Joyce (Ulysses, Ch. 9: Scylla and Charybdis):

Fatherhood, in the sense of conscious begetting, is unknown to man, it is a mystical state, an apostolic succession, from only begetter to only begotten. On that mystery (…) the church is founded and founded irremovably because founded, like the world, macro and microcosm, upon the void. Upon incertitude, upon unlikelihood, amor matris, subjective and objective genitive, may be the only true thing in life. Paternity may be a legal fiction.