> my own explanation is that the ogdoad is a natural consequence of the expansion of the primary tetrad, just as the decad, the dodecad, and the full triacontad are the result of the expansion of the ogdoad. this is not the only explanation. the number eight was clearly an early christian symbol, enshrined in christ's day of resurrection and other ancient christian symbols. as will become more evident as this study progresses, the valentinians merged the christian symbol with pythagorean lore, thereby creating at the center of their system an ogdoad that had two sources > this encounter between the savior and achamoth results in a tripartition of reality outside the pleroma. through her passion comes matter; through her repentance, the soulish realm; through her pregnancy, the spiritual. of these three things, she is able to shape only two of them, the soulish and the material, since she is not superior to spiritual substance. she takes the lessons- , the mathematics, if you will-imparted to her by the savior, and shapes out of the soulish material an entity called god the father. this is the king of all things, both the soulish and the material, corresponding to the right and left sides. unaware that he is being moved by his mother, this father, whom they also call mother-father, fatherless, and demiurge, creates soulish things on the right and material things on the left, becoming father to the former, and to the latter, king. the resultant material creation is resolution's attempt to honor the pleroma of aeons > out of the soulish substance the demiurge creates heavenly things and things that are light and lofty. the demiurge, for creating the seven heavens, is called the hebdomad, and achamoth is called the ogdoad, thus "preserving the number of the original, first ogdoad of the pleroma." as the ogdoad, she is also the intermediate region, bridging the material universe and the pleroma
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