About the Mystery of the Letters

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About the Mystery of the Letters (Περὶ τοῦ μυστηρίου τῶν γραμμάτων, 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 in the 6th century in Byzantine Palaestina Prima.

Textual tradition

The text is known from three

Arabic bilingual translation from the late 14th century. The first modern edition of the Coptic text was published in 1900/1901.[1] The Greek text was first described in 1931, but published for the first time only in 2007.[2]

Origin and authorship

The text was originally written in Palaestina Prima and in the Greek language. The Coptic manuscripts names its author as Apa Seba (Arabic: Saba), referring to Saint

Sabas of Palestine (439–532). Internal evidence, however, leads to a somewhat later dating of the text, in the second half of the 6th century. It has been hypothesized that it was written by a follower of Sabas, possibly a monk in the monastery of Mar Saba, which had been founded by Sabas. A certain anti-philosophical polemic tendency expressed by the text can be related to the Origenist controversies of the mid-6th century, in which Mar Saba had played an important role.[3]

Contents

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

Deluge, was brought to Phoenicia and Greece by Cadmos
.

A long section of the text is devoted especially to the letter

Holy Trinity, i.e. Christ, the Holy Ghost and God the Father respectively.[4]

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.

See also

References

  1. ^ Hebbelynck, Adolphe (1900–1901). "Les Mystères des Lettres Grecques. Texte Copte, Traduction, Notes". Le Muséon. 19–20.
  2. ^ Bandt, Cordula (2007). Der Traktat "Vom Mysterium der Buchstaben." Kritischer Text mit Einführung, Übersetzung und Kommentar. Berlin: de Gruyter.
  3. ^ Bandt, S.4–8.
  4. ^ Bandt, p.41.

External links

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