Fallen Angels or Giant Humans?
Nephilim is a Hebrew word that has been translated in various ways as “giants”, “those who fall [on their enemies]” and “fallen ones”. This word is found in 3 places in Holy Scripture namely:
“The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of man, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown” – Genesis 6:4
“So they brought to the Israelites an unfavourable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. 33 There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” – Numbers 13:32-33
“And they do not lie with the fallen warriors [Nephilim] of long ago who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were laid under their heads, and whose shields are upon their bones; for the terror of the warriors was in the land of the living.” – Ezekiel 32:27.
The controversy stems primarily from Genesis 6:4 as to whether these Nephilim – great fallen warriors – were “sons of God” in that they were fallen angels. The conjecture is therefore that fallen angels (ie demons) were lustful after women and had intercourse with them to give birth to offspring of great renown. This interpretation resonates with Paganism and the Gnostic heresy notions of demi-god type creatures procreating with women to spawn extraordinary men.
The fire was also fuelled by the non-canonical Jewish “Book of Enoch” which was rejected as being part of Scripture by the Jews (except the Ethiopian Jewish community ‘Beta Israel’) and the Catholic Church. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church however views it to be part of their Divinely revealed sacred scripture.
The Non-Biblical Books of Enoch or “Book of the Watchers“
This question however has been settled for c. 2000 years, first by the Jews, and then by the Church Fathers – such as St John Chrysostom but especially St Augustine, and then again later in medieval times with the great St Thomas Aquinas. The issue has re-emerged in modern times however because certain protestant sects, in their unbalanced reliance of Scripture Alone (Sola Scriptura), jettison the reasoned knowledge acquired via Tradition from our forefathers.
The Truth Concerning The Nephilim
Before proceeding to the different positions on who the Nephilim were, it should be noted that the preceding 3 verses to Genesis 6:4, i.e. Genesis 6:1-3, are clearly and explicitly talking about mankind, and not angels. Context is important in any sort of coherent exegesis.
Jewish Explanation
The translations of the Pentateuch into the Samaritan dialect of Aramaic by the Jewish priest Nathaniel in c. 20 B.C. translates the Nephilim as human “sons of rulers“.
The largest of the Western Jewish translations, the Palestinian Aramaic Targum Neofiti, argued by Diez Macho to be of the 1st century, translated the Nephilim to be human “sons of the judges“.
The Jewish translations of Nephilim in the Jewish Aramaic translation of the Torah – the Targum Onkelos – of the early 2nd century says the Nephilim were human “sons of nobles/rulers“.
The Jewish Greek translation of Symmachus in the late 2nd century, also translates the Nephilim as human “sons of rulers“.
Indeed, the great 2nd century Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai pronounced a curse on anyone teaching the idea that the Nephilim were angels that had sexual relationships with women. The medieval Rabbis, Rashi and Nachmanides also followed this.
The Jews, in explaining their own Scripture therefore have always held that the Nephilim were not angels, but rather human sons of some ruling noble line.
Orthodox Explanation
Other non-Catholic denominations also rely on ancient texts to say that the Nephilim were not angels. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, even though they accept the Book of Enoch as part of their Scriptural canon, in reliance on their Ge’ez manuscripts of their 4th century Amharic translation of Scripture equate the “sons of God” of Genesis 6:4 to be the “sons of the line of Seth” and the “daughters of men” to be “daughters of the line of Cain“. So even those who accept Enoch translate Nephilim in the same way as the Jews and Catholics.
Catholic/Christian Explanation
One of the earliest translations of the Hebrew Bible is the Greek Septuagint. In that 2nd or 3rd century work, Nephilim is translated as “giants” rather than fallen angels.
This concurs with the 4th/5th century Latin vulgate translation of St Jerome which also translates Nephilim as “gigantes” or giants. St Jerome doubles down on that translation in his exegesis of Genesis 6:4 in Letter 10 of his “Letters”.
The late 2nd century, early 3rd century, Christian traveller & historian Sextus Julius Africanus, deals with this question specifically and explains that he translates the “sons of God” to indicate that the Nephilim were “men of the line of Seth” just as the “descendants of men” are the “descendants of Cain”.1Julius Africanus; Five Books of the Chronography, Book III, Ch. II, 1081
Pseudo-Clementine’s work “Book of the Rolls“2Pseudo-Clement; Book of the Roles, Testament of Adam written at least before 325 AD3as it’s mentioned by Eusebius then. also explains “sons of God” to mean “sons of the line of Seth” rather than indicating “fallen angels”, and “daughters of men” to mean “daughters of the line of Cain”.
In the Eastern part of the Catholic Church, St John Chrysostom, in Homily 8 on First Thessalonians, when speaking of the reality of Hell, talks of Genesis 6:4 as referring to men and not to angels, with the offence to God being the mixture of the holy with the impure human lines. Again, even more explicitly in Homily 13 on First Timothy, Chrysostom speaks of the carnal nature and flesh of man of Genesis 6; and in Homily 13 on Romans, Chrysostom speaks of those men who act according to the flesh and those men according to the soul when discussing Genesis 6. …St Ephraem too…
A conduit between East and West, St John Cassian, also viewed Genesis 6 as referring to carnal men and not to angelic beings, in Conference 4 ch. 10-11 of his Conferences from around 420 A.D.
Perhaps the weightiest authority on the correct translation however comes from the great St Augustine in his discussion of the two types of citizen – the citizen of the City of God and the citizen of the City of Satan.
An apocryphal work found in Ge’ez 6th century manuscripts but being a translation of an earlier Arabic work called The Conflict of Adam & Eve with Satan says thus:
“Certain wise men of old wrote concerning them, and say in their [sacred] books that angels came down from heaven and mingled with the daughters of Cain, who bare unto them these giants. But these [wise men] err in what they say. God forbid such a thing, that angels who are spirits, should be found committing sin with human beings. Never, that cannot be. And if such a thing were of the nature of angels, or Satans, that fell, they would not leave one woman on earth, undefiled … But many men say, that angels came down from heaven, and joined themselves to women, and had children by them. This cannot be true. But they were children of Seth, who were of the children of Adam, that dwelt on the mountain, high up, while they preserved their virginity, their innocence and their glory like angels; and were then called ‘angels of God’. But when they transgressed and mingled with the children of Cain, and begat children, ill-informed men said, that angels had come down from heaven, and mingled with the daughters of men, who bear them giants.” – The Conflict of Adam & Eve with Satan, Book 2
The Nephilim therefore were those men who fell away from the line of Seth to become fallen ones mixing with the profane daughters of Cain, as a married man with an adulteress.
IMPOSSIBLE
Despite the weighty authority of both the Jews & earliest Christians, Orthodox and Catholic, together with great exegetes and theologians of the Church from both East and West such as St John Chrysostom, St Ephrem, St Jerome, St Augustine, and St Thomas Aquinas, there are still some who stir up the gnostic & pagan heretical notions of fallen angels procreating with humans.
For those left in any doubt, St Thomas Aquinas deals with this thoroughly in his masterful Summa Theologiae, Part I, Question 1, Article 3. St Thomas first deals with the nature of angels, demons and their interactions with the world. A fuller treatise has been written on this in the Fall of Angels page of our Salvation History section.
To summarise, Angels and Demons are personal spiritual immortal creatures with vastly superior intellects, knowledge and wills to our own. Angels have freely, fully & irrevocably chosen to do good and serve God by serving God’s chosen ones of mankind. Demons have freely, fully & irrevocably chosen to do evil and not to serve God by not serving God’s chosen ones of mankind. Angels seek to help humans attain salvation, whereas Demons seek to tempt humans to reject salvation by following them.
Both Angels and Demons are purely spirit – they have no bodies nor matter, nevertheless they are able to exert their supernatural powers on natural matter to effect our senses. This is how they can appear to have bodies, sound speech, effect touch, move objects, etc to affect our senses. This is how demonic spirits who seek to tempt humans to sexual sins in perversion of the created order may affect the sensations of mankind whether by eyes, or touch, sound, smell or taste as St Augustine refers to in his discussion of demonic incubi or satyrs.
Finally, angelic/demonic spirits do not procreate, and even if they could, one can only procreate one’s own nature so that any such fruit of procreation would also be purely spiritual. Even man, who can procreate, cannot procreate with a life of a different nature e.g. a plant.
