intellectual perceptions adhesions. We should not therefore be carried from things first to things last, nor compare the highest order of intellectuals with the last of beings, above which both soul and nature are established. For in so doing we shall err, and shall not attend to Plato, who exclaims that it is boldness to assert these things concerning it. For where is the boldness, and what the unknown power transcending our conceptions, in contemplating the truth of sensible colours, figures, and contacts. For an hypostasis of this kind is known by physiologists, and not by the sons of theologists. Such therefore is the power possessed by the negations through which Plato celebrates the supercelestial place.
CHAPTER XIII
Again then, let us in the next place survey the affirmations, how they exist according to the participation of the first intelligibles themselves. The supercelestial place therefore, is said to be essence which truly is, because it participates of that which is primarily being. For to be, and truly to be are present to all things, as the progeny of the intelligible essence. For as the one is from the first principle which is prior to intelligibles, so the nature of being is from intelligibles. For there the one being subsists, as Parmenides a little before taught us. But the supercelestial place is beheld by the governor of the soul, because it is allotted an intelligible transcendency with respect to the other intellectual Gods. Hence the intelligible good of it is rendered manifest from its being known by intellect. This intelligible therefore, in the same manner as that which is truly being, arrives to it from the unical Gods. For they are primarily and imparticipably intelligibles, and the first efficient causes of all intelligibles. These things also concur with each other, viz. that which is truly being, and the intelligible. For every
