Page 14 - Paracelsus Three Books of Philosophy

When the Great Mystery first separated all things, the first separation was of the
elements, so that before all other things the elements broke forth into their act and
essence. The fire was made heaven and the wall of the firmament. The air was made a
void space, wherein nothing appears or is to be seen, possessing that place wherein is
no substance or corporeal matter; this is the coffer or enclosure of the invisible
destinies. The water passed into liquor, and took its place about the channels and
hollowness of the centre within the other elements and the sky; This is the hutch of the
nymphs and monsters of the sea. The earth was coagulated into dry land, and is upheld
by none of the other elements, but is propped up by the pillars of the Archaltes2. These
are the strange and wonderful works of God. The earth is the chest of those things that
grow, which are nourished by it. This kind of separation was the beginning of all
creatures, and the first distribution both of these and all other creatures.

After the Elements were thus brought forth into their essence, and divided from
each other, that every one subsisted severally in its own place without prejudice to one
another, then a second separation followed the first, which proceeded from the
Elements. Thus every thing that lay in the fire was transformed into the heavens, one
part thereof as into an ark or cloister, another part proceeded out of it as a flower out
of a stalk. Thus the stars, planets, and whatsoever is in the firmament, were brought
forth. These sprang out of the element, not as a stalk grows with its flowers out of the
earth (for these grow out of the earth itself) but the stars came out of the heavens by
separation only, as the flowers of silver ascend, and separate themselves. So that all
the firmaments are separated from the fire. But before the firmament was separated
from the fire, every jot thereof was but one element of fire. For as a tree in winter is
but a tree, but when the spring comes the same tree (if that be separated from it that
may be separated) puts forth leaves, flowers and fruit, which is the time of harvest and
separation. Just such another harvest was there in the separation of the Great Mystery,
which could by no means withhold or defer itself any longer.

Another separation out of the air followed the separation of the elements, at one
and the same instant with that of the fire. For the whole air was predestinated unto all
the elements. Yet it is not in the other elements of mixture in any manner and measure;
but it doth assume and occupy all manner of things in all the elements, only what was
before surrounded it doth not possess. For no mixture of the elements continued fast
united, but every element betook itself to its own free power without dependence on
another. As soon as this element thus parted from the rest out of the Great Mystery,

2 Archaltes - The secret power of God by which the earth is held up in its place.
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