Aquila

, of Sinope in Pontus, lived in the time of the emperor Adrian in the second century, by whom he is said to have been sent to assist in the rebuilding of Jerusalem, where he embraced Christianity; but, his attacument to judicial astrology having subjected him to censure among the Christians, he became a Jew, and was advanced to the rank of Rabbi. He now employed himself in acquiring a perfect knowledge of the Hebrew language, and translated the Old Testament into Greek. But although he made this apparently a literal translation, he is said to have | given some passages respecting Jesus Christ a trim more favourable to the Jewish prejudices than the Septuagint translation. Fragments only of this translation of Aquila’s have descended to us. Some particulars of him may be found in Cave, and in the ecclesiastical historians of his period. ¹