Bodies from the four elements — why the cosmos is rightly named 'order'
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Hermes — Τὰ δὲ σώματα ἀπὸ ὕλης ἐν διαφορᾷ. τὰ μὲν γάρ ἐστιν ἐκ γῆς, τὰ δὲ ἐξ ὕδατος, τὰ δὲ ἐξ ἀέρος, τὰ δὲ ἐκ πυρός· πάντα δέ ἐστι σύνθετα, καὶ τὰ μὲν μᾶλλον, τὰ δὲ ἁπλούστερα· μᾶλλον μὲν τὰ βαρύτερα, ἧττον δὲ τὰ κουφότερα. τὸ δὲ τάχος αὐτοῦ τῆς φορᾶς τὴν ποικιλίαν τῶν ποιῶν γενέσεων ἐργάζεται. πνοὴ γὰρ οὖσα πυκνοτάτη προτείνει τὸ ποιὰ τοῖς σώμασι μετὰ ἑνὸς πληρώματος τοῦ τῆς ζωῆς. πατὴρ μὲν οὖν ἔστιν ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ κόσμου, ὁ δὲ κόσμος τῶν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. καὶ ὁ μὲν κόσμος υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, τὰ δὲ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ κόσμου. καὶ εἰκότως κόσμος κέκληται. κοσμεῖ γὰρ τὰ πάντα τῇ ποικιλία τῆς γενέσεως καὶ τῷ ἀδιαλείπτῳ τῆς ζωῆς καὶ ἀκοπιάστῳ τῆς ἐνεργείας καὶ τῷ τάχει τῆς ἀνάγκης καὶ τῇ συστάσει τῶν στοιχείων καὶ τῇ τάξει τῶν γινομένων. ὁ αὐτὸς οὖν κόσμος καὶ ἀναγκαίως καὶ οἰκείως καλοῖτο.
And the bodies are from matter, in difference. For some are from earth, some from water, some from air, some from fire; and all are composite, some more so, and some simpler: more, the heavier ones, less, the lighter ones. And the speed of its movement brings about the variety of the qualitative becomings. For a breath, being densest, holds out the qualities to the bodies, with one fullness of life. God, then, is Father of the cosmos, and the cosmos of the things in the cosmos. And the cosmos is son of God, and the things in the cosmos are under the cosmos. And with good reason it is called 'cosmos.' For it orders all things by the variety of generation, and by the unceasingness of life, and the untiringness of activity, and by the speed of necessity, and the constitution of the elements, and the order of the things coming to be. The same cosmos, then, would be called both necessarily and fittingly.
Bodies are from matter, and differ: some from earth, some from water, some from air, some from fire; all are composite, some more, some simpler — the heavier more composite, the lighter less. The speed of the cosmos's movement works the variety of the qualitative becomings; for a breath, being densest, holds out the qualities to bodies, together with the one fullness of life. God, then, is Father of the cosmos, and the cosmos of the things in it; the cosmos is son of God, and the things in the cosmos are under the cosmos. And with good reason it is called 'cosmos' (κόσμος, order), for it orders (κοσμεῖ) all things — by the variety of generation, the unceasingness of life, the untiringness of activity, the speed of necessity, the constitution of the elements, and the order of the things that come to be. So the same cosmos would be called both necessarily and fittingly what it is.
After the hymn to the cosmos as living instrument, §5 turns to the physics that hymn presupposes. Bodies 'are from matter, in difference (ἐν διαφορᾷ)' — matter is one, but bodies differ by their elemental make-up: 'some from earth, some from water, some from air, some from fire.' The four Empedoclean elements are here, and the ranking is by mixture and weight: 'all are composite (σύνθετα), some more so and some simpler — more, the heavier; less, the lighter.' Density is composition; the heavy body is the more thoroughly compounded. And what shapes them into their particular kinds is the same motion §4 called a grinding: 'the speed of its movement brings about the variety of the qualitative becomings.' The world's turning is what makes bodies not just be, but be of this or that quality.
Then a single dense sentence carries the treatise's life-doctrine into the elements: 'a breath, being densest (πνοὴ… πυκνοτάτη), holds out the qualities to bodies, with one fullness of life (μετὰ ἑνὸς πληρώματος τοῦ τῆς ζωῆς).' πνοή is the Genesis word — the breath God breathed into Adam — and πλήρωμα, 'fullness,' is the great term the Gnostics and the Letter to the Colossians will make their own. Here the world-breath conveys to every body both its qualities and a share in the one fullness of life: matter is never merely dead stuff, it is breathed-through, life-charged.
The close is a chain of fatherhood and a piece of etymology that is also a theology. 'God is Father of the cosmos, and the cosmos of the things in it; the cosmos is son of God (ὁ… κόσμος υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ).' The world is God's son and the world's contents are the world's — a mediating hierarchy that will sound, to a reader coming from the Fourth Gospel, startlingly close and pointedly different: here the only-begotten is the visible universe. And the name is made to prove the doctrine: 'with good reason it is called cosmos (εἰκότως κόσμος κέκληται), for it orders (κοσμεῖ) all things.' κόσμος means both 'order' and 'ornament,' and the verb κοσμέω, to arrange and adorn, is hidden in the noun; to name the world 'cosmos' is already to confess that it is arranged, adorned, made beautiful — by generation's variety, life's unceasingness, activity's untiring, necessity's speed, the elements' constitution, the order of all that comes to be. The final flourish plays two adverbs against each other: the same world 'would be called both necessarily (ἀναγκαίως) and fittingly (οἰκείως)' — bound by necessity yet at home in its name, compelled and proper at once. It is the treatise's quiet answer to §3's blasphemers: a world so named cannot be the seat of evil.
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