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Silva, Samuel Da

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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McClintock and Strong's Bible Encyclopedia
• Silva, Samuel Da
The Jewish Encyclopedia
• Silva, Samuel Da

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 "Examination of the Pharisaic Tradition" had appeared in print. Silva, who had had an opportunity to read part of it in manuscript, issued a booklet in Portuguese against its author (Amsterdam, 1623). 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 inAmsterdam; and it appeared under the title "Tratado da Immortalidade da Alma . . . em Que Tambem se Mostra a Ignorancia de Certo Contrariador de Nosso Tempo, Que Entre Outros Muytos Erros Deu Neste Delirio de Ter Para si o Publicar Que a Alma do Homem Acaba Juntamente com o Corpo." It is an able treatise on the subject discussed, and alludes to Da Costa only by his first name: "I now come to thee, thou blind and incapable Uriel." Ten years previous to the publication of this pamphlet Samuel da Silva made a Spanish translation of Moses Maimonides' tract on repentance, which appeared under the title "Tratado de la Tesuvah o Contricion, Traduz. Palabra por Palabra de Lengua Hebrayca en Español" (Amsterdam, 1613).