Gnostic dualism was distinguished by its absolute, radical character: All matter (the world and the body) is evil and has its source in an evil creator who fell from and betrayed the true God. This lesser, inferior divine being arose through some mysterious tragic split with the ultimate realm (the Pleroma or “fullness”) of the ultimate God, who is often called the Father of All. Some forms of Gnosticism believed that this split in the deity produced an extensive array of intermediary beings (archons,