“In the beginning God made heaven and earth.”  By naming the two extremes, he suggests the substance of the whole world, according to heaven the privilege of seniority, and putting earth in the second rank.  All intermediate beings were created at the same time as the extremities.  Thus, although there is no mention of the elements, fire, water and air, cf. note on Letter viii. imagine that they were all compounded together, and you will find water, air and fire, in the earth.  For fire leaps out from stones; iron which is dug from the earth produces under friction fire in plentiful measure.  A marvellous fact!  Fire shut up in bodies lurks there hidden without harming them, but no sooner is it released than it consumes that which has hitherto preserved it.  The earth contains water, as diggers of wells teach us.  It contains air too, as is shown by the vapours that it exhales under the sun’s warmth φαμὲν δὲ πῦρ καὶ ἀ& 153·ρα καὶ ὕδωρ γίγνεσθαι ἐξ ἀλλήλων καὶ ἕκαστον ἐν ἑκάστῳ ὑπάρχειν τούτων δυνάμει.  Arist., Meteor. i. 3. when it is damp.  Now, as according to their nature, heaven occupies the higher and earth the lower position in space, (one sees, in fact, that all which is light ascends towards heaven, and heavy substances fall to the ground); as therefore height and depth are the points the most opposed to each other it is enough to mention the most distant parts to signify the inclusion of all which fills up intervening Space.  Do not ask, then, for an enumeration of all the elements; guess, from what Holy Scripture indicates, all that is passed over in silence.