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The termmonad (from Ancient Greek μονάς (monas) 'unity' and μόνος (monos) 'alone')[1] is used in somecosmic philosophy andcosmogony to refer to a most basic or original substance. As originally conceived by thePythagoreans, the Monad is thereforeSupreme Being,divinity, or the totality of all things. According to some philosophers of theearly modern period, most notablyGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, there are infinite monads, which are the basic and immense forces,elementary particles, orsimplest units, that make up the universe.[2]
According toHippolytus of Rome, the worldview was inspired by thePythagoreans, who called the first thing that came into existence the "monad", which begat (bore) thedyad (from the Greek word for two), which begat thenumbers, which begat thepoint, begettinglines orfiniteness, etc.[3] It meantdivinity, the first being, or the totality of all beings, referring incosmogony (creation theories) variously to source acting alone and/or an indivisible origin andequivalent comparators.[4]
Pythagorean andNeoplatonic philosophers likePlotinus andPorphyry of Tyre condemnedGnosticism (seeNeoplatonism and Gnosticism) for its treatment of the monad.
In hisLatin-language treatyMaximae theologiae,Alain de Lille affirms "God is an intelligiblesphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." The French philosopherFrançois Rabelais ascribed this proposition toHermes Trismegistus.[5]
The symbolism is a freeexegesis related to theTrinityminChristian theology.[5] Alan of Lille mentions Trismegistus'Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophers where it says a Monad can uniquely beget another Monad in which more followers of this religion saw the come to being of God the Son from God the Father, both by way of generation or by way of creation.[5] This statement is also shared by thepagan author of theAsclepius[5] which sometimes has been identified with Trismegistus. TheBook of the Twenty-Four Philosophers completes the scheme adding that the ardor of the second Monad to the first Monad would be theHoly Spirit in Christianity.[5] It closes a physical circle in a logical triangle (with aretroaction).
TheEuclideansymbolism of the centered sphere also concerns thesecular debate on the existence of acenter of the universe.
The idea of the monad is also reflected in thedemiurge, or the belief of one supreme being that brought about thecreation of the universe.
For the Pythagoreans, the generation of number series was related to objects ofgeometry as well as cosmogony.[6] According toDiogenes Laërtius, from the monad evolved the dyad; from it numbers; from numbers, points; then lines, two-dimensionalentities, three-dimensional entities, bodies, culminating in the fourclassical elements of earth, water, fire and air, from which the rest of our world is built up.[7][a]
The term monad was adopted fromGreek philosophy bymodern philosophersGiordano Bruno,Anne Conway,Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Monadology),John Dee (The Hieroglyphic Monad), and others. The concept of the monad as a universal substance is also used byTheosophists as a synonym for theSanskrit term "svabhavat";the Mahatma Letters make frequent use of the term.[9]
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