St Augustine - City of God
Chapter 23.—Whether We are to Believe that Angels, Who are of a
Spiritual Substance, Fell in Love with the Beauty of Women, and Sought
Them in Marriage, and that from This Connection Giants Were Born.
In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to
this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are
spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written,
“Who maketh His angels spirits,” [843] that is, He makes those who are
by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing
His messages. For the Greek word angelos, which in Latin appears as
“angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their
bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that
God’s ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is
doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that
angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen,
but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have
verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have
heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who
are commonly called “incubi,” had often made wicked assaults upon
women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils,
called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this
impurity is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it.
[844] From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether
there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this
element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body),
and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but
certainly I could by no means believe that God’s holy angels could at
that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the
Apostle Peter said, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but
cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to
be reserved unto judgment.” [845] I think he rather speaks of these
who first apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who
enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the
same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly
men have been called angels; for of John it is written: “Behold, I
send my messenger (angel) before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way.”
[846] And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially
communicated to him, was called an angel. [847]
But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the
connection between those who are called angels of God and the women
they loved were not men like our own breed, but giants; just as if
there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above)
men of much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at
Rome a few years ago, when the destruction of the city now accomplished
by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her father and mother, who
by her gigantic size over-topped all others? Surprising crowds from
all quarters came to see her, and that which struck them most was the
circumstance that neither of her parents were quite up to the tallest
ordinary stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even before the
sons of God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection
with the daughters of men, or of those living according to men, that is
to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection with the daughters
of Cain. For thus speaks even the canonical Scripture itself in the
book in which we read of this; its words are: “And it came to pass,
when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were
born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they
were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for
that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty
years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after
that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they
bare children to them, the same became the giants, men of renown.”
[848] These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate that
already there were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons
of God took wives of the children of men, when they loved them because
they were good, that is, fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture
to call those who are beautiful in appearance “good.” But after this
connection had been formed, then too were giants born. For the words
are: “There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after
that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men.”
Therefore there were giants both before, “in those days,” and “also
after that.” And the words, “they bare children to them,” show plainly
enough that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begat
children to God, not to themselves,—that is to say, not moved by the
lust of sexual intercourse, but discharging the duty of propagation,
intending to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but
citizens to people the city of God; and to these they as God’s angels
would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God, like
him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who hoped to
call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their
offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the
family of which God is the Father.
But that those angels were not angels in the sense of not being men, as
some suppose, Scripture itself decides, which unambiguously declares
that they were men. For when it had first been stated that “the angels
of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them
wives of all which they chose,” it was immediately added, “And the Lord
God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with these men, for that
they also are flesh.” For by the Spirit of God they had been made
angels of God, and sons of God; but declining towards lower things,
they are called men, a name of nature, not of grace; and they are
called flesh, as deserters of the Spirit, and by their desertion
deserted [by Him]. The Septuagint indeed calls them both angels of God
and sons of God, though all the copies do not show this, some having
only the name” sons of God.” And Aquila, whom the Jews prefer to the
other interpreters, [849] has translated neither angels of God nor sons
of God, but sons of gods. But both are correct. For they were both
sons of God, and thus brothers of their own fathers, who were children
of the same God; and they were sons of gods, because begotten by gods,
together with whom they themselves also were gods, according to that
expression of the psalm: “I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are
children of the Most High.” [850] For the Septuagint translators are
justly believed to have received the Spirit of prophecy; so that, if
they made any alterations under His authority, and did not adhere to a
strict translation, we could not doubt that this was divinely
dictated. However, the Hebrew word may be said to be ambiguous, and to
be susceptible of either translation, “sons of God,” or “sons of gods.”
Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called
apocryphal, because their obscure origin was unknown to the fathers
from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been transmitted to
us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession. For though there
is some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet they contain so many
false statements, that they have no canonical authority. We cannot
deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine writings, for
this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle. But it
is not without reason that these writings have no place in that canon
of Scripture which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew people by
the diligence of successive priests; for their antiquity brought them
under suspicion, and it was impossible to ascertain whether these were
his genuine writings, and they were not brought forward as genuine by
the persons who were found to have carefully preserved the canonical
books by a successive transmission. So that the writings which are
produced under his name, and which contain these fables about the
giants, saying that their fathers were not men, are properly judged by
prudent men to be not genuine; just as many writings are produced by
heretics under the names both of other prophets, and more recently,
under the names of the apostles, all of which, after careful
examination, have been set apart from canonical authority under the
title of Apocrypha. There is therefore no doubt that, according to the
Hebrew and Christian canonical Scriptures, there were many giants
before the deluge, and that these were citizens of the earthly society
of men, and that the sons of God, who were according to the flesh the
sons of Seth, sunk into this community when they forsook
righteousness. Nor need we wonder that giants should be born even from
these. For all of their children were not giants; but there were more
then than in the remaining periods since the deluge. And it pleased
the Creator to produce them, that it might thus be demonstrated that
neither beauty, nor yet size and strength, are of much moment to the
wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings,
in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are the
peculiar property of the good, and are not shared by good and bad
alike. It is this which another prophet confirms when he says, “These
were the giants, famous from the beginning, that were of so great
stature, and so expert in war. Those did not the Lord choose, neither
gave He the way of knowledge unto them; but they were destroyed because
they had no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness.” [851]
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[843] Ps. civ. 4.
[844] On these kinds of devils, see the note of Vives in loc., or
Lecky’s Hist. of Rationalism, i. 26, who quotes from Maury’s Histoire
de la Magie, that the Dusii were Celtic spirits, and are the origin of
our “Deuce.”
[845] 2 Pet. ii. 4.
[846] Mark i. 2.
[847] Mal. ii. 7.
[848] Gen. vi. 1-4. Lactantius (Inst. ii. 15), Sulpicius Severus
(Hist. i. 2), and others suppose from this passage that angels had
commerce with the daughters of men. See further references in the
commentary of Pererius in loc.
[849] Aquila lived in the time of Hadrian, to whom he is said to have
been related. He was excommunicated from the Church for the practice
of astrology; and is best known by his translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures into Greek, which he executed with great care and accuracy,
though he has been charged with falsifying passages to support the Jews
in their opposition to Christianity.
[850] Ps. lxxxii. 6.
[851] Baruch iii. 26-28.
