Flavius Mithridates

Flavius Mithridates^[1][2] was an Italian Jewish humanist scholar, who flourished at Rome in the second half of the 15th century. He is said to be from Sicily,^[3] and was a Christian convert, known for preaching impressively if tendentiously.^[4] He also had a knowledge of Arabic.^[5]

Biography

About 1486 he lived at Fratta, near Perugia, in the house of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, whom he instructed in Aramaic. He is now best known as the translator for Pico della Mirandola^[6] of the Bibliotheca Cabalistica, a large^[7] compilation of cabbalistic literature.^[8] Modern scholarly reconsideration of this work have found it somewhat erratic and containing interpolations.

He also translated into Latin Maimonides' epistle on resurrection, Levi ben Gershon's commentary on the Song of Solomon, and Judah's "Ma'amar ha-Hawayah ha-Heḳḳeshiyyah," or "Sermo de Generatione Syllogismorum Simplicium et Compositorum in Omni Figura."^[9] Flavius was the author of "De Tropis Hebraicis," an original work in Latin on Hebrew accents, which was praised by Sebastian Münster and Imbonatus.

Identity

Some scholars have thought, but without sufficient reason, that Flavius is identical with the cabalist Johanan Aleman ben Isaac^[10] a contemporary and associate of Pico della Mirandola, who taught him from the late 1480s.

Seidman notes Mithridates's "proliferation of identitites", listing the following:^[11]

• Gugielmo Raimondo Moncada^[12]
• Flavius Mithridates
• Siculus
• Romanus
• Chaldeus
• Samuel ben Nissim ibn Faraj
• YHWH (which Mithridates claimed based on kabbalistic gematria)

References

• Doukas, Recherches, pp. 46, 69, 72;
• Joseph Perles, in R. E. J. xii. 249;
• idem, Beiträge, pp. 178–196;
• Brüll's Jahrb. iii. 196;
• Siegmund Salfeld, Das Hohelied, p. 117;
• Moritz Steinschneider, in Monatsschrift, 1898, p. 262;
• idem, Hebr. Uebers. p. 492;
• Hermann Vogelstein and Paul Rieger, Geschichte der Juden in Rom, ii. 75.