Monoimus (lived somewhere between 150 - 210
CECommon Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used world-wide for numbering the year part of the date...
) was an Arab
gnosticGnosticism 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 material world created by an imperfect god, the demiurge; this being is frequently identified with the...
(Arabic name probably
Mun'im منعم), who was known only from one account in
TheodoretSaint Theodoret, known as Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus, was an influential author, theologian, and Christian bishop of Cyrrhus, Syria...
(
Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium i. 18) until a lost work of anti-heretical writings (
Refutation of All HeresiesThe Refutation of All Heresies or Philosophumena is a compendious Christian polemical work of the early third century, now generally attributed to Hippolytus of Rome. Most of it was recovered in 1842 in a manuscript at Mount Athos, but the complete text is not known...
, book 8, chapter V) by
HippolytusFor places named after the saint, see Saint-HippolyteSaint Hippolytus of Rome was one of the most prolific writers of the early Church. Hippolytus was born during the second half of the 2nd century, probably in Rome. Photius describes him in his Bibliotheca For places named after the saint, see...
was found. He is known for coining the usage of the word
MonadMonad 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
TatianTatian the Assyrian was an early Christian 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...
, and that his cosmological system was derived from that of the
PythagoreansPythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy...
, which indeed seems probable. But it was also clearly inspired by
ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
,
monismMonism 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...
and
GnosticismGnosis is the spiritual knowledge of a saint or mystically enlightened 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...
.
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
aeonThe word aeon, also spelled eon or æon, means "age", "forever" or "for eternity". It is a Latin transliteration from the koine Greek word , from the archaic . In Homer it typically refers to life or lifespan, but by at least Hesiod it could refer to ages or generations...
s with the first elements of the Pythagorean cosmology. He identifies these divisions of different entities with the description of creation in Genesis. This description from Hippolytus also corresponds to two versions of a text called
Epistle of EugnostosThe 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 HammadiNag 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.It has a population of about 30,000, who are mostly...
, where the same monad to decad relationship is described. (
Eugnostos in turn, has apparent resemblances to the gnostic text
The Sophia of Jesus ChristThe Sophia of Jesus Christ is one of many Gnostic tractates from the Nag Hammadi codices, discovered in Egypt in 1945. The title is somewhat coded, since although Sophia is Greek 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
GodGod is a deity in theistic and deistic religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
, which may be described as
pantheisticPantheism is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing immanent God and that the Universe 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 title, and that He finds the outlet (for Deity) to be from thyself.
This idea resembles the viewpoint of the much later
SufiSufism or ' , also spelled as tasavvuf and tasavvof, is generally understood to be the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ' , though some adherents of the tradition reserve this term only for those practitioners who have attained the goals...
Ibn ArabiIbn 'Arabī was an Andalusian Arab Sufi mystic and philosopher. His full name was Abū 'Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-`Arabī al-Hāṭimī al-Ṭā'ī .-Biography:...
, but no connection between the two is known.
External links