Farther still, it is necessary to assert that intelligible eternity is one of these three things, viz. that it subsists either according to being, or according to life, or according to intelligible intellect. But being, as the Elean guest says, according to its own nature, neither stands still, nor is moved. For if being is being to all things, and essence is a thing of this kind, much more must this be the case with intelligible essence and that which is primarily being. For they are nothing else than essence only. But being unfolds motion and permanency, and the other genera of beings, in the second and third progressions of itself. The first being therefore, as we have said, is at one and the same time exempt from motion and permanency. But eternity according to Timæus _abides_ in one. Hence also time imitates in its motion the intelligible permanency of eternity. Eternity therefore does not subsist according to that which is primarily being, nor yet according to intelligible intellect.[190] For neither is soul time, which is moved through the whole of time. And in short, in divine beings, that which is participated is every where established above that which participates. But the eternal participates of eternity, just as that which is temporal participates of time. Eternity therefore is prior to intelligible intellect, and posterior to being; so that it is established in the middle of the intelligible breadth. And as animal itself is eternal, so likewise eternity is that which is always being. For as animal itself participates of eternity, so eternity participates of being, and is the cause of existence, of perpetual life, and intellection, and measures the essences, powers and energies of all things. CHAPTER XVII.