Saturninus

“ Like the Ophites, Saturninus rigidly opposed the commerce of the sexes, declaring marriage and generation to be alike the work of Satan, the declared enemy of the world-creating angels, and of their leader the God of the Jews [304] . But the followers of this Saturninus seem to have been few in number, and although all the later heresiologists preserved the memory of his teaching, it is probable that the sect itself did not long survive its founder [305] . ”

“ Saturninus, Bishop of Arles, alone united with Ursacius and Valens, two Illyrian Bishops, to vex the Catholics. They held an Arian synod at Béziers in Languedoc, at which Saturninus himself presided. S. Hilary there made a noble confession of the Nicene Faith, and refuted the heresy of Arius; but the party of Saturninus, reinforced by Bishops from the neighbouring countries, was too strong for him, and he was condemned and deposed; and immediately afterwards the Emperor Constantius banished him into Phrygia. ”

“ The happy ending of the war with the Cimbri and Teutones, and the putting down of the rebellion of Saturninus, were followed by a season of precarious tranquillity in which no thinking man could indeed have been blind to the real state of Rome, though the common herd might have felt as if all was going on right. ”

“ Saturninus.] The harangues of Memmius had shown that the spirit of the Gracchi was still alive in Rome; and now Lucius Apuleius Saturninus took up their revolutionary projects with a violence to which they had been averse, but for which the acts of their adversaries had become a fatal precedent. Of Saturninus himself we do not know much more than that he was an eloquent speaker, and a resolute though not over-scrupulous man at a time when to be scrupulous was equivalent to self-martyrdom or self-effacement. [Sidenote: Glaucia.] ”

“ Saturninus mainly had carried that exceptional commission against Caepio and his associates (6) in spite of the most vehement resistance by the government party; and in opposition to the same he had carried the keenly-contested re-election of Marius as consul for 652. Saturninus was decidedly the most energetic enemy of the senate and the most active and eloquent leader of the popular party since Gaius Gracchus; but he was also violent and unscrupulous beyond any of his predecessors, always ready to descend into the street and to refute his antagonist with blows instead of words. ”

“ MARTIUS.
We know not where you left them all alive;
But, out, alas, here have we found him dead.
Enter Tamora, Titus Andronicus and Lucius.
TAMORA.
Where is my lord the king?
SATURNINUS.
Here, Tamora; though grieved with killing grief.
TAMORA.
Where is thy brother Bassianus?
SATURNINUS.
Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound.
Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.
TAMORA.
Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,
The complot of this timeless tragedy;
And wonder greatly that man’s face can fold
In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny. ”

“ For Saturninus and Glaucia were determined that the bills which they brought forward, for the good of the people as they believed, should be passed. If any one ventured to oppose their measures or to become their rivals, they speedily perished. Saturninus hired assassins to slay such insolent folk.
At length even the people grew angry with the tribune and with Glaucia, and threatened to put them to death, so that the two men were forced to flee for refuge to the Capitol.
The Senate at once condemned them and their followers as public enemies, and called upon the Consuls to punish them. ”

“ Seeing his political power almost gone, Saturninus, in company with his fellow-tribune Glaucia and a band of the ruffians with which Rome was so badly infested at this time, seized the citadel on the capitol and attempted to raise an insurrection [191] against the republic. The citadel was considered to be impregnable to an attack, but Saturninus and his followers were soon forced into submission by the cutting off of their water supply. The insurgents had surrendered upon the condition that their lives should be spared. ”

“ I fear the Emperor means no good to us. AARON. Some devil whisper curses in my ear, And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth The venomous malice of my swelling heart! LUCIUS. Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave! Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in. Exeunt GOTHS with AARON. Flourish within The trumpets show the Emperor is at hand.
Sound trumpets. Enter SATURNINUS and TAMORA, with AEMILIUS, TRIBUNES, SENATORS, and others
SATURNINUS. What, hath the firmament more suns than one? LUCIUS. What boots it thee to can thyself a sun? MARCUS. Rome's Emperor, and nephew, break the parle ”

“ SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?
These tidings nip me, and I hang the head
As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.
Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.
'Tis he the common people love so much;
Myself hath often heard them say-
When I have walked like a private man-
That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,
And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.
TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong? ”

“ Basilides, whose name is associated with that of Saturninus by Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius, who all make him a fellow disciple with Saturninus of Menander, the continuator or successor of 90Simon Magus [306] , certainly flourished under the same reign at Alexandria, where he taught an extremely complicated doctrine, declaring that between the unknown Father of All and this world there was interposed a series of 365 heavens corresponding in number to the days of the year, the chief of them being called Abraxas, the letters of which word have that numerical value [307] . ”

“ AGREEING to those proposals, the tribune made his customary rounds through the entire imperial palace without interference. But knowing that it would be impossible for him to kill two emperors, especially since they were housed in different parts of the palace, Saturninus stood outside the bedroom of Severus and, summoning the imperial household guards, demanded to be taken to the emperor so that he might give him information involving his safety. ”

“ Marcion, the founder of the Marcionite Church, was a native of Pontus. Saturnilus or Saturninus—the name is spelt differently by Irenaeus and Hippolytus—came from Antioch, Theodotus from Byzantium, others, such as Cerdo, and probably Prepon the Syrian, began teaching in Rome, while we hear of a certain Monoimus, who is said to have been an Arab [34] . ”

“ In his address to Scapula [63] he says that the first governor to draw the sword on the Christians of Africa was Vigellius Saturninus. Dr Armitage Robinson's discovery of the original Latin text of the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, who {319} suffered under Saturninus, has enabled us to put a date to the event, for we read that it took place in the Consulship of Præsens (his second term) and of Claudianus—that is in 180 A.D., the year of the death of Marcus Aurelius. These Acts are of the briefest and most perfunctory character. ”

“ SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here, And at my lovely Tamora's entreats, I do remit these young men's heinous faults. Stand up. Lavinia, though you left me like a churl, I found a friend; and sure as death I swore I would not part a bachelor from the priest. Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides, You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends. This day shall be a love-day, Tamora. TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty To hunt the panther and the hart with me, With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour. SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too. ”

“ Like Saturninus, however, but in other words, he asserted that the soul alone was capable of salvation, but the body necessarily perishable. He taught, moreover, that they who knew his whole system, and could recount the names of the angels, &c., were invisible to them all, and could pass through and see them, without being seen in return; that they ought likewise to keep themselves individually and personally unknown to common men, and even to deny that they are what they are; that they should assert themselves to be neither Jews nor Christians, and by no means reveal their mysteries.—Epiph. ”

“ Saturninus, like Menander, set forth one father unknown to all, who made angels, archangels, powers, and potentates. The world, again, and all things therein, were made by a certain company of seven angels. Man, too, was the workmanship of angels, a shining image bursting forth below from the presence of the supreme power; and when they could not, he says, keep hold of this, because it immediately darted upwards again, they exhorted each other, saying, “Let us make man after our image and likeness.” ”

“ This Saturninus had a young maiden cousin of an age to marry, free-born and modest, whom Cyrillus, her father, had betrothed to him after the death of Hermogenes. After the bridal chamber had been made ready and everything prepared, Theodora imprisoned the youthful bridegroom, who was afterwards conducted to another chamber, and forced, in spite of his violent lamentations and tears, to wed the daughter of Chrysomallo. ”

“ When the king had said this, and the young men had not been produced to make any defense for themselves, the assessors perceived there was no room for equity and reconciliation, so they confirmed his authority. And in the first place, Saturninus, a person that had been consul, and one of great dignity, pronounced his sentence, but with great moderation and trouble; and said that he condemned Herod's sons, but did not think they should be put to death. He had sons of his own, and to put one's son to death is a greater misfortune than any other that could befall him by their means. ”

“ Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?
TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus,
And gratulate his safe return to Rome,
The people will accept whom he admits.
TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make,
That you create our Emperor's eldest son,
Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,
Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth,
And ripen justice in this commonweal.
Then, if you will elect by my advice,
Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!'
MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort,
Patricians and plebeians, we create
Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor ”

“ He triumphed for the Germans and Blemyes on his return to Rome.
A prince so just and upright, and at the same time so warlike as Probus, might have been expected to have no competitors for empire; yet even he had to take the field against rival emperors. The first of these was Saturninus, whom he himself had made general of the East, a man of both talent and virtue, and for whom he had a most cordial esteem. But the light-minded and turbulent people of Alexandria, on occasion of his entry into their city, saluted him augustus ”

“ Opposed to Saturninus was a noble of the most exalted type of character, Marcus Livius Drusus, son of the Drusus who had opposed the Gracchi. A genuine aristocrat, possessed of a colossal fortune, strict in his morals and trustworthy in every position, he was a man of acknowledged weight in the national councils. ”

“ When this was known, Saturninus (for by this time he had arrived and was busy in arranging the outposts and military stations in the country) gradually collected his men, and was preparing to retreat, in pursuance of a sufficiently well-devised plan, lest the multitude of barbarians by some sudden movement (like a river which had burst its barriers by the violence of a flood) should easily overthrow his whole force, which had now been for some time watching the place from which danger was suspected. ”

“ Saturninus, the active promoter, if not the instigator, of the attack, was now in Constantinople. Hilary confidently promises to demonstrate that the proceedings were a deception of Constantius, and an insult to Julian; if he fails, he will no longer petition to be allowed to return to the exercise of his office, but will retire to pass the rest of his days as a layman in repentance. ”

“ Nothing further is, however, known about Saturnilus or Saturninus or his heresy, which Epiphanius makes the third after Christ, nor is there any mention in any of the heresiologies of any writings by him. His story of a First or Pattern Man made in the image of the Supreme Being is common, as has been said, to many of the early heresies, and reappears in Manichæism. It is probably to be referred to some tradition current in Western Asia. See Bousset’s Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, cap. “Der Urmensch.”
[105] τῆς αὐθεντίας, “one who holds absolute rule.” ”

“ The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
He can at pleasure stint their melody;
Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.
Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,
I will enchant the old Andronicus
With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,
Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,
When as the one is wounded with the bait,
The other rotted with delicious feed.
SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us. ”

“ But the two demagogues were so compromised that they could not recede; they had no alternative save to resign their offices in the usual way and thereby to deliver themselves with their hands bound to their exasperated opponents, or now to grasp the sceptre for themselves, although they felt that they could not bear its weight. They resolved on the latter course; Saturninus would come forward once more as a candidate for the tribunate of the people for 655, Glaucia, although praetor and not eligible for the consulship till two years had elapsed, would become a candidate for the latter. ”