The Father

When discussing exalted matters, it is appropriate that we begin with the Father, the root of the Totality, from whom we have received the gift to speak concerning him. Before anything besides him came to be, he existed. Like a number, the Father is single, because he comes first and is himself alone. Yet he does not resemble someone who is single. If he did, how could he be a father? Because whenever a father exists, the name “son” will follow. The single one, however, who is the Father alone, resembles the root of a tree with branches and fruit. Of him it is said, strictly speaking, that he is a father, because he is incomparable and changeless. This is why, strictly speaking, he is single, and (why he) is a god, given that no one (stands in a relation to him) as a god, because no one is his father. For he is unbegotten, and no one else begot him, and no one else created him.⁠a Because anyone who is someone else’s father or creator, he also has a father and a creator. To be sure, he can be a father and a creator of someone who came into being from him and someone he created, because, strictly speaking, he is not a father and he is not a god, because there was someone who [begot and] created him. Therefore, only he, strictly speaking, is Father and God, who has had no one beget him. Regarding the Totalities, it is he who begot and created them. He has no beginning and no end, but it is not just that he has no end. Because he is unbegotten, he is deathless, yet he is also unchanging in his eternal being, in his self-identity, in what established him, and in what makes him great. Nor will he ever be separated from what makes him be, and no one will compel him to bring forth any intention that he has never willed. No one originated (the Father’s) existence, and so he is unchanging. And no one can separate him from his own being and self-identity, which is what he exists in, nor from his greatness, which is why no one can comprehend him. And it is impossible that anyone would change his form into something different, or that anyone could lower him, or change him or lessen him. This is [how] in the plenitude of truth he is the unchangeable, invariable one, with immutability for his garments. It is not just that he is called “Beginningless” and “Endless,” but he is neither born, nor will he die. Thus, as he is without beginning and without end in the way he subsists, so in his greatness he cannot be reached, being incomprehensible in his wisdom, unfathomable in his power, and unknowable in his sweetness. Strictly speaking, only he who is the good, the unbegotten Father, and the wholly perfect one is full with his offspring, and with all virtues, and with everything that is of value. And he possesses yet more, even the absence of all spite, so that one may find that all who have anything owe it to him, because he bestows it, although he is unattainable and tireless in his giving, being wealthy in the gifts he gives and reposing in the favors he lavishes. His category and form and great scale are such that none have been with him from the beginning. And there is no place in which he dwells, or from which he proceeds, or into which he enters. And there is no primal form that he uses as a pattern when he works, nor does any difficulty attend him in whatever he does, nor is any matter available for him to use to create what [he] creates. And there is no substance inhering in him that he uses to beget whatever he begets, nor is there any co-worker accompanying him in his work. To claim anything like this is ignorance. One should instead claim (he is) good, without defect, perfect, entire, since he is the Totality. None of the names thought of or pronounced, seen or understood, none of them are applicable to him, no matter how immensely majestic, glorifying and reverential. One can, however, pronounce such names to his glory and honor, in agreement with the ability of those who glorify him. Regarding what inheres within his existence, being, and form, the mind cannot conceive him, nor can words express him, nor can eyes behold him, nor can anyone comprehend him. This is on account of his unsearchable greatness, his ungraspable profundity, his limitless height, and his unlimited [extension]. This is the character of what is unbegotten: It does not extend or join to anything like something that is limited. He instead has a character without possessing face or form, things comprehended by perception, which is why he is incomprehensible.