According to esoteric and philosophical ancient thought the four Elements - Fire, Earth, Water, Aire - are the basis of all “corporeal” things. All “inferior bodies” are composed by those elements, that are transmuted and united, and then when those bodies are destroyed, they again resolve into Elements.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535), on the first chapters of his 'de occulta philosophia' explains how those Elements don’t appear “pure”, but mixed and apt to be changed one into the other. H. Cornelius Agrippa validate his theory with Plato thought, adding to them qualities such as hot and dry (Fire), dry and cold (Earth), cold and moist (Water), moist and hot (Aire) and other qualities that distinguish and oppose them, such as brightness, thinness and motion, darkness, thickness and quietness.

For Platonists, as in the original and exemplary World, “all things are in all”. In this way, also the Elements are not only in the inferior bodies, but also in the Heavens, in Stars, and in the Transcendent and Supernatural world. The qualities of the Elements will be expressed in the Transcendent world in a more subtle or refined way. For instance, the Fire will give its heat, without the burning. Fire will be the light, the life giver, by its energy, not by destruction. This point seems to me very important.

Stars and Planets also have those qualities, and Agrippa will describe signs as possessing the beginning (Aries), progress (Leo) and increase (Sagittarius) of fire, and so on. Therefore, all bodies are made of the mixtions of these Planets and Signs, together with the Elements. Even God is “defined” by Elements – “Do we not also read of the original maker of all things, that the earth shall he opened and bring forth a Saviour? Is it not spoken of the same, that he shall be a fountain of living Water, cleansing and regenerating? Is not the same Spirit breathing the breath of life; and the same according to Moses, and Pauls testimony, A consuming Fire?

H. C. Agrippa concludes that “Elements therefore are to be found every where, and in all things after their manner, no man can deny: First in these inferiour bodies feculent and gross, and in Celestials more pure, and clear; but in supercelestials living, and in all respects blessed. Elements therefore in the exemplary world are Ideas of things to be produced, in Intelligencies are distributed powers, in Heavens are vertues, and in inferiour bodies gross forms.”



Source:
Of Occult Philosophy, Book I