On the Consideration of the Quintessence

incorruptible and immutable and impossible [to have] natural conflicts or [be] mutable, should it be made by the command of God. Because also the matter was oppressed, [being] resistant through the quality of the human body. The quintessence is indeed incorruptible, if it stood on its own, neither hot and dry with fire, nor moist and cold with water, nor hot and moist with air, nor cold and dry with earth. But it is eternal because it is of value for all things, just as the heaven is incorruptible because its matter is influenced by rain—sometimes hot, sometimes cold, sometimes dry. Such is the ray of the sun. The quintessence, which the Most High has set in nature, is able to supply the mutable body [and render it] eternal, suitable then for our death, for God established man’s matter. And he says that the Most High extracted the quintessence which is contained within the body so that it might not decay; thus is the artifice of human [knowledge] and notable. In its noble [properties], the philosophers imposed upon themselves to call it by name: in water, moist earth, home and spirit and volatile water. And when you wish [to understand] that faculty, you will note the quintessence, which possesses its nature. And this name the supreme philosophers wished to unfold, so that they might bring the knowledge into the truth, and [they demonstrate] that it is not cold and moist like the element of water; it is demonstrated that it burns.