NATHANAEL («God has given»). — One of the first disciples of Jesus, brought to Him by Philip. N. was initially reluctant (but St. Augustine, PL 35,1445 and 36, 788 sg., and St. Cyril of Alexandria interpret the phrase «Can anything good come out of Nazareth?» as affirmative), then he went. Jesus praised his sincerity and revealed to him His secret thoughts «while he was under the fig tree», whereupon N. proclaimed Him the Messiah («the Son of God, the King of Israel», a profession of faith deemed insufficient by Chrysostom: PG 59, 127-29), and the Master promised greater revelations (*Jn.* 1,45-51). N. was from Cana (*Jn.* 21,2; 2,1 Cana is mentioned immediately after N.'s calling).
It is very probable, and today even admitted by many Protestants (H. Ewald, H. A. W. Meyer, H. Keim, H. Alford, G. Milligan, F. Farrar, B. F. Westcott, H. J. Newman in *Sermons*, II, etc.), that N. is identical with the apostle Bartholomew (v.), whose name may be considered a patronymic surname, and who in the Synoptics is always listed alongside Philip. However, the *Apostolic Letter* (ca. 170) and the Fathers hold that N. was a distinct disciple. St. Jerome: «Apostles and N.» (*PL* 26, 502); St. Augustine says that he was not at the Last Supper (*In Io. tr.* 109, 2; PL 35, 1917; *In Io. tr.* 7, 15-22; PL 35, 1445-49; *Enarr. in Ps.* 65; PL 36, 788), and explains that N. was not chosen as an apostle because he was a learned doctor of prophecy (*cf. Jn.* 1,45), whereas Jesus wished to transform the world through unlearned men; similarly St. Gregory the Great (*Moral.* 33, 16; PL 76, 693). St. Ambrose (*Expos. in Lucam.* 8; PL 15, 1883) praised his virtue and drew a parallel between him and Zacchaeus. C. Baronio still rejected the identification as «a slight conjecture». St. Epiphanius (*Haer.* 23; PG 41, 307) identified N. with the companion of Cleopas (*Lk.* 24, 13-35); from the 16th century onward isolated conjectures identify him with Matthew or Matthias (whose name = N.), John the Evangelist, Simon the Cananaean («of Cana»), Stephen (*Jn.* 1, 51 = *Act.* 7, 56).
The name occurs in the Old Testament (Heb. *Nē-than'el*, Septuagint *Nāvāxāk*), where it designates a leader of the tribe of Issachar at the time of the Exodus (*Num.* 1, 8; 2, 5; 7, 18-23; 10, 15) and ten other individuals, who appear only once, in the books of *Chronicles*, in *Ezra* 10, 22; *Neh.* 12, 21; *Jdt.* 8, 1 (Vulgate *Nathanias*). N. is a theoretical Semitic name that already appears in Akkadian texts of the Third Dynasty of Ur (ca. 21st century B.C.) in the form *I-din-AN*, *I-din-1-lu*.