(4) And we pray likewise for Thy Fire, O Ahura! strong through Righteousness (as it is), most swift, (most) powerful, to the house with joy receiving it, in many wonderful ways our help, but to the hater, O Mazda! it is a steadfast harm as if with weapons hurled from the hands .

(91) yet the Fire gives or represents to us a Mystery of the eternal Nature, and of the Deity also, wherein a Man is to understand two Principles of a twofold Source, viz. I. a hot, fierce, astringent, bitter, anxious, consuming One in the Fire-source. And out of the Fire comes the II. viz. the Light, which dwells in the Fire, but is not apprehended or laid hold on by the Fire; also it has another Source then the Fire has, which is Meekness, wherein there is a Desire of Love, where then, in the Love-desire, another Will is understood than that which the Fire has.

(5) Conformably, also, to what has been said, the fire of the Gods, indeed, shines forth with an indivisible and ineffable light, and fills all the profundities of the world, in an empyrean, but not in a mundane, manner. But the fire of archangels is impartible indeed, but is seen to possess about itself an abundant multitude, either preceding or following after itself. The fire of angels is divided, except that it exhibits itself in the most perfect ideas. That of dæmons is still more shortly circumscribed by a distribution into parts, is effable, and does not astonish the sight of those that have seen more excellent natures. The fire of heroes has, after a certain manner, the same things as that of dæmons, but at the same time falls short of the most accurate similitude to it. Moreover, with respect to archons, the fire of those that are of a more elevated order, is more pellucid; but of those that are material, is more dark. And the fire of souls is seen to be much divided and multiform, and is comingled from many of the natures that are in the world. Again, the fire of the Gods appears to be entirely stable. That of archangels is tranquil; but that of angels is stably moved. The fire of dæmons is unstable; but that of heroes is, for the most part, rapidly moved. The fire of those archons that are of the first rank is tranquil; but of those that are of the last order is tumultuous. And the fire of souls is transmuted in a multitude of motions.

(74) Moreover, the Wrath-Fire of God does not reach in Nature into the innermost Kernel of the Heart, which is the Son of God, much less into the secret Glory or Holiness of the Spirit, but into the Birth or Geniture of the six qualifying or fountain Spirits, in the Place where the seventh is generated.

(119) For the kindled Spirits of God generate themselves thus. I. The Hardness generates a hard, raw, rough, cold, and astringent Quality. II. The Sweetness is grown faint, like a glowing Coal, when there is no more Sap in the Wood, that gasps, and there is no Refreshment for it. III. The Bitterness tears like a hot Plague, and is as bitter as Gall. IV. The Fire burns as a fierce wrathful Sulphur. V. Love is an Enmity here. VI. The Sound is a mere Beating, Rumbling, or Cracking, like the Noise of a Fire breaking forth out of a hollow Place, as if it were great Claps of Thunder. VII. The Circuit, Region, Court, or Residence of the Body is a House of Mourning.

(34) 4th. Fire (ether) He drew forth from the water. He engraved and established by it the Throne of Glory. He fashioned the Seraphim, the Ophanim, and the Holy Living Creatures (Cherubim?), as His ministering angels; and with (of) these three He formed His habitation, as it reads: "Who made His angels spirits, His ministers a flaming fire." (Psalms civ. 4.)

(45) But what is the Fire? First, there is the Darkness, the Hardness, the eternal Cold, and the Dryness, where there is nothing else but an eternal Hunger. Then how comes the Fire to be? Dear Soul, here [in the Fire's coming to be] the Spirit of God (viz. the eternal Light) comes to help the Hunger; for the Hunger exists also from the Light: Because the divine Virtue beholds itself in the Darkness, therefore the Darkness is desirous [and longing] after the Light; and the Desiring is the Will.

(1) Iximiprus saith:—I testify that the beginning of all things is a Certain Nature, which is perpetual, coequalling all things, and that the visible natures, with their births and decay, are times wherein the ends to which that nature brings them are beheld and summoned.* Now, I instruct you that the stars are igneous, and are kept within bounds by the air. If the humidity and density of the air did not exist to separate the flames of the sun from living things, then the Sun would consume all creatures. But God has provided the separating air, lest that which He has created should be burnt up. Do you not observe that the Sun when it rises in the heaven overcomes the air by its heat, and that the warmth penetrates from the upper to the lower parts of the air? If, then, the air did not presently breathe forth those winds whereby creatures are generated, the i Sun by its heat would certainly destroy all that lives. But the Sun is kept in check by the air, which thus conquers because it unites the heat of the Sun to its own heat, and the humidity of water to its own humidity. Have you not remarked how tenuous water.

is drawn up into the air by the action of the heat of the Sun, which thus helps the water against itself? If the water did not nourish the air by such tenuous moisture, assuredly the Sun would overcome the air. The fire, therefore, extracts moisture from the water, by means of which the air conquers the fire itself. Thus, fire and water are enemies between which there is no consanguinity, for the fire is hot and dry, but the water is cold and moist.. The air, which is warm and moist, joins these together by its concording medium; between the humidity of water and the heat of fire the air is thus placed to establish peace. And lock ye all how there shall arise a spirit from the tenuous vapour of the air, because the heat being joined to the humour, there necessarily issues something tenuous, which will become a wind. For the heat of the Sun extracts something tenuous out of the air, which also becomes spirit and life to all creatures. All this, however, is disposed in such manner by the will of God, and a coruscation appears when the heat of the Sun touches and breaks up a cloud.

The Turba saith:—Well hast thou described the fire, even as thou knowest concerning it, and thou hast believed the word of thy brother.

(92) For the Fire will consume all, and causes a high Rising in the Source, and the Meekness of the Light causes Entity or Substantiality; viz. in the eternal Light it causes the Water-spirit of eternal Life: and in the third Principle of this World, it causes Water, together with the Existence or Original of the Air.

(2) But we must keep our discourse within bounds, and must search, in our first explanation of the types, for what reason the Word of God prefers the sacred description of fire, in preference to almost every other. You will find it, then, representing not only wheels of fire, but also living creatures of fire, and men, flashing, as it were, like lightning, and placing around the Heavenly Beings themselves heaps of coals of fire, and rivers of flame flowing with irresistible force; and also it says that the thrones are of fire; and that the most exalted Seraphim glow with fire, it shews from their appellation, and it attributes the characteristic and energy of fire to them, and throughout, above and below, it prefers pre-eminently the representation by the image of fire. I think, then, the similitude of fire denotes the likeness of the Heavenly Minds to God in the highest degree; for the holy theologians frequently describe the superessential and formless essence by fire, as having many likenesses, if I may be permitted to say so, of the supremely Divine property, as in things visible. For the sensible fire is, so to speak, in everything, and passes through everything unmingled, and springs from all, and whilst all-luminous, is, as it were, hidden, unknown, in its essential nature, when there is no material lying near it upon which it may shew its proper energy. It is both uncontrollable and invisible, self-subduing all things, and bringing under its own energy anything in which it may happen to be; varying, imparting itself to all things near it, whatever they may be; renewing by its rousing heat, and giving light by its uncovered illuminations; invincible, unmingled, separating, unchangeable, elevating, penetrating, lofty; subject to no grovelling inferiority, ever moving, self-moving, moving other things, comprehending, incomprehended, needing no other, imperceptibly increasing itself, displaying its own majesty to the materials receiving it; energetic, powerful, present to all invisibly, unobserved, seeming not to be, and manifesting itself suddenly according to its own proper nature by friction, as it were by a sort of seeking, and again flying away impalpably, undiminished in all the joyful distributions of itself. And one might find many characteristics of fire, appropriate to display the supremely Divine Energy, as in sensible images. The Godly-wise, then, knowing this, depict the celestial Beings from fire, shewing their Godlikeness, and imitation of God, as far as attainable.

(1) 'The red colour of burning fire (agni) is the colour of fire, the white colour of fire is the colour of water, the black colour of fire the colour of earth. Thus vanishes what we call fire, as a mere variety, being a name, arising from speech. What is true (satya) are the three colours (or forms).

(3) 'From terror of Brahman fire burns, from terror the sun burns, from terror Indra and Vâyu, and Death, as the fifth, run away.'

(6) 5. The basin, the fire of which is a blazing flame; the front of the fire, the god in it is the bearer of altars

(5) For Nature got a twofold Source, and the outermost Birth or Geniture in Nature was kindled in the Wrath-Fire, which + Fire now is called the Wrath of God, or the burning Hell. Note. [Nature-Fire, God's Anger, Hell.]

(76) When now the wrathful Fire-flash awakened, and rouzed up the Spirits of Nature, which stand in Death in the Earth, and made them moveable by its fierce Terror or Crack, then the Spirits begun, according to their peculiar divine Right, to generate themselves, as they had done from Eternity, and form, figure, or frame a Body together, according to the innate infant Qualities of that Place. [Or Inflamming.]

(92) IV. Fourthly, the Fire-Spirit also, which stands in the horrible Anguish and Pangs of Life, must be also melted away, for it is a continued Father of the Wrath, and out of or from that is generated the hellish Woe.

(1) 'Fire (tegas) is better than water. For fire united with air, warms the ether. Then people say, It is hot, it burns, it will rain. Thus does fire, after showing this sign (itself) first, create water. And thus again thunderclaps come with lightnings, flashing upwards and across the sky. Then people say, There is lightning and thunder, it will rain. Then also does fire, after showing this sign first, create water. Meditate on fire.

(55) But yet whether this kindled Fire-spirit has Right therein, and whether God himself has kindled it, from whence the Wrath-fire exited, let the Electionists or Predestinarians, or those that dispute so about Election, justify it, and prove it in Nature if they can; if not, then this Fire-spirit is to be condemned also. Of the Fifth Kind, Species, Form or Manner of Sin’s Beginning, in Lucifer and his Angels.

(61) The Seven Forms are the seven qualifying or fountain Spirits of the Body; viz. the astringent Quality, the Water, the Bitter, the Heat, the Sound, the Love, the Nature or Beginning from the other Six: And when these are kindled, each Spirit generates a several Enmity against God.

(36) But it contains also a fierce or wrathful Source, a Source of Death and Corruption. For if it is kindled in the bitter Quality in the Element of Water, then it breeds Diseases, and the Plague or Pestilence, and Corruption of the Flesh.