Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, Vol. I

And he rejoices, if it is permitted to say so, secondarily because of the fitness of those receiving the supply of his goods that proceeds outside. And you see how he hands down three causes of the participation in the goods proceeding from the father into this cosmos: one, and the very first, is that from the power of the poetic creative cause (for he is the one even now begetting time, desiring to fill all things with primary, middle, and last goods because of his own abundance and generative wealth); the second is that from the fitness of the thing receiving (for that which imparts goods rejoices when that which partakes is disposed fitly for their reception); and the third is that from the symmetry and, as it were, the breathing-together and harmony of both. For because of this, although the gods always present to everyone the goods commensurate with their essences, we do not always receive them all, because we are neither fitly disposed nor are we in any way symmetrical with the power of those who are imparting.

If we wish for the divine to rejoice in us, as it is natural for it to rejoice and be glad even because of us, although it is always disposed in the same way, we must make ourselves fit for the reception of the goods presented to us by it, so that the gift of God may not be idle toward us, although it is of such a nature as not to be hindered by anything. These matters, however, are for another intention to examine at greater length. Now let us see how the whole becomes more similar to the paradigm by the generation of time. That the sensible would have been less likened to the intelligible, if the paradigm were primarily eternal without having taken on the second eternity, is evident to everyone; and that that which has generation in change could not even exist for a moment without time, let alone be eternal, is not difficult to understand.