Benjamin Musaphia

Who was Benjamin Musaphia?

Benjamin ben Immanuel Musaphia, also called Benjamin Musaphia or Mussafia and Dionysius, was a Jewish doctor, scholar and kabbalist.

Musaphia was probably born in Spain. He married Sara Abigail da Silva, daughter of Semuel da Silva, in 1628. Their sons and grandsons joined the court of the Gottorps, and a daughter was married to Gabriel Milan, who would later be appointed governor of the Danish West-Indies. Around this time, Musaphia graduated from the Padua medical school, which was regarded as the best of its kind at the time.

After Sara's death on August 7, 1634, Musaphia dedicated Zekher Rav, an adaptation of the creation myth in which all Hebrew roots are used exactly once, to her. It was first published in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1635, and a second edition with a Latin translation was published in Hamburg in 1638.

Another work was published in 1640, namely Sacro-Medicæ Sententiæ ex Bibliis, a medical treatise containing about 800 sentences on medicine. It contained a section on alchemy that created some stirring at the time. Musaphia also dedicated a work on ebb and flow to Christian IV of Denmark in 1642.

In 1646, while living in Glückstadt, Holstein, Musaphia was appointed royal physician to the Danish court by Christian IV.