A Discovrse of Fire and Salt. Blaise de Vigenère
foure Elements, shall have also its heaven and its earth: The soule, and understanding, are its heaven, the body and sensuality, its earth: So that to know the heaven and earth of man, is to have true and entire knowledge of all the Universe, and of the Nature of things.
From the knowledge of the sensible World, we come to that of the Creator, and the Intelligible world; by the Creature, the Creator is understood, saith Saint Augustine. Fire then gives motion to the body, Aire feeling, Water nourishment, and Earth subsistence. Moreover heaven designes the intelligible world, the earth the sensible: Each of them is subdivided into two, (in every case I speake not but after Zohar and the ancient Rabbins.) The intelligible into Paradise and Hell; and the sensible, to the Celestiall and Elementary world: Upon this passage Origen makes a faire discourse at the entry on Genesis, that God first made the heaven or the intelligible world, following that which is spoken in the 66. of Esay, Heaven is my seat and Earth my footstoole; Or rather it is God in whom the world dwelleth, and not the world which is Gods habitation: For in him Act. 17. 28.we live, move, and have our beeing; for the true seat and habitation of God, is his proper essence: and before the Creation of the World, as Rabbi Eliezer sets downe, in his Chapters, there was nothing but the essence of God, and his name, which are but one thing: Then after the heaven, or the intelligible world, Origen pursues, God made the Firmament, that is to say, this sensible world; for every body hath I know not what firmnesse and solidity, and all solidity is corporal; and as that which God proposed to make, consisteth of Body and of Spirit, for this cause it is written, that God first made the Heaven, that is to say, all spirituall substance, upon which, as upon a certaine throne, hee reposeth himselfe. The Firmament for our regard is the body, which Zohar calleth the Temple, and the Apostle also, Yee are Gods Temple, 1 Cor. 3. 17. And the Heaven, which is spirituall, is our soule, and the inner man; the Firmament is the externall, that neither seeth, nor knoweth God but sensibly. So that man is double, an animall, and spirituall body, the one Internall, Spirituall, Invisible; that which Saint Marke in this place designeth for man; the other Externall, Corporall, Animal, which he denotes by the Sacrifice which comprehendeth not the things that are of the Spirit of God, but the Spirituall discerneth all; So that the exteriour man is an animal compared to brute beasts, whereout they tooke their offerings for Sacrifices: He is compared to foolish Beasts, and is made like them; for a man hath no more then a Beast: we must understand the Carnall, and Animall, that consists of this visible body, that dyeth as well as Beasts, are corrupt and returne to Earth: Whence Plato said very well, that which is seene of man, is not man properly. And the first of Alcibiades, yet more distinctly, that Man is I know not what else, then his body, namely his soule, as it followes afterwards. That which Cicero borrowed out of Scipio’s dreame; But understand it thus, that thou art not mortall, but this body; thou art not that, which this forme declares, but every mans minde is himselfe, not that figure which may be demonstrated by the finger: And the Philosopher Anaxarchus while the Tyrant Nicocreon of Cyprus, caused him to be brayed in a great Marble Morter, cried out with a loud voice, Stampe hard, bruise the barke of Anaxarchus, for it is not him that thou stampest.
But will it be permitted for me here, to bring something of Metubales? All that is, is either Invisible, or Visible; Intellectuall, or Sensible; Agent, and Patient; Forme, and Matter; Spirit, and Body; the Interiour and the Exteriour man; Fire, and Water; that which seeth, and that which is seen.
But that which seeth is much more excellent and more worthy then that which is seen, and there is nothing that seeth, but the invisible, where that which is seene, is as a blind thing; therefore Water is a proper and serviceable subject, over whom the Fire or Spirit may out-stretch his action.
Also he hath elevated it for his habitation and residence; for by introducing it, he elevates it on high in the nature of Aire contiguous unto it: which invisible Spirit (of the Lord was carryed on the waters, or rather did sit over the waters) did see the visible, moved the immoveable, for water hath no motion of it selfe; there is none but Aire, and Fire, that have, and speake by the Organs of one that is dumb; for as when by our winde and breath, filling a pipe or flute, we make it sound though never so mute.
This Body and Spirit, water and fire, are designed unto us by Cain and Abel, the first Creatures of all others engendred of the seed of man and woman, and by their Sacrifices, whence those of Cain issuing from the fruits of the earth, were by consequent corporall, dead, and inanimate, and together destitute of faith, which dependeth of the Spirit, and are by Fire dissolved into a waterish vapour, so that to go to finde it in its sphere and habitation, for the newes, we are to suffer thereunder. Pour le nouveau. But those of Abel were spirituall, animate, full of life, that resides in the bloud; full of piety and devotion. This also Aben Ezra, and the author of the Handfull of Myrrh, call a fire descending from one above to regather them: which happened not to those of Cain, which a strange fire devoured; and from thence was declared the exteriour man, sensuall, animall, that must bee salted with Salt; But Abel the interiour, spirituall, salted with Fire; which is double, the materiall and essentiall, the actuall and potentiall, as it is in burnings. All what is sensible, and visible, is purged by the actuall, and the invisible, and intelligible, by the spiritual and potentiall. Saint Ambrose, on the Treatise of Isaac and of the Soule. What is man, the soule of him, or the flesh, or the assembly of those two? for the clothing is one thing, and the thing clothed another. Indeed there are two men (I leave the Messihe apart) Adam was made and formed of God; in respect of the body, of ashes, and of earth, but afterwards inspired in him the Spirit of Life; if he had kept himselfe from misprision, he was like unto Angels, made participant of eternall beatitude, but his transgression dispossessed him. The other man is he, which comes successively to be borne of man and woman, who by his originall offence is made subject to death, to paines, travails, and diseases, therefore must hee returne from whence he came. But touching the soule that came from God, it remains in its free will: if it will adhere to God, it is capable to bee admitted into the ranke of his children, Joh. 1. 13. who are borne not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Such was Adam before his first transgression.
The soule then, which is the inner man, spirit, and the very true man which liveth properly, for the body hath no life of it selfe, nor motion; and is nothing else but as it were the barke and clothing of the inner man, according to Zohar, alledging that out of the 10 of Job 11. Thou hast clothed me with skinne and flesh; whereunto that in the 6. of S. Matthew seemeth to agree, where to shew us how much the soule ought to bee in greater recommendation then the body, as more worthy and pretious; our Saviour saith, Take no care then how to cloth your body, is not your body better then raiment? and by consequent, the soule more then the body, since the body is but as it were the vestment of the soule, which is subject to perish, and to use, (all shall wax old as doth a garment.) And the Apostle in the 1 to the Corinthians, The old man falleth away, but the inner man is renewed dayly; for it washeth it selfe (according to Zohar) by the fire, as doth a Salamander, and the outward man by water, with Soaps and Lees that consist of Salts. Of which two manners of repurging, it is thus said in the 31. of Numb. v. 23. All that which shall support the fire, shall be purged thereby, and that which cannot beare it, shall be sanctified by the water of Purification; which was a figure of that which the Fore-runner spake in the 3. of Matthew, It is true that I baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that comes after mee, shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with Fire.
But behold how Zohar speakes more particularly. If it bee so, Adam what is he? it is nought but skin, and flesh, and bones, and nerves, he must not passe so. But to speak truth, man is nothing else, but the immortall soule that is in him; and the skinne, flesh, bloud, bones, and nerves, are the vestments wherein it is wrapped, as a little creature newly borne within the beds and linnen of its Cradle: These are but the utensils, and instruments allotted to womens children, not to man or Adam; for when this Adam so made, was elevated out of this world, he is devested of those instruments, wherewith he had beene clothed and accommodated. This is the skinne wherewith the Son of man is envelopped with flesh, bones, and nerves; and this consisteth in the secret mystery of Sapience, according to that which Moses taught in the Curtains or Vails of the