Episode Transcript
Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and welcome back to part two of the historical views of Genesis 6, 1 through 4, where we're talking about the interpretation of who the sons of God were, who the Nephilim were, and what the historical interpretation of these verses has been.
We've talked about Genesis, 1 Enoch, the Book of Giants, the Genesis Apocryphon, Jubilees, The Damascus document, Second Baruch, and then we talked about Philo of Alexandria, a little bit about the New Testament, but we're kind of already familiar with that. We talked about Josephus, and then we moved into the early church where I gave some quotes from Justin [00:01:00] Martyr, Tertullian, Bardasian, Julius Africanus, and Clement of Rome. Julius Africanus is the first one that we really see put forward the interpretation that the sons of God may have been men. But he doesn't totally brush off the idea that they were spiritual beings.
Now last time we did talk about the allegorical interpretation method because we talked about Philo of Alexandria and Philo of Alexandria was very much into that allegorical interpretation. But at the same time, he did not deny a literal reality to things spiritual.
And before we get into our discussion today, I want to talk a little bit more about this allegorical interpretation, because it makes us uncomfortable. At least it makes a lot of us uncomfortable, especially from the evangelical tradition, where we tend to emphasize the literal, grammatical, [00:02:00] historical method of interpretation, or at least the grammatical historical interpretation.
Now, how you're going to understand what that interpretive method entails is going to vary a little bit. But some form of grammatical historical hermeneutic is what we're most familiar with, and again, what we modern evangelical Protestant Christians are used to. This method of interpretation arose out of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. Now, that's not to say there was no grammatical historical method before, but it really got particular in this time, and it got defined, and this became the main way that we started interpreting Scripture.
I see quite often evangelicals clinging to this model as if it's the only way you can interpret things, or the best way. But the ancient Church Fathers did not use a grammatical historical interpretation. [00:03:00] Again, that doesn't mean they were ignoring grammar or historical interpretation and historical context. Many of them did use literal interpretations such as John Chrysostom and others in the Antiochian school. And some church fathers may have given emphasis on linguistics and grammar and historical context, so I'm not saying they didn't, but the way they did that is different than what we are doing today with our methods.
I just mentioned the Antiochian school. That came from Antioch, and another school was the Alexandrian school, and the Alexandrian school tended to favor allegorical interpretation. So we see that, depending on somebody's location and environment and fellow scholars and bishops, somebody might prefer one interpretive method over another.
And we see that today as well. You have different areas [00:04:00] of the country in America that have different interpretive methods. You can go over to Europe or Asia or Africa and they will also have different ways of interpreting scripture in different places. This is why it's a beautiful thing that the global church is starting to kind of stand up and make itself known so that we can have these wider interpretive things.
But again when we're talking about historical interpretations, it's not like the church fathers had to choose only one or the other. There's often a spectrum. Now, allegorical interpretation can absolutely go too far. In fact, just recently on Pilgrims in a Holy Land, which is my segment on the YouTube channel Faith Unaltered, where I talk about systematic theology and historical Christianity, we discussed the Epistle of Barnabas, which is absolutely an allegorical work, and it goes to the extreme of [00:05:00] denying a literal reality to what's going on in the Old Testament. It doesn't deny a history there. But it denies that the Mosaic law had a real literal interpretation as the Jews were understanding it. So I highly recommend going to check out that. And I might put a link in the show notes because reading the Epistle of Barnabas and understanding that context is going to help us understand what allegorical interpretation is and how it can go a little bit too far.
But it also doesn't mean it's not a good tool. There's still quite a bit in the epistle of Barnabas, even though it's not canonical or is not authoritative. It's really helpful to see how the early church was processing things and thinking about things, and it can show us how the allegorical method is really just a tool in our tool belt, and we shouldn't get rid of it because otherwise we miss out on things like a [00:06:00] christological reading of scripture. Or looking at typology, and it's also very similar to things like Midrash, which was a Jewish interpretive method. And I think we should be very careful not to suggest that our method of interpretation is the only one that has to be used by everyone. But allegorical readings can be seen as antithetical to good exegesis, especially for many Protestants.
Let me read something from the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary. It says, quote, Allegory is a literary device in which a story or narrative is used to convey truths about reality. The word allegory is taken from two Greek words, alla, which means other, and agoreau, to proclaim, and sorry if I totally butchered that pronunciation. An allegory conveys something other than its literal meaning. Sometimes allegory is defined [00:07:00] as an extended metaphor. Cicero viewed allegory as a continuous stream of metaphors. Allegorical interpretation is a reading of a text with a view to finding meanings other than the literal. Such interpretations are legitimate when it is clear that the text is an allegory. For example, John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress as an allegory. Therefore, allegorical interpretation is not only legitimate, but is required to understanding Bunyan's work. To bring allegorical interpretation to texts that are not allegories is to misread those texts. End quote.
Now, here is a bit later in this passage, because I want you to note just how Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary is trying to hold the definition of allegory to a very strict literal sense. They don't want to include anything like midrashic type interpretation that the New Testament sometimes [00:08:00] does, and they don't want to include typology into the definition of allegory. They want to see Paul use the term allegory itself to determine whether or not he was doing that.
Okay, it says, quote, Whether Paul ever used an allegorical hermeneutic in dealing with the Old Testament is debatable. He did employ the term on one occasion in Galatians 4, 22 through 31. And there are two other passages in his writings in which his method of interpretation is not strictly lexical and historical. See 1 Corinthians 9, verses 8 through 10, and 1 Corinthians 10, 1 through 11. Though Paul used the word allegory in Galatians 4, he did not employ what has come to be known as the allegorical method, but rather used typology, seeing the historical Sarah and Hagar as types pointing to later [00:09:00] anti types. Theological interpretation is a very valid approach that does not remove the historical element from the text, as allegorical interpretation generally does. The texts in 1 Corinthians 9 and 10 also feature a typological approach. Paul uses typology in his comparison of Adam and Christ in Romans 5, 12 through 21 as well. Paul's approach here was similar to Matthew's. Citing Old Testament testimonies about Jesus to demonstrate that he was the fulfillment of Old Testament expectations, not to contend for some dehistoricized allegorical interpretation. In the vast majority of Paul's specific interpretations of the Old Testament, he uses normal, lexical, historical, hermeneutic. End quote.
Okay, so again, they're being very specific to define what allegory is. So, something like the Epistle of Barnabas [00:10:00] is very allegorical because it does deny a literal reality. The point of the Epistle of Barnabas is to say that the church is Israel, but not in any kind of a historical sense, but in a spiritual sense. And it denies that Israel has any actual legitimacy to the claims of the promises of the covenant, because they sinned, and they broke the covenant, and so they're just out of the game now, and it's only the church.
But then we can look at Philo and see that he is using an allegorical method, but he's not denying a literal reality. And I get the emphasis on how allegory can seem to dismantle a historical interpretation, but I think that's misunderstanding what allegory might be and how it can be used. Again, we have Philo's interpretation of Genesis 6, and he wasn't tossing out a literal historical [00:11:00] interpretation.
And it's also a bit amusing that many people who will say things like this will want to believe the human or the Sethite view of Genesis 6. And they'll adamantly hold to that grammatical historical hermeneutic and not appreciate allegorical methods at all. And yet, it's the allegorical methods which brought us the human Sethite view. And even Augustine used allegory, quite frequently in fact.
So allegory does not have to dismantle a historical understanding. It often seems to me more to be about application than anything. A grammatical historical interpretive method does not mean that you're any better at applying the text than anyone else. In fact, it's often more difficult if you really want to only stick to a grammatical historical interpretive method.
This is why I have a problem with the claim that the plain [00:12:00] reading of Genesis 1 or the Flood account is the only one that you can have. By plain meaning, they don't mean the meaning that was plain to the early church or the ancient Israelite, which was clearly that these were spiritual beings, but rather the plain reading from somebody reading it today.
This is actually importing our historical understanding into the past, and that's not what a historical hermeneutic should be doing. A historical hermeneutic ought to be only taking from the understanding of the past, and we can nuance that when we see how there's a discrepancy between their understanding and ours, and we need to bridge that gap between the way that history was done or understood in the past and the way that we understand it or do it today.
And the question ultimately should be, what does all of this get us? How are we using the [00:13:00] text? And what is the focus? What's the theological message? What's the author trying to communicate? What are we supposed to understand when we read this? And you might actually get to the same answer using different hermeneutics.
For the early Christian, they were dealing with pagan cultures and Jews who didn't see Jesus as the Messiah. So that's why we see something like the Epistle of Barnabas. They were taking pastoral and apologetics approaches in part to help people get to a point where they can see how the Old Testament leads to Jesus.
And when you're in a geographical and cultural context that is distinct and different from the Bible and you're struggling with different passages, it makes perfect sense that people are going to start interpreting it in ways that try to do justice to the character of God and the narrative as a whole and who Jesus is.
[00:14:00] We today, who have access to a lot of information, don't have the same excuse as people did in the past to not understand that ancient context. But we also ought to use the difference between us and the ancient interpretation to give grace to the people around us today who have a different understanding or hermeneutic. And maybe they don't see the ancient context for what it is and for why that matters. As much as I do think that biblical theology and critical scholarship are fantastic tools, I think we do ourselves harm by using them as potential bludgeons, rather than invitations to explore and study. And we do further harm to ourselves by discounting interpretations or hermeneutics that don't align with our own, because there are always things we can learn from other people.
Last week, one of the questions I asked is how we can trust historical [00:15:00] interpretations when they're different, and how we can see that they didn't even use the same hermeneutics as we do today. So how are they trustworthy? One question we can ask is what is the crux of their interpretation? Are they trying to point people to Christ using the Old Testament? Are they trying to avoid theological traps that are currently swirling around them in their own context? Are they trying to bring people to Christ in cultural ways?
Now, I get that we don't like syncretism and things like that that can muddy the waters. But let's try and look at it from that perspective of bringing Christ in to the people who are there. I mean, we see Paul do that with the idol of the unknown God in Acts, right? Are these people trying to build disciples? For example, like the allegorical emphasis that equates the angels with humans. And they're trying to show how good behavior [00:16:00] can be seen and bad behavior can be seen. And these are examples of them.
This doesn't mean we can't work to correct theology, or interpretation, or hermeneutics where we've got those wrong. In fact, part of my goal in this series of episodes is to show how a supernatural view of Genesis 6 is really what we should be taking as the historical interpretation, and the earliest interpretations should have more weight than later ones, because those later ones are dealing with their own baggage.
But, sometimes I wonder if we are focused on the right problems. After all, as we can see, the Sethite view did indeed become quite popular after a certain time in history. And I'll further say that discounting the supernatural has not really done the Church a big favor in many ways, and bad theological ideas do harm in deep ways that we can't always [00:17:00] predict. But I'll also say it hasn't really stopped the growth and progression of the Church. The Great Commission still goes on. Again, that's not a suggestion to ignore problems and to not teach good theology, but we do need to have a really big dose of humility.
So again, we've talked already up to about the 200s, and we see that the angelic view dominant. Okay, so again, we've talked already up to about the 200s, and we see that angelic view has remained by far the most dominant. And it remains the most dominant until we get into the 300s, when we see some commentators start taking that human view.
After the middle of that century, the angelic view does not go away. It remains in places. People still talk about it. But, we see a quick shift to the human view being dominant. And, to be fair, this did begin happening before Augustine. But Agustine is [00:18:00] a major player in this, and I'm going to save talking about him for a third episode because I just simply don't think I can do it justice here. He's been so influential that I think he deserves more in depth treatment.
Again, to review what we've talked about, the angelic view was universal early on, even including Philo, though he is the first we know of who gave a dual meaning with some allegory. Plus Julius Africanus. But even Africanus gave the Angelic View as a possibility, saying that if they were angels, it was the angels who taught human women bad things, and that resulted in the giants, and that made the world wicked enough for everyone to be destroyed in the Flood.
So, you see, the Angelic View does not in any way take away the responsibility of humans for their wickedness and for the cause of the Flood. It just gave an avenue through which that grew to the exponential level [00:19:00] that happened, right? The depravity of man. We ended last time talking about the view from Clement of Rome, which is interesting because he says that the angels took on human flesh and they were trapped in that flesh. And that's how they were bound. And I talked about my view of angels appearing as humans and how I think they really would have had human flesh. That's as opposed to Philo, who talked about spiritual substance that the angels would have had.
Now, let's get into some Gnostic thought. For those who aren't familiar, one aspect of Gnosticism, aside from secret knowledge that is supposed to give salvation, is that Gnosticism was a dualistic belief. It saw that spirit and flesh were opposed, and physical existence was a bad thing. So, if spirit is good, and flesh is bad, then angels who come down from heaven are doing something that [00:20:00] is inherently corrupting to themselves, because they're leaving behind their spirit, and they're becoming flesh.
Again, this isn't the incarnation. There's a difference between the incarnation of God, who came into humanity as a human and lived the full experience of human, who was conceived, born, all of that. Whereas an angel is just going to come down and assume human form.
Alright, so we have the Acts of the Holy Apostle Thomas. This was probably written between 200 and 250. This is not the Gospel of Thomas. The Gospel of Thomas was just a bunch of sayings, and again, that is also a Gnostic text. And we can also look at the book of Thomas, which is a different book itself, and the Book of Thomas is where Jesus talks with his twin, and there's a lot of Gnostic secret teachings there.
So the Acts of the Holy [00:21:00] Apostle Thomas is a third in this kind of grouping of texts about Thomas. It has stories about Judas Thomas, or Judas the twin, and his mission to India. The view of Jesus in this book probably is docetic, or in other words, Jesus only had the appearance of reality as a human. And Thomas is presented as Jesus identical twin, but in a different way, like he's an actual human, and how that works is anybody's guess.
It's a very Gnostic text, like I said. Jesus appears to a young woman who is just wed, and he tells her to remain a virgin. Because, you know, we don't want anything to do with this physical stuff. We also see the idea that Jesus had no physical suffering because he wasn't really a human.
The Acts of Thomas has the dragon speak about what he has done. And so we're going to start seeing serpent [00:22:00] seed theology here. It's probably referencing Revelation 12 and the casting down of the angels by the dragon, and it's obviously referencing the Genesis 6 episode with that. The angels here are not on the dragon's side, but we might say they're cursed by him.
All right, reading from the Acts of the Holy Apostle Thomas, quote, And when the Apostle had thus spoken, Behold, a great dragon came forth from his den, knocking his head, and brandishing his tail down to the ground. And using a loud voice, said to the Apostle, I shall say before you for what cause I have put him to death, since you are here in order to reprove my works. And the Apostle inquired of him, saying, Tell me, of what seed and of what race are you? He said to him, I am the offspring of the race of the serpent and hurtful of the hurtful. I am son of him who hurt and struck the four [00:23:00] brothers that stood. I am son of him who sits on the throne of destruction and takes his own from what he has lent. I'm son of that apostate who encircles the globe. I'm kinsman to him who is outside of the ocean. Whose tail lies in his mouth. I am he who went into paradise through the hedge and spoke with Eve what my father bade me speak to her. I am he who inflamed and fired Cain to kill his brother. And through me thorns and prickles spring up in the ground. I am he who cast down the angels from above and bound them down by the desires of women that Earthborn children might be produced from them and that I might work my will in them. I am he who hardened the heart of Pharaoh, that he should murder the children of Israel, and keep them down by the hard yoke of slavery. I am he who caused the multitude to err in the desert, when they made the calf. I am he who inflamed Herod, and incited [00:24:00] Caiaphas to the lying tales of falsehood before Pilate. For this became me. I am he who inflamed Judas, and brought him, that he should betray Christ. I am he who inhabits and holds the abyss of Tartarus, and the Son of God has wronged me against my will, and has gathered his own out of me. I am the kinsman of him who is to come from the east, to whom also power has been given to do whatever he will upon the earth. End quote.
So, this is definitely not a text we would say is authoritative, or that's going to have any kind of decent theology, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, and even the Gnostics will see the Genesis 6 episode as being about spirit beings.
Okay, another quote from Lacantius. He lived from 250 to 325, and he was actually an advisor to Constantine. He was [00:25:00] previously a professor of rhetoric under Diocletian, and he converted to Christianity. When there was a whole bunch of persecution at that time, he lost his teaching position. But he later became an advisor to Constantine and a tutor of his son. He's often called the Christian Cicero because of his skill in rhetoric. And he is an early Latin Christian apologist. He says that the sons of God were sent to protect mankind and because of free will they defiled themselves and they couldn't go back up to heaven.
Alright, he says, quote, when therefore, the number of men had begun to increase God in his forethought, lest the devil to whom the beginning he had given him power over the earth should, by his subtlety either corrupt or destroy men, as he had done at first, sent angels for the protection and improvement of the human race. And inasmuch as he had given these a free will, he [00:26:00] enjoined them above all things not to defile themselves with contamination from the earth, and thus lose the dignity of their heavenly nature. He plainly prohibited them from doing that which he knew that they would do, that they might entertain no hope of pardon. Therefore, while they abode among men, that most deceitful ruler of the earth, by his very association, gradually enticed them to vices, and polluted them by intercourse with women. Then, not being admitted into heaven on account of the sins into which they had plunged themselves, they fell to the earth. End quote.
Okay, so that was a quote from Divine Institute's book two in a section called Of the Origin of Error. So last week I mentioned how we could kind of wonder whether or not they're really looking and trying to explore this question of where did sin come from? And so here [00:27:00] we see a very clear reality that he's explaining the origin of sin by using this Genesis 6 episode. So again, it's not just Genesis 3, but it's also Genesis 6. And the reason I said that last week was because not everyone has the concern of the origin of sin. That doesn't mean that that's not the case in many of these writings and what people are thinking about. It's just not what everybody is thinking about necessarily.
Alright, now we're gonna talk about Commodianus. His view is that the sons of God were angels sent by God. But now we have the story of giants here. This was written about 250, and it does have some heterodox theology. He was the convert, and he was writing while things were still being hashed out with the Trinity. So, he has some questionable things about the nature of God. Definitely [00:28:00] influenced by the book of 1st Enoch. Okay, so, now we're gonna see how angels taught men, and idols are disembodied spirits of giants who are wandering. We see that in Josephus, we see it in Eusebius, we see it in Justin Martyr, and obviously in First Enoch.
He says, quote, When Almighty God, to beautify the nature of the world, willed that the earth should be visited by angels, when they were sent down, they despised his laws, such was the beauty of women, that it turned them aside, so that, being contaminated, they could not return to heaven. Rebels from God, they uttered words against him. Then the Highest uttered his judgment against them, and from their seed giants are said to have been born. By them, arts were made known in the earth, and they taught the dying of wool, and everything which is done. And to them, [00:29:00] when they died, men erected images. But the Almighty, because they were of an evil seed, did not approve that when dead they should be brought back from death. Whence, wandering, they now subvert many bodies. And it is such as these, especially, that to this day worship and pray to as gods. End quote.
Okay, so that's a really good interpretation here. And we've got a little bit of conflation, though, with the sons of God and the demons. Because in Enoch, we have the sons of God and the Nephilim, and those are different, right? And the demons of the New Testament are described as being the spirits of the Nephilim, whereas here, we have the sons of God who die, and they become demons, because they are also wandering. So we're missing this idea of them being trapped in the underworld, versus the demons who are wandering the [00:30:00] earth. Okay, so you can see how it gets a bit confusing with all of these, because not everybody has the same ideas. They're related. They're similar, but they're different.
All right. So now let's talk about Eusebius of Caesarea. He lived from 263 to 339. He definitely had a lot of influence from Greek and pagan myths and wanted to equate those with the Bible. He said that giant spirits were demons, were gods.
Quoting from Eusebius, he says, quote, And this argument is still further confirmed by Plutarch in the passage where he says that the mythical narratives told as concerning gods are certain tales about daemons, and the deeds of giants and titans celebrated in song among the Greeks, are also stories about daemons, intended to suggest a new phase of thought. Of this [00:31:00] kind, then, perhaps, were the statements in the Sacred Scripture concerning the giants before the flood, and those concerning their progenitors, of whom it is said, And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, they took unto them wives of all that they chose. And of those were born the giants, the men of renown which were of old. For one might say that these daemons are those giants, and that their spirits have been deified by the subsequent generations of men, and that their battles, and their quarrels among themselves, and their wars are the subjects of these legends that are told as of gods. Plutarch indeed, in the discourse which he composed on Isis and the gods of the Egyptians, speaks as follows word for word. They therefore do better who think that the incidents recorded concerning Typhon, and Osiris, and Isis refer to sufferings neither of gods nor of men, but of certain mighty [00:32:00] daemons, for various degrees of virtue and vice are found in daemons just as in men. End quote.
We also have a connection with Babylon. Quote, Eupolemus, in his book concerning the Jews of Assyria, says that the city Babylon was first founded by those who escaped from the deluge, and that they were giants, and built the tower renowned in history. But when this had been overthrown by the act of God, the giants were dispersed over the whole earth. End quote.
All right. So we've had the human view in mind. But we're still seeing a whole lot of angelic view here, but we're going to turn now to some human views. We're still not even to Augustine yet. I am now going to read a short quote from Aphrahat, the Persian sage. He lived from 280 to 345, [00:33:00] probably followed a type of monasticism where he was aesthetic and he was celibate. He was contemporary of Ephraim the Syrian that we'll talk about here in a minute. But he was in the east.
He has the idea of the line of Seth versus the line of Cain. And Noah saw this terrible intermarriage between bloodlines and he determined that he wouldn't marry or have kids because he didn't want to be associated with the cursed line of Cain. This is again going to parallel Ephraim the Syrian that we'll talk about here in a minute.
He says, quote, when Noah saw that the generation of Seth was intermingled with the house of Cain, which was cursed, he determined that he would not marry a wife nor have children, so that they should not be intermingled and cursed with the house of Cain, the cursed seed. End quote.
Okay, so another really big influence here, we're gonna [00:34:00] see Athanasius of Alexandria. He lived from about 2 96 to 3 73 and he was very much against Arianism and he had a very strong defense of the Trinity. He said that the Sons of God were the Sons of Seth, and they mixed with the line of Cain, sullying their bloodline.
He says, quote, From Adam, Seth was born, who was the third after Abel. And from Seth, Enosh was born. He hoped to be called the Lord and God. Therefore, the children born from him bear the name Sons of God, just like we also, from the name of the Master Christ, are called Christians. The race of Seth was segregated and not mixed with the race of Cain because of the curse which was laid on him by the God of the Universe. But later, when they observed how beautiful the daughters of Cain's family were, they became enchanted and [00:35:00] took them for themselves as wives, thus ruining their ancestral nobility. End quote.
This is still, again, not Augustine, and Athanasius definitely has a really big influence on a lot of church history and a lot of our theology. We'll probably bring him into the discussion a little bit more when we talk about Augustine later. But I want to get to this quote from Ephraim the Syrian because this one is just so interesting. He lived from 306 to 376, and he was a hymnographer, so he wrote hymns. And he was, again, a contemporary with Aphrahat, but on the Roman side. And while this predates what we think of monasticism, he was still kind of in that line of thought, right? An early pre monk, we might say. So a lot of emphasis on celibacy and things like that. And he taught the [00:36:00] virginity of Moses for 500 years. So, again, that's very like what Aphrahat was saying, but he's very specific about this.
We also have here a reason for the giants, a physical reason, which is, this is fascinating. He says that Cain was cursed from the ground, so he couldn't produce very good food. So that means that they were weaker and not as strong. Now, why that meant they would have beautiful women, I don't know, but that is the reason for the giants.
This is a fascinating passage. I kind of love this one. He says, quote, Moses said, Noah was five hundred years old, and begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth. During this entire time, Noah was an example to his sons by his virtue, for he had preserved his virginity for five hundred years among those of whom it is said all [00:37:00] flesh corrupted its path. After he spoke of the virtue of Noah, Moses turned to speak about the evil desire that was working in the children of his generation. Saying, And it came to pass that when men increased, and daughters were born to them, for he called those of the house of Cain men, and said that daughters were born to them, to show that the line of their generation had been cut off, as we said above. And the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took to wife such of them as they chose. He called the sons of Seth, the sons of God. Those who, like the sons of Seth, had been called the righteous people of God. The beautiful daughters of Men, whom they saw, were the daughters of Cain, who adorned themselves and became a snare to the eyes of the sons of Seth. Then Moses said, They took to wife such as them as they chose, because when they took them, they acted very haughtily over those whom they chose. A poor one would [00:38:00] exalt himself over the wife of a rich man. And an old man would sin with one who was young. The ugliest of all would act arrogantly over the most beautiful. After these things, Moses wrote of the offspring produced from the union of the daughters of Cain and the sons of Seth, saying, There were mighty men in those days, and also afterward. Because judges went into the daughters of men, they bore the mighty men who were of old. The Mighty Men of Renown. The Mighty Men, who were born, were born to the feeble tribe of Cain, and not to the mighty tribe of Seth. The house of Cain, because the earth had been cursed so as not to give them its strength, produced small harvests, deprived of its strength, just as it is today that some seeds, fruits, and grasses give strength, and some do not. Because at that time, they were cursed and sons of the cursed, and were dwelling in the land of curses, they would gather and eat produce that lacked [00:39:00] nutrition, and those who ate these were without strength, just like the food that they ate. As for the Sethites, on the other hand, because they were the descendants of the blessed, Seth, and were dwelling in the land along the bounty of the fence of paradise, their produce was abundant and full of strength. So, too, were the bodies of those that ate that produced strong and powerful. Therefore, these mighty sons of Seth went into the daughters of Cain, that fearful wanderer, and they begot for the descendants of Cain mighty men of renown. Moses adds, of old, because those thus born to the descendants of Cain were like Seth and Enosh, the first mighty men of renown. After Moses spoke about the mighty men who were born into the tribe of Cain, whose women, even though beautiful, were nevertheless smaller than the sons of Seth. He then said, The Lord saw that the [00:40:00] wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was always evil. For in the years given to them for repentance, they had increased their sins. The wickedness of mankind was great in the earth. That is, evil extended and spread throughout those tribes. And the inclination of the thoughts of the hearts was always evil, for their sins were not committed only occasionally, but their sins were incessant. Night and day they would not desist from their wicked thought. End quote.
All right, so that's very extensive, very detailed, and yeah, it's just really interesting to read these ancient accounts. And again, you know, somebody who is focused on celibacy and spiritualness in the form of abstinence from intercourse and things like that, he's gonna see this story in light of that.
Alright, so suddenly we've got [00:41:00] quite a string of people who are taking that human view. And again, this is happening before, but around the time of Augustine. That doesn't mean this is the only view though.
We have Ambrose of Milan who lived from 340 to 397 and he became bishop even before he was baptized. He has a really interesting story. But again, he has also an aesthetic lifestyle and is a fierce opponent of Arianism. And he was mentored and baptized by Augustine of Hippo. And he is one of the four original doctors of the church in Catholicism. So he's a pretty big deal here.
And he says, quote, the author of Divine Scripture does not wish these giants to be understood according to the custom of poets as children of the earth, but rather it asserts that they were begotten of angels and women and calls them by this name to express the [00:42:00] size of their bodies. End quote.
Okay, so then we're going to move to Jerome. He lived from about 342 to 420. Of course, he translated the Bible into Latin in the form of the Vulgate that we have in Latin. And we're not quite sure where he lands because he seems to be trying to be a bit neutral. He says quote in the Hebrew it has the following Fallen ones that is Nephilim were on the earth in those days and after these things when the sons of the gods used to go into the daughters of men and breed with them, they were the mighty ones from the beginning men called by name. End quote.
And then he references another commentary. He says, quote, Instead of falling ones, or giants, Semachus translated violent ones. The name falling ones is indeed fitting both for angels and [00:43:00] for the offspring of holy ones. End quote.
So again, we're gonna kind of skip over Augustine and we'll give him a lot more space in the next episode because there's a lot to read from Augustine.
But then we have John Cassian. He was a monk who lived from 360 to 435, also called John the Ascetic. And he brought monasticism to the West, and he is going to take the human view as well.
He says, quote. Since by God's design, a reading from Genesis was produced a little while ago, which made such a significant impression on us that now we can pursue properly what we have always wanted to learn. We also wish to know what should be thought about those apostate angels that are said to have had intercourse with the daughters of men. Understood literally, would this be possible for a spiritual nature? By no means should it be believed that spiritual natures can have [00:44:00] carnal relations with women. But, if this could have happened in a literal sense, why does it not occur now, at least occasionally? And why do we not see some people born of women without sexual intercourse having been conceived by demons? Although this beneficial and holy division between them existed up until that time, when afterward the sons of Seth, who were the sons of God, saw the daughters of those who were born of the offspring of Cain, they were inflamed by desire for their beauty and took wives from them for themselves. They imparted their parents wickedness to their husbands, and from the very first, turned them away from their inborn holiness and ancestral simplicity. But when it intermingled with the wicked generation, it fell into profane and harmful deeds that it had dutifully learned at the instigation of demons, and thereupon it boldly instituted the strange acts of wizards, sleights, and magic tricks, [00:45:00] teaching its descendants that they should abandon the sacred cult of the divinity, and worship and adore elements of fire and the demons of the air. End quote.
Okay, so again, he's not denying a spiritual reality, and, he's definitely going the human route for the interpretation here.
One of the last interpreters we'll talk about that has an angelic view, is Supletius Severus. He lived from 363 to 425. He was a lawyer and a convert to Christianity, and after his wife died, he devoted himself to an aesthetic lifestyle.
We might wonder what's up with all of this, but I think a lot of it is because the writings that we have preserved because of the monks and the people who are living these kinds of lifestyles. So whether or not there were other writings who maybe had other opinions, maybe those weren't preserved by the monks. [00:46:00] We don't really know, but maybe this was just the main line of thought.
But he says, quote, When by this time the human race had increased to a great multitude, certain angels, whose habitation was in heaven, were captivated by the appearance of some beautiful virgins, and cherished illicit desires after them, so much so, that falling beneath their own proper nature and origin, they left the higher regions of which they were inhabitants, and allied themselves in earthly marriages. These angels, gradually spreading wicked habits, corrupted the human family. And from their alliance, giants are said to have sprung, for their mixture with them of beings of a different nature, as a matter of course, gave birth to monsters. God, being offended by these things, and especially by the wickedness of mankind, which had gone beyond measure, had determined to destroy the whole human race. [00:47:00] End quote.
Alright, so definitely a focus here on human depravity and the connection with angelic teachings and angelic influence. So I have quite a few more quotes here, but I'll do a bit of a survey and kind of hitting on them a little bit more briefly.
We have John Chrysostom, who is a great writer, a great preacher of the early church. He lived from 374 to 407, and was again an ascetic monk, the Archbishop of Constantinople against his will, and he definitely went down the human view and rejected the angelic view.
We have Cyril of Alexandria, who lived from 376 to 444, and he gave a good defense of the unity of Jesus's human and divine natures and defended Mary as the Theotokos. And he also went the human view.
We [00:48:00] have Flastrius of Brescia, and sorry if I don't pronounce that right, I have no idea how to pronounce that. He lived in 384, he was a bishop, and he actually said that believing in giants is a heresy, but then again, he spent a lot of time trying to define orthodox belief and the history of heresies.
So, again, we really have to pay attention to what these people were writing about, what their mental focus was, and what their influences were. In fact, I'll go ahead and read this one because giants are a heresy, right?
He says, quote, there is a heresy which asserts about the giants that, prior to the flood, angels intermingled with women, and that as a result, giants are imagined to have been born. If one has thought it to be justified that angels, transformed into flesh, sinned in that way, and that they also remained in the flesh, [00:49:00] or if one believed that they committed such carnality, history will decide that this is a bad explanation, like all the lies of the pagans and the poets assert that the gods and goddesses were guilty of horrible unions.
So, again, I think that's a lot to do with apologetics and polemics and things like that. Now, again, like I said, the angelic view does not entirely go away. We have Nemesius of Emesa, and I have no idea, again, if I pronounced that correctly, in 390. He was a bishop, and he wanted to synthesize Greek philosophy and Christian thought.
He wrote a book called On Human Nature, and he says, quote, Of the incorporeal beings, only angels fell away, and not all of them, but some only, that inclined to things below, and set their desire on things of earth, withdrawing themselves [00:50:00] from their relations with things above, even from God, end quote.
And then, most of the quotes after this are predominantly the human view. Basil of Seleucia, who died in 458, said that, quote, the sons of Seth are called sons of God, bearing that name as a symbol of their relationship with God. End quote.
And again, we can take some issue with these things, because if the sons of Seth and the sons of God are the good guys, then why did the flood come? It just ruins the whole narrative of the flood. It doesn't make any sense to the chronological narrative flow of the story.
That kind of sums up all of the early views, then we have to move into the medieval views, which is predominantly the human view.
We have Procopius of Gaza , he lived from 465 to 528, and he had a famous school of rhetoric in Gaza [00:51:00] and wrote some commentaries. And he's interesting because his commentaries really relied heavily on previous ones. And so he kind of produced a new way of doing commentaries, not that other people didn't also do that from time to time, but he really stressed this as kind of his method. And he is a bit of a transition between classical Christian thought to late antiquity.
He says, quote, it is also written angels of God. Some say that this is said about fallen powers. The mingling of angels with women, however, it's impossible and against nature. Scripture calls the chosen race angels or sons of God, namely the ones who originated from Seth and Enoch, and they are called such because of their holiness. End quote.
Now, an interesting point we could consider here is that by the New Testament, the Saints, the church [00:52:00] were called the Holy Ones, and that relates to the Old Testament language of angelic beings and the divine counsel, right? So if you're not seeing this biblical theology contextual understanding of Old Testament versus New Testament and the change that happened with Jesus, then of course you're gonna see this conflation of, well, you know, if people can be saints or holy ones in the New Testament, then, of course, the holy ones in the Old Testament could also just be humans, right? So again, it depends on our information. It depends on what we're studying and what we're emphasizing, the kinds of things that we're thinking about.
I want to read maybe a couple more. We have the Book of the Cave of Treasures. Which, that is a great title, isn't it? You want it to be magical and really it just comes down to the human view again. This was about the year [00:53:00] 600, but it claims to be written by Ephraim the Syrian that we talked about earlier.
It's a retelling of biblical history from creation to Pentecost. It's written in Syriac. It presents itself as having esoteric knowledge and true interpretation and background to understand the Bible. It includes a lot of apocryphal traditions, especially about Adam and Eve. It reconstructs history, basically, leaving out particular parts that center on Judaism. Surprise, surprise. The title refers to a legendary cave near Paradise that served as the home and burial place for Adam and Eve and early generations before the flood. So yeah, it's kind of a magical kind of a story, but again, it's gonna land on that human view.
It says quote, and the sons of Seth had intercourse with the daughters of Cain and they conceived by them and brought forth mighty men. [00:54:00] The sons of heroes, like towers. Hence early writers have erred, and written, The angels came down from heaven, and had intercourse with mankind, and from them were born mighty men of renown. But this is not true. They have said this because they did not understand. Now see, my brother readers, and know that this is neither in the nature of spiritual beings, nor in the nature of the impure and evildoing demons who love adultery. For there are no males nor females among them, nor has there been even one added to their number since they fell. If the devils were able to have intercourse with women, they would not leave one single virgin undefiled in the whole human race. End quote.
Remember, this was presumed to be written by Ephraim the Syrian, and he was the one who emphasized Noah's virginity.
So the Book of the Cave of Treasures also says, quote, And when Noah saw that sin had increased in his generation, [00:55:00] he preserved himself in virginity for five hundred years. End quote.
All right, the last quote I'm going to give is actually not a Christian quote. This is from Al Tabari, and he lived from 839 to 923. He was Persian. He wrote a commentary on the Quran. And a historical chronicle from creation to 915. His works have had a lasting impact on Islamic scholarship, and his historical writings and his commentary are really important for understanding medieval Islam. And he also had a really good approach to compiling and presenting his information. So, he collected oral and written reports and just kind of presented them as they were. So he's a bit of a modern type scholar, really. It's very interesting. So, just because he is Islamic and he is coming from that, he [00:56:00] does try to present neutral information.
And he says, quote, the angels were astonished at the acts of disobedience committed by the human beings on earth, claiming that they would do better than them. Therefore, God challenged the angels to choose two representatives among them who would descend to earth. And he endowed with bodily desires. During their stay on earth, they fell in love with a woman named Zohara, often identified with Venus. She told them she would become intimate with them if they joined her in idolatry and tell her how to ascend to heaven. The angels refused and remained pious. Later they met her again, and the woman this time stated she would become intimate with them if they drank alcohol. The angels thought that alcohol could not cause great harm, and therefore they accepted the condition. After they were drunk, they became intimate with her, and after noticing a witness, they killed him. [00:57:00] On the next day, Harot and Marot regretted their deeds, but could not ascend to heaven anymore due to their sins, as their link to the angels was broken. Thereon, God asked them either their punishment shall be in this world or in the hereafter. They chose to be punished on earth, and therefore were sent to Babel as a test, teaching humans magic, but not without warning them that they were just a temptation. End quote.
Okay, so, yeah, not exactly neutral there, right? We've got a lot of presumption of alcohol being bad, and these kinds of things that a Muslim would be thinking about, but very interesting nonetheless.
Alright, so we're going to cut off the discussion there once again, and we're going to continue on with Augustine, and I'll probably loop in some later stuff with him, because, again, I think that he really has had a very big influence, especially [00:58:00] for the Evangelical Church, and for our interpretations. Again, it's not all his fault. He didn't even come up with the Sethite view, and people were already talking about it around him, but clearly his writings were very influential, and they are very interesting. He has a lot of interesting things to say, and sometimes how people are using his work at a later time, may be a little bit out of context itself, as well, from time to time.
So, a lot to talk about there. I hope you guys are enjoying this survey of historical interpretation. This is the kind of stuff that it's not hard to get into and to understand and to access the information today. It probably would have been a lot harder a few decades ago. It definitely would have been harder before that.
And so I think it's incumbent upon the modern church today to really understand our theology in light of the past and how we got it. What [00:59:00] have been the influences? Because there are influences, and to think that we're just reading the text and understanding it in its plain context is just a little bit misguided. We need to understand our textual stream of tradition.
And maybe for those of you who are interested in the idea between the East and the West, you have gotten a few little nuggets here. And it's not just the West that went this direction of the human view. It's definitely still coming from Eastern traditions as well. So that's another reason why we should be studying the past and historical interpretations because we can see that it's not this monolithic conglomerate.
There is no one stream of tradition that you can just track perfectly through time. It ebbs and it flows and people are bringing forth similar ideas for different purposes and different reasons, and I find that absolutely [01:00:00] fascinating. And so, you know, there's a bit of a psychology to be understood here as well. Which, I know not everybody likes psychology and philosophy and these kinds of things, but I find them fascinating. Because it can help give us some clues as to how other people are thinking and why.
And that's such an important thing to understand. Alright, so we'll end here for today, and I thank, you guys for listening. Thank you guys for sharing these episodes. That is, hands down, the best way that you can help me to promote and share my content. If you don't know anybody who would be interested, then okay, that's fine. Not everybody has to be interested in this kind of nerdy stuff and getting into all of the context. Maybe some people just don't care and fair enough. They've got other things on their plates.
But please do share my episodes with those people that you know or those groups that you know that might be interested in the content. It's [01:01:00] very helpful to me, and I hope that it's helpful to other people, because they might find this stuff interesting. But at any rate, Thank you guys for interacting with me in the various ways that you do, and a big, big shout out to those of you who support me financially. Thank you guys so very much. If you're interested in that, you can find me on Patreon, you can donate through PayPal. You can find links to those on my website at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com, where I will also have blog posts, and I should have a blog post that will have some of these quotes on there so that you can read them without reading the transcript, right? It's going to be a little bit easier to read than reading the transcript. So, at any rate, we'll end that here, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.
