Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 2.pdf/73

37 THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

37 to Gamaliel,

who (if Gamaliel II.

is

meant) died short-

ly after the accession of Hadrian, while

particuthe pious proselyte it is

with the relations between and the emperor Hadrian that the Haggadah delights It is said that the emperor once asked the to deal. former to prove that the world depends, as the Jews In demonstration Aquila maintain, upon spirit. caused several camels to he brought and made them kneel and rise repeatedly before the emperor. He then had them choked, when, of course, they could " How can they rise ? " the emperor asked. not rise. " But they only need a little air, " They are choked. " a little spirit," was Aquila's reply, proving that life is not material (Yer. Hag. ii. V. beginning 77<i larly



Tan., Bereshit, ed. Vienna, 36). Concerning Aquila's con version to Judaism, legend has the following to say: Aquila was the son of Hadrian's sister. Always strongly inclined to Juda-

embrace it openly in the emHe, therefore, obtained permission from his uncle to undertake commercial journeys abroad, not so much for the sake of profit as in order to see men and countries, receiving from him the parting advice to invest in anything the value of which was temporarily depreciated, as in all proba-

ism, he yet feared to

peror's proximity.

Aquila went to Palestine, bility it would rise again. and devoted himself so strenuously to the study of the Torah that both R. Eliezerand R. Joshua noticed his worn appearance, and were surprised at the evident earnestness of the questions he put to them concerning Jewish law. On returning to Hadrian he confessed his zealous study of Israel's Torah and his adoption of the faith, surprising the emperor, however, by stating that this step had been taken upon " For," said he, " I have his, the emperor's, advice. found nothing so deeply neglected and held in such depreciation as the Law and Israel; but both, no doubt, will rise again as Isaiah has predicted " (Isa. xlix. 7, "Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship"). Upon Hadrian's inquiry why he embraced Judaism, Aquila replied that he desired very much to learn the Torah, and that he could not do this without entering the Abrahamic covenant: just as no soldier could draw his pay without bearing arms, no one could study the Torah thoroughly without obeying the Jewish laws (Tan., Mishpatim, V. ed. Buber, with a few variations, ii. 81, 82; Ex. R. xxx. 12). The last point of this legend is no doubt directed against Christianity, which acknowledges the Law, but refuses obedience to it, and is of all the more interest if taken in connection with Christian legends concerning Aquila. Epiphanius, for instance, relates that Aquila was by birth a Greek from Sinope in Pontus, and a relation (-rrevdepidr/c) of Hadrian, who sent him, forty-seven years after the destruction of the Temple (that is 117, the year of Hadrian's accession) to Jerusalem to superintend the rebuilding of that city under the name of " iElia Capitolina, where he became first a Christian and then a Jew (see Aquila). A reflection of the alleged adoption.of Christianity by Aquila, as related by Epiphanius, may be discerned in the following legend of the Babylonian Talmud in reference to the proselyte Onkelos,

nephew

of Titus

on his

sister's side.

According

to

Aquila

Onkelos called up the shade of his uncle, then that of the prophet Balaam, and asked their counsel as to whether he should become a Jew. The former this,

advised against

it,

as the

and ceremonies; the

latter,

fulness, replied in the

Jews had

so

many laws

with characteristic

spite-

words of Scripture, "Thou

shalt not seek their

peace nor their prosperity (Deut. xxiii. 7 [A. V. 6]). Ho then conjured up the founder of the Church, who replied, "Seek their peace, seek not their harm; he who assails them touches the apple of God's eye." These words in-

duced him

become a Jew

to

(Git.

566, 57a).

The

founder of the Church (according to the Jewish legend) and the mother-church in Jerusalem (according to the Christian version) were the means of Aquila's becoming a Jew. The traces of the legend concerning Plavius Clemens, current alike among Jews and Christians,

seem

to have exerted some influence upon this Onkelos- Aquila tradition; but Lagarde goes so far as to explain Sinope in Pontus as being " Sinuessa in Pontia," where Dimitilla, the wife of Plavius Clemens, lived in exile. Irenseus, who wrote before 177, states that Pontus was Aquila's home. It is very questionable whether the account of Aquila in the Clementine writings ("Recognitiones," vii. 32, 33) an imperial prince who first embraced Judaism,

—

and then, after all manner of vagaries, Christianity was merely a Christian form of the Aquila legend, although Lagarde supports the assumption. The following Midrash deserves notice: Aquila is said to have asked R. Eliezer why, if circumcision were so important, it had not been included in the Ten

—

Commandments (Pesik. R. xxiii. 1166 ct seq. Tan., Lek Leka, end ed. Vienna, 206, reads quite erroneously " Agrippa " in place of " Aquila "), a question fre;



quently encountered in Christian polemic literature.

That Aquila's conversion to Judaism was a gradual one appears from the question he addressed to Rabbi Eliezer: "Is the whole reward of a proselyte to consist in receiving food and raiment?" (see Deut. x. The latter angrily answered that what had been 18). Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 20) should be sufficient for Aquila. When Aquila put the same question to Rabbi Joshua, the latter reassured him by expounding " food and raiment " as meaning metaphorically "Torah and tallit." Had not Joshua been so gentle, the Midrash adds, Aquila would have f orsaken Judaism (Eccl. R. to vii. 8; Gen. The purport R. lxx. 5; Ex. R. xix. 4, abbreviated). of this legend is to show that at the time Aquila had not been firmly convinced. His work is less familiar in Rabbinical Literature than his personality; for not more than a dozen quotations from his translation are mentioned. The following are interesting evidences of His Work, its general character. He translates HB*, the nameof God, by Sftof ml Unvd(, " worthy and competent, " a haggadic etymology (see sufficient for the patriarch

Gen.

Ii.

xlvi. 3;

compare Hag.

12a).

The Hebrew

Lev. xxiii. 40 he translates by Map ("water"), thus securing a resemblance to the Hebrew original, and at the same time supporting the Halakah (Yer. Sukkahiii. 53d; for parallel passages, A haggadic see Friedmann, p. 45; Krauss, p. 153).

word Tin

in

interpretation,

it

seems,

is

at the

bottom of

his trans-