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| Regard de Kurt Ehrmann sur les Sentinelles Alchimiques IMG_8448 (Photo credit: Abode of Chaos) |
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| Logo-monad (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| The simplest form of the Sun Cross, often called Odin's Cross in North-West Europe. Also known as Gnostic Cross. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Idumea (Photo credit: paperkin) |
The term monad comes from the Greek feminine noun monas (nominative singular, μονάς),
"one unit," where the ending -s
in the nominative form resolves to the ending -d
in declension.[1]
In some gnostic systems the Supreme
Being is known as the Monad, the One, The Absolute Aiōn teleos (The Perfect Aeon, αἰών τέλεος), Bythos (Depth or Profundity, Βυθός), Proarchē (Before the Beginning, προαρχή), and Hē Archē (The Beginning, ἡ ἀρχή) and The ineffable parent. The One is the high
source of the pleroma, the
region of light. The various emanations of The One are called Aeons.
According to Theodoret's book on heresies
(Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium i.18)
the Arab Christian Monoimus
(150-210) used the term Monad to mean the
highest god which created lesser
gods, or elements (similar to
Aeons). In some versions of Christian gnosticism, especially those deriving
from Valentinius, a
lesser deity known as the Demiurge
had a role in the creation of the material world in addition to the role of the
Monad. In these forms of gnosticism, the God of the Old Testament is often
considered to have been the Demiurge, not the Monad, or sometimes different
passages are interpreted as referring to each.
This Monad is the spiritual source of
everything which emanates
the pleroma, and could be
contrasted to the darkness of pure matter.
According to Hippolytus, this
view was inspired by the Pythagoreans,
for whom the first thing that came into existence was referred to as the Monad,
which begat the dyad,
which begat the numbers,
which begat the point,
begetting lines,
etc.[2] Pythagorean and Platonic philosophers like Plotinus and Porphyry
condemned "Gnosis" that would later characterize Gnosticism (see Neoplatonism
and Gnosticism) for their treatment of the monad or one.
For a long time,
legend persisted that a young man by the name of Epiphanes was the
leader of the Monadic Gnosticism who died age 17. However, scholars think the
legend may have come from misunderstanding of the Greek word epiphanēs which may have been mistaken as a
personal name if in text, when in fact the Greek means distinguished, as in a distinguished
teacher.[3]
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