Farther still, if the heaven is sight beholding the things above, the intelligible of it may very properly be called colour which is conjoined with the sight. The cause therefore of the intelligibles in the heaven is without colour, but is exempt from them; for sensible colour is the offspring of the solar light. But Plato denominates the order which proximately subsists after the celestial order, and which we have called the subcelestial arch, figure. For the arch itself is the name of a figure. And in short, in this order, Parmenides also places intellectual figure. But Plato first attributes contact to the summit of intellectuals, as is evident from the conclusions of the Parmenides. For in the first hypothesis taking away figure from _the one_, he uses this as a medium, viz. that _the one_ does not touch itself. “But _the one_,” says he, “does not touch itself.” And the conclusion is evident. Here therefore contact first subsists, and subsists according to cause. For of those things of which the demiurgus is proximately the cause, the father who is prior to him is paradigmatically the cause. In this order therefore, contact is the paradigm of the liberated Gods. Hence these three orders are successive, viz. colour, figure, and contact. And from these the supercelestial place is essentially exempt. Hence it is without colour, without figure, and without contact. Nor does it transcend these three privatively, but according to causal excellence. For it imparts to colour from intelligibles the participation of light; on figure it confers by illumination intellectual bound; and in contact it supernally inserts union and continuity, and perfects all things by its power, things which are touched indeed, through union, those that are figured, through the participation of bound, and those that are coloured, through the illumination of light. But it draws upward, and allures to itself every thing ineffably, and through intelligible impressions, and fills every thing with unical goods.