He made copious use of a wide range of Greek particles to bring out subtle distinctions of relationship that the Hebrew cannot adequately express.
Jerome admired his style but faulted his translation in two areas important to Christians, saying that he substituted the Greek word neanis (woman) for parthenos (virgin) in Isaiah 7:14 and Genesis 24:43.
[15] Symmachus' Greek translation of the Pentateuch appeared in Origen's Hexapla, in which he had written κεραύνιος (= onyx) for the precious stone known in Hebrew as bareḳet in Exodus 28:17.
[16] According to Eusebius, Symmachus also wrote commentaries, then still extant, apparently written to counter the canonical Greek Gospel of Matthew, his Hypomnemata;[17] it may be related to the De distinctione præceptorum, mentioned in the catalogue of the Nestorian metropolitan Abdiso Bar Berika (d.1318).
[citation needed] From the language of many later writers who speak of Symmachus, he must have been a man of great importance among the Ebionites,[citation needed] for "Symmachians" remained a term applied by Catholics even in the fourth century to the Nazarenes or Ebionites, as we know from the pseudepigraphical imitator of Ambrose, the Ambrosiaster, Prologue to the Epistle to the Galatians, and from Augustine's writings against heretics.