Contemplate therefore the Being that penetrates the intelligibles, and
which communicates to them an immutable life; contemplate the Wisdom
and Knowledge that resides within them, and you will not be able to
keep from deriding this inferior nature to which the vulgar human
beings attribute genuine "being." It is in this supreme "Being" that
dwell life and intelligence, and that the essences subsist in eternity.
There, nothing issues (from Essence), nothing changes or agitates it;
for there is nothing outside of it that could reach it; if a single
thing existed outside of ("being"), ("being") would be dependent on it.
If anything opposed to (essence) existed, this thing would escape the
action of ("being"); it would no longer owe its existence to ("being"),
but would constitute a common principle anterior to it, and would be
essence. Parmenides[48] therefore was right in saying that the Essence
was one; that it was immutable, not because there was nothing else
(that could modify it), but because it was essence. Alone, therefore,
does Essence possess self-existence. How then could one, to Essence,
refuse to attribute existence, or any of the things of which it is an
actualization, and which it constitutes? So long as it exists, it gives
them to itself; and since it exists always, these things therefore
eternally subsist within it.