Bythus
The Monad in Gnosticism is an adaptation of concepts of the Monad in Greek philosophy to Christian gnostic belief systems. Overview 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. In some gnostic systems, the Supreme Being is known as the Monad, the One, the Absolute, Aiōn Teleos (the Perfect Aeon, ), Bythos (Depth or Profundity, ), Proarchē (Before the Beginning, ), Hē Archē (The Beginning, ), the Ineffable Parent, and/or the primal Father. Prominent early Christian gnostics like Valentinus taught that the Monad is the high source of the Pleroma, the region of light constituting "the fullness of the Godhead." Through a process of emanation, various divine entities and realms emerge from the One. Arranged hierarchically, they become progressively degraded due to their remoteness from the Father. The various emanations of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pleroma
Pleroma ( grc-koi, πλήρωμα, literally "fullness") generally refers to the totality of divine powers. It is used in Christian theological contexts, especially in Gnosticism. The term also appears in the Epistle to the Colossians, which is traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle. The word is used 17 times in the New Testament. The word literally means "fullness", from the verb (, "to fill"), from ( πλήρης, "full").Svenska Akademiens ordbok, search on the word ''Pleroma'/ref> Christianity New Testament The word itself is a relative term, capable of many shades of meaning, according to the subject with which it is joined and the antithesis to which it is contrasted. It denotes the result of the action of the verb ''pleroun;'' but ''pleroun'' is either *to fill up an empty thing (''e.g.'' ), or *to complete an incomplete thing (''e.g.'' ); and the verbal substantive in -''ma'' may express either #the objective accusative after the verb, 'the thing filled or com ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Valentinus (Gnostic)
Valentinus (also spelled Valentinius; – ) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen. Valentinus produced a variety of writings, but only fragments survive, largely those quoted in rebuttal arguments in the works of his opponents, not enough to reconstruct his system except in broad outline. His doctrine is known only in the developed and modified form given to it by his disciples, the Valentinians. He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the ''gnosis'' (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish. Valentinu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aeon (Gnosticism)
In many Gnostic systems, various emanations of God are known by such names as One, Monad, ''Aion teleos'' (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos (, "depth" or "profundity"), ''Proarkhe'' ("before the beginning", ), ''Arkhe'' ("the beginning", ), and Aeons. In different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but emanation theory is common to all forms of Gnosticism. In Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες ''huiotetes''; sing.: υἱότης ''huiotes''); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called syzygies (Greek , from σύζυγοι ''syzygoi'', lit. "yokings together"). This source of all being is an Aeon, in which an inner being dwells, known as ''Ennoea'' ("thought, intent", Greek ), ''Charis'' ("grace", Greek ), or ''Sige'' ("silence", Greek ). The split perfect being conceives the second Aeon, ''Nous'' ("mind", Greek Νους), within its ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tetragrammaton
The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew language, Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', ''he (letter), he'', ''waw (letter), waw'', and ''he''. The name may be derived from a verb that means "to be", "to exist", "to cause to become", or "to come to pass".Translation notes for While there is no consensus about the structure and etymology of the name, the form ''Yahweh'' is now accepted almost universally, though the vocalization ''Jehovah'' continues to have wide usage. The books of the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible except Book of Esther, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and (with Tetragrammaton#Texts with similar theonyms, a possible instance of the Jah, short form in verse 8:6) the Song of Songs contain this Hebrew language, Hebrew name. Observant Jews and those who follow Talmudic Jewish traditions do not pronounce nor do they re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Apocryphon Of John
The ''Apocryphon of John'', also called the ''Secret Book of John'' or the ''Secret Revelation of John'', is a 2nd-century Sethianism, Sethian gnosticism, Gnostic Christian pseudepigrapha, pseudographical text attributed to John the Apostle. It is one of the texts addressed by Irenaeus in his ''Against Heresies (Irenaeus), Against Heresies,'' placing its composition before 180 CE. It is presented as describing Jesus appearing and giving secret knowledge (gnosis) to his disciple John. The author describes it as having occurred after Jesus had "gone back to the place from which he came". Overview Many second-century Christians, both Gnostic and orthodox, hoped to receive a transcendent personal revelation such as Paul the Apostle reported to the church at Corinth () or that John experienced on the isle of Patmos, which inspired the ''Book of Revelation''. As ''Acts'' narrates what happened after the time Jesus ascended to heaven, so the ''Apocryphon of John'' begins at the sam ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hippolytus Of Rome
Hippolytus of Rome (, ; c. 170 – c. 235 AD) was one of the most important second-third century Christian theologians, whose provenance, identity and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communities include Rome, Palestine, Egypt, Anatolia and other regions of the Middle East. The best historians of literature in the ancient church, including Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome, openly confess they cannot name where Hippolytus the biblical commentator and theologian served in leadership. They had read his works but did not possess evidence of his community. Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his '' Bibliotheca'' (cod. 121) as a disciple of Irenaeus, who was said to be a disciple of Polycarp, and from the context of this passage it is supposed that he suggested that Hippolytus so styled himself. This assertion is doubtful. One older theory asserts he came into conflict with the popes of his time and seems to have headed a schismatic group as a rival ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on and around the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras established the first Pythagorean community in the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek colony of Crotone, Kroton, in modern Calabria (Italy). Early Pythagorean communities spread throughout Magna Graecia. Pythagoras' death and disputes about his teachings led to the development of two philosophical traditions within Pythagoreanism. The ''akousmatikoi'' were superseded in the 4th century BC as a significant mendicant school of philosophy by the Cynicism (philosophy), Cynics. The ''mathēmatikoi'' philosophers were absorbed into the Platonic Academy, Platonic school in the 4th century BC. Following political instability in Magna Graecia, some Pythagorean philosophers fled to mainland Greece while others regrouped in Rhegium. By about 400 BC the majority of Pythagorean philosophers had left Italy. Pythagorean ideas exercised a m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dyad (Greek Philosophy)
The Dyad is a title used by the Pythagoreans for the number two, representing the principle of "twoness" or "otherness". Numenius of Apamea, a Neopythagorean philosopher in the latter 2nd century CE, said that Pythagoras gave the name of Monad to God, and the name of Dyad to matter.Chalcidius r.52, 5–24, as cited in Aristotle equated matter as the formation of the elements (energies) into the material world as the static material was formed by the energies being acted upon by force or motion. Later Neoplatonic Philosophers and idealists like Plotinus treated the dyad as a second cause (demiurge), which was the divine mind (nous) that via a reflective nature ( finiteness) causes matter to "appear" or become perceivable. See also *Monad *Tetrad Tetrad ('group of 4') or tetrade may refer to: * Tetrad (area), an area 2 km x 2 km square * Tetrad (astronomy), four total lunar eclipses within two years * Tetrad (chromosomal formation) * Tetrad (general relativity), or frame fiel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can be represented by symbols, called ''numerals''; for example, "5" is a numeral that represents the number five. As only a relatively small number of symbols can be memorized, basic numerals are commonly organized in a numeral system, which is an organized way to represent any number. The most common numeral system is the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, which allows for the representation of any number using a combination of ten fundamental numeric symbols, called digits. In addition to their use in counting and measuring, numerals are often used for labels (as with telephone numbers), for ordering (as with serial numbers), and for codes (as with ISBNs). In common usage, a ''numeral'' is not clearly distinguished from the ''number'' th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ... and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (''gnosis'') above the orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of religious institutions. Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent demiurge, lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the Yahweh of the Old Testament) who is responsible for creating the nature, material universe. Consequently, Gnostics considered material existence flawed or evil, and held the principal element of salvation to be direct ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Plotinus
Plotinus (; grc-gre, Πλωτῖνος, ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a philosopher in the Hellenistic philosophy, Hellenistic tradition, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the self-taught philosopher Ammonius Saccas, who belonged to the Platonism, Platonic tradition. Historians of the 19th century invented the term "neoplatonism" and applied it to refer to Plotinus and his philosophy, which was vastly influential during Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Much of the biographical information about Plotinus comes from Porphyry (philosopher), Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus' most notable literary work, ''The Enneads''. In his Metaphysics, metaphysical writings, Plotinus described three fundamental principles: Henology, the One, Nous, the Intellect, and the wikt:psyche#English, Soul. His works have inspired centuries of Paganism, Pagan, Jewish philosophy, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Point (geometry)
In classical Euclidean geometry, a point is a primitive notion that models an exact location in space, and has no length, width, or thickness. In modern mathematics, a point refers more generally to an element of some set called a space. Being a primitive notion means that a point cannot be defined in terms of previously defined objects. That is, a point is defined only by some properties, called axioms, that it must satisfy; for example, ''"there is exactly one line that passes through two different points"''. Points in Euclidean geometry Points, considered within the framework of Euclidean geometry, are one of the most fundamental objects. Euclid originally defined the point as "that which has no part". In two-dimensional Euclidean space, a point is represented by an ordered pair (, ) of numbers, where the first number conventionally represents the horizontal and is often denoted by , and the second number conventionally represents the vertical and is often denoted by . ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |