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Rh From this circumstance he is frequently called "Aquila the proselyte."

The object of Aquila was to furnish a translation on which the Jews could rely as a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew than that of the Septuagint, which not only was in many instances loose and incorrect from the first, but had also in the course of four centuries undergone change and corruption. With this view he made his version strictly literal, striving to provide a Greek equivalent for every Hebrew word and particle, in frequent disregard of the rules of grammar and of idiom, and with the result of often rendering his meaning hardly intelligible to those who were not acquainted with Hebrew (as in Job xxx. 1, καὶ νῦν ἐγέλασαν ἐπ᾿ ἐμοὶ βραχεῖς παῤ ἐμὲ ταῖς ἡμέρας, Ps. xlix. 21, ὑπέλαβες ἐσόμενος ἔσομαι ὅμοιός σοι Ps. cxlix. 6, καὶ μάχαιρα στομάτων ἐν χερσὶν αὐτῶν). He carefully endeavoured even to reproduce Hebrew etymologies in Greek, and for that purpose freely coined new forms (as in Ps. xxi. 13, δυνάσταιΒασὰν διεδημα τίσαντό με, Ps. cxviii. 10, μή ἀγνοηματίσῃς με). Origen accordingly characterizes him as δουλεύων τῇ Εβραϊκῇ λέξει (Ep. ad Afric.), and the fragments of the version which have been preserved amply bear out the truth of the description. But the excessively literal character of the work, while impairing its value as a translation for those who were not Jews, renders it all the more valuable as a witness to the state of the Hebrew text from which it was made. (As to the nature and value of the version, see Smith's D. B. iii. 1622.)

Several scholars of eminence have recently maintained that Aquila is to be identified not only with the Akilas of the Talmud, but also with Onkelos, whose name is associated with the well-known Targum on the Pentateuch; holding that the latter is merely an altered form of the name, and that the Chaldee version came to receive what is now its ordinary designation from its being drawn up on the model, or after the manner, of that of Aquila. The arguments in support of this view, which appear to have great weight, are set forth with much clearness and force by Mr. Deutsch in his article on "Versions, Ancient, (Targum)," in Smith's D. B. iii. 1642‒1645.

The fragments of the version of Aquila—first collected by Morinus for the Sixtine edition of the Septuagint, Rome, 1587, and subsequently by Drusius, in his ''Veterum interp. Graec. in V. T. Fragmenta,'' Arnb. 1622—are more fully given in the edition of the Hexapla by Montfaucon, Paris 1714, and its abridgment by Bahrdt, 1769‒1770. A most complete and valuable edition is that by Mr. Frederick Field: Oxf. 1867‒1870 (see Field, Hexapla [1875], xvi‒xxvii). The chief questions connected with Aquila are discussed by Montfaucon, and by Hody (de Bibliorum Textibus Originalibus, Oxf. 1705). [W.P.D.]  Archelaus supposed bp. of Carchar (perhaps Carrhoe Harrom in Mesopotamia). A work is attributed to him called ''Acta Disputationis Archel. Ep. Mesop. et Manetis haeresiarchae.'' It is extant in a Latin translation from a Greek text, but some think the Greek is derived from a Syriac original. The author

was probably (cf. Phot. Cod. 85) a certain Hegemonius. The disputation and Archelaus himself seem to be fictitious; but the work affords valuable information respecting the Manichean system (cf. Bardenhewer, 1908, pp. 208‒269). [H.W.]  Arethas, bp. of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and Andreas, an earlier archbp. of the same see, are so intimately associated as commentators on the Book of Revelation, and so little known otherwise, that they may most fitly be noticed together. We have no direct information regarding either, beyond the bare fact of their common connexion with the see of Caesarea. The dates at which they flourished can only be inferred approximately, and somewhat vaguely, from incidental notices of persons or of events in their writings. The question has been most fully discussed by Rettig (Die Zeugnisse des Andreas und Arethas . . . in the Theol. Studien and Kritiken for 1831, pp. 734 seq.); and his conclusions have been very generally accepted. He has shewn by enumerating the succession of bishops in Caesarea that the last 30 or 40 years of the 5th cent. may be assigned to Andreas and Arethas; and the absence of any reference to later events favours the belief that the work was prepared towards the close of the 5th, or in the earlier part of the 6th, cent.

The commentary of Andreas on the Apocalypse (entitled Ἐρμηνεία εἰς τὴν Ἀποκάλυψιν) seems to have been the earliest systematic exposition of the book in the Greek church. The statement of R. Simon, Fabricius, Rosenmüller, and others, that the work belongs to the class of Catenae, is not borne out either by its form or by the language of the Preface, which simply means that he made use of the materials which he found in the early writers whom he names, and occasionally quoted their expressions (παρ᾿ ὧν ἡμεῖς πολλὰς λαβόντες ἀφορμάς . . . καθὼς ἔν τισι τόποις χρήσεις τούτων παρεθέμεθα). He wrote, in compliance with the urgent request of persons who had a greater opinion of his judgment than he had himself, "to unfold the meaning of the Apocalypse, and to make the suitable application of its predictions to the times that followed it" (ἀναπτύξαι τὴν . . . Ἀποκάλυψιν, καὶ τοῖς μετὰ τὴν αὐτῆς ὀπτασίαν χρόνοις ἐφαρμόσαι τὰ προφητευθέντα). His method rests on the distinction of a threefold sense in Scripture—the literal or outward historical (τὸ γράμμα καὶ ἡ κατ᾿ αἴσθησιν ἱστορία), the tropological or moral (ἡ τροπολογία ἐξ αἰσθητῶν ἐπὶ τὰ νοητὰ ὁδηγοῦσα τὸν ἀναγινώσκοντα), and the mystical or speculative (ἡ τῶν μελλόντων καὶ ὑψηλοτέρων ἀναγωγὴ καὶ θεωρία); the expositor of the Revelation is chiefly concerned with the latter. He divided the text into twenty-four λόγοι corresponding to the four-and-twenty elders, and 72 κεφάλαια, according to the threefold distinction of body, soul, and spirit (24 x 3 = 72). The exposition contains not a little that is of value, but it is full of the fanciful interpretations to which the method gave rise. The paucity of MSS. of the Apocalypse renders the text which accompanies the commentary of great importance to criticism; and Bengel was of opinion that the 