Miscellanies 5.14.104

Most clearly Heraclitus of Ephesus holds this opinion, judging that there is one world that is everlasting and another that perishes, and knowing that the world in its ordered arrangement is not other than that one when it is in a certain state. But that he knew the world composed of the whole substance, with its individual character, to be everlasting, he makes plain by saying this: “This world, the same for all, no one of gods or men made; but it always was and is and will be: ever-living fire, kindled in measures and quenched in measures.” And that he also taught that it is generated and perishable is shown by what follows: “The turnings of fire: first sea; and of sea, half is earth, half fiery whirlwind.” For he says in effect that fire, by the Word and God who governs all things, is turned through air into moisture, the seed, as it were, of the world's ordering, which he calls sea; and from this in turn come earth and heaven and what they contain. How it is taken up again and set on fire he shows clearly in these words: “Sea is poured out and measured to the same proportion as it was before it became earth.” And the same holds likewise for the other elements.