Samuel da Silva

Samuel da Silva (Portuguese: [ˈsæmjuːəl da ˈsɪlvə]; c. 1570–1631) was a Jewish physician of Portuguese birth who lived in Amsterdam in the beginning of the seventeenth century. He is known especially through his energetic proceedings against Uriel da Costa. Before the latter's An Examination of the Traditions of the Pharisees had appeared in print, da Silva, who had read three stolen copies of the unpublished manuscript, issued a booklet against its author, alluding to da Costa only by his first name, where he offered a traditionalist rebuttal to da Costa's criticism of the rabbinic establishment. This pamphlet, copies of which are now very rare, was written at the direction of the foremost members of the young community of Spanish-Portuguese Jews, many of whom were Marranos who had fled mainland Spain where public support for Spanish Inquisition was much higher than in other Spanish territories.

Ten years previous to the publication of this pamphlet Samuel da Silva made a Spanish translation of Moses Maimonides' tract on repentance.

References

• De Rossi-Hamberger, Historie des Wörterbuch. p. 296;
• Wolf, Hebrew Bible iii. 1115;
• Kayserling, Geschichte der Juden in Portugal, p. 288;
• idem, Biblio de Judios de España y Portugal. p. 102.
• 1906 Jewish encyclopedia

Silva, Samuel da, Tratado da imortalidade da alma. Fixação do texto, pref. e notas de Pinharanda Gomes (Pensamento Português ; 11). Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, 1982