The Literal Meaning of Genesis (continued)
BOOK SEVEN 15 made from the element of pure and heavenly fire, we ought not to believe it.3° There have been philosophers who maintained that all bodies are capable of being transformed into all other bodies.*! But that any body, earthly or heavenly, is changed into soul and becomes an incorporeal being is not to my knowledge held by anyone and is not part of our faith.
CHAPTER 13
In the body the elements of fire and air, in addition to earth, are present according to the medical writers.
20. We should perhaps give some consideration to what the medical writers not only assert but also maintain that they can prove. They say that although all bodies obviously have the solidity proper to the element of earth, nevertheless they have in them also some air, which is in the lungs and is distributed from the heart through the veins, which they call arteries.*? Furthermore, as these writers have shown, bodies also have the warm quality of fire, which is situated in the liver, and its bright quality, which is made to flow and rise up to the highest place, namely, the brain, which is, as it were, the heaven of the body.
From this source come the rays which go forth out of the eyes,*4 and from this center slender ducts go out not only to the eyes but also to the other senses, namely, to the ears, the nose, and the palate, making the sensations of hearing, smelling, and tasting possible. Moreover, they say that the sense of touch, which is all over the body, is directed from the brain also through the medulla of the neck and that of the bones to which the backbone is connected, and that from there tiny channels making sensation possible are spread throughout all parts of the body.