But that those angels were not angels in the sense of not being men, as some suppose, Scripture itself decides, which unambiguously declares that they were men.For when it had first been stated that "the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose,"it was immediately added, "And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with these men, for that they also are flesh." For by the Spirit of God they had been made angels of God, and sons of God; but declining towards lower things, they are called men, a name of nature, not of grace; and they are called flesh, as deserters of the Spirit, and by their desertion deserted [by Him].The Septuagint indeed calls them both angels of God and sons of God, though all the copies do not show this, some having only the name" sons of God." And Aquila, whom the Jews prefer to the other interpreters,(5) has translated neither angels of God nor sons of God, but sons of gods.But both are correct.For they were both sons of God, and thus brothers of their own fathers, who were children of the same God; and they were sons of gods, because begotten by gods, together with whom they themselves also were gods, according to that expression of the psalm "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High."(1) For the Septuagint translators are justly believed to have received the Spirit of prophecy;so that, if they made any alterations under His authority, and did not adhere to a strict translation, we could not doubt that this was divinely dictated.However, the Hebrew word may be said to be ambiguous, and to be susceptible of either translation, "sons of God," or "sons of gods."Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called apocryphal, because their obscure origin was unknown to the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession.For though there is some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet they contain so many false statements, that they have no canonical authority.We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine writings, for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle.But it is not without reason that these writings have no place in that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive priests; for their antiquity brought them under suspicion, and it was impossible to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings, and they were not brought forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully preserved the canonical books by a successive transmission.So that the writings which are produced under his name, and which contain these fables about the giants, saying that their fathers were not men; are properly judged by prudent men to be not genuine; just as many writings are produced by heretics under the names both of other prophets, and more recently, under the names of the apostles, all of which, after careful examination, have been set apart from canonical authority under the title of Apocrypha.There is therefore no doubt that, according to the Hebrew and Christian canonical Scriptures, there were many giants before the deluge, and that these were citizens of the earthly society of men, and that the sons of God, who were according to the flesh the sons of Seth, sunk into this community when they forsook righteousness, Nor need we wonder that giants should be born even from these.For all of their children were not giants; but there were more then than in the remaining periods since the deluge.And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that it might thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size and strength, are of much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are the peculiar property of the good, and are not shared by good and bad alike.It is this which another prophet confirms when he says, "These were the giants, famous from the beginning, that were of so great stature, and so expert in war.Those did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge unto them; but they were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness."(2)CHAP.24.--HOW WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND THIS WHICH THE LORD SAID TO THOSEWHO WERE TO
PERISH IN THE FLOOD: "THEIR DAYS SHALL BE 120 YEARS."But that which God said, "Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years,"is not to be understood as a prediction that henceforth men should not live longer than 120 years,--for even after the deluge we find that they lived more than 500years,--but we are to understand that God said this when Noah had nearly completed his fifth century, that is, had lived 480years, which Scripture, as it frequently uses the name of the whole of the largest part, calls 500 years.Now the deluge came in the 600th year of Noah's life, the second month; and thus 120 years were predicted as being the remaining span of those who were doomed, which years being spent, they should be destroyed by the deluge, And it is not unreasonably believed that the deluge came as it did, because already there were not found upon earth any who were not worthy of sharing a death so manifestly judicial,--not that a good man, who must die some time, would be a jot the worse of such a death after it was past.
Nevertheless there died in the deluge none of those mentioned in the sacred Scripture as descended from Seth.But here is the divine account of the cause of the deluge: "The Lord God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.