Sibylline Oracles 7
But they will endure extreme toil who, for gain,
will prophesy base things, augmenting an evil time;
who putting on the shaggy hides of sheep
135 will falsely claim to be Hebrews, which is not their race.
But speaking with words, making profit by woes,
they will not change their life and will not persuade the righteous
and those who propitiate God through the heart, most faithfully.
Restoration of the world
In the third lot of circling years,
140 of the first ogdoad, another world is seen again.
All will be night, long and unyielding,
and then a terrible smell of brimstone will extend
announcing murders, when those men perish
by night and famine. Then he will beget a pure mind
145 of men and will set up your race as it was before for you.
No longer will anyone cut a deep furrow with a crooked plow;
no oxen will plunge down the guiding iron.
There will be no vine branches or ear of corn, but all, at once,
will eat the dewy manna with white teeth
After the third “circling of years” when the first Ogdoad is seen, he will begat a “pure mind of men” and no one will plow a crooked row anymore (139-149).
Ogdoad is also a Gnostic concept relating to the aeons (Edwin Yamauchi, “The Gnostics and History” JETS 14 (1971): 29-40, 31).
The word is used to describe a place in the Hermetic Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth: “The Eighth or Ogdoad is described as the place or sphere where souls and angels continuously praise the Ninth with hymns; the Ninth is the dwelling place of Nous or Divine Mind” (Ruth Majerick, “Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth” in ABD 2:210-211).
It is possible this reference refers to Jesus in some kind of numeric wordplay, since the name Jesus Christ is often rendered 888. Finally, all people in this restored world will “eat dewy manna with white teeth” (148-149, cf. Revelation 2:17).
63 Now the repose of the spiritual elements on the Lord's Day, that is, in the Ogdoad, which is called the Lord's Day, is with the Mother, who keeps their souls, the (wedding) garments, until the end; but the other faithful souls are with the Creator, but at the end they also go up in the Ogdoad. Then comes the marriage feast, common to all who are saved, until all are equal and know each other. (Extracts from the Works of Theodotu)
The Lord's day is the first day of the week, or day after the seventh, and therefore styled the eighth day. It is termed His day, because it is the week-day of His resurrection. Upon this day the disciples of Christ assembled to show forth His death, and to celebrate His resurrection;The fact that the Lord’s resurrection took place on a Sunday, the eighth day, is interpreted as a symbolic reference to this redemptive ascent of the spirituals at the end of the age.
2Enoch 33:1 And I appointed the eighth day also, that the eighth day should be the first-created after my work, that it should revolve in the revolution of the seventh thousand, so that the eighth thousand might be in the beginning of a time not reckoned and unending with neither years nor months nor weeks nor days nor hours like the first day of the week, so also that the eighth day of the week might return continually.
2 And in another place he says, "If my sons keep the Sabbath, then will I bestow my mercy upon them."
3 He speaks of the Sabbath at the beginning of the Creation, "And God made in 6x days the works of his hands and on the 7th day he made an end, and rested in it and sanctified it."
4 Notice, children, what is the meaning of "He made an end in 6 days"? He means this: that the Lord will make an end of everything in 6,000 years, for a day with him means a thousand years. And he himself is my witness when he says, "Lo, the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years." So then, children, in 6 days, that is in 6 thousand years, everything will be completed.
5 "And he rested on the 7th day." This means, when his Son comes [at the start of that day] he will destroy the time of the wicked one, and will judge the godless, and will change the sun and the moon and the stars, and then he will truly rest on the 7th day [Amen].
6 Furthermore he says, "Thou shalt sanctify it with clean hands and a pure heart." If, then, anyone has at present the power to keep holy the day which God made holy, by being pure in heart, we are altogether deceived.
7 See that we shall indeed keep it holy at that time, when we enjoy true rest, when we shall be able to do so because we have been made righteous ourselves and have received the promise, when there is no more sin, but all things have been made new by the Lord then we shall be able to keep it holy because we ourselves have first been made holy.
8 Furthermore he says to them, "Your new moons and the sabbaths I cannot away with." Do you see what he means? The present sabbaths are not acceptable to me, but that which I have made, in which I will give rest to all things and make the beginning of an eighth day, that is the beginning of another world.
These Sabbaths will be no longer celebrated on the seventh day. They will be changed from the seventh to the eighth or first day of the week, which are the same. The "dispensation of the fullness of times" (Eph 1:10), popularly styled the Millennium, will be the antitype, or substance, of the Mosaic feast of tabernacles which was "a shadow of things to come." In this type, or pattern, Israel were to rejoice before Yahweh for seven days, beginning "on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when they had gathered the fruit of the land." In relation to the first day of the seven, the law says, "it shall be a sacred assembly: ye shall do no servile work therein." This was what we call Sunday. The regulation then continues, "on the eighth day," also Sunday, "shall be a sacred assembly unto you, and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto Yahweh: it is a solemn assembly; and ye shall do no servile work therein." Again, "on the first day shall be a Sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a Sabbath" (Lev 23:34-43).
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