Zoroaster and the Theory of Four Elements

The concept of four elements: air, water, earth, and fire, thought to have its origin with the Greek philosopher Empedocles about 440 B.C., held sway for many centuries. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) added to this concept that the properties of substances are the result of the simultaneous presence of certain fundamental properties. The Aristotelian doctrine was therefore concerned not with what modern chemists call elements but with an abstract conception of certain contrary properties or "qualities," especially coldness, hotness, dryness, and moistness, which may be united in four combinations: dryness and heat (fire), heat and moisture (air), moisture and cold (water), and cold and dryness (earth) (Fig. 1). Aristotle and his followers believed that all substances are composed of these four elemental states of matter and this is usually cited in history of chemistry books (1,2). Indeed there is no history of chemistry book comparable in depth and breath to that of Partington (1), who devoted 370 pages to the early history, fully documented by thousands of references. He wrote about the Greek philosophers, about medicine, gnosticism, magic, astrology, and many other topics. However, he devoted only two pages to the earlier Persian philosopher Zoroaster and his religion. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the idea of four "sacred" elements is absent.