A Ogdoada é a esfera além do Sete ou Hebdomada. Os primeiros oito eões do Pleroma gnóstico. (Barnstone)
Jerônimo, CARTA 36
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Ogdoas is the god placed over the seven planetary spheres. As such, Odgoas rules the Ogdoad, which is the eighth sphere. He is described as “the god who commands and directs all things, since to him angels, archangels, he-daimons, she-daimons, and all things under creation have been subjected.” Ogdoas is described as “ruler of the pole” which indicates an association with Polaris, the pole star.
The Nag Hammadi Library shed much light as to what the Ogdoad actually represented to the Gnostics.
In “The Testimony of Truth,” it is written “the Ogdoad, which is the eighth, and that we might receive that place of salvation.”
In “The Paraphrase of Shem,” Shem describes his attainment of the Ogdoad “My thought which was in my body snatched me away from my race. It took me up to the top of the world, which is close to the light that shone upon the whole area there. I saw no earthly likeness, but there was light. And my thought separated from the body of darkness as though in sleep.” The Majesty and the unbegotten spirit then make Shem worthy and give him a “beautiful garment of light which is the voice of the immeasurable Thought.” This has the effect of conferring power and immortality upon him.
In “Zostrianos,” Zostrianos describes his transformation into an angel “There stood before me the angel of the knowledge of eternal light. … I very quickly and very gladly went up with him to a great light cloud. I cast my body upon the earth to be guarded by glories. I was rescued from the whole world … Then I knew that the power in me was set over the darkness because it contained the whole light. I was baptised there, and I received the image of the glories there. I became like one of them.” Zostrianos’ascension through the various Spheres (or aeons) indicates that he attained the Ogdoad and achieved immortality.
For the Gnostic Valentinian school, the Ogdoad was the realm of the divine wisdom, called Sophia Achamoth. Graeco-Egyptian writings however, placed the absolute in the ninth sphere, which corresponds to the true end of the spiritual path.
According to Gershom Scholem, the talmudic tradition refers to seven heavens corresponding to those of Hermetic and Gnostic writings, and also an eighth heaven about which speculation was forbidden. In the earliest Hekhaloth literature the secret name of the Ogdoad has been preserved, and is ‘Azbogah, which is composed of three consonants, each having the numerical value of eight.