Biblical Hebrew and occasionally other literary works, distinct from the calligraphic styles used mainly for private purposes. The Mizrahi and Ashkenazi book-hand styles were later adapted to printed fonts after the invention of the printing press. The modern Hebrew alphabet, also known as the Assyrian or Square script, is a descendant of the Aramaic alphabet. The Phoenician script had dropped five characters by the 12th century BCE, reflecting the language's twenty-two consonantal phonemes. As a result, the 22 letters of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet numbered less than the consonant phonemes of ancient Biblical Hebrew; in particular, the letters could each mark two different
About the Mystery of the Letters Father respectively. The final chapters of the treatise engage in speculation about more general topics, including the history of mankind – whose key events are related symbolically to the sequence of vowels and consonants in the alphabet –, a discussion of Christology dealing with issues related to the Council of Chalcedon, and reflections upon the name of "Adam". About the Mystery of the Letters About the Mystery of the Letters (, "Peri tou mystēriou tōn grammatōn") is an anonymous Christian treatise containing a mystical doctrine about the names and forms of the Greek and Hebrew letters. It was probably written