Note 46 — BOOK VIII THE DOCETAE, MONOIMUS, AND OTHERS

This “Monoimus Arabs” is known to no other heresiologist save Theodoret who here as elsewhere probably copied from Hippolytus. Salmon (D.C.B., s.n. “Monoimus”) suggests that the name may cover the Jewish appellation of Menahem, which is not unlikely. His system as here disclosed has this in common with that of the Ophites or Naassenes of Book V that both begin with a Divine Being called “Man” for no other assigned reason than that his manifestation here below is known as the Son of Man. He is not, however, here called Adamas as with the Naassenes, and the remark about his being at once father and mother is not necessarily connected with the Naassene hymn quoted on p. 140 Cr. For the rest, there is, pace Salmon, nothing distinctly Christian about Monoimus’ doctrine, and although the passage from Colossians about the Pleroma dwelling in the Son of Man is here again introduced, the context makes it possible that this is the comment of Hippolytus rather than a direct quotation. On the other hand, Monoimus several times speaks slightingly of those who believe that the Son of Man was born of a woman, and he shows a reverence for the Law and the Passover which a Christian of the second century would hardly have exhibited. His opinions seem in fact to be more pantheistic than Christian or Judaic, although as Macmahon truly remarks, his similes about the Creation are not far removed from those of Philo. His remarks about numbers have possibly been corrupted in the copy, and are unintelligible as they stand; but it is not unlikely that they cover some early Cabalistic notions and that his “Perfect Man” may be the Adam Cadmon of the Cabala.