Guy Michel Lejay

Gui-Michel Lejay (Paris, 1588 - Vezelay, 1674) was an advocate at the French Parliament, best known for his Polyglot Bible, the Paris Polyglot 1645.^[1] The Lejay Bible was known for the beauty of its fonts for which new metal type was cast in Aramaic, Samaritan, and Arabic.^[2] Obstacles to Lejay's project at Rome were smoothed by his protector and sponsor Cardinal Pierre de Bérulle.^[3]

The Paris Polyglot (1645) contained the first printed texts of the Syriac Old Testament edited by Gabriel Sionita, a Maronite (with the exception of the Book of Ruth by Abraham Ecchellensis, also a Maronite) and of the Samaritan Pentateuch in a version by Jean Morin (Morinus). It contains also a compilation made from several Arabic versions.