Monoimus

Male, Deceased Person

0150 – 0210

72

Who was Monoimus?

Monoimus was an Arab gnostic, who was known only from one account in Theodoret until a lost work of anti-heretical writings by Hippolytus was found. He is known for coining the usage of the word Monad in a Gnostic context. Hippolytus claims that Monoimus was a follower of Tatian, and that his cosmological system was derived from that of the Pythagoreans, which indeed seems probable. But it was also clearly inspired by Christianity, monism and Gnosticism.

According to Monoimus, the world is created from the Monad, a tittle that brings forth the duad, triad, tetrad, pentad, hexad, heptad, ogdoad, ennead, up to ten, producing a decad. He thus possibly identifies the gnostic aeons 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 Eugnostos found in Nag Hammadi, where the same monad to decad relationship is described.

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Born
0150
Died
0210

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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