Monoimus

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Monoimus

Monoimus (lived somewhere between 150 - 210 CE

Common Era

Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used in the Western world, and also internationally, for numbering the year part of the calendar date....
) was an Arab gnostic

Gnosticism

Gnosticism refers to diverse, syncretistic religious movements in antiquity consisting of various belief systems generally united in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a Nature created by an imperfect god, the demiurge; this being is frequently identified with the Abrahamic God, and is contrasted with a superior entity, ref...
(Arabic name probably Mun'im ????), who was known only from one account in Theodoret

Theodoret

Saint Theodoret, known as Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus, was an influential author, theologian, and Christianity bishop of Cyrrhus%2C_Syria ....
(Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium i. 18) until a lost work of anti-heretical writings (Refutation of All Heresies
Refutation of all Heresies

The Refutation of All Heresies or Philosophumena is a compendious Christian polemical work of the early third century, now generally attributed to Hippolytus of Rome....
, book 8, chapter V) by Hippolytus

Hippolytus (writer)

For places named after the saint, see Saint-HippolyteSaint Hippolytus of Rome was one of the most prolific writers of the early Christian Church....
was found. He is known for coining the usage of the word Monad

Monad

Monad may refer to:In philosophy:*Monad a term used by ancient philosophers Pythagoras, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus as a term for God or the first being, or the totality of all being....
in a gnostic context.

Hippolytus claims that Monoimus was a follower of Tatian

Tatian

Tatian the Assyrian was an early Christianity writer and theologian of the second century.Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the 5th-century, when it gave way to the four separate gospels in the Peshitta ve...
, and that his cosmological system was derived from that of the Pythagoreans

Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
, which indeed seems probable.

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Encyclopedia

Monoimus (lived somewhere between 150 - 210 CE

Common Era

Gnosticism

Theodoret

Hippolytus (writer)

Monad

Tatian

Pythagoras

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
, monism

Monism

Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry, where this is not to be expected. Thus, some philosophers may hold that the Universe is really just one thing, despite its many appearances and diversities; or theology may support the view that there is one God, with many manifestations in different...
and Gnosticism

Gnosis

Gnosis is the spiritual knowledge of a saint or mysticism human being. In the cultures of the term gnosis was a special knowledge or insight into the infinite, divine and uncreated in all and above all, rather than knowledge strictly into the finite, natural or material world which is called Epistemological knowledge....
.

According to Monoimus, the world is created from the Monad (or iota, or Yod meaning "one horn"), a title that brings forth the duad, triad, tetrad, pentad, hexad, heptad, ogdoad, ennead, up to ten, producing a decad. He thus possibly identifies the gnostic aeon

Aeon

The word aeon, also spelled eon or ?on, means "age", "forever" or "for eternity". It is a Latin transliteration from the koine Greek word , from the archaic ....
s with the first elements of the Pythagorean cosmology

Pythagoreanism

Pythagoreanism is a term used for the esoteric and metaphysics beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were much influenced by mathematics and probably a very inspirational source for Plato and Platonism....
. He identifies these divisions of different entities with the description of creation in Genesis

Genesis

Genesis or Breishit is the first book of the Bible used by Judaism and Christianity, and the first of five books of the Pentateuch or Torah....
. This description from Hippolytus also corresponds to two versions of a text called Epistle of Eugnostos
Epistle of Eugnostos

The Epistle of Eugnostos is one of many Gnostic tractates from the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in Egypt in 1945. The Nag Hammadi codices contain two full copies of this tractate....
found in Nag Hammadi

Nag Hammâdi

Nag Hammadi , is a city in Upper Egypt. Nag Hammadi was known as Chenoboskion in classical antiquity, meaning "geese grazing grounds". It is located on the west bank of the Nile in the Qena Governorate, about 80 kilometres north-west of Luxor....
, where the same monad to decad relationship is described. (Eugnostos in turn, has apparent resemblances to the gnostic text The Sophia of Jesus Christ
The Sophia of Jesus Christ

The Sophia of Jesus Christ is one of many Gnosticism tractates from the Nag Hammadi library, discovered in Egypt in 1945. The title is somewhat coded, since although Sophia is Greek language for wisdom, in a gnostic context, Sophia is the syzygy of Christ....
, where the word monad appears again.)

He is also famous for his quote about the nature of God

God

God is a deity in theism and deism religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
, which may be described as pantheistic

Pantheism

Pantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing Immanence abstract God. In pantheism the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent....
(from Hippolytus):

Omitting to seek after God, and creation, and things similar to these, seek for Him from (out of) thyself, and learn who it is that absolutely appropriates (unto Himself) all things in thee, and says, "My God my mind, my understanding, my soul, my body." And learn from whence are sorrow, and joy, and love, and hatred, and involuntary wakefulness, and involuntary drowsiness, and involuntary anger, and involuntary affection; and if you accurately investigate these (points), you will discover (God) Himself, unity and plurality, in thyself, according to that tittle, and that He finds the outlet (for Deity) to be from thyself.

This idea resembles the viewpoint of the much later Sufi

Sufism

Sufi is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ufi , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals of the Sufi tradition....
Ibn Arabi

Ibn Arabi

Ibn Arabi was an Arab Sufism Muslim mysticism and philosopher. His full name was Abu abd-Allah Muhammad ibn-Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-`Arabi al-Hatimi al-TTaa'i ....
, but no connection between the two is known.

External links

by Hippolytus