A New Light of Alchemy

10Paradise was and is a place created by the supreme maker of things from true elements: not elemented elements, but the purest, tempered and balanced in the highest perfection. Everything in paradise was created from those same elements and is incorruptible. There too the human being was created and constituted from the same incorruptible elements, balanced in just equality so that he could in no way be corrupted. He was therefore consecrated to immortality. God undoubtedly created paradise solely for human beings; I shall discuss this and its location at length in the Harmony.

10.2But afterwards, through the sin of disobedience, he transgressed the Most High Creator's command. He was expelled among beasts into this corruptible, elemented world, which God had created only for beasts. Since he could not live without nourishment, he necessarily took it from corrupt, elemented elements. That nourishment infected the pure elements of his creation. Thus he slowly declined into corruption until one quality exceeded another, and the ruin of the whole compound came: infirmity, and finally separation and death. Those subsequently begotten in corrupted elements, from corrupted seed and outside paradise, were still nearer corruption and death, for seed produced from corrupt nourishment cannot endure. The longer since the expulsion from paradise, the nearer human beings approach corruption. Hence life grows shorter, and matters will come to the point where procreation too ceases because life has become so brief. Yet some places have gentler air and more favourable stars. There people do not naturally decay so quickly, because they also live more naturally. Our own people, by contrast, recklessly hasten towards corruption through gluttony and disorderly living. Experience teaches that those born from sick parents' seed do not endure.