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Gnostics maintain that the true God—often called the Monad—is beyond comprehension, an ultimate being responsible for the cosmos. According to their narratives, this Monad created a spiritual divine realm, known as the Pleroma, and beings called aeons, one of whom, Sophia, played a pivotal role in humanity's liberation. Through her act of creating the Demiurge, she inadvertently trapped humanity in a flawed physical world.
In an effort to liberate humanity from this prison, Sophia is said to have prompted the serpent in the Garden of Eden to offer Adam and Eve knowledge, thereby enabling their awakening. Thus, Gnostics view the fall from grace not as sin but as a necessary uprising against a malevolent deity.