I. xiv. 7, p.72). Above these heavens is the Ogdoad, also called he mesotes, and Jerusalem above, the abode of Achamoth, who herself also is called Ogdoad (Iren. I. v.
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195), we have the threefold division, ta kata tous aionas, ta kata ten ogdoada, ta kata ten hebdomada. This use of the words Hebdomad and Ogdoad also bears traces of derivation from a previous system, the word Ogdoad occurring in a different sense in the system of Valentinus himself, whose Ogdoad within the Pleroma was probably intended to answer to the Ogdoad outside. Irenaeus (ii. 107) argues from what is told of Paul's ascent to the third heaven against the low place assigned to the heavens in the Valentinian scheme.
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Though this Ogdoad is first in order of evolution, if the Valentinian theory be accepted as true, yet to us who trace the history of the development of that system the lower Ogdoad must clearly be pronounced the first, and the higher only as a subsequent extension of the previously accepted action of an Ogdoad. Possibly also the Egyptian doctrine of eight primary gods (see above) may have contributed to the formation of a theory of which Egypt was the birthplace. In any case an Ogdoad 7 + 1 would have been inconsistent with a theory an essential part of which was the coupling its characters in pairs, male and female. Hippolytus of Rome (Ref. vi.
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Kek is the deification of the concept of primordial darkness ('E. Hornung, "Licht und Finsternis in der Vorstellungswelt Altägyptens", Studium Generale 8 (1965), 72-83.) in the ancient Egyptian Ogdoad cosmogony of Hermopolis. The Ogdoad consisted of four pairs of deities, four male gods paired with their female counterparts. Kek's female counterpart was Kauket.
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2, p. 24; Hippol. vi. p. 191). Over the Ogdoad is the Pleroma, the abode of the Aeons. Thus (Hippol. p.
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The ogdoad described by Gnostic Valentinus in the 2nd century AD (with the first two named Propator and Ennoia) In the system of Valentinus again the names Ogdoad and Hebdomad occur in the same signification. Above this lower world are the seven heavens, where dwells their maker the Demiurge himself also, on that account, called Hebdomas (Iren. I. v. p. 24). Of these seven heavens Marcus taught in more detail (Iren.
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The concept of an Ogdoad appears in Gnostic systems of the early Christian era, and was further developed by the theologian Valentinus (ca. 160 AD). The number eight plays an important part in Gnostic systems, and it is necessary to distinguish the different forms in which it appeared at different stages in the development of Gnosticism. The earliest Gnostic systems included a theory of seven heavens and a supercelestial region called the Ogdoad.
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The ancient Egyptians accepted multiple creation myths as valid, including those of the Hermopolitan, Heliopolitan, and Memphite theologies. Under the Hermopolitan theology, there is the Ogdoad, which represents the conditions before the gods were created (Van Dijk, 1995). An aspect within the Ogdoad is the Cosmic Egg, from which all things are born. Life comes from the Cosmic Egg; the sun god Ra was born from the primordial egg in a stage known as the first occasion (Dunand, 2004).
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Beginning with the Middle Kingdom, Nun is described as "the father of the gods" and he is depicted on temple walls throughout the rest of ancient Egyptian religious history. The Ogdoad includes along with Naunet and Nun, Amaunet and Amun; Hauhet and Heh; and Kauket and Kek. Like the other Ogdoad deities, Nu did not have temples or any center of worship. Even so, Nu was sometimes represented by a sacred lake, or, as at Abydos, by an underground stream.
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Theban theology claimed that Amun was not merely a member of the Ogdoad, but the hidden force behind all things. There is a conflation of all notions of creation into the personality of Amun, a synthesis which emphasizes how Amun transcends all other deities in his being "beyond the sky and deeper than the underworld".Hart, Egyptian Myths, p.22 One Theban myth likened Amun's act of creation to the call of a goose, which broke the stillness of the primeval waters and caused the Ogdoad and Ennead to form.
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The Valentinian Secundus divided the Ogdoad into a right-hand and a left-hand Tetrad (Iren. I. xi.); and in the case of Marcus, who largely uses Pythagorean speculations about numbers, the Tetrad holds the highest place in the system.
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The primary meaning of the Egyptian word ḥeḥ was "million" or "millions"; a personification of this concept, Ḥeḥ, was adopted as the Egyptian god of infinity. With his female counterpart Ḥauḥet (or Ḥeḥut), Ḥeḥ represented one of the four god-goddess pairs comprising the Ogdoad, a pantheon of eight primeval deities whose worship was centred at Hermopolis Magna. The mythology of the Ogdoad describes its eight members, Heh and Hauhet, Nu and Naunet, Amun and Amaunet, and Kuk and Kauket, coming together in the cataclysmic event that gives rise to the sun (and its deific personification, Atum).
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The scene is collapsed from "the two extremities of a great scene at Philae, in which the Eight, divided into two groups of four, take part in the adoration of the king." In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad ( "the Eightfold"; , a plural nisba of "eight") were eight primordial deities worshiped in Hermopolis. References to the Ogdoad date to the Old Kingdom of Egypt, and even at the time of composition of the Pyramid Texts toward the end of the Old Kingdom, they appear to have been antiquated and mostly forgotten by everyone except their theologians. They are frequently mentioned in the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom.
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Hathor temple in Dendera in which some have frog heads and others have serpent heads Drawing of a representation of the Ogdoad in the temple of Philae "Drawn by Faucher-Gudin from a photograph by Béato. C.f. Lepsius, Denkm, iv.pl.66 c.", published in Maspero (1897).
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He gives the formulae in the inverse order; i.e. first the formula to be used by a soul which has passed through the highest heaven and desires to enter the Ogdoad; next the formula to be used in order to gain admission to the highest heaven, and so on.
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As close as Memphis (also within modern Cairo), the priests of Ptah celebrated him as superior to the Nine. In addition to Memphis having its own creation myth, the Ogdoad/Hermopolitan centered around physical creation and eight primordial gods was another creation story that existed at the same time.
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Cambridge University Press, 2000 Heh's female counterpart was known as Hauhet, which is simply the feminine form of his name. Like the other concepts in the Ogdoad, his male form was often depicted as a frog, or a frog-headed human, and his female form as a snake or snake-headed human. The frog head symbolised fertility, creation, and regeneration, and was also possessed by the other Ogdoad males Kek, Amun, and Nun. The other common representation depicts him crouching, holding a palm stem in each hand (or just one), sometimes with a palm stem in his hair, as palm stems represented long life to the Egyptians, the years being represented by notches on it.
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The Son and the Church (Ekkeslia) then emanate from the Father. Rather than an ogdoad, a trinity is affirmed. While Eusebius of Caesarea mentions that Valentinus taught a trinity in his work 'on the three natures', this was likely a trinity of natures in one godhead rather than three persons.Robinson, James M.; 'The Nag Hammadi Library in English'.
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In the earliest stages of that evolution we have (Iren. I. i.) eight primary Aeons constituting the first Ogdoad. The ultimate conception of God, named the Ineffable Father and who has existed since before the beginning, is described as Depth or Profundity (Bythos). All around him exists a female power that has been named Silence (Sige).
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Amun (also Amon, Ammon, Amen, , reconstructed ; Greek Ámmōn, Hámmōn) was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amaunet. With the 11th Dynasty ( 21st century BC), Amun rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Montu.Warburton (2012:211).
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692, of a mention of the fifth heaven in apocryphal writings ascribed to Zepbaniah beyond the spheres of the evil archons (Hebdomad), there were the supercelestial regions which a soul must reach by gnosis to escape the dominion of the archons. This place is thought of as the abode of Sophia (Wisdom) and Barbelo, also called Ogdoad.
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The doctrine of an Ogdoad of the commencement of finite existence having been established by Valentinus, those of his followers who had been imbued with the Pythagorean philosophy introduced a modification. In that philosophy the Tetrad was regarded with peculiar veneration, and held to be the foundation of the sensible world. The Pythagorean oath by the Tetrad is well known.Meursius, Demiurg. Pythag. ch.
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Due to the duality of Ancient Egyptian myths, this is only one of many creation stories. The Egyptians believed no specific myth was more correct than the other, rather that some combination of these myths was correct. This creation story, the Heliopolitan tradition, is one of physiological creation. The other major creation traditions are the Memphite Tradition and Hermopolitian/Ogdoad.
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Colossal statue of Amunet erected by Tutankhamun in Karnak Her name, , is a feminine noun that means "The Hidden One". She is a member of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, who represented aspects of the primeval existence before the creation: Amunet was paired with Amun—whose name also means "The Hidden One", with a masculine ending (jmn)—within this divine group, from the earliest known documentation. Such pairing of deities is characteristic of the religious concepts of the ancient Egyptians. In early concepts known as the Ogdoad, the primeval deity group to which they belonged as "Night" (or as the determinative D41 meaning "to halt, stop, deny", suggesting the principle of inactivity or repose),Budge, Wallis A., The Gods of the Egyptians: Or, Studies in Egyptian Mythology, 1904, volume 1 was composed of four balanced couples of deities or deified primeval concepts.
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A lesser known Egyptian god, Kek, was also sometimes shown in the form of a frog. Texts of the Late Period describe the Ogdoad of Hermepolis, a group of eight "primeval" gods, as having the heads of frogs (male) and serpents (female), and they are often depicted in this way in reliefs of the Greco- Roman period.Smith, Mark (2002). On the Primaeval Ocean. p. 38.
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25) speaks of the eighth sphere as lying nearest to noeto kosmo. Accordingly, those Gnostic systems which are tinctured by Grecian philosophy, while leaving untouched the doctrine of seven or eight material heavens, develop in various ways the theory of the region above them. In the system of Basilides, as reported by Hippolytus (vii. 20 sqq.), Ogdoad and Hebdomad are merely names of place.
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The book also includes references to various Egyptian creation myths. These theologies were held simultaneously – not competitively – in ancient Egypt, so it is not unusual for a text to reference more than one creation myth.Allen, 2 -7. The Ogdoad myth of Hermopolis is illustrated in the Book of the Faiyum with detailed drawings of the eight frog- and snake-headed primeval deities around which the myth centers.
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Then he became wiser and every way better than all other cosmical things except the seed-mass left below. Smitten with wonder at his son's beauty, he set him at his right hand. "This is what they call the Ogdoad, where the Great Archon is sitting." Then all the heavenly or ethereal creation, as far down as the moon, was made by the Great Archon, inspired by his wiser son.
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H. E. i. 4. It is probable, however, that Nous had a place in the original system of Basilides himself; for his Ogdoad, "the great Archon of the universe, the ineffable"Hipp. vi. 25. is apparently made up of the five members named by Irenaeus (as above), together with two whom we find in Clement of Alexandria,Clement of Alexandria, Strom. iv. 25. Dikaiosyne and Eirene, added to the originating Father.
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200 (quoted)–202, 1984, British Museum Publications, Due to its colour, it was identified, in some beliefs, as having been the original container, in a similar manner to an egg, of Atum, and in similar beliefs Ra, both solar deities. As such, its properties form the origin of the "lotus variant" of the Ogdoad cosmogeny. It was the symbol of the Egyptian deity Nefertem. For its use in Buddhist art, see utpala.
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The Heliopolitans were worshipped as deities by the inhabitants of the Nile River Valley from as early as 10,000 BC. According to Heliopolitan legend, the first of these were Gaea (as Neith), the Demiurge (as Nun), and Set (as Apep/Apophis). Neith and Nun sired Atum, the first of the Ogdoad — the old gods. As Neith went about creating mortal life, Set desired to destroy her creations. In turn, Neith called Atum for protection.
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Nu (also Nenu, Nunu, Nun), feminine Naunet (also Nunut, Nuit, Nent, Nunet), is the deification of the primordial watery abyss in the Hermopolitan Ogdoad cosmogony of ancient Egyptian religion. The name is paralleled with nen "inactivity" in a play of words in, "I raised them up from out of the watery mass [nu], out of inactivity [nen]". The name has also been compared to the Coptic noun "abyss; deep".Budge (1904), p. 284.
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Ramesses II (left) with Ptah-Tatenen (right) Both Tatenen and Ptah were Memphite deities. Tatenen was the more ancient, combined in the Old Kingdom with Ptah as Ptah-Tatenen, in their capacity as creator deities. By the Nineteenth Dynasty Ptah-Tatenen is his sole form, and he is worshiped as royal creator god. Ptah-Tatenen can be seen as father of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, the eight deities who themselves embody the primeval elements from before creation.
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Khemenu ('), the Egyptian language name of the city,Ian Shaw & Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, British Museum Press, 1995. p.125 means "Eight-Town", after the Ogdoad, a group of eight "primordial" deities whose cult was situated there. The name survived as Coptic Shmun, from which the modern name el Ashmunein () is derived.G. Mussies in: Matthieu Sybrand Huibert, Gerard Heerma van Voss (eds.), Studies in Egyptian Religion: Dedicated to Professor Jan Zandee (1982), p. 92.
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Nu is the one of the eight deities of the Ogdoad representing ancient Egyptian primordial Chaos from which the Primeval Mound appeared. He is coupled with goddess Naunet and appears in antropomorphic form but with the head of a frog. No cult is addressed to Nun but he is typically depicted in ancient Egyptian art holding aloft the solar barque or the sun disc. He may appear greeting the rising sun in the guise of a baboon.
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It is Harnack who divided the text into one hundred numbered sections. Eusebius attests to other works by Irenaeus, today lost, including On the Ogdoad, an untitled letter to Blastus regarding schism, On the Subject of Knowledge, On the Monarchy or How God is not the Cause of Evil, On Easter.Rev. J. Tixeront, D.D. A Handbook of Patrology. Section IV: The Opponents of Heresy in the Second Century, St. Louis, MO, by B. Herder Book Co. 1920.
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His system tells of 30 aeons, divided into an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Dodecad; of the fall and recovery of Sophia; of the future union of the spirits of the chosen seed with angels as their heavenly bridegrooms. What Marcus added to the teaching of his predecessors was a system of Isopsephy similar to that of the later Pythagoreans, about mysteries in numbers and names. Marcus found in Scripture and in Nature repeated examples of the occurrence of his mystical numbers, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, thirty.
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Yet the differing accounts were not regarded as contradictory; instead, the Egyptians saw the creation process as having many aspects and involving many divine forces. The sun rises over the circular mound of creation as goddesses pour out the primeval waters around it One common feature of the myths is the emergence of the world from the waters of chaos that surround it. This event represents the establishment of maat and the origin of life. One fragmentary tradition centers on the eight gods of the Ogdoad, who represent the characteristics of the primeval water itself.
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In the oldest representations, Kekui is given the head of a serpent, and Kekuit the head of either a frog or a cat. In one scene, they are identified with Ka and Kait; in this scene, Ka-Kekui has the head of a frog surmounted by a beetle and Kait- Kekuit has the head of a serpent surmounted by a disk. In the Greco-Roman period, Kek's male form was depicted as a frog-headed man, and the female form as a serpent-headed woman, as were all four dualistic concepts in the Ogdoad.
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In ancient Egyptian mythology, the fields of Aaru (; "Reeds, rushes"), known also as sḫt-jꜣrw or the Field of Reeds, is the heavenly paradise where Osiris rules once he had displaced Anubis in the Ogdoad. It has been described as the ka (a part of the soul) of the Nile Delta. The ancient Egyptians believed that the soul resides in the heart and so, upon death, the Weighing of the Heart occurred. Each human heart is weighed on a giant scale against an ostrich feather, which represents the concept of Maat.
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Schmitt 1996 The name in Hebrew Yam Suph () is of biblical origin. The name in Phiom Enhah ("Sea of Hah") is connected to Ancient Egyptian root ḥḥ which refers to water and sea (for example the names of the Ogdoad gods Heh and Hauhet) - Pa-yem 'Aa en Mu-Ked, the ancient Egyptian name of the Red Sea. Historically, it was also known to western geographers as Mare Mecca (Sea of Mecca), and Sinus Arabicus (Gulf of Arabia). Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia.
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Miroslav Verner, Temple of the World: Sanctuaries, Cults, and Mysteries of Ancient Egypt (2013) 149 In Hermopolis, Thoth led "the Ogdoad", a pantheon of eight principal deities, and his spouse was Nehmetawy. He also had numerous shrines in other cities.(Budge The Gods of the Egyptians Thoth was said to be born from the skull of Set also said to be born from the heart of Ra.p. 401) Thoth played many vital and prominent roles in Egyptian mythology, such as maintaining the universe, and being one of the two deities (the other being Ma'at) who stood on either side of Ra's solar barge.
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Ra and Amun, from the tomb of Ramses IV. As with most widely worshiped Egyptian deities, Ra's identity was often combined with other gods, forming an interconnection between deities. ;Amun and Amun-Ra : Amun was a member of the Ogdoad, representing creation energies with Amaunet, a very early patron of Thebes. He was believed to create via breath and thus was identified with the wind rather than the sun. As the cults of Amun and Ra became increasingly popular in Upper and Lower Egypt respectively they were combined to create Amun-Ra, a solar creator god.
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In Valentinianism, Nous is the first male Aeon. Together with his conjugate female Aeon, Aletheia (truth), he emanates from the Propator Bythos ( "Forefather Depths") and his co-eternal Ennoia ( "Thought") or Sigē ( "Silence"); and these four form the primordial Tetrad. Like the other male Aeons he is sometimes regarded as androgynous, including in himself the female Aeon who is paired with him. He is the Only Begotten; and is styled the Father, the Beginning of All, inasmuch as from him are derived immediately or mediately the remaining Aeons who complete the Ogdoad (eight), thence the Decad (ten), and thence the Dodecad (twelve); in all, thirty Aeons constitute the Pleroma.
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The first divine act is the creation of the cosmos, described in several creation myths. They focus on different gods, each of which may act as creator deities. The eight gods of the Ogdoad, who represent the chaos that precedes creation, give birth to the sun god, who establishes order in the newly formed world; Ptah, who embodies thought and creativity, gives form to all things by envisioning and naming them; Atum produces all things as emanations of himself; and Amun, according to the theology promoted by his priesthood, preceded and created the other creator gods. These and other versions of the events of creation were not seen as contradictory.
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The creation myth promulgated in the city of Hermopolis focused on the nature of the universe before the creation of the world. The inherent qualities of the primeval waters were represented by a set of eight gods, called the Ogdoad. The goddess Naunet and her male counterpart Nu represented the inert primeval water itself; Huh and his counterpart Hauhet represented the water's infinite extent; Kek and Kauket personified the darkness present within it; and Amun and Amaunet represented its hidden and unknowable nature, in contrast to the tangible world of the living. The primeval waters were themselves part of the creation process, therefore, the deities representing them could be seen as creator gods.
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In the Duat, the Egyptian underworld, the hearts of the dead were said to be weighed against her single "Feather of Maat", symbolically representing the concept of Maat, in the Hall of Two Truths. This is why hearts were left in Egyptian mummies while their other organs were removed, as the heart (called "ib") was seen as part of the Egyptian soul. If the heart was found to be lighter or equal in weight to the feather of Maat, the deceased had led a virtuous life and would go on to Aaru. Osiris came to be seen as the guardian of the gates of Aaru after he became part of the Egyptian pantheon and displaced Anubis in the Ogdoad tradition.
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The text was found among those included in The Nag Hammadi Library, in CG II, in 1945. It is tentatively dated in the third century CE and is thought to originate from a transitional period in Gnosticism when it was converting from a purely mythological state into a philosophical phase. The beginning and conclusion to the document are Christian Gnostic, but the rest of the material is a mythological narrative regarding the origin and nature of the archontic powers peopling the heavens between Earth and the Ogdoad, and how the destiny of man is affected by these primeval happenings.Bullard in Robinson 162; Bullard 3 The work is presented as a learned treatise in which a teacher addresses a topic suggested by the dedicatee of the work.
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The murder of Osiris by Seth, and the resulting struggle for power, won by Horus, provided a powerful narrative linking the ancient Egyptian ideology of kingship with the creation of the cosmos. In all of these myths, the world was said to have emerged from an infinite, lifeless sea when the sun rose for the first time, in a distant period known as zp tpj (sometimes transcribed as Zep Tepi), "the first occasion". Different myths attributed the creation to different gods: the set of eight primordial deities called the Ogdoad, the self-engendered god Atum and his offspring, the contemplative deity Ptah, and the mysterious, transcendent god Amun. While these differing cosmogonies competed to some extent, in other ways they were complementary, as different aspects of the Egyptian understanding of creation.
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These two deities, Depth and Silence, become the cause, through a process of emanation, of the other archetypal beings or Aeons. The Aeons are always born in male-female pairs (as syzygies), each of which is in itself a divine principle but at the same time represents one aspect of the Ineffable Father, who otherwise could not be described nor comprehended as he is beyond all names. The emanation takes place in the following manner: Depth-and-Silence gives birth to Mind-and-Truth (Nous and Aletheia), who gives birth to Word-and-Life (Logos and Zoe), who gives birth to Man-and-Church (Anthropos and Ecclesia). These Aeonic pairs comprise the Fullness of Godhead (Pleroma), and the first eight Aeons that have been expounded here are the Valentinian Ogdoad.
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In Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, a local monograph called the Book of the Faiyum centered on Sobek with a considerable portion devoted to the journey made by Sobek-Ra each day with the movement of the sun through the sky. The text also focuses heavily on Sobek's central role in creation as a manifestation of Ra, as he is said to have risen from the primal waters of Lake Moeris, not unlike the Ogdoad in the traditional creation myth of Hermopolis.O'Connor Many varied copies of the book exist and many scholars feel that it was produced in large quantities as a "best-seller" in antiquity. The integral relationship between the Faiyum and Sobek is highlighted via this text, and his far reaching influence is seen in localities that are outside the Faiyum as well; a portion of the book is copied on the Upper Egyptian (meaning southern Egyptian) Temple of Kom Ombo.
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