SATURNINUS remained at Antioch, teaching the same general doctrine as his preceptor Menander. He defined the number of the angels by whom the world was made to be seven(563), one of whom was the God of the Jews; and he introduced one of the remaining angels, who had not been concerned in the creation, under the name of Satan, as the opponent of the Creators, and more especially of the God of the Jews(564). He represented the creation of man as having taken place at the suggestion of the Supreme Power, who exhibited to the angels a bright image of himself; which, as he immediately drew it up again to himself, they endeavoured to copy, and thus made man _after its image and likeness_: but not having the power to make him erect, he would have grovelled on the earth like a worm, had not the Supreme Power, taking compassion on this poor copy of himself, sent forth into it a spark of life, which gave it limbs and an erect posture(565). By an unaccountable inconsistency, however, (for having a system to make or improve at pleasure, he might as well have made its parts consistent with each other,) he likewise taught that there were at first created two sorts of men, one of which was not enkindled with the celestial spark: that those alone would be saved who possessed it(566); and that when they died, this heavenly portion of them would ascend to the Powers above, and the other portions of their nature would be dissolved(567).
The cause of the coming of the Saviour, or _Christ_, as they also called him, (who was unborn, incorporeal, and man only in appearance,) he declared to be the conspiracy of all the Angelic Princes, headed by the Jewish God, against the Supreme Father; which obliged him to come down to destroy the God of the Jews, together with demons and wicked men, and to save those who believed in him, that is, those who had received the spark of life. Who these demons were, or whether the whole of the angels were to be destroyed, we are not told(568).
The prophecies of the Old Testament he attributed partly to the Creators and partly to Satan(569).
It is evident that this is merely a modification of the scheme of Simon Magus, with the addition of _Satan_, and _the Jewish God_, and _the spark of life_: but there is another feature of his system which is remarkable, as differing widely from that of his predecessors. Instead of opening the door to unbridled lust, he affected an extraordinary repugnance to every thing carnal, declaring marriage and its natural consequences to be works of Satan; and some of his followers entirely abstain from animal food(570).