CHAPTER II. If however it be requisite, not only by employing the intellectual projections of Parmenides to unfold the multitude of Gods participated by beings, but also concisely to demonstrate the theory of Socrates about these particulars, we must recollect what is written in the Republic, where he says that the light proceeding from _the good_ is unific of intellect and of beings. For through these things _the good_ is demonstrated to be exempt from being and essence, in the same manner as the sun is exempt from visible natures. But this light being in intelligibles illuminates them, in the same manner as the solar-form light which is in visible natures. For visible natures no otherwise become apparent, and known to the sight, than through the light which is ingenerated in them. All intelligibles therefore become boniform through the participation of light, and through this light, every true[166] being is most similar to _the good_. If, therefore, it makes no difference to speak of this light, or of _the one_ (for this light conjoins intelligibles, and causes them to be one, as deriving its subsistence from _the one_) if this be the case, the deity proceeding from the first is participable, and all the multitude of unities is participable. And that indeed which is truly superessential is _the one_. But each of the other Gods, according to his proper hyparxis, by which he is a superessential God, is similar to the first; but they are participated by essence and being. According to this reasoning therefore, the Gods appear to us to be unities, and participable unities, binding indeed all beings to themselves, but conjoining through themselves to _the one_ which similarly transcends all things, the natures posterior to themselves.