Silva, Samuel Da

Silva, Samuel Da, a Jewish physician of the 17th century, deserves our attention on account of the part he took against Uriel (or Gabriel) Acosta (q.v.). Having succeeded in perusing Acosta's work before it was printed — a work in which the Pharisaic tradition was not only attacked, but also the immortality of the soul and the oral tradition denied — Da Silva published his Tradado da Immortalidade da Alma (Amst. 1623), in which he combats, the ignorance "of a certain adversary of his time" (de certo contrariador de nosso tempo). In consequence of this attack, Acosta published his work Examen das Tradicoens Phariseas Corferidas con a Leo Escrita por Uriel, Juristo Hebreo (ibid. 1623), with a rejoinder against Da Silva, Com Reposta a hum Samuel da Silva, seu Falso Calumniador. Ten years before the publication of the Tradado, Da Silva published a translation of Maimonides' treatise on repentance, Tradado de la Thesuvah, o Contricion, Traduzida Palavra por Palavra da Lingua Hebr.

(ibid. 1613). See Furst, Bibl. Jud. 3, 324; De Rossi, Dizionario Storico degli A utori Ebrei (Germ. transl.), p. 296 sq.; Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. 3, 1115; Kaiserling, Gesch. d. Juden in Portugal (Leips. 1867), p. 288; Schudt, Jud. Denkwurdigkeiten, 1, 287. (B.P.)