JOÛON, PAUL. — Jesuit Semitic scholar, born in Nantes on 26 February 1871, died there on 18 February 1940.
Professor of Hebrew at the University of St Joseph in Beyrouth (1907–14), and subsequently at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome (1915–26), he left important works: besides a Grammaire de l'hébreu biblique (Rome 1923, new ed. 1947), which remains authoritative, mention should be made of a commentary on the Song of Songs (Paris 1909), an annotated translation of the Gospels based on the Semitic substratum (in Verbum salutis, V, Paris 1930), and, perhaps above all, the very numerous notes on Arabic, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Biblical Greek lexicography published in Mélanges de l'Université St-Joseph, 3–18 (1908 ff.), in Biblica, 1–23 (1920–42), and in Recherches de science religieuse, 15–30 (1925–40).