Monad (Gnosticism)
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In many Gnostic systems (and heresiologies), God is known as the Monad, the One, The Absolute Aion teleos (The Perfect Æon), Bythos (Depth or Profundity, Βυθος), Proarkhe (Before the Beginning, προαρχη), and E Arkhe (The Beginning, η αρχη). God is the high source of the pleroma, the region of light. The various emanations of God are called æons.
Within certain variations of Gnosticism, especially those inspired by Monoimus, the Monad was the highest God which created lesser gods, or elements (similar to æons). It is important to note that in some versions of ancient Gnosticism, especially those deriving from Valentinius, the deity that created the world was not the Monad but a lesser, and wicked, entity known as the Demiurge; in these forms of gnosticism, the God of the Old Testament is usually considered to have been the Demiurge, not the Monad.
According to Hippolytus, this view was inspired by the Pythagoreans, who called the first thing that came into existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the numbers, which begat the point, begetting lines, etc. Pythagorean and Plato philosophers like Plotinus and Porphyry condemned gnosticism (see neoplatonism and gnosticism) for their treatment of the monad or one.
This Monad is the spiritual source of everything which emanates the pleroma, and could be contrasted to the dark Demiurge (Yaldabaoth) that controls matter.
See also
- The Absolute
- Gnosticism
- Monad — disambiguation and Greek etymology
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