chaosophia218:

Isidorus Hispalensis – The Four Elements, “De Responsione Mundi et de Astrorum Ordinatione”, 1472.

Earth – being the Subsidence or remains of that Primitive Masse, which God formed out of Darkness, must needs be a faeculent impure body, for the extractions that the Divine Spirit made, were pure oleus, aethereal substances, but the crude phlegmatic indigested humours settled like Lees to the Centre.
Water – the most ancient principle and the Mother of all things among visibles. Without the mediation of this, the Earth can receive no blessing at all. The common Element Water is not altogether contemptible but there are hidden treasures in it.
Air – this is no element, but a certain miraculous Hermaphrodite, the Caement of two worlds and the medley of Exteremes. In this are innumerable magic forms of Men and Beasts, Fish and Fowle, Trees Herbs and all creeping things.
Fire – it passeth through all things in the world and it is Nature’s Chariot, in this she rides: when she moves, this moves, and when she stands this stands, like the wheels in Ezekiel whose motion dependeth on that of the spirit. This is the mask and screen of the Almighty.