(Hellenists), a term occurring in the Greek text of the New Testament, and which in the English version is rendered Grecians. But the critics are divided as to the signification of the word. Eusebius (Scholia ad Act. vi. 1) observes, that it is not to be understood as signifying those of the religion of the Greeks, but those who spoke Greek (τοὺς Ἑλληνικοὺς γλωσσαῖς). The authors of the Vulgate indeed render it, as in our version, Graeci; but Messieurs du Port-Royal more accurately, Juifs Grecs, Greek or Grecian Jews; that is, Jews who spoke Greek, and who are thus distinguished from the Jews called Hebrews, who spoke the Hebrew tongue of that time. The Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, were those who lived in Egypt and other parts where the Greek tongue prevailed. It is to them we owe the Greek version of the Old Testament, commonly called the Septuagint. But Salmasius and Vossius are of a different opinion with regard to the Hellenists. The latter conceives that they were those who adhered to the Grecian interests. Scaliger is represented, in the Scaligerana, as asserting that the Hellenists were the Jews who lived in Greece and other places, and who read the Greek Bible in their synagogue, and used the Greek language in sacris, and who were thus opposed to the Hebrew Jews, who performed their public worship in the Hebrew tongue; and in this sense St Paul speaks of himself as a Hebrew of the Hebrews (Phil. iii. 5), meaning a Hebrew both by nation and language. The Hellenists are thus properly distinguished from the Hellenes or Greeks (mentioned in John, xii. 20), who were Greeks by birth and nation, and yet proselytes to the Jewish religion.