POLYGLOTT or POLYGLOT, a book which contains side by side versions of the same text in several languages (Gr. roXin, many, and 7Xc7.yrra, tongue). The most important polyglotts are editions of the Bible, or its parts, in which the Hebrew and Greek originals are exhibited along with the great historical versions. The famous Hexapla of Origen, in which the Old Testament Scriptures were written in parallel columns, probably suggested the later polyglotts, but though it gives six texts it is itself only in two languages. In the 16th and 17th centuries polyglotts be came a favourite means of advancing the knowledge of Eastern languages as well as the study of Scripture. The series began with the Complutensian printed by Arnaldus Guilielmus de Bro cario at the expense of Cardinal Jimenez (q.v.) at the university at Alcala. de Henares (Complutum). This contained for the Old Testament the Hebrew text, Latin Vulgate and the Septuagint and Chaldee versions with Latin renderings; for the New Testa ment,. the Greek and Vulgate Latin. The six volumes bear dates ranging from Jan. 1o, 1514, to July io, 1517, but the work did not receive the papal sanction till March 15 20, and was appar ently not issued till 1522, probably because of the Imperial priv ilege obtained by Erasmus for his Greek Testament in 1516. The
Antwerp Polyglott, printed by Christopher Plantin (1569-72, in 8 vols. folio), under the patronage of Philip II. of Spain, added a new language to those of the Complutensian by including the Syriac New Testament. Next came Le Jay's Paris Polyglott (1645), which embraces the first printed texts of the Syriac Old Testament and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It has also a series of various Arabic versions. The last great polyglott was that edited by Brian Walton, published in London in 1657. This is much less beautiful than Le Jay's, but includes the Syriac of Esther and of several apocryphal books, Persian versions of the Pentateuch and Gospels, and the Psalms and New Testament in Ethiopic. It was in connection with this polyglott that E. Cas tell produced his famous Heptaglott Lexicon (2 vols. folio, Lon don, 1669). Of the numerous polyglott editions of parts of the Bible it may suffice to mention the Genoa psalter of 1516, edited by Giustiniani, bishop of Nebbio. This is in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Chaldee and Arabic, and is interesting from the character of the Chaldee text, being the first specimen of Western printing in the Arabic character. (A. W. P.)