NAHMANIDES. - Talmudic rabbi and cabbalist (R. Moses ben Nahman, RMBN, in Spanish Bonastrug de Portu, from the name of his city of residence called Gerondi), b. ca. 1195, d. 1270 at Acre (Palestine).

Following an order received from King James I of Aragon, in 1263 he held a religious disputation with the converted Jew Fra Pablo Christiani and published its account. At the request of Pope Clement IV, N. was expelled from Aragon. At the age of 70 he went to Palestine, from where it seems he sent a copy of the Zohar to Spain.

In conformity with the thought of Judah Halevi (v.), N. bases religious truth on historical tradition. He opposes Maimonides (v.), who tends to minimize the miraculous in the narratives of the Bible and affirms that God's possibilities are infinitely superior to human ones. N. admits astral determinism, which nevertheless remains under the control of God's will. The laws of God have as their principal purpose the moral perfection of man.

Bibliography

BIBL.: G. Vaida, Introduction à la pensée juive du moyen âge, Paris 1947, p. 152 ff. (with bibl. on p. 232 ff.).

Eugenio Zolli

@incollection{ec8_nahmanide, author = {Zolli, Eugenio}, title = {Nahmánide}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1601--1602}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/nahmanide} }

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Nahmanides

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