About the Mystery of the Letters the mid-6th century, in which Mar Saba had played an important role. The anonymous author of the treatise declares he was prompted to the study of the secret meanings of the letters by the words of the Apocalypse, "I am the Alpha and Omega", and that he subsequently received a vision about them on Mount Sinai. The author proposes a re-modelled Greek alphabet reduced to 22 letters on the model of the 22 letters of Hebrew (discounting Xi Ξ and Psi Ψ), and with the Hebrew letter names. He then interprets these letters as symbolic figures of 22 works of
Aramaic alphabet Aramaic alphabet The ancient Aramaic alphabet is adapted from the Phoenician alphabet and became distinct from it by the 8th century BCE. It was used to write the Aramaic language and had displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, itself a derivative of the Phoenician alphabet, for the writing of Hebrew. The letters all represent consonants, some of which are also used as "matres lectionis" to indicate long vowels. The Aramaic alphabet is historically significant since virtually all modern Middle Eastern writing systems can be traced back to it as well as numerous non-Chinese writing systems of Central and East Asia. That is