SATORNILUS (Saturninus). — A 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 God’s work).
The appearance of the light, which is probably identified with Christ, arouses in the angels the desire to form an image of the radiant image; but the angels are unable to create a upright man, their work is a creeping worm. Then the celestial image sends a spark of its light into bodies, which thus become living and upright beings. Here too a Jewish tradition is assumed, which clearly distinguished in the creation of man the formation of the human body from its vivification, or rather from its upright posture. At death the celestial part (scintillum) returns to heaven, while the body dissolves into its elements. But Saturnilus’ doctrine was more complicated, and the accounts of the Fathers are unclear. The unknown Father would have created four orders of angels, but then mention is also made of a fifth group, the princes, who are perhaps the angels of the peoples, and among them is included 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, together with the angels, creators of the world, would have inspired the prophecies of the Old Testament. The anti-Jewish, anti-cosmic, anti-prophetic and ascetic tendency of this gnosis is evident. Perhaps Saturnilus was opposed by St. Ignatius.
but since the local bishop was Luciferian, he refused it as