Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius: 2 (with quoted footnotes) 

1. Nous is the invisible good; (16) soul is a necessary movement adjusted to every kind of body. (17) A body is made out of the four qualities, (18) as well as a tempered composition (19) of worm, cold, dry and wet: of warm i.e. of fire, of cold i.e of air, of dry i.e of earth, of wet i.e of water. (20) Breath is the body of soul (21) or the column of soul. (22)

2. Heaven is an eternal body, an immutable body, unalterable and mixed up out of soul and Nous. (23) Air is the separation of heaven from the earth or the conjunction of heaven with earth. (24) What is air? They call ‘air’ the interval between heaven and earth, (25) by which they are not separated from each other, since the heavens and earth are united with each other by the air.

3. Earth is the support of the world, the basis of the elements, the nurse of living beings, the receptacle of the dead; (26) for it comes last (27) after fire and water, since it became what it is after fire and water. (28) What is the power of the world? To keep up for ever the immortal beings, such as they came into being, and to always change the mortal. (29)

4. Water is a fecund essence, (30) the support of earth, (31) as a nutritive essence.

5. Fire is a sterile essence, the duration of the immortal bodies and the destruction of the mortal: an infertile substance, in as much it belongs to the destructive fire which makes things disappear; and the perpetuationof the immortal beings, since what cannot be consumed by fire is immortal and indestructible, but the mortal can be destroyed by fire.

6. Light is a good, a clear vision, (33) which makes appear all of the visible things. The essence of fire is burning. However, fire is one thing and light is another one. (34) For what fire has reached shall be destroyed, but light appears just as if it is by itself. Every move of soul is perceived by Nous; since it is some kind of energy, breath performs it. (35)

1. Nous is the invisible good; (16: CH 4.9 “…the good is invisible to what can be seen. For the good has neither shape nor outline. This is why it is like it self but unlike all others, for the bodiless cannot be visible to body.”; DH 10.1 “…Good is invisible…”) soul is a necessary movement adjusted to every kind of body. (17: SH 3.4 “The soul is ever-moving because the soul always moves itself and energizes the motion in other beings… every soul is immortal and ever-moving because it possesses motion as it’s proper activity.”; CH 12.1 “Nous, O Tat, comes from god’s essence. What sort of thing this essence is, He alone knows fully. Nous is not separate from god’s true essence… In men this Nous is god; thus some men are gods, and then humanity is akin to divinity; In fact, Agathos Daimon called gods immortal men, and men mortal gods. But in irrational creatures there is just nature.” -Salaman) A body is made out of the four qualities, (18: CH 2.11 “-H: ’Air is a body, no?’ -A: ‘Yes it is a body.’ -H: ‘But does not this body pervade everything that exists and fill them all by pervading them? And a body is a mixture constituted of the four elements…’”; AH 7, “What the Greeks call ‘hulikos’ and what we call ‘earthly [or ‘pertaining to matter’ -Salaman] is fourfold. From it is made the body…”; SH 2A.2 “… our bodies are constructed of all these elements. They possess a share of fire, a share of earth, a share of water, and a share of air…”; SH 24.9 “The body is a molded composition of the elements earth, water, air, and fire.”; SH 26.14 “If fire predominates in the bodily frame, then the soul, already naturally hot, receives additional heat, becomes more enflamed, and produces an active and vigorous animal whose body is keen and agile.”) as well as a tempered composition (19: SH 16.3 “…it is impossible for a body to exist without space. Without time and natural motion…”; SH 26.8 “…royal souls are found. All sorts of other souls descend as well. Some are fiery, some are cold, some are arrogant, others meek, some are noble, others perform menial tasks, some are experienced, others untried, some are sluggish, others energetic, some have this quality, and some another …souls are thrown down to be embodied.”) of worm, cold, dry and wet: of warm i.e. of fire, of cold i.e of air, of dry i.e of earth, of wet i.e of water. (20: SH 24.9* “…the female composite has more of the wet and cold… The reverse is found in the case of the males. In them there is more dryness and heat…”; SH 26.13-30 “[13] There are other things as well, my most famous son, that come from the equilibrium of our body’s composition… It is the assembly and blend of the four elements. From this blend and assembly vapor is exuded. This vapor wraps itself round the soul and runs through the body. To both – I mean body and soul – it bestows it’s own quality. In this way, arise the different variations that occur in souls and bodies. [14] If fire predominates in the bodily frame, then the soul, already naturally hot, receives additional heat, becomes more enflamed, and produces an active and vigorous animal whose body is keen and agile. [15] If air predominates, then the animal will be light, springy, and unstable in soul and body. [16] If water predominates, the. The animal will be easygoing, good-natured, and diffuse in its soul, able to associate with others and be joined to them due to water’s cohesive and uniting quality… [17] If the earthly element predominates, then the soul of the animal is dull. It’s body lacks supple tenuousness and the means to spring forth since it’s sensory organs are swollen. Within, the soul remains by itself chained down by weight and bulk. The body is solid but inactive, heavy, and moved by willpower only by force. [18] If the state of the elements is balanced, then the animal is constructed as heated for action, light for movement, well-tempered for touch, and nobly fortified. [19] By this reasoning, those that share in abundance fire and breath are turned into birds… [20] Those who share in abundant fire, a small amount of breath, and an equal measure of water and earth become human beings… [21] Those that share abundant water and earth with a moderate amount of breath and a small amount of fire become beasts… [22] Those that receive an equal portion of earth and water will turn into reptiles… [23] The bodies that receive a greater amount of moisture and a small amount of dryness become fish… [24] Their bodies mature in size according to the share of each element and the extant of each share… [25] …I say that from this original constitution the blending according to the first conjunction of elements and the vapor from their exhalation preserves its own character as much as it can… [26] …the hot and airy elements – those constant companions of the soul… Those elements are condensed, and by their condensation the animals’ bodies break down. [27] The earthly element itself is the body’s solidity, the moist element is what is spread out in the body. For its cohesion, the airy element is what drives us, and the fire is the stimulating drive of the elements. [28] So a vapor… arises from the first meeting and blending of the elements. The vapor blends with the soul and conforms it to its own nature… [29] The soul, by virtue of retaining its original kinship and shared communion with fiery breath, preserves its rank. Yet when a portion greater to what was designed is externally added… the fluctuating vapor changes either the condition of the soul or that of the body. [30] For fire and breath, naturally rising, rush to the soul that belongs to the same upper region. Conversely, the moist and earthly elements, naturally descending, take up residence in the body that belong to the same environment.) Breath is the body of soul (21: SH 26.29* “The soul, by virtue of retaining its original kinship and shared communion with fiery breath, preserves its rank. Yet when a portion greater to what was designed is externally added… the fluctuating vapor changes either the condition of the soul or that of the body.”) or the column of soul. (22: SH 15.7 “…Nature provides what is born with intelligent motion and intelligent reality in which its life consists. For intelligent motion steals within the seed by means of life-breath and moves with the vigor of life.” {CH 10.17 “mind cannot seat itself alone and naked in an earthly body… Mind, therefore, has taken the soul as a shroud, and the soul, which is itself something divine, uses the breath as a sort of armoring-servant.”})
2.  Heaven is an eternal body, an immutable body, unalterable and mixed up out of soul and Nous. (23: CH 11.4 “…in heaven they are changeless and incorruptible , but on earth they change and become corrupt. And god is the soul of eternity; eternity is the soul of the cosmos, heaven is the soul of earth. God is in mind [Nous], but mind is in soul, and soul is in matter, yet all these exist through eternity…”; SH 11.2.43 “The earth is non-rational, while heaven is rational.”) Air is the separation of heaven from the earth or the conjunction of heaven with earth. (24: CH 5.5 “Would that you could grow wings and fly up into the air, lifted between earth and heaven to see the solid earth… and heaven speeding upon its axis at the same points…”) What is air? They call ‘air’ the interval between heaven and earth, (25: SH 25.11 “This mediating region of the air, Horus my son, has four main divisions… The first main division contains four strata. It proceeds from the ground and stretches as far as the hills and ridges… From this point, the second main division contains eight strata in which wind currents arise. Pay attention, my son, for you listen to the secret mysteries of earth and heaven and all the sacred breath in between…”) by which they are not separated from each other, since the heavens and earth are united with each other by the air.
3. Earth is the support of the world, the basis of the elements, the nurse of living beings, the receptacle of the dead; (26: CH 11.7 “…in the midst of the universe is the earth, the nurse who feeds terrestrial creatures, settled in the beautiful cosmos like sediment…”; 12.17 “…Would it not be quite absurd if [the earth] the nurse of all were motionless, she who begets everything and gives birth to it?”; AH 2 “…Only earth of all elements remains within itself and is the receiver of every kind of form, and what it receives it returns.” -Salaman ; SH 11.2.42 “Heaven receives eternal bodies, the earth receives decaying bodies.” {DH 10.4 “as to mortality, earth is its grave…”}) for it comes last (27: SH 11.2.45 “Heaven was the first element and earth the last.”) after fire and water, since it became what it is after fire and water. (28: SH 15.2 “Fire, when it opposed water, dried a part of it so that earth arose, borne upon the water”) What is the power of the world? To keep up for ever the immortal beings, such as they came into being, and to always change the mortal. (29: CH 16.8 “…The sun portions out eternal permanence to the immortals and feeds the immortal part of the cosmos… But, with the light held in confinement as it shines all around inside the hollow of water and earth and air, the sun enlivens and awakens, with becoming and change, the things that live in these regions of the cosmos.”; CH 12.22 “…By whom, then, are all living things made alive? By whom are immortals made immortal? We have said that the energies are a part of god. Things subject to change – by whom are they changed? Whether you say matter or body or essence, know that these also are energies of god and that materiality is the energy of matter, corporeality the energy of bodies and essentialist the energy of essence. And this is good, the all.”; CH 8.4 “…this disorder arises among things that live on earth; the bodies of heavenly beings have a single order that they got from the father in the beginning. And this order is kept undissolved by the recurrence of each of them. The recurrence of earthly bodies, by contrast, is the dissolution of their composition, and in this dissolution causes the to recur as undissolved bodies – immortal in other words. Thus arises a loss of awareness but not a destruction of bodies.”)
4. Water is a fecund essence, (30: FH 27 “…When the Word alighted upon fertile water, he made the water pregnant.”) the support of earth, (31: FH 32 “The creator and Lord of all pronounced with his voice: ‘Let earth come to be and the firmament appear!’ And immediately the beginning of his creation, earth, came into existence.” SH 15.2* “Fire, when it opposed water, dried a part of it so that earth arose, borne upon the water”; CH 1.5 “…from the light… a holy word mounted upon the watery nature, and untempered fire leapt up from the watery nature to the height above… Earth and water stayed behind, mixed with one another, so that earth could not be distinguished from water…”; 3.1-2 “[1] …a holy light was sent forth, and elements solidified out of liquid essence… [2] …light elements were set apart to the heights and the heavy were grounded in the moist sand… [or ‘watery sand’ -Salaman]”) as a nutritive essence.
5. Fire is a sterile essence, the duration of the immortal bodies and the destruction of the mortal: an infertile substance, in as much it belongs to the destructive fire which makes things disappear; and the perpetuation (32: yarut’iwn = daemonē) of the immortal beings, since what cannot be consumed by fire is immortal and indestructible, but the mortal can be destroyed by fire.
6. Light is a good, a clear vision, (33: CH 10.4 “…the vision of the good is not like the ray of sun, which, because it is fiery, dazzles the eyes with light and makes them shut. On the contrary, it illuminates to the extent that one capable of receiving the influence of intellectual splendor can receive it…”) which makes appear all of the visible things. The essence of fire is burning. However, fire is one thing and light is another one. (34: CH 11.7* “…see how everything is full of light, yet nowhere is there fire.) For what fire has reached shall be destroyed, but light appears just as if it is by itself. Every move of soul is perceived by Nous; since it is some kind of energy, breath performs it. (35: SH 19.7 “Breath has its energy from the surrounding cosmos. The soul is self-energized.”)

DH 2: On nous, soul, and body. Including an explanation of the 4 elements, plus of light.

-Footnoted quotes from the CH, AH, SH, and FH are by Copenhaver and Litwa unless specified.

{Abc} – indicates a footnoted verse contained within Mahé’s original footnotes in DH.

* – indicates multiple usage of a single verse in the footnotes.