Dialogue on Divine and Human Love

that together / and in confusion / and from that all things are made, each
one by itself extensively, and successively. SO. And what love
can fall into this matter? PH. This matter (as Philo refers to the Timaeus, where Plato describes matter as the 'receptacle' or 'nurse' of all becoming. Plato says)
appetites and loves all the forms of generated things, as the
woman loves the man, and not satisfying its love / and its appetite, its
desire / and the actual presence of one of the forms, it falls in love
with the other which it lacks, and leaving that one / it takes this one, in such a
way / that not being able to sustain all forms together in act in atto: the state of being fully realized or existing, as opposed to potentiality, it
receives them all successively, one after the other. Furthermore, it possesses
in its many parts all forms together, but each of those
parts, wanting to enjoy the love of all forms, must necessarily /
continually transmute from one into another, because one
form is not enough to satisfy its appetite and love, which greatly
exceeds that satisfaction, as a single one of these forms cannot
satisfy this insatiable appetite of hers; and just as she is the cause of the
continual generation of those forms she lacks, so she herself
is the cause of the continual corruption original: corruttione; in classical philosophy, 'corruption' refers to the decay or dissolution of a thing, the opposite of 'generation' or birth. of the forms she possesses, wherefore
some call her a harlot original: meretrice. This was a common Aristotelian metaphor describing how prime matter 'lusts' after every new form without remaining faithful to one., because she has no single / nor firm love
for one, but when she has one she desires to leave it for the other; yet with
this adulterous love / the lower world is adorned with so many and
such miraculous diversities of things, so beautifully formed. So that the
generative love of this prime matter materia prima: the fundamental, formless substance that constitutes the physical universe—both its desire / always for the
new husband / that it lacks, and the delight it receives in the
new union original: coito /—is the cause of the generation of all generable things. SO.
I understand well the love / the appetite / and the incurable desire that
is always found in this prime matter; I would like to know what
generative love can be found in the four Elements, among their
contraries. PH. The love that is usually found in the four Elements (even
though they are contrary to one another) is the generative cause of all
things mixed and composed from them. SO. Explain to me in what
manner. PH. The elements, through their contrariety / are divided
and separated, because fire and air, being hot / and light,
seek the heights and flee the depths; and earth and
water, being heavy / and cold, seek the depths / and flee the heights;
yet many times / through the intercession of the benign heaven (by
means of its motion and its rays) they join together in
friendship, and in such a form they mix together / and with such friendship /
that they arrive almost at a unity of a uniform body /
and of uniform quality, which friendship is capable of receiving...