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] 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.
God subsequently revealed the Greek alphabet on a tablet of stone, which, after the Deluge, was brought to Phoenicia and Greece by Cadmos.
A long section of the text is devoted especially to the letter Waw and its Greek equivalent, Digamma (called Episemon in the treatise), the numeral sign for "6".
[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.