Polyglot (book)

The first enterprise of this kind is the famous Hexapla of Origen of Alexandria, in which the Old Testament Scriptures were written in six parallel columns, the first containing the Hebrew text, the second a transliteration of this in Greek letters, the third and fourth the Greek translations by Aquila of Sinope and by Symmachus the Ebionite, the fifth the Septuagint version as revised by Origen, and the sixth the translation by Theodotion.

The principal editor was Arias Montanus, aided by Guido Fabricius Boderianus, Raphelengius, Masius, Lucas of Bruges, and others.

The last great polyglot is Brian Walton's (London, 1654-1657), which is more complete in various ways than Le Jay's, including, among other things, the Syriac of Esther and of several apocryphal books for which it is wanting in the Paris Bible, Persian versions of the Pentateuch and Gospels, and the Psalms and New Testament in Ethiopic.

The liberality of Cardinal Ximenes, who is said to have spent half a million ducats on it, removed the Complutensian polyglot from the risks of commerce.

Subsequent polyglots are of little scholarly importance, the best recent texts having been confined to a single language; but at least into the early 20th century many biblical students still used Walton and, if it was available, Le Jay.