician; lived at Avignon in the middle of the fifteenth century. He was in correspondence with Joseph Colon, who speaks highly of Nathan's medical knowledge and who gives him the title of "mori," an expression which, according to some authorities, signifies "master," but is considered by others to be merely an epithet of respect. During the period 1450-56 he caused a complete copy of the Talmudic work "Bet ha-Beḥirah" of Menahem Me'iri to be made and added to it marginal notes. Nathan isundoubtedly identical with the mathematician R. Mordecai Nadi (Wolf, "Bibl. Hebr." iv. 904), with the astronomer Mordecai Nathan, called the "great luminary," and with Maestro Mordecai Todros of Avignon, for whom Nathanael ben Nehemiah Caspi de La Argentière copied in 1454 at Arles the works of Alfasi and other Talmudic writers. In 1470 Nathan had a copy of Moses Solomon's translation of Averroes' commentary on the "Metaphysics" of Aristotle made by Crescas Vidal Cayl (Turin MS. No. xiv.; "Cat. Peyron," 21). Nathan Mordecai has sometimes been confounded with Isaac Nathan, author of the celebrated concordance. See Colon, Joseph b. Solomon.

Bibliography:

  * Carmoly, Hist. des Médecins Juifs, p. 126;
  * Gross, in Monatsschrift, 1880, p. 518;
  * idem, Gallia Judaica, p. 10;
  * Joseph Colon, Responsa, No. 181;
  * Renan-Neubauer, Les Rabbins Français, p.533;
  * idem, Les Ecrivains Français Juifs, pp. 581-582.



S. S. K.