ennead

noun

1. (obsolete)The number nine.

   “The ennead, according to the Pythagoreans, circulates all numbers within itself, and there can be no number beyond it. For the natural progression of numbers is as far as to 9, but after it their retrogression takes place. For 10 becomes as it were again the monad. […] Hence it is not possible there should be any elementary number beyond the ennead.”

   “[T]he ennead is subtracted for this cause, because the three hundred and sixty parts of the entire [circle] consist of enneads, and for this reason the four regions of the world are circumscribed by ninety perfect parts.”

2. (rare)Any grouping or system containing nine objects.

   “We may assert with confidence that no cycle of this kind, and of equal antiquity or even of inferior antiquity, is the actual existence better attested or more thoroughly authenticated than that of this octaëteris of Philammon of Delphi, or, as we may truly call it, this original Pythian ennead of primitive Hellas.”

   “The exquisite language of the prophecy of Isaiah, especially in its last three enneads, may have had a nearer primary reference to, and a nearer fulfilment in, the return of the exiles under Zerubbabel, and Ezra, and Nehemiah; […]”

   “At one time one god was a greater favourite with the nation than another, and the cult of the god or gods which the old Babylonians preferred in the early days of their empire frequently fell into disuse and neglect in after times. The most important ennead among the Babylonians was as follows:— […]”

3. One of the six parts of the writings of the Greek-speaking philosopher Plotinus (c. 204–205 – 270), each containing nine treatises, compiled by his student Porphyry (c. 234 – c. 305).

   “Which Darkneſs is a fourth Property of the Moſaick Matter, and on which Plotinus inſiſts pretty copiouſly in this ſecond Ennead, and contends we can have no other notion of it, […]”

   “[W]e find side by side in the Enneads the positive and negative conceptions of the One.”

name

1. (Egyptian)The collection of nine gods worshipped at Heliopolis and taking part in the Heliopolitan creation myth, together representing the sum of all the elements of the created world: Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Nut, Geb, Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys.