Tripartite Tractate 10

1The emanation of the Totalities, who exist from the existent one, did not happen through separation from one another, like [something] discarded by the one who gives birth to them. Instead, their begetting is like an act of extension, as the Father extends himself to those he loves, so that [those] who originated from him might also become him. Although the present age is a unity, it is divided into units of time, which are divided into years, which in turn are divided into seasons, then seasons into months, months into days, days into hours, and hours into minutes. In the same way, [] the age of truth, because it is one and many, is honored with names both insignificant and important, according to what each one can grasp. By analogy, it is like a spring that, while remaining what it is, nevertheless flows and expands into streams, lakes, canals, and branches. Or it is like a root spreading beneath trees and branching out with their fruit, or like a human body, inseparably divided into various branching limbs—primary and secondary, great and small.

2The aeons brought themselves forth in agreement with the third fruit, by free will and through the understanding he gave them for thought. They do not desire to give glory [together with] what the separate Fullnesses brought forth in unison as words of [praise]. Nor do they desire to give glory together with the entire Totality, or to glorify together with any individual aeon who has reached a place or state higher than his own, unless he obtains <what> was desired from the one with a more exalted name and a higher place. [] They receive one another at the higher place, and the one who wished to rise higher begets himself, so to speak, begetting himself together with the other one and with what he is. He is renewed together with the one who came to him from his brother, beholding him and entreating him concerning the matter.

3So that this may happen in this way, the one who desired to give glory says nothing to him about it except this, because a limit on speech has been established in the Fullness. Thus they remain silent about the incomprehensibility of the Father, while still being permitted to speak about their desire to grasp him.