The first of the Greek versions of the Old Testament executed in the second century was that of Aquila. He is described as a Jew or Jewish proselyte of Pontus, and the date commonly attributed to his version is about the year a.d. 126. His translation is said to have been executed for the express purpose of opposing the authority of the Septuagint: his version was in consequence upheld by the Jews. His labour was evidently directed in opposing the passages which the Christians were accustomed to cite from the Septuagint as applicable to the Lord Jesus. The general characteristic of this version is bold literality of rendering: such an endeavour is made to render each Hebrew word and particle into Greek, that all grammar is often set at defiance, and not unfrequently the sense is altogether sacrificed. From the scrupulosity of Aquila in rendering each Hebrew word, his work, if we possessed it complete (and not merely in scattered fragments), would be of great value in textual criticism.
Another Greek translator at a subsequent period in the second century was Symmachus. He is described as an Ebionite, a kind of semi-Christian. His version seems to have been executed in good and pure Greek: perhaps he was the more particular in his attention to this in consequence of the mere barbarism of Aquila.
A third translator in the same century was Theodotion, an Ebionite like Symmachus, to whom he was probably anterior. His version is in many parts based on the Septuagint. He is less servile in his adherence to the words of the Hebrew than Aquila, although he is void of the freedom of Symmachus. His knowledge of Hebrew was certainly but limited, and without the Septuagint it is hardly probable that he could have undertaken this version.
Thus, before the end of the second century there were, besides the Septuagint, three versions of the Old Testament in Greek, known to both Jews and Christians. All this could not fail in making the Old Testament Scriptures better known and more widely read.
Although many Christians believed in the inspiration and authority of the Septuagint, yet this could not have been universally the case; otherwise the disuse of the real Septuagint version of the book of Daniel, and the adoption of that of Theodotion in its stead, could never have taken place. This must have arisen from an apprehension of the poverty and inaccuracy of the Septuagint in this book, so that another version similar in its general style was gladly adopted.
We have now to speak of the labours of Origen in connection with the text of the Septuagint. This learned and enterprising scholar, having acquired a knowledge of Hebrew, found that in many respects the copies of the Septuagint differed from the Hebrew text. It seems to be uncertain whether he regarded such differences as having arisen from mistakes on the part of copyists, or from errors of the original translators themselves.
The object which he proposed to himself was not to restore the Septuagint to its original condition, nor yet to correct mere errors of translation simply as such, but to cause that the Church should possess a text of the Septuagint in which all additions to the Hebrew should be marked with an obelus, and in which all that the Septuagint omitted should be added from one of the other versions marked with an asterisk. He also indicated readings in the Septuagint which were so incorrect that the passage ought to be changed for the corresponding one in another version.
With the object of thus amending the Septuagint, he formed his great works, the Hexapla and Tetrapla; these were (as the names imply) works in which the page was divided respectively into six columns and into four columns.
The Hexapla contained, 1st, the Hebrew text; 2nd, the Hebrew text expressed in Greek characters; 3rd, the version of Aquila; 4th, that of Symmachus; 5th, the Septuagint; 6th, Theodotion. The Tetrapla contained merely the four last columns.
Besides these four versions of the entire Old Testament, Origen employed three anonymous Greek versions of particular books; these are commonly called the fifth, sixth, and seventh
