From Wikipedia (the complete source of all knowledge ):
"According to Hippolytus, who called the first thing that came into existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the numbers, which begat the point, begetting lines or finiteness, etc. Pythagorean and Platonic philosophers like Plotinus and Porphyry condemned Gnosticism for their treatment of the monad or one."
Sounds pretty High and Mighty but actually, I got Monad from a anime called "Ergo Proxy" which has several "Proxy" characters, one of which was Monad.