For it is necessary that the whole and all-perfect demiurgus of the world, should neither be connumerated with the many[11] demiurgi, nor be the same with the cause which is stable, and perfectly established in itself. For he has a subsistence contrary to the cause which recalls that which has proceeded, and again exhibits it unemanent from itself. To be present likewise to all things by no means accords with that nature which energizes separately, and takes away its generative power. How, therefore, can he who converts his own children to himself, and shuts his own progeny in himself, possess the same power with the demiurgus who unfolds all things into light, and produces them into multitude? And how can he who is allotted the universe in conjunction with the remaining demiurgi, be uniformly the cause of the universe? For, if you are willing, consider each of these three demiurgi, and survey what will happen from this assertion. For we say that the first of them is the cause of essence, and of existence to the fabrications in the world; but that the second is the source of the motion, life, and generation of sensibles; and that the third is the cause of the divided production of form, of partible circumscription, and of the circular conversion of wholes to their one principle. We likewise definitely assert these things, admitting that the fabrication of each of the three extends to the whole world. But surveying the peculiar mode of fabrication in each, we say that the first is the effector of essence, the second of life, and the third of intellect. And that the first is the cause of hyparxis, the second of motion, and the third of conversion. Hence, the whole world, so far as it participates of being, is produced from the first father; but so far as it subsists through motion, and is generation, it receives its progression from the second father; and so far as it is perfectly divided, and after all-various division, is converted to its proper principle, it is produced from the third father. CHAPTER VII.