Aq'vila

Aq'vila, PONTICUS, a celebrated translator of the Old Testament into Greek, born at Sinope. He flourished about the year 130 A.D., is said to have been related to the Emperor Hadrian, and to have been first a pagan, then a Christian, and finally a Jew; submitting in his last conversion to circumcision. His translation of the Old Testament—which appears to have been undertaken for the benefit of his Hellenised countrymen—was so literal, that the Jews preferred it to the Septuagint, as did also the Judaizing sect of Christians called Ebionites. The version was praised by both Jerome and Origen, and such fragments of it as remain may be found in the latter's Hexapla (q.v.).