(10) Second, from the Spirit he made Air and formed for speech twenty-two letters, three of which are mothers, A, M, SH, seven are double, B, G, D, K, P, R, T, and twelve are single, E, V, Z, CH, H, I, L, N, S, O, Tz, Q, but the spirit is first among these. Third, Primitive Water. He also formed and designed from his Spirit, and from the void and formless made earth, even as a rampart, or standing wall, and varied its surface even as the crossing of beams. Fourth, from the Water, He designed Fire, and from it formed for himself a throne of honor, with Auphanim, Seraphim, Holy Animals, and ministering Angels, and with these he formed his dwelling, as is written in the text "Who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire." (Psalm civ. 4.)

(16) He established in his place images of the light which appeared and of those things which are spiritual, though they were of his own essence. For, thus they were honored in every place by him, being pure, from the countenance of the one who appointed them, and they were established: paradises and kingdoms and rests and promises and multitudes of servants of his will, and though they are lords of dominions, they are set beneath the one who is lord, the one who appointed them.

(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

(55) Who, by his proud elevation in his kingdom, kindled the qualities or the divine Salitter out of which he was made; ["Understand the centre of his nature, or the first Principle;"] and set it on fire.

(23) Therefore, my beloved Soul, be lively, and see what thy noble Bridegroom has left thee in his Testaments for a Legacy; as namely, in the Baptism, the Water of his Covenant, flowing from his holy original Body. Whereas we in this World, viz. in the external Birth of his Body, do acknowledge four Things, namely, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, wherein our earthly Body consists; so likewise in the heavenly Body there are four such Things. The Fire is the Enkindling of the divine Desire. The Water is that which the Fire desires, whence it becomes meek, and a Light. The Air is the joyful Spirit which blows up the Fire, and makes in the Water the Motion. And the Earth is the true Essence which is born in the three Elements, and is rightly called Ternarius Sanctus [the Sacred Ternary,] in which the Tincture is brought forth in the Light of the Meekness; and therein also is born the holy Blood out of the Water, being an Oil of the Water, in which the Light shines, and the Spirit of Life consists.

(21) Rabbi Yochanan said: The angels were created on the second day. It is therefore written (Psalm 104:3), "He rafters His upper chambers with water..." It is then written (Psalm 104:4), "He makes the winds His angels, His ministers from flaming fire." Rabbi Levitas ben Tavros said: All, even Rabbi Yochanan, agree that the water already existed. But it was on the second day that "He raftered His upper chambers with water." – the one who "makes the clouds his chariot," and the one who "walks on the wings of the wind." But His messengers were not created until the fifth day.

(103) And then the Word stood against him, in the Center of the Heaven; and he stood (in the Root of the Fierceness) against the Word; for his Spirit went out of the Gate of the Center of Heaven, and stood in the Source [or active Property] of the Original of the Creation in the fierce Root of the Fire, and desired the Out-Birth out of the holy Element (which also stood in the Kindling in the Fierceness) viz. the four Elements.

(117) He maketh the whole World of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, and of the all-nourishing Ether.

(2) for on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before Him — the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctifi- cation, and the angels [of the spirit of fire and the angels] of the spirit of the winds,* and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail and of hoar frost, and the angels of the voices8 and of the thunder and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring and of autumn and of summer, and of all the spirits of His creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth, (He created) the abysses and the darkness, eventide (and night), and the light, dawn and day, which He hath prepared in the know- ledge of His h,eart.

(39) For when he and all his angels had kindled in their bodies the qualifying or fountain spirit of the fire, then the unctuosness, marrow or fatness burnt in the sweet water, and the flash or terror, which riseth up fiercely in the birth of the light, became raging and tearing, burning and stinging, and a being or substance of a mere opposite or contrary will.

(53) The four Elements of this World, together with the Sun and Stars, could not qualify [or mix] with him; he drew no Air into him; but the Spirit of God (in the Virgin) was his Breathing, and [his] Kindling of the Fire in the Spirit.

(8) On the second Day, God created the Firmament of the Heaven, viz. the strong Inclosure, [Fence, or Stop] to the Darkness of the original Matrix, that it might no more kindle itself, and generate Earth and Stones. And therefore he made the Inclosure or Firmament out of the Midst of the Waters, which stays the Might [Force, or Power] of the Fire, and became the visible Heaven, whence the Creatures are proceeded, from whence now the Elements, Fire, Air, and Water proceed.

(1) In the beginning nothing whatsoever was here. This [world] was covered over with death, with hunger — for hunger is death. Then he made up his mind (manas): ' Would that I had a self!' So he went on (acarat) praising (arcau). From him, while he was praising, water was produced. 'Verily, while I was praising, I had pleasure (ka) \ ' thought he, This, indeed, is the tfTv&tf-nature of what pertains to brightness (arkya). Verily, there is pleasure for him who knows thus that ar/ca-naturc of what pertains to brightness. 2* The water, verily, was brightness. That which was the froth of the water became solidified. That became the earth. On it he [i.e. Death] tortured himself ( Vsram}. When he had tortured himself and practised austerity, his heat (tejas) and essence (rasa) turned into fire.

(1) We, whilst admitting this as the arrangement of the holy Hierarchies, affirm, that every appellation of the celestial Minds denotes the Godlike characteristic of each; and those who know Hebrew affirm, that the holy designation of the Seraphim denotes either that they are kindling or burning; and that of Cherubim, a fulness of knowledge or stream of wisdom. Naturally, then, the first (order) of the Heavenly Hierarchies is ministered by the most exalted Beings, holding, as it does, a rank which is higher than all, from the fact, that it is established immediately around God, and that the first-wrought Divine manifestations and perfections pass earlier to it, as being nearest. They are called, then, "Burning," and Thrones, and Stream of Wisdom--by a name which sets forth their Godlike conditions. The appellation of Seraphim plainly teaches their ever moving around things Divine, and constancy, and warmth, and keenness, and the seething of that persistent, indomitable, and inflexible perpetual motion, and the vigorous assimilation and elevation of the subordinate, as giving new life and rekindling them to the same heat; and purifying through fire and burnt-offering, and the light-like and light-shedding characteristic which can never be concealed or consumed, and remains always the same, which destroys and dispels every kind of obscure darkness. But the appellation of the Cherubim denotes their knowledge and their vision of God, and their readiness to receive the highest gift of light, and their power of contemplating the super-Divine comeliness in its first revealed power, and their being filled anew with the impartation which maketh wise, and their ungrudging communication to those next to them, by the stream of the given wisdom. The appellation of the most exalted and pre-eminent Thrones denotes their manifest exaltation above every grovelling inferiority, and their supermundane tendency towards higher things; and their unswerving separation from all remoteness; and their invariable and firmly-fixed settlement around the veritable Highest, with the whole force of their powers; and their receptivity of the supremely Divine approach, in the absence of all passion and earthly tendency, and their bearing God; and the ardent expansion of themselves for the Divine receptions.

(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.

(5) [Thereon] out of the Light [...] a Holy Word (Logos) descended on that Nature. And upwards to the height from the Moist Nature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too. The Air, too, being light, followed after the Fire; from out of the Earth-and-Water rising up to Fire so that it seemed to hang therefrom. But Earth-and-Water stayed so mingled with each other, that Earth from Water no one could discern. Yet were they moved to hear by reason of the Spirit-Word (Logos) pervading them.

(59) Now we pray thus, Our Father [which art] in Heaven, hallowed (or sanctified) be thy Name. And in the first of Genesis it is written, God created the Heaven out of the Midst of the Water, by which is [meant or] understood the Heaven of the third Principle: And yet indeed he has created it out of his own Heaven wherein he dwells. Thus you may easily find, that the Birth of the Holy Deity stands in the Source of Water, and the powerful Spirit is moreover the Former, Framer, and Fashioner therein.

(73) Before the times of the creation he sat in the Salitter of the earth, when the Salitter was yet thin or transparent, and stood in a heavenly, holy birth or geniture, and he was in the whole kingdom of this world, therein was neither earth nor stones, but a heavenly seed, which was generated out of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of nature; for in the kingdom of this world sprang up heavenly fruits, forms and ideas, which were a pleasant, delightful food of angels.

(63) But when he elevated himself, intending to rule the whole Deity with his animated or soulish spirit, then the stock and heart of light, which is the kernel, marrow or pith of love in the sweet water, became a fierce and hotly pursuing fire, source or quality, from whence in the whole body existed a very trembling, burning government and birth or geniture.

(90) "So when it is written, the angels are created out of God, then it is understood or meant out of God's eternal nature, wherein is understood or meant the seven forms, and yet the divine holy nature is not understood to be in the fire, but in the light.