VIII. On this account all things are distributed by Plato in a triple order about the king of all. For he says, ” that all things are about the king of all; “a second things about that which is second, and such as are third about that which ranks as the third.” He also says that this king is the father of cause, denominating intellect cause. For with Plato, intellect is the demiurgus. But he says that this cause produced soul in that Grater (mentioned by him in the Timaeus). The cause, however, being intellect, he says that the father is the good, and that which is beyond intellect, and beyond essence. In many places, also, he calls being and intellect idea; so that from Plato we may know that intellect and idea are from the good, but soul from intellect. These assertions, however, are not new, nor of the present time, but were delivered by the ancients, though not explicitly, and what has now been said by us is an interpretation of them. That these opinions also are ancient, is testified and confirmed by the writings of Plato. Parmenides, therefore, prior to Plato, adopted this opinion, so far as he collects into one and the same thing being and intellect. Being, likewise, he does not place among sensibles. For he says, that to perceive intellectually, and to be, are the same thing. He also says, that this is immoveable, though he adds, that it perceives intellectually, removing from it all corporeal motion in order that it may abide invariably the same. And he assimilates it to the bulk of a sphere, because it contains all things involved in itself, and because its intellection is not external to but in its own essence. When, likewise, in his writings he calls it one, he alludes to the cause of it, as if this one (of intellect) was found to be many. The Parmenides, however, in Plato, speaking more accurately, divides from each other this and the first one, which is more principally one. He also calls the second one many, and the third, one and many. And after this manner, he likewise accords with the doctrine of the three (above mentioned) natures.