“Battle of Gods And Giants” – an ancient carving from Delphi Greece depicts the Nephilim in battle. (source). The Apostles knew this was based the Biblical account of the giants.
Part 7 In The Beginning And End Nephilim Series
In our 7-article series, Beginning and End made the Biblical case for the account of the Nephilim – namely that Genesis 6 details an era in which fallen angels entered the human realm, took human wives and conceived offspring with them who were giants. While the many books, articles and sermons on the Nephilim have seen a massive resurgence in the past decade – this interpretation of the antediluvian era of the Bible is not a new one. On the contrary, from the very first generation of the church, missionaries, teachers and bishops – some of whom were discipled by the Apostles of Christ themselves, believed that the sons of God in Genesis 6 did indeed have illicit sexual relations with human women who gave birth to the hybrid Nephilim giants. This article will go through the writings of Church fathers and Jewish historians from the first centuries after the birth of The Lord Jesus Christ that agree in the account of the Nephilim.
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr confirmed the account of Genesis 6 and the fallen Sons of God marrying human women.
Justin Martyr was a Christian philosopher and apologist in the 2nd century AD. He was an ardent defender of the Christian faith who was ultimately beheaded for his refusal to offer sacrifices to pagan gods. When asked why he famously stated: “No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false.” (source). Several of his writings are extant and he had a great deal to say about the angelic incursion of Genesis 6 that gave birth to the Nephilim:
“God, when He had made the whole world, and subjected things earthly to man, and arranged the heavenly elements for the increase of fruits and rotation of the seasons, and appointed this divine law – for these things also He evidently made for man – committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this appointment. and were captivated by love of women.” – Second Apology; Chapter V.
Ireneaus
Irenaeus (c. early 2nd century – c. 202 AD) was the bishop or pastor of the church in what is now Lyons, France. He was a disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John. His treatise Against Heresies was a landmark work that challenged the heretical Gnostic Christianity that threatened the true faith at that time. On Genesis 6:2 he wrote:
“And for a very long while wickedness extended and spread, and reached and laid hold upon the whole race of mankind, until a very small seed of righteousness remained among them and illicit unions took place upon the earth, since angels were united with the daughters of the race of mankind; and they bore to them sons who for their exceeding greatness were called giants.” – A Discourse in the Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching; 18.
St. Ambrose
The Pergamon Altar (2nd Century BC) depicted giants battling gods. This altar is referenced in the book of Revelation.
St. Ambrose was one of the most influential Christians of the 4th century. He was appointed Bishop of Milan and made passionate defense of the deity of Christ against those who were proponents of the Arian heresy. On the Nephilim he wrote:
“The giants (Nephilim) were on the Earth in those days.” The author of the divine Scripture does not mean that those giants must be considered, according to the tradition of poets, as sons of the earth but asserts that those whom he defines with such a name because of the extraordinary size of their body were generated by angels and women.” – Ambrose, On Noah, 4.8. Genesis 1-11, Volume 1 edited by Andrew Louth, Thomas C. Oden, Marco Conti
Clement of Rome
Clement of Rome was a Christian bishop in Rome in the first century and was a contemporary of the Apostle John. His epistle to the Corinthian church is one of the oldest extant Christian writings outside of the New Testament. The Clementine Homilies are a series of writings from the 2nd and 3rd century purporting to record dialogue between Clement and the Apostle Peter. While its authorship may have not been from Clement, its details on the Nephilim again demonstrate that this concept was well established in the early church:
“But when, having assumed these forms, they convicted as covetous those who stole them, and changed themselves into the nature of men, in order that, living holily, and showing the possibility of so living, they might subject the ungrateful to punishment, yet having become in all respects men, they also partook of human lust, and being brought under its subjection they fell into cohabitation with women; and being involved with them, and sunk in defilement and altogether emptied of their first power, were unable to turn back to the first purity of their proper nature, their members turned away from their fiery substance: for the fire itself, being extinguished by the weight of lust, and changed into flesh, they trode the impious path downward. For they themselves, being fettered with the bonds of flesh, were constrained and strongly bound; wherefore they have no more been able to ascend into the heavens.” – Clementine Homilies, Homily VIII, Chapter XIII.
Lactantius
Lucius Lactantius (c. 250 -325 AD) was a Christian author in the early 4th century. Formerly a pagan public official, he resigned from political life after converting to Christianity and served as an advisor to Emperor Constantine. He wrote many apologetics, defending the Christian faith. In His chapter “On the Corruption of Angels..” he wrote:
“When, therefore, the number of men had begun to increase, God in His forethought, lest the devil, to whom from the beginning He had given 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 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.” – Lactantius, Divine Institutes, Book II, Ch. XV.
Tertullian
Tertullian (155 – 240 AD) was an African Christian theologian from the Roman province of Carthage. He was a prolific writer and his works are the foundation of Christian thought in the language of Latin. Outside of the Bible itself, he is the earliest believer on record to write about the concept of the trinity. On the Genesis 6 incursion he wrote:
“We are instructed, moreover, by our sacred books how from certain angels, who fell of their own free-will, there sprang a more wicked demon-brood, condemned of God along with the authors of their race, and that chief we have referred to. It will for the present be enough, however, that some account is given of their work. Their great business is the ruin of mankind. So, from the very first, spiritual wickedness sought our destruction. They inflict, accordingly, upon our bodies diseases and other grievous calamities, while by violent assaults they hurry the soul into sudden and extraordinary excesses.” – Apology, Ch. XXII.
First Century Jewish Thought On The Nephilim
Antiquities of the Jews is one of the greatest extant historical records – and it mentions the Nephilim.
Flavius Josephus, one of the most renowned historians of all time, was a Jew living in Roman occupied Judea in the decades after the death and resurrection of The Lord Jesus Christ. His writings, which are extant, very clearly demonstrate his exceptional knowledge of the Old testament and the history of the Jewish people going back to Creation. In his most landmark work, Antiquities Of The Jews, he wrote of Genesis 6:
“For many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants.” – Antiquities of the Jews, Book I, 3:1, Flavius Josephus, as recorded in The Works of Flavius Josephus, William Whiston, Vol. 1, 1843, p. 16.
Testimony of the Apostles
The Book of Jude
Of course the Apostles of Jesus Christ, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit provide the ultimate confirmation of the angelic incursion of Genesis 6:
“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” – Jude 1:6–7
“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; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked…” – 2 Peter 2:4–7
The Early Church Believed In the Account of the Nephilim
While the account of angelic-human marriage giving rise to the birth of the Nephilim of Genesis 6 remains a hotly debated topic, there is no question that this concept was understood by the church from the first century after the birth of The Lord Jesus Christ. While not all Christians believed it to be the case, there is certainly nothing new about the concept of the Nephilim. As stated from the onset, the writings of the Church Fathers are not on par with the Holy Bible – but they do provide remarkable insight into the beliefs of the early church. And in this instance there is no question that a great number of church leaders believed that the history of the Nephlim on Earth was quite real.
*This concludes the Nephilim Series but the study is far from over. Beginning And End is very pleased to announce the release of the first comprehensive Biblical study on the giants and the Genesis 6 account – Judgment Of The Nephilim. We have contributed a great deal of our own research to this book and it is filled with startling revelations on the giants that you will not find in any other book on this topic. Judgment Of The Nephilim surveys every passage in the Holy Bible on the giants – many which are rarely connected to the Nephilim. Among the many questions it addresses are:
- The Biblical location of the heavenly portal used by angels to enter the earthly realm.
- Who was the first mother of a Nephilim?
- The specific timing and description of God’s punishment of the rebel Sons of God and the Nephilim
- How did the Nephilim return after the flood?
- The Biblical connection between demons and the Nephilim
- The connection to Atlantis and the gods and demigods of mythology.
All these answers and many, many more from the Bible. Once our ministry started researching the Nephilim in-depth we realized there was a great deal of untapped, rarely quoted Christian and Jewish writings on the giants that answer many, many of the questions we all have on this topic. Now we have the answers. This is a must-own book if you are reader on the subject of the Nephilim giants. The trailer is below:
Just as there are Preachers/Teachers today that believe in the angel/human hybrid theory there are many that do not and other ECFs such as Augustine who did not hold to this view. As to some of the early Jewish theologians yes some of them were easily swayed by this Greek-influenced Mythos of Giants from Angels/Humans. This is nothing short of Fantasy.
Consider that if taken to the extreme such as in the Book of Enoch, 400′ tall giants the Mothers Womb would not have been physically capable of bearing a 350 lb baby. They would have ALL died during pregnancy even if this theory were possible. The same is true if even 30′ tall giants would result in 40-50 lb babies, still far too large for a woman to survive through even mid-term.
The context of God’s judgement for the Flood was 100% on man, not demons. ‘5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
Seems so many completely overlook vs. 5-7 of Genesis 6 to support this wild-eyed theory.
Friend, I would say that the issues of Angels, Nephilim and “giants” (whatever that means) are not necessarily to be correlated. For example, some of the quotes above are about the Angel view of Genesis 6 but say nothing about the size of the offspring.
In any case, it is a simple fact that the original, traditional, and majority view amongst both Jewish and Christian commentators is that the “sons of God” of Genesis 6 were Angels. Augustine wrote for a long time and so actually takes more than one view on this issue.
I agree that the “Book of Enoch” (aka 1 Enoch aka Ethiopic Enoch) offers physically impossible heights: even if the babies were very small, they would break their own bones just trying to walk when they became adults.
The context of God’s judgement for the Flood was 100% on man but it is premised with the affair. Jude 6-7 and 2 Peter 2 comment on this event—or else, they refer to a fall of Angles about which their readers would know nothing.
I published a book elucidating which Jewish and Christian commentators to what view on this during a span of 250 BC to the 5th century AD which is titled “On the Genesis 6 Affair’s Sons of God: Angels or Not?” and subtitled “A survey of early Jewish and Christian commentaries including notes on giants and the Nephilim.”
I know that a lot of neo-pop-researchers turn the Angels, Nephilim and “giants” issues into sci-fi but the Bible relates that Angles produced offspring with human women, the Angels were incarcerated for doing so and the last of the Nephilim died in the flood never to return again—period.
Friend, let’s take 1 of your points that you use to justify the Hybrid Theory. You said ‘ it is a simple fact that the original, traditional, and majority view amongst both Jewish and Christian commentators is that the “sons of God” of Genesis 6 were Angels.’
A- The majority of Modern day Commentators do not hold to the angel hybrid theory
B- Yes, the Jewish commentators of antiquity did but they also agreed with the 613 Mitzvah & Traditions which Jesus himself criticized the Pharisees who had embraced these man-made rules.
C-When interpreting scripture there is some weight to what the Majority View holds but in Hermeneutics what matter is 1st Context, then applying other Rules of Hermeneutics. So the Context in Genesis chapter 4-6 clearly show that there was a co-mingling of the Righteous line with the Rebellious/Unbelieving line. The Law of Precedence (1st Mention) also must be applied. Sons of God cannot mean angels in Genesis 6 then in the New Testament always mean Men of Faith. This goes against the Rule of Precedence.
Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2 do not speak of the Fallen Angels mythos. It is poor Exegesis, actually it is Eisegesis to attribute both of those to the Hybrid Theory. The ‘chains of darkness’ speaks of All Angels which is the Domain they reside in now since they no longer reside in the Domain of Light.
Your book you wrote is not alone, for there are many books filled with the False notions/beliefs of Rabbinic writers of Antiquity who were influenced by the Kabbalists (False Jewish teachers)
You cannot ignore harmonizing passages such as Acts 17 26 ’26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth…’ One blood means the blood of the human race. There was never a ‘mixed race’.
You also cannot ignore Hebrews 1 5 ‘5 For to which of the angels said he ever, Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten thee? and again, I will be to him for father, and he shall be to me for son? The usage of son denotes several things in this context,
1-An inheritance since Jesus was given an Inheritance (the Church) and we too are given an inheritance of Eternal Life (co-heirs with Christ). Angels are ministering spirits
2-Sonship, with Christ he is Begotten, with Believers we are given the Spirit of Adoption (sonship). Angels are never given this attribution.
I’ve read many older commentaries of the past on this topic and since this passage is not dealing with a Major Doctrine such as Salvation, Santification, Eschatology, the Trinity, etc there are not many in depth commentators of ancient times as there are for other topics. But until you get to Augustine then later on Calvin and later on many others the ancient writers used little or no hermeneutics at all. They just made statements such as ‘these were angels’ or ‘these were fallen angels’, but they did not go into Sound Hermeneutics to support their statements.
Excellent comment. Agreed.
@Ken Ammi- You said, “the Angels were incarcerated for doing so and the last of the Nephilim died in the flood never to return again—period.” Read Genesis 6 again, it says, “The Nephilim were there before and after the flood and there a other mentions of Nephilim, or at least the Hebrew word for Nephalim. That’s Genesis 6:4, Numbers 13:33, and again in Numbers 13:33.
Appreciate the follow up.
Genesis 6 does not state that “The Nephilim were there before and after the flood.”
Without chasing down un-contextual root words, the term Nephilim occurs in Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33 wherein it is stated by unfaithful/disloyal spies who are rebuked for presenting a bad/evil report. They were clearly engaging in a “don’t go in the woods” fear mongering scare tactic.
Also, when Moses, Caleb and God relate that event they all affirm that the Anakim were in the land but say nothing of the Nephilim (nor even anything about the Anakim being related to the Nephilim, see Deuteronomy 1, Joshua 14 and Numbers 14).
Lastly, the Bible knows nothing of any sort of return of the Nephilim concept and in fact, if they returned at any point in history that would imply a thwarting of one of God’s purposes for the flood.
Here is a typical Protestant rather hollywood masala in Evangelical names, from Andrew Wommack
“Satan crucified Christ” making the devil to be a partaker in the redemption of man what typically is , as the.bible states another gospel another Christ —-.