ELISEUS or ELISSEUS (Ελισσαῖος):

Learned Jew at the court of Murad I. at Brusa and Adrianople during the second half of the fourteenth century. After a time he lost favor with the sultan, and was disgraced and exiled. He is identified by Franz Delitzsch with the author of the "Græcus Venetus" (see Jew. Encyc. iii. 188). His contemporary, Gennadius, complains that he was an unbeliever (Zoroastrian), probably because of his philosophical bent. Eliseus was the teacher of Georgios Gemistus Pletho (b. 1355), the teacher of Cardinal Bessarion, who presented the manuscript of the "Græcus Venetus" to the city of Venice.

Bibliography:
  • Delitzsch, in preface to Grœcus Venetus, ed. Gebhardt, Leipsic, 1875;
  • Swete, Introduction to the Septuagint, p. 56;
  • P. F. Frankl, in Monatsschrift, xxiv. 424, suggests that the author was a Christian.
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