The page features a decorative red geometric border at the top of the right column, framing the opening title. The text is written in a clear East Syriac (Madnhaya) script, with headings and specific phrases rubricated in red ink.

In the Name of the Living God

We Write

The Book of the Rhetorician

Concerning the intellect of knowledge and the divine law: from the works of our Father, Mar Isaac of Nineveh the Teacher, the holy interpreter, may it be clear and spread and verified.

The First Discourse

What is the intellect for it, you say, from the error of the world? That as by the distinction of faith we should hear it, indeed, the law of judgment, the power of truth, let it be pondered, for by faith it is truly clothed and verified, and the power that is gathered in it, as if a personhood, without the distinction of the spirit of the body; behold, in the divinity that is from every power, and all its preservation and the perfection of life is measured, and from the bright place, the pulled-together glory is completed. Hidden in it...

of the knowledge that is this, the worldly, in a light, mystery-building, distinct and bright, I have separated, and the distinction to the creature and God and to all humanity I have separated, for in the hidden knowledge, the glorious ones, of the wonder in their thoughts and their fullness, and the teaching as if he is the begetter, that he, Abraham, the father of nations, may stand. And in the powers of likeness, and from them, those who are as if it is the concern of life, I found. And this personhood, in the name of his testimony I have placed, and all existence of them, those who at all times, because they are not trampled, may be enlightened, and this is the philosophy of truth. And there is a mystery in it, as I previously distinguished, even from the unexpected, there is what is turned and finished. I have mysteried, Ephrem, by his hands to the blind and the light, the fifth, he makes known. And the sanctifier, that in the greatness of the specific, to the blind, he tastes. And that which is in it is not, and in the companionship, to the blind and a half I have finished.

And from what is from his own light, from what is written:
His first topic: Concerning the treasury and the distinction of the hearing of testimony.
His second topic: Concerning the choice of the quiet verse.

1- The living one. 2- That which is the distinction. 3- That which is from the testimony. 4- The place. 5- That which is in the hidden.