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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Aquila

34

These instances will suffice to show that, although the art of building aqueducts was introduced into Palestine by the Romans chiefly, yet the rock tunnels, providing water for cities, were, in some cases, constructed in the time of the Hebrew kings.

ding many readings from Aquila, are preserved in the form of marginal notes to certain manuscripts of the Septuagint. These have been carefully collected and edited in Field's great work ("Origenis Hexaplorum quae Supersunt, " Oxford, 1875), which still remains the chief source of information about

Bibliography Memoirs of Survey of Western Palestine, Jerusalem Volume Schick, Die Wasserversorgung der Stadt Jerusalem, in Zeitschrift des Deutschen PaUistina-Vereins, i. 132 et seq. Nowack, Lehrbuch der Hebrtlischen ArehUologie, p. 254 Buhl, Geographic, des Alien PaUistina,

Aquila's versiou. Contrary to expectation, the readings of Aquila derived from the " Hexapla" can now be supplemented by fragmentary manuscripts of the translation itself. These were discovered in 1897, partly by F. C. Burkitt, among the mass of loose documents brought to Cambridge from the geniza of the Old Synagogue at Cairo through the enterprise of Dr. S. Schechter and Dr. C. Taylor, master of St. John's College, CamThree of the six leaves already found came bridge. from a codex of Kiugs {i.e. they probably formed part of a codex of the Former Prophets), and three came from a codex of the Psalms. The portions preserved are I Kings xx. 7-17; II Kings xxiii. 11-27 (edited by F. C. Burkitt,1897); Ps. xc. 17, ciii. 17 with some breaks (edited by Taylor, 1900). The numbering is that of the Hebrew Bible, not the Greek. The fragments do not bear the name of the translator, but the style of Aquila is too peculiar to be mistaken. The handwriting is a Greek uncial of the sixth century. Dr. Schechter assigns the later Hebrew writing to the eleventh century. All six leaves are palimpsests, and









pp. 92, 138 et seq. Benzinger, Hebr. ArchCinlngie, pp. 51, 230 et seq. Schurer, Gesch. des JlXd. Volkes, i. 376, 409 et seq.;



94, 749.

ii.

C. R. C.

G.

AGUILA

('Aki'Aoc, D^pV): Translator of the canonical Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek. He was by birth a Gentile from Pontus, and is said by Epiphanius to have been a connection by marriage of the

emperor Hadrian and to have been appointed by him about the year 128 to an office concerned with the rebuilding of Jerusalem as " JElia Capitolina." At some unknown age he joined the Christians, but afterward left them and became a proselyte to Judaism. According to Jerome he was a disciple of Rabbi

The Talmud states that he finished his transunder the influence of R. Aldba and that his other teachers were Eliezer ben Hyrcanus and Joshua ben Hananiah. It is certain, however, that Aquila's translation had appeared before the publication of Irenasus' "Adversus Hfereses"; i.e., before 177. The work seems to have been entirely successful as regards the purpose for which it was intended (Jerome speaks of a second edition which embodied corrections by the author), and it was read by the Greek-speaking Jews even in the time of Justinian (Novella, 146). It was used intelligently and respectfully by great Christian scholars like Origen and Jerome, while controversialists of less merit and learning, such as the author of the " Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila" (published in 1898 by F. C. Conybeare), found it worth their while to accuse Aquila of antiChristian bias, and to remind their Jewish adversaries of the superior antiquity of the Septuagint. But no manuscript until quite recently was known to have survived, and our acquaintance with the work came from the scattered fragments of Origen's " Hexapla. The reason of this is to be found in the Mohammedan conquests the need of a Greek version for Jews disappeared when Greek ceased to be the lingua franca of Egypt and the Levant. The " Hexapla " a colossal undertaking compiled by Origen (died about 254) with the object of correcting the text of the Septuagint Akiba.

lations



—

Fragments in the

"Hexapla."

consisted of the

Hebrew

text of the

Old Testament, the Hebrew text in Greek letters, the Septuagint itself as revised by Origen, and the Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and The-

odotion, all arranged in six parallel columns. With the exception of two recently discovered fragments of the Psalms, one coming from Milan, the other

from Cairo,* the "Hexapla" tant,

itself is no longer exbut a considerable number of extracts, inclu-

,

somewhat difficult to decipher. special value of the Cairo manuscripts

in places are

The

The Milan fragments, discovered by Dr.

Mercatl, are described by Ceriani In " Rendiconti del Real Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Letteratura," 1896, series ii., vol. xxix. The Cairo fragment (now at Cambridge) was edited by Charles Taylor in 1901.

that

lated by Aquila avv. Now nx is also Character used before the objectof the verb when of Aquila's the object is defined, an idiom rendered Version, by Aquila, where possible.by the Greek article, so that oc e^uaprev tov 'loparjl stands for iwiK" ri« N^nn ~V>H. But this can not be done where the Hebrew article and flN stand together, or where the object is a detached pronoun. Aquila follows here Nahum of Gimzo and R. Akiba, who insisted on the importance of particles, especially In such cases he translates this flN also by ovv; riXe.g.

,

koX avdrjToc ov awr/aei avv tuvttiv

corresponds to

pa vb ^DDl (Ps. xcii. 7). Apparently avv is here meant for an adverb having the force of " therewith," or some such meaning, as it does not affect the case of the word that follows. Thus Aquila has n«t

JIN

11

'Ev nerpaAaia iKTiatv 6 Bebc avv tov ovpavbv nal avv

is

they permit a more just conception of the general effect of Aquila's version, where it agrees with the Septuagint as well as where it differs. It is now possible to study the rules of syntax followed by Aquila with far greater precision than before. At the same time the general result has been to confirm what the best authorities had already reported. The main feature of Aquila's version is its excessive literalness. His chief aim was to render the Hebrew into Greek word for word, without any regard for Greek idiom. The same Greek word is regularly used for the same Hebrew, however incongruous the effect. Thus koi stands for 1 in all its varied significations; and, as aaiye is used for DJ, wherever QJl {i.e., "and also") occurs, Aquila has koi aaiye. Similarly the preposition nx means " with," and is trans-

rfp> yip>

(Gen. i. 1), but after a verb that naturally governs the dative one finds nal evetejAoto 6 fjaaiXevc avv izavrl tl>

Aau

(II

Kings

xxiii. 21).

Other characteristic exam-