Felix Pratensis

Who was Felix Pratensis?

Felix Pratensis was a Sephardic Jewish scholar who embraced Roman Catholicism. He is known for his collaboration with the Flemish printer Daniel Bomberg on the first printed Hebrew Biblia Rabbinica of 1517/8.

He received a good education and acquired three languages. In 1518, he embraced Christianity and affiliated himself with the Roman Catholic Church. Having become an Augustinian friar, he devoted himself to proselytizing especially fellow Jews who had not embraced Christianity as he had. He displayed in his sermons great intolerance against his non-Messianic counterparts, earning for himself the sobriquet "the Jews' scourge."

Before his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Felix published a Latin translation of the Psalms, entitled Psalterium ex Hebræo ad Verbum Translatum, Venice, 1515.