ABSTRACT
In this way the Philosopher repeated God's work of creation described in Genesis 1. No wonder, therefore, that he called his prima materia "Adam" and asserted that it, like him, consisted or was made out of the four elements. "For out of the four elements were created our Father Adam and his children," says the Turba.19 And Gabir ibn Hayyan (Jabir) 20 says in his "Book of Balances":
The Pentateuch says, regarding the creation of the first being, that his body was composed of four things, which thereafter were transmitted by heredity: the warm, the cold, the moist, and the dry. He was in fact composed of earth and water, a body and a soul. Dryness came to him from the earth, moisture from the water, heat from the spirit, and cold from the soul.21
