Since however, being has an hypostasis triply in intelligibles, one is primarily being and prior to the eternal; but another is secondarily being, and the first eternity; and another is being ultimately, and is intelligible and eternal intellect. And here indeed there is being, but there eternity, and there intellect. And eternity is more comprehensive than intellect; but being than eternity. For every intellect is eternal, but not every thing eternal is intellect. For soul according to its essence is eternal, and every thing which participates of eternity, participates also by a much greater priority of being. For with perpetuity of existence, existence is entirely consubsistent. But that which participates of existence is not universally eternally being. For bodies also participate in a certain respect of the nature of existence, but they are not eternal. Intellect therefore constitutes an intellectual essence only, so far as it is intellect; since so far as it is also life and being it constitutes all things. But eternity constitutes both the intellectual and psychical essence. For the mixture [in the second triad] was intelligible life. But being constitutes the intellectual, the psychical, and the corporeal life. For matter also is being [most obscurely,] and is capacity indeed, but formless being, and non-being, falling off from the participation of being. If, however, some one should say that it is being in power or capacity, yet it has this power from being. For capacity is the forerunning participation of energy. And thus much concerning these things.