The Hermetic Writings, Volume 1

ASCLEPIUS

...from the words "heaven... is the administrator of all bodies" in chapter 3 c. The interactions of the elements, through which living organisms are brought into being and maintained in existence, result from the movements of the heavenly bodies.

The beginning of the sentence "into the earth" etc. is lost; but the writer's meaning seems to have been that fire, the vivifying element par excellence, enters into and vivifies air, and air, vivified by fire, enters into and vivifies the two grosser elements, earth and water.

This theory of the elements and their relation to life closely resembles that of the Stoics; and the Hermetist must either have derived it directly from a Stoic source, or taken it from some syncretic Platonist who had borrowed from the Stoics.

"Only that which is carried upwards is vivifying; that which is carried downwards serves it." That which is "carried upwards" is upward-moving original: "τὸ ἀνωφερές"; and that which is "carried downwards" is downward-moving original: "τὸ κατωφερές". These terms, as applied to the elements, are of Stoic origin; they are not employed by Aristotle, who uses the words "light" and "heavy" in a corresponding sense. Chrysippus says that fire, being weightless, is upward-moving, and air is similar to this. The upward-moving elements, then, are the two light elements, fire and air; the downward-moving are the two heavy elements, earth and water.

We are here told that fire and air alone are "vivifying" original: "vivifica"; in chapter 6 b, we are told that "spirit" original: "πνεῦμα", mixed with all things, vivifies all things. It appears then that spirit must be identical with fire and air; it must be air into which fire has entered, or in other words, a mixture of fire and air. And this is precisely the Stoic doctrine. Alexander of Aphrodisias: "Fire... and air... from which, when mixed, spirit is created."

Arius Didymus, reporting Zeno, uses "upward-going" original: "ἀνώφοιτα" in the same sense: "Air and fire are weightless... for they are naturally upward-going because they partake of no weight."

Compare Aristotle: "And spirit is warm air."

With regard to the portion of spirit contained in an individual living body, the Stoics seem to have held that the fire in it (the hot) is that in which the power of self-movement resides, and the air in it (the cold) is that by which the hot is detained within the organism and prevented from flying up to its natural place above.