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Augustine of Hippo on the Nephilim

We will consider Augustine of Hippo’s (354-430 AD) City of God beginning with chap 5 which is titled, “That It is Not Credible that the Gods Should Have Punished the Adultery of Paris, Seeing They Showed No Indignation at the Adultery of the Mother of Romulus.”

Therein, Augustine is engaged in a consideration as to “whether Venus could bear Æneas to a human father Anchises, or Mars beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor” and notes that “our own Scriptures” the Bible of course, “suggest the very similar question, whether the fallen angels had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, by which the earth was at that time filled with giants, that is, with enormously large and strong men.” He rhetorically asks “how can the gods be displeased with men for adulteries which, when committed by themselves, excite no displeasure?”

Thus far, he states that the interpretation of the Genesis 6 affair as pertaining to fallen angels and daughters of men is suggested by the Bible. In fact, the original, ancient and therefore common knowledge interpretation of Jews and Christians was the Angelic view.

In chap 20 Augustine fielding a question posed by Bishop Germanus of Auxerre (circa 429 AD) which runs thusly:

Since a passage of Genesis was a little while ago by the providence of God brought forward in our midst, and happily reminded us that we can now conveniently ask about a point which we have always longed to learn, we want to know what view we ought to take about those fallen angels who are said to have had intercourse with the daughters of men, and whether such a thing can literally take place with a spiritual nature.
And also with regard to this passage of the gospel which you quoted of the devil a little while back, “for he is a liar and his father,” we should like in the same way to hear who is to be understood by “his father.”

My reading of Germanus’ question is he is not asking about whether the Genesis 6 sons of God were Angels. Rather, he rightly presupposes as much and asks only “what view we ought to take” on this fact, that it does pertain to “fallen angels” but how could it be so considering their “spiritual nature.” We will come to this issue below.
On the second point, a footnote informs us that his reference is to John 8:44 and that “We find from Augustin (Tract. xxiv. in Johan.) that the Manichees” of which Augustine used to be one, “interpreted this text as implying that the devil had a father, translating it ‘For he is a liar, and so is his father.’ Augustine himself explains it as Abbot Serenus does below in c. xxv.; viz., that the devil is not only a liar himself but the parent of lies” which is quite right.

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Chap 22 is titled, “Of the Fall of the Sons of God Who Were Captivated by the Daughters of Men, Whereby All, with the Exception of Eight Persons, Deservedly Perished in the Deluge.” Note that his reference to cities is indicative of his books metaphor about the godly City of God versus the worldly City of Man:

When the human race, in the exercise of this freedom of will, increased and advanced, there arose a mixture and confusion of the two cities by their participation in a common iniquity. And this calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned by woman, though not in the same way; for these women were not themselves betrayed, neither did they persuade the men to sin, but having belonged to the earthly city and society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt manners from the first, and were loved for their bodily beauty by the sons of God, or the citizens of the other city which sojourns in this world…the good was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar to the good, but common to the good and the evil; and when they were captivated by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners of the earthly to win them as their brides, and forsook the godly ways they had followed in their own holy society…It was the order of this [godly] love, then, this charity or attachment, which the sons of God disturbed when they forsook God, and were enamored of the daughters of men.
And by these two names (sons of God and daughters of men) the two cities are sufficiently distinguished. For though the former were by nature children of men, they had come into possession of another name by grace. For in the same Scripture in which the sons of God are said to have loved the daughters of men, they are also called angels of God; whence many suppose that they were not men but angels.

He is weaving his concept of a godly city (system) and a worldly city (system) into Genesis in applying sons of God and daughters of men to one and the other cities. In stating that within “the same Scripture” the “sons of God…are also called angels of God” he is referring to the text of the LXX aka Septuagint Greek translation as he later writes, “The Septuagint indeed calls them both angels of God and sons of God, though all the copies do not show this.”
At this point, he has stated that the text suggests the Angelic view and now that “many suppose” it.

Chap 23 is titled, “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” and states:

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.

He then relates a Roman report of a Goth woman whose “gigantic size over-topped all others” but that “neither of her parents were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature.” Thus, he applies this tale to the issue at hand and notes that “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.”
Two thing of note are that he asserts that giants “might” have been born before the Genesis 6 affair but that is un-evidenced guess work. Also, we see that he now makes his view clear which is that sons of God and daughters of men refers to the sons of Seth and daughters of Cain (but why only one gender from each lineage?).

Augustine continues by quoting Genesis 6 the key verse of which, at this point in the discussion, is, “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…” Augustine comments thusly, “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.”

The English may be a little confusing as the verse states, “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…”

Augustine states, “there were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives of the children of men…”
These are slightly different manners whereby to sate the same thing and yet, the text seems to be merely stating that “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when” as in due to “the sons of God” coming “in unto the daughters of men…” with no implication that there were giants before this. Augustine’s conclusion is that “there were giants both before, ‘in those days,’ and ‘also after that.’” Yet, or so it seems to me, the text states that it was at that time and thereafter and not before that and thereafter or before, during and after.

Augustine claims that since the daughters of men “bare children to them” it shows that before the human “sons of God fell…they begat children to God, not to themselves.” He categorizes bearing children for oneself, as it were, as being the result of “lust of sexual intercourse” and of doing so for God as seeking to produce “citizens to people the city of God” such people, he tells us, “as God’s angels would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God…”

In this way, he can have his Angel’s food cake and eat it too in that he can affirm that they were angels in the literal meaning of the word which is messenger “But that those angels were not angels in the sense of not being men, as some” I will add more than some but in fact, all of the ancients “suppose.”

He goes on to claim that his view is that which “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.’”

Let us take a moment to note that Genesis 6 begins by referencing a time when “men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them” with men here not referring to a gender but to humanity as the Hebrew ‘adam (Strong’s H120) and not zakar (H2145) as in Genesis 1:27.
The text then states that “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” with the daughters of men being “men” in the human sense.
Then comes the verse noted above, “And the LORD 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.” This follows with “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 mighty men which were of old, men of renown” with the giants being referred to as “mighty men” which is a compound manner whereby to translate gibbowr (H1368) more commonly known as the Gibborim (when referring to “mighty men” with im being masculine plural) and ‘enowsh (H582 when referring to “men of renown” which is very telling since this term refer to a man “but only in poetic language” as per Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon which make sense since the context is that from those ancient times they became renown and would become the stuff of myth and legend).

Augustine notes:

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].

So the Angels are called men so that the men are Angels and what does this say of Augustine’s view on this text?

It is at this point that Augustine references the aforementioned LXX:

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, has translated neither angels of God nor sons of God, but sons of gods.

A footnote informs us:

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.

Now, as to the terms angels of God and sons of God Augustine states that “both are correct” and because:

…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.”
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.”

Another footnotes informs us “Lactantius (Inst. ii. 15), Sulpicius Severus (Hist. i. 2), and others suppose from this passage that angels had commerce with the daughters of men.” The note also references Benedictus Pererius’s (1535-1610 AD) commentary but I cannot seem to be able to find it.

Overall, where Augustine goes wrong is he begins with a misconception, a very common one and one shared by most proponents of the Sethite and Cainite view, which is to wrongly suppose that Angels are spirits and only appear human when interacting with us so that they do not have true bodies which could, for example, possess the required anatomy whereby to produce offspring.
The Bible tells us no such thing rather, Angels appear to be as physical as humans but possessing unfallen and thus that which we would term glorified or resurrection bodies. They can but do not have to interact with our universe’ dimensions.

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