Asclepius

...the reason, which is, O Trismegistus? TRIMEGISTUS Such, O Asclepius. For God, whether he is called Father, or Lord of all, or by any name more holy and religious than any other by all, because this, which among us should be the cause of understanding, ought to be consecrated to the contemplation of His majesty, that he cannot be defined or named by any of those names. For if this voice is from the air struck by spirit, it is a sound declaring all the will or sense of a man, which by chance he perceived in his mind from the senses; the whole substance of which name is composed of a few syllables, defined and circumscribed, so that there might be in man an interchange of voice, connected, indeed, also with spirit, and air, and everything in these, and through these, or with these, the name is the whole of God. For I do not hope that the creator of the whole majesty and the father or lord of all things can be called by one composite name. Truly, to Him, by one name, or rather by every name, if indeed He is one, and all things so that it is necessary, either all things are of that name or He is called by all names. He, therefore, alone, as it seems, most full with the fecundity of both sexes, always pregnant with His own will, brings forth whatever He wishes to procreate. His will is goodness, God. This same goodness is of all things, born from His divinity so that all things are as they are and have been. And for all future things, it suffices from the nature of this to be born from Himself. This, therefore, is the reason, O Asclepius, rendered to you: why and how all things are made of both sexes. Asclepius You speak of God, O Trismegistus? TRIMEGISTUS Not only of God, O Asclepius, but of all animals and mortals. For it is impossible for any of those things that are to be without fecundity taken from all things that are. For it will be impossible for those things that are, to be. For I say that nature and sense, and the world contain two in themselves...