[1] The good, Asclepius, is in nothing except in god alone, or rather god himself is always the good. If this is so, the good must be the substance of all motion and generation (for nothing is abandoned by it), but this substance has an energy about it that stays at rest, that has no lack and no excess, that is perfectly complete, a source of supply, present in the beginning of all things. When I say that what supplies everything is good, I also mean that it is wholly and always good.

Yet this good belongs[]to nothing else except to god alone. God lacks for nothing, to become evil in longing to possess it. Nothing that exists can be lost to him, to cause him grief in losing it (for grief is a part of vice). Nothing is stronger than god, to make an adversary of him (nor does he have a companion to give him injury); 〈nothing is more beautiful,〉 to cause desire in him; nothing is unheeding of him, to make him angry; and nothing is wiser, to make him jealous.

[2]Since none of these qualities belongs to the substance, what remains but the good alone? Just as none of these other qualities exists in such a substance, by the same token the good will be found in none of the other substances.[…]