SATORNILO (Saturninus). - Gnostic of Antioch, a contemporary of Basilides. According to his doctrine the world was created by seven angels (a transformation of a Jewish tradition that spoke of a collaboration of angels in the work of God).
The appearance of the light, which is probably identified with Christ, creates in the angels the desire to form an image of the shining image; but the angels are unable to create an upright man, their work is a worm that writhes. Then the heavenly image sends a spark of its light into the bodies, which thus become living and upright beings. Here too a Jewish tradition is presupposed, which sharply distinguished in the creation of man the formation of the human body from its vivification, respectively from its upright posture. In death the heavenly part (scintillum) returns to heaven, while the body dissolves into its elements. But the doctrine of S. was more complicated and in the accounts of the Fathers is not clear. The unknown Father would have created four orders of angels, but then there is also mention of a fifth group, the principes, who are perhaps the angels of the peoples, and among whom is also placed the angel of the Jews, their God. Jesus would have come to destroy this God of the Jews. His followers are those who have received the spark of life. Propagation and marriage would be the work of Satan, who moreover would have inspired, together with the angels, the creators of the world, the prophecies of the Old Testament. The anti-Jewish, anti-cosmic, anti-prophetic and ascetic tendency of this gnosis is evident. Perhaps S. was opposed by St. Ignatius.
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