The Four Elements in the
Western Tradition
By Fra. ICL
Temple of Isis, Mighty Mother.
Numerous
astrological and metaphysical books give the impression that the Elements are
more fundamental than the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, because the Signs can be
broken down into groups of four elements. Identification of the Triplicities
with the four Elements appears, however, relatively recent: the Twelve-Sign
Zodiac existed more than 1,500 years before Aries, Leo and Sagittarius became
the Fire Signs.
Ptolemy makes no reference to
the Elements in his writings on Astrology. He speaks of the trigons, or
triplicites, but does not connect them with the Elements. He describes the
planets in terms of the qualities hot. cold, moist and dry. Mars for example, is
hot and dry, which, in the traditional system of correlation (see figure 1) ,
would correspond to Fire. Manilius and later Fimmicus refer to the four Elements
in philosophical terms, as the basic components of the world and of humankind,
but do not link them to astrological factors.
The link between the Elements
and Astrology begins with the four humors of Hippocratic Medicine. The
Hippocratic writings of the 6th century BC had already related the four humors
to the qualities (see figure 1). By Ptolemy's time or just after the humors had
been likened to the four Elements.
By the Middle Ages the planets
had been allotted to the Elements. but the first references to Fiery, Earthy,
Watery, Airy signs appear in the work of Nostradamus, so the matching of
triplicites with Elements may be a product of the Renaissance. One German source
from as late as 1495 describes Taurus, Aries and Virgo as Earthy Signs. Venus
was also generally considered a Watery planet and Jupiter Airy, though neither
planet rules a Sign now of those Elements. Sources give inequitable
accounts of the four temperaments: Fiery, Earthy, Airy and Watery.
Figure 1. The humors and reasons related to the qualities established in the Corpus Hippocrericum (5th Century BC) with the Elements and planets later attributed to them.
The notion that the universe is
composed of the four Elements is by no means universal. Certainly the Four
Elements play an important role both in the Indian tradition, and the European
tradition derived from ancient Greece via Rome and Arabia. Whether the doctrine
passed from West to East or East to West, or possibly came from a late
Babylonian tradition and spread both ways, it forms no part of the known ancient
mythological heritage of Mesopotamia.
The Chinese system employs
five, and sometimes six Elements, with no Air, but includes Wood and/or Metal.
Elsewhere a fifth element sometime transcends, unites, or gives birth to the
usual four "Hindu aether" or the "alchemist's
quintessence" in China all five Elements rank equal. The Orient uses a
subtler, pentangular framework to view the elemental composition of the universe
than the four-square vision of all points west. Sets of four, like the four
directions, are common all over the world, but not the Western Four Elements,
the four roots, as Empedocles called them, of the Western world's view.
The Elements, individually and
collectively, have also provided a fruitful source of metaphor. Mythology has
numerous elemental figures like the Watery Deity Okeanos and Tethys.
The classical Greek Pantheon derived ultimately from the marriage of Heaven and
Earth, Ouranos and Gaia. Zeus ruled the sky, Poseidon
the Waters, and Hades the depths of the Earth. The Sumerian triad Anu, Enlil and
Ea or Enki, ruled respectively sky, Earth and
Waters. Marduk in Babylon, Hephaestos, Greek God of volcanoes, and
the Persian Ahura Mazda are all Fire gods. The deification of the
physical Elements embody the life principles which the Elements themselves
symbolism.
By the 6th Century BC the pre-Socratic
philosophers of Greece were defining the nature of the physical universe,
although earlier mythological connotations echo through their theories, with the
Elements inspiring almost religious awe. By singling out one supreme Element
from which the rest derive, some of these philosophers perhaps afford a glimpse
of their own psychological inclinations. In Goethe's play Faust Part 2,
set mostly in classical Greece, the philosophers Thales and Anaxagoras debate
the relative power of Water and Fire. Goethe clearly sides with Thales'
non-violent Water and Anaxagoras, the more violently-inclined proponent of Fire,
fond of volcanic eruptions, suffers defeat. Goethe's own horoscope shows five
planets and the Ascendant in Water.
The first mention of the four
Elements in the West comes from the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras left no
writings, and secondary sources of his life and teachings by later authors are
often biased. Living in the mental climate of the 6th Century BC, Pythagoras is
said to have studied in Babylon, perhaps the source of the doctrine of Four
Elements. The Pythagorean world was composed of four Elements, four seasons,
while life had four stages. In the following century, Empedocles first taught
that each human being is likewise composed of the same four Elements. The
Elements exist both without and within. They were later combined into systems
incorporating the concepts of hot, cold, moist and dry with the four humors of
Hippocrates.
Earth
The physical Earth underfoot is obvious, as Dr. Johnson demonstrated when outraged at Bishop Berkeley's proof of the non-existence of matter "I refute it thus!" he said, and kicked a rock! Earth is common sense; hard facts. The usual image of the Buddha, reputedly Taurean, has him seated on, and with one hand touching, the Earth, thus calling the Earth to witness the reality of his experience, which she does by trembling.
Earth implies a
literal-mindedness: Jungian analyst James Hillman once remarked that people
"out of touch" with the Earth are told to dig the soil, but we don't
tell people who "lack Air" to fly in an airplane. Air is more subtle
than Earth. The Greek philosopher Thales claimed supremacy for Water. Anaximenes
for Air, Heraclitus, and as Goethe claims. Anaxagoras for Fire. None envisioned
Earth as the first or most basic element. It remained for the alchemists to make
solid matter their primary metaphor, starting with the prima materia and
ending with the Philosopher's Stone. The early philosophers began at the
other end, seeking to explain the solid in terms of some higher principle.
No matter how basic, Earth
is the mysterious mother of all physical being matter and mother
share the same etymological root. Earth is the dust we come from and go to, from
which everything physical is spun, the source of all productivity, lushness,
wealth and beauty. The Western Tradition identifies Earth with the Goddess, Gaia;
Demeter, mistress of plant growth and material welfare. It became obvious
to identify as Earth Signs half of those already characterized as feminine
according to an ancient division by sex.
Earth also implies the
inevitable limitations of physical existence, the birth into a physical body,
despised by those with transcendental aspirations, and thus grossly undervalued
by the alliance of Christian tradition and Aristotlean distinction between
spirit and matter. Body and matter must be worked and subdued, planted in rows
and built into solid structures. Aristotle and the Stoics after him,
bearers of the astrological tradition, schematized the four Elements vertically
with Earth at the bottom, then Water, Air, and at the top Fire implying thus a
scale of values, The qabalistic scheme uses the same vertical orders. Earth lies
at the bottom, the beast of burden and provider of goods, which overvalued leads
to materialism and undervalued becomes dreary necessity and imprisoning flesh.
Humble Earth came to be
associated with Saturn, once the Great Mother, then as old Father Time,
Lord of past time and memory. Of all the Elements only enduring Earth records
time in rock strata and fossils
Water
Thales of Miletus held that the Earth floats on Water and that all originates from it . This view may have been derived from Babylonian traditions, which placed the Watery Deities Apsu and Tiamat at the beginning of all things. In the story of Eridu, Marduk builds a raft on the primeval Waters and a hut on the raft which becomes the Earth. In the Babylonian creation epic, Marduk creates Heaven and Earth from the Watery body Tiamat. Psalm 136 states that God "stretched out the Earth above the Water", while the Koran says that Water is the origin of all life. A Greek myth makes Okeanos and Tethys, two Water deities, the original divine parents.
This image of Earth emerging
from the Waters, evokes the emergence of life from the sea, of the baby from the
Watery womb, of Jungian islands of consciousness from the sea of the
unconscious. It refers to the dimly-remembered past where there was no
separateness, fitting the watery signs of the zodiac, and best the Moon's sign,
Cancer. Water baptizes, like a second emergence from the womb. It refreshes us
and it washes us clean.
Heraclitus likens life to a
river into which we cannot step twice. Water, the element which most readily
evokes impermanence, change, flux, instability. Verbs capture its essence
better than adjectives or nouns: flowing, surging, merging, dissolving,
sprinkling. It is sensitive to the slightest movement. Essentially chaotic and
lacking inherent form it was less favored by the orderly Confucius, whose
genius lay in perceiving and prescribing structure, and want of definition and
its power to deceive the eye connects it with states confusion and psychosis.
To Lao Tzu, the mystical poet
and philosopher of the Tao, however, "Highest good is like Water"
because it is noncontentious and settles in the lowest spots, follows the path
of least resistance, flows effortlessly into every available space and makes
itself at home. Water might rather fill the role of lowest element for it is as
deep as depth itself: sea-level is the bottom line from which we measure all
geographical altitude.
Though there are some male
Water deities, Water and moisture have mostly feminine associations, Lao Tzu's
high estimation of Water goes with a philosophy which counsels us to "keep
to the role of the female." Water moves downwards like Earth. They share
the feminine, negative or yin signs of the Zodiac. Traditionally the Moon and
Venus are moist. Like the Watery Signs and their corresponding Houses,
Water has often has deathly connotations. Heraclitus said "to the soul it
is death to become water" and "it is delight, or rather death, to
souls to become wet."
Fire
The Elements associated with the sky and its fiery stars, have been allotted to the masculine. The sexism of superior and inferior distinction derived from a value system which prefers the masculine above the feminine below, and judges height more desirable than depth, has by and large conferred greater value on the Elements of Fire and Air.
Most descriptions of
astrological Fire stress its heating and burning power: ardor passion,
excitability The fiery type became the choleric, described by Culpepper:
"hasty quarrelsome ireful," etc. Fire is also light, a fact
often forgotten in the age of electric light. Culpepper describes qualities more
specifically Martian than fiery. Galen, on whose theories the system of
temperaments is built took a different view, For him the choleric type enjoyed
"acuteness and intelligence of the mind."
Mythology distinguishes
different kinds of Fire, not necessarily the same distinction as that between
light and heat: the Fire of sun and stars and sky gods above, the Fire that
Prometheus stole: and the Fire from below the Earth, the devastating Fire of Haephestus
or Vulcan. Though Haephestus fashioned the attributes of the
Olympian pantheon on his forge, he did not rank very high. The Fire of Mars
seems more akin to this second kind. Mars or Ares was the son of Hera,
in origin an Earth goddess. Ares was conceived as an act of vengeance
against celestial Father Zeus without his aid. He comes from feminine
rage, from the Elements of below.
The loftier connotations of
Fire, the Fire the Stoics had placed at the top of their vertical schema,
had fallen from favor by the Renaissance. Only the more violent and male
characteristics of Fire remained. Heraclitus had a lofty vision of Fire when he
described it as the basic stuff the world is made of, meaning "the purest
and brightest sort that is as of the ethereal and divine thunderbolt."
An ancient Greek tradition held
the aether, the fiery substance deemed to brighten the sky, in especial
reverence and many supposed that souls consist of this divine, heavenly Fire.
The Babylonians held a similar belief. A corpse is cold because the fiery soul,
the spark of life, has left it and returned to the stars.
If Fire means creativity,
perhaps Prometheus' theft of Fire fits his role as creator of mankind
from clay: he had the power to animate, to create life and soul. His gift of
Fire to men gave them, too, creative powers. God, the biblical creator, likewise
takes the form of Fire: He is in the burning bush (Exodus, iii, 2-3) and
descends as Fire from Heaven to consume his sacrifice in the new temple (2
Chronicles. vii, I).
Zeus hurls thunderbolts
of Fire from Heaven. When Semele pleads to see Zeus in his true form he reveals
himself as Fire and thus burns her to ashes. Mars, Sol, and Jupiter are all
considered fiery, the latter known as much for their light as their heat. Light
is also a metaphor for consciousness, for which Jupiter and Sol strive.
Fire most readily corresponds
to our notion of energy, as pulsing physical force and animal spirits or as
divine creative principle. Perhaps thus they share the same ultimate nature.
Air
Air suggests the principle of height. Astrological Air looks down on things from above, detached, in contrast to the personal and often deep involvement of Water, seeing things in perspective, with clarity and sharpness. It enables a broad overview, connecting it with the role of Jupiter. It offers a sense of freedom. From detachment can arise abstract thought in the pure realm of idea.
When Anaximenes, another
6th century BC Greek philosopher, declared that Air was infinite and divine, the
principle from which all things came into being it seems that he regarded Air as
"the breath of the world." Air shares with Fire, the other masculine
element, notions of soul and immortality. The Greek Spirit, "pneuma",
and Soul, "psyche", and the Latin "spiritus" and
"anima" all etymologically mean breath.
Pneuma is the word used
for the Holy Spirit which descends through the Air on the wings of a dove.
Similar to the Sanskrit prana and Chinese chi it implies the life-giving and
life enhancing force that enters the body with the breath. Prometheus in fact breathes
life into his men of dust. Artists sometimes portrayed the soul as a butterfly
(in modern Greek psyche also means Butterfly) leaving the lip of a dying
person. How often to the winds blow from the lips of semi-divine beings, like a
global extension of the breath of life.
Galen attributed to the
sanguine or Airy type "simplicity bordering on foolishness." But later
the Airy temperament took on superior qualities. In the 12th century, William of
Conches identified Air as the element proper to man, distinguishing humanity
from the beasts who consisted only of Fire, Water and Earth.
Animals presumably breathed
then as now, but lacked souls. William believed all human beings were
originally created with the blessed sanguine temperament. He felt that since
the majority of people suffered from temperaments other than sanguine merely
testified to mankind's degenerate state. Although Gemini, Libra and Aquarius
were not yet firmly classed as the Airy trigon, they were represented by image
of the human form and a man-made object rather than by images of beasts. In
William's day, the sanguine or Airy person, good-natured. good-looking, cheerful
and nearer to good, had the natal blessing of the Greater Benefice Jupiter.
Alchemy similarly
implied that Air was the supreme element, connecting it with the final, most
spiritual of the four phases of the opus, the sublimatio, the stage of
the hieros gamos the holy marriage or ultimate conjuctio.
Psychologically the sublimatio corresponds to the power of abstract
purpose and meaning from concrete reality; to experience joy relief, bliss.
A partial explanation of the
elevation of the Airy type lies in the doctrine of the four humors defined in
the Hippocratic writings. Hippocrates, the great physician of the rich
6th century BC, identified four basic humors or bodily fluids. However, while
yellow bile, black bile and phlegm were considered "surplus humors",
blood was obviously a vital substance. Hippocrates had already begun tentatively
to link physical characteristics to the psychological and moral realm, but it
was Galen, in the 2nd century AD, who "emphasized more clearly than anyone
else the direct causal connection between bodily constitution and
character."
It was from Galen's work that
the system of temperaments (krases or mixtures) developed, to traverse
Arab culture before re-emerging in Europe during the Middle Ages, to then remain
fundamental to medicine and medical psychology until quite recently. In each
temperament one humor predominated, for example, blood in the sanguine type.
Illnesses resulted from severe imbalances, and each humor had precedence of the
four seasons. An individual suffering from an excess of blood was bled with
leeches!
The four Elements, said by
Empedocles to form the constitution of human beings, became identified by one of
his followers, Philistion, with four qualities. Later they formed a different
relationship by which Fire became hot and dry, Water cold and moist, and so on.
By Galen's day they had paired with the four humors (see figure 1). At some
point the planets joined the system, more or less in this schema.
Just as Fire and Air had vied
with each other for pride of place, with Air victorious by the late Middle Ages,
Earth and Water vied for the bottom rung "so that in the 15th and 16th
century illustrations, the portrait of the melancholic frequently changed places
with the portrait of the phlegmatic, sometimes one and sometimes the other
occupying the third place." The separating "masculine" from
"feminine" Elements, however, never blurred.
Four Elements
The Pythagoreans highly esteemed the number Four. The figure 4 basically forms a cross, and the cross or square naturally represent fourness. The square and cross are artifices of mind; there are no straight lines in nature because we live on a sphere. We live in the circle of our horizon on which we impose the four points of the compass to orientate ourselves. Two pairs of opposites make fourness. The square or cross in the circle forms a mandala, and figures of this kind seem universal: the cross of matter and the circle of infinity which comprise our planetary glyphs.
Groups of four come in many
forms: the four Tarot suits. the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the four
Evangelists, the four cardinal virtues, the four letters of God's name "the Tetragrammaton.
Plato, seemingly under
the influence of Pythagoras, connected the number with the realization of the
idea, represented by the number Three. In terms of astrological harmonics, David
Hamblin has assigned the 4th harmonic similarly to the principle of
manifestation. Complete and stable, the square-in-the circle mandala symbolizes
wholeness and equal tension between opposites.
Liz Greene draws an analogy
between Jung's four typological functions of consciousness "thinking,
feeling, sensation and intuition" and the four Elements. The opposites in
this case are more opposed in nature than in the traditional map, where the
linkage between Elements and qualities results oddly in Air corresponding to
warm and moist. This fits Air as an extension of breath, though the climate at
the time was unlikely to have enjoyed constantly warm, moist Airstream.
The connection of Air with the
thinking function further suggests why Air is overvalued in the West. Indeed
there is a tendency to connate or confuse pneuma or spirit with intellect in
both the Western and Hindu tradition.
1. R. Klibansky, E. Panofsky and F. Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy, Nelson, 1964,
p.10.
2. G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven, M. Schofield. The Presocratic Philosophers. Cambridge
University Press, (2nd ed.) p. 89 ff.
3. Lao Tzu. Tao te Ching. Trans. D.C. Lau. Penguin, 1963 p. 64.
4. Lao Tzu. Op. Cit p. 85.
[This article appears on this page with the written permission of the author.]