Bodleian Library MS. Barocci 131

Heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.

Michael Psellos also does this in his interpretation of the Song of Songs; for he makes mention of our own concerns as well, wherefore he too would not unreasonably seem to answer the poet regarding the things about which he inquires. For he himself also read the poetry carefully, and for this reason his memorial is much greater. He might seem, on the other hand, to be speaking to Christ. But if so, it happened by chance. Such a thing is as if someone were to think that "that which is, is." As for the fire, water, and wind, from which he says the world is thus composed, it is not in any other way than through the blending of the mixture and temperament of the elements. For just as from those things he himself [is composed], in the ancient writing the properties of all the elements are constituted in the body, and for this reason it could not be otherwise than through heat and through moisture. For before this, the whole body [exists]. And they say that fire is the heat of the creature’s nature, and the spirit (pneuma) is the breath within it. Next, how might one say that the blood, again, and the moisture in the body is nothing other than fire, and spirit, and moisture, and the earthy element, from which man is composed—and not Christ alone? These things we shall model as in a certain form and figure. For this reason, therefore, the cause of the humors is established. Thus he says: in the body, blood is called the cause of the humors, while phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile [follow]. Fire is analogous to blood; for otherwise the yellow bilious humor would not seem to be, and yellow fire. And black bile, and yellow bile. Phlegm is as fire, and so is water. But since these things are not by way of change—and not all of them—but according to the body and the elements of the world, they are held by one another’s power. Whence indeed he says again that such change, quality, and mixture is not in any other way than through the temperament (krasis). Perhaps also through the temperament of the blood. And these things are thus the cause of the whole. For just as the blood, so also the spirit, which is the soul. But above all, [it is] because the blood is at its peak, as are our own concerns. Because of age and the other things pertaining to generation, no other of the affections effects the change. For the stomach holds more food, so that the body might seem to be constituted, even the body in that age. Such is phlegm. Whence some would say the body is entirely analogous to water, others even to air. Whence the child, the infant, and the youth are constituted of blood, which is the hot and the moist. The young man, of blood. But the stomach alone contains both, and the one at his prime, and the many mixtures and temperaments. The old man, in the air. Whence fire, as if one might say he possesses it; in one respect it stands, in another it fights. In these things, [he is] rather toward the sun. Since again blood and the elements within it [are so], whence he also directs his theology toward it. From these things we know that the body and the mixture, having returned to the same state, answer to the Fashioner. Wherefore even those of the ancient art say that the whole body is fire, water, and spirit. This knowledge is not from sensible things, but also from conceptions and thoughts, from piety and the canons, whether of science or of experience. These things we have already said, so that the whole body, as it is called, might be an eye.