Tripartite Tractate 6

1<...> Just as the wondrous acts of the silences are eternal generations and intellectual offspring, so the qualities of the Word are spiritual emanations. Because they belong to speech, [] both [the wondrous acts] and the qualities are seeds and thoughts of his offspring, living and eternal roots that appear as self-originating offspring. They exist as minds and spiritual offspring for the glory of the Father.

2[Being] spirits and minds, they do not need sound or speech, nor do they need to perform [an act] to obtain what they wish to [have done]. Instead, following the pattern of [the Father’s] own existence, [those] who originate from him beget whatever they wish. And he has child<ren>: the one of whom they think and speak, toward whom they move, in whom they subsist, and to whom they sing hymns to glorify him. For this is their power of procreation, resembling those from whom they originated and consistent with their shared assistance, since they help one another as those who are unbegotten do.

3The Father, in keeping with his exalted place above the Totalities, is unknown and ungraspable. He possesses such greatness and magnitude that, if it were revealed suddenly and immediately, it would destroy all the lofty beings among the aeons who originated from him. Therefore, he restrained his strength and his infinite resources, which constitute his [] being, [remaining] unspeakable and unnameable, exalted above every mind and all speech.

4Yet this is the one who stretched himself out, and what he stretched out formed a foundation, a place, and a dwelling for the universe. One of his names is the One by Whom, because he is the Father of All. Through his labor on behalf of the existing ones, he sowed within them the thought of searching for him. The wealth of their [. . .] is that they grasp that he exists and inquire into what was existent.