THE ASSEMBLY

...so that they might remain stable and perform their duty correctly, God established the air between them and the earth, and the things to be nourished and cooked cooked: from the Latin 'coquendas', referring to the alchemical process of maturation or ripening through heat, which would contain the stars and prevent them from—especially the Sun’s blasts, for I say nothing of the others, he says—burning up all existing things. And if the air did not breathe into the spirits by which creatures are generated, the Sun would destroy all existing things with its heat. But also water would destroy all things with its coldness and moisture, unless air intervened. Therefore, since air is hot and dry original: "calidus & siccus"; interestingly, the text here assigns the qualities of fire to air, though air is more traditionally hot and moist in Aristotelian physics., it so reconciles the heat of the celestial fire and stars with the watery coldness, so that a perpetual friendship might remain between them, and the nourishment and benefit of cooking cooking: 'decoctionis', the process of heating a substance to extract its essence or mature its nature might proceed for all existing things.

THE ASSEMBLY says: You have described fire well; continue then.

He Referring to Eximidius says: I magnify and honor the air, because by it the work is improved, as it thickens and thins, and as it grows hot and cold. Its thickness occurs when [the elements] are distinguished in heaven because of the rising of the Sun. But its thinness occurs when the air is thinned and heated by another Sun This likely refers to the "alchemical sun" or the artificial heat of the philosopher's furnace.. When that air is thinned, the Sun becomes near; when it is near, heat reaches man and creatures.

ANAXAGORAS Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosopher who proposed that all things are composed of infinitesimally small particles. says: You have described the air well. But know, O Assembly, that the thickness of the four beginnings beginnings: 'initiorum', referring here to the four basic elements of the universe rests in the earth alone, because the thickness of fire falls into the air, and the thickness of air—together with what is gathered from the thickness of fire—falls into the water.