(1) The foundations are the twenty-two letters, three mothers, seven double, and twelve single letters. Three mothers, namely A, M, SH, these are Air, Water, and Fire: Mute as Water, Hissing as Fire, and Air of a spiritual type, is as the tongue of a balance standing erect between them pointing out the equilibrium which exists.

(1) The three mother letters A, M, SH are the foundations of the whole; and resemble a Balance, the good in one scale, the evil in the other, and the oscillating tongue of the Balance between them.

(1) The simple letters are twelve, namely: He, Vau, Zain, Heth, Teth, Yod, Lamed, Nun, Samech, Oin, Tzaddi, and Quoph; they represent the fundamental properties, eight, hearing, smell, speech, desire for food, the sexual appetite, movement, anger, mirth, thought, sleep, and work. These symbolize also twelve directions in space: northeast, southeast, the east above, the east below, the northwest, southwest, the west above, the west below, the upper south, the lower south, the upper north, the lower north. These diverge to all eternity, and an as the arms of the universe.

(1) There were formed seven double letters, Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Pe, Resh, Tau, each has two voices, either aspirated or softened. These are the foundations of Life, Peace, Riches, Beauty or Reputation, Wisdom, Fruitfulness, and Power. These are double, because their opposites take part in life, opposed to Life is Death; to Peace, War; to Riches, Poverty; to Beauty or Reputation, Deformity or Disrepute; to Wisdom, Ignorance; to Fruitfulness, Sterility; to Power, Slavery.

(3) Three mothers, seven double and twelve simple, these are the twenty-two letters with which I H V H Tetragrammaton, that is our Lord of Hosts, exalted, and existed in the ages, whose name is Holy, created three fathers, fire and spirit and water, progressing beyond them, seven heavens with their armies of angels; and twelve limits of the universe.

(106) The other three, viz. the heat, the love, and the tone, stand in the incomprehensibility, and are generated out of the first three; and this now is the inward birth, wherewith the Deity qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth.

(2) Ten are the numbers, as are the Sephiroth, and twenty-two the letters, these are the Foundation of all things. Of these letters, three are mothers, seven are double, and twelve are simple.

(27) Thus heat and cold are the cause and original of water and air, in which everything acteth and stands; every life and mobility stands therein. Of this I shall write plainly, concerning the creation of the stars. Of the Influences of the other Qualities in the Three Elements, Fire, Air, and Water. Of the Bitter Quality.

(57) The first Tincture of the first Principle is properly the P Habitation in the Fire-flash, which is the Source, [Life, or active Property,] in the Gall, which makes the Brimstone-Spirit (viz. the indissoluble Worm of the Soul, which rules powerfully in the sharp Essences, and moves and carries the Body whithersoever the Mind, in the second Center will) to be its Dwelling-house; its Tincture is like the fierce, [austere or grim,] and sharp Might of God; it kindles the whole Body, so that it is The dazzling Light of the Sun. Warm, and that it grows not stiff [or congealed with Cold,] and upholds the Wheel in the Crack in the Essences, out of which the Hearing arises. It is sharp, and proves the Smell of every Thing in the Essences; it makes the Hearing, though itself is neither the Hearing nor Smelling; but it is the Gate that lets in Good and Evil, as the Tongue and also the Ear [does.] All which comes from hence, because that its Tincture has its Ground in the first Principle; and the Kindling of the Life happens in the Sharpness, in the Breaking through the Gate of the eternal Darkness.

(3) Twenty-two letters are formed by the voice, impressed on the air, and audibly uttered in five situations, in the throat, guttural sounds; in the palate, palatals; by the tongue, linguals; through the teeth, dentals; and by the lips, labial sounds.

(6) The elements are worshipped, - the air by Diogenes, the water by Thales, the fire by Hippasus; and by those who suppose atoms to be the first principles of things, arrogating the name of philosophers, being wretched creatures devoted to pleasure. "Wherefore I pray," says the apostle, "that your love may abound yet more and more, in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye may approve things that are excellent." "Since, when we were children," says the same apostle, "we were kept in bondage under the rudiments of the world. And the child, though heir, differeth nothing from a servant, till the time appointed of the father."

(83) Here now we find, that they heard the Voice of God in the Garden; for the Element, which is before God, wherewith Man qualifies [or mixes,] that did tremble because of Sin; and Sin was manifested in the Element of the Mind, first in Adam and Eve, and then Fear and Terror fell into the Essences of the Soul; for the first Principle in the [fierce] Sternness was stirred, so that [Principle] got (as a Man may say) Fuel for its Source of Fire. And it is risen up in the Kindling, in a Contrariety of Will, in the Essences, where one Form has continually opposed the other, viz. the sour Tartness, and the Cold, with their Attracting, have awakened the bitter Stinging and Tormenting in the Essences of the Tincture of the Blood in the Spirit; and the bitter Raging and Rising has awakened the Fire.

(7) For the Element is without Understanding, and that is that [which is attracted or] concreted in the Will of God, wherein the eternal Wisdom of God does [sparkle or] discover itself in infinitum [infinitely,] and in that spring up Colours, Arts, Virtues, and the eternal Wonders; out of which [Element] in the Beginning (in the Kindling of the Fire in the stern Fierceness) are the four Elements proceeded.

(166) II. The elements signify or denote the wonderful proportion, variety, change and alteration of the form and posture of heaven: For as the deep between the stars and earth always alter and change in their form, suddenly it is fair, bright and light, suddenly it is lowery and dark, now wind, then rain, now snow, suddenly the deep is blue or azure, suddenly greenish, by and by whitish, then suddenly again dusky.

(10) In this manner you must understand the four Elements, which yet are not four divided Things, or Essences, but one only Essence: And yet there are four Differences, or Distinctions in this Birth; and each Element lies in the other, as in a Chest, and it is its Receptacle, also it is a Member therein. Understand and consider the Ground aright, which follows. The P Sourness is the Matrix, and a Cause of all Things, which in its own Substance is very dark, cold, and as nothing; but the Eternal Deity being there, and speculating or beholding itself in the Sourness, therefore the dark Sourness is desirous after the divine Virtue, and attracts; although there is no Life or Understanding in the Sourness, yet it is the Ground of the first Essence, and the Original whence something comes to be: Here we can search no further into the Ground of the Deity, for it troubles [disturbs, or confounds] us.

(2) He hath formed, weighed, transmuted, composed, and created with these twenty-two letters every living being, and every soul yet uncreated.

(7) Their fifteen parts enter into their elements, their Devas (the senses) into their (corresponding) Devas. Their deeds and their Self with all his knowledge become all one in the highest Imperishable.

(5) Very useful, then, is the mode of symbolic interpretation for many purposes; and it is helpful to the right theology, and to piety, and to the display of intelligence, and the practice of brevity, and the exhibition of wisdom. "For the use of symbolical speech is characteristic of the wise man," appositely remarks the grammarian Didymus, "and the explanation of what is signified by it." And indeed the most elementary instruction of children embraces the interpretation of the four elements; for it is said that the Phrygians call water Bedu, as also Orpheus says: - "And bright water is poured down, the Bedu of the nymphs."

(82) When the tone riseth up in the divine nature, then it riseth up gently from all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits jointly together, and generateth the word or ideas, figures and shapes very gently.

(93) Behold! that is the birth or geniture of nature; and so, if in these three qualities, viz. the astringent, the bitter and the sweet, the wrath-fire were not kindled, then thou wouldst plainly see where God is.