Did Angels Marry Human Women? – Biblical Demonology 5
Did angels marry human women?” A strange question which crops up because of the passage in Genesis 6:1-4:
When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide in mortals for ever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.
Genesis 6:1-4 (NRSV)
It was originally understood that the Watchers – fallen angels – did marry human women, having sexual union with them and producing offspring from that union:
- How did the early church and Jews perceive the potential for humans and angels to procreate?
- Why it was such an abhorrent defilement of the immortal Watchers “first estate” (Jude 6),
- Crossing cosmic boundaries and the links to Sodom’s judgement (Jude 7)
Procreation between Angels and Humans?
When the topic of sexual intercourse between angels and humans comes up, it is often scoffed at as being a silly, impossible notion. Those who draw breath to address it will often use the proof-text from Matthew 22:30: ‘For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.’ and / or Luke 20:34, which says: ‘Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage…’ . Sadly those who argue against angel-human sexual relations perform eisegesis (reading into the text) at this point by saying that angels therefore cannot be physically sexual as being spirit they cannot physically interact with humans. This completely ignores the actual words of the particular verses – it merely says angels in heaven don’t marry, not that sexual intercourse isn’t possible. The rebuttal of Watchers – human marriage using Luke 20:34 completely ignores that these heavenly beings left their “first estate” (Jude 1:6), i.e. the heavenly realms, thereby rendering argument using this verse inapplicable to these particular beings. It simply does not answer the question of whether or not angels did marry human women, according to the text in Genesis 6:1-4.
Scripture shows heavenly beings can physically interact with humans. There are accounts of angels grabbing Lot back into his house and wrestling with Jacob (Genesis 19:10; 32:22-32); angels ate with Abraham, and Lot (Genesis 18:8; 19:3); an angel touched Elijah (1 Kings 19:5) and Daniel (Daniel 10:10) and so on. As such, why shouldn’t angels be able to marry human women and be able to perform sexual activity with them if they’ve left their heavenly estate and deliberately chosen to be physical in this particular manner?
The Jewish and early Church believers certainly believed this was possible as to whether there could be any offspring from such a union. As we’ve said in Biblical Demonology: Part 2, it wasn’t until Julius Africanus (AD 160-240) that a desupernaturalised view of Genesis 6:1-4 and 1 Enoch was first postulated, and with it the idea that sexual activity between humans and angels was not possible.
There are several views put forward to try and defend a non-supernatural view of the Genesis 6:1-4 account, arguing that the “sons of God” were not heavenly spirit beings, which we shall briefly address now:
“Sons of God” – Sethites?
In this view, the “sons of God” are argued to be holy men from the line of Seth (Abel having been killed by their brother Cain – Genesis 4:25-26; 5:3-4). An argument is made from Genesis 4:26 saying that it was Seth’s lineage which called upon God and were thus holy “sons of God”. Seth’s lineage was therefore holy and pure. Unfortunately, they married “sons of men”, which they interpret to mean “sons of Cain” (allegedly evil because of Cain’s murder of Abel). The resulting offspring somehow became giants and the Noahaic flood was sent by God to destroy them.
Augustine heavily promoted the Sethite viewpoint in his City of God [1]. This was probably due to his Manichean background, where Mani accepted 1 Enoch as being canonical. In his attempt to distance himself from that previous life, it’s highly likely Augustine’s distain for 1 Enoch, which would have helped him understand the contextual commentary on Genesis 6:1-4, left him no course of argumentation except to promote a human reading for “sons of God”. This is how the Western Church inherited a warped, desupernaturalised view of something that early Christians readily accepted.
Later, Aquinas, when confronted with everyday folk people at the time asking about incubi (spirits seeking sexual intercourse with women), agrees Augustine, quoting his belief that the “sons of God” were Sethites:
But God’s holy angels could not fall in such fashion before the deluge. Hence by the sons of God are to be understood the sons of Seth, who were good; while by the daughters of men the Scripture designates those who sprang from the race of Cain. Nor is it to be wondered at that giants should be born of them; for they were not all giants, albeit there were many more before than after the deluge.
Summa Theologica I, Q51, Article 3
Note Augustine (and Aquinas) baldly assert that God’s angels couldn’t fall before the deluge, giving no evidence for this belief. They simply state that is the case, and so the sons of God must be sons of Seth.
However, this belief has major issues if we let the text speak to us (exegesis) rather than impose our own views upon it (eisegesis). Serious distortion of the text and its clear meaning are required to de-supernaturalise this passage:
- Genesis 4:26 says: ‘To Seth also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord.’ Notice that the text never mentions it was Seth’s lineage specifically that called upon the name of the Lord, only around the time of Enosh’s birth it began to occur. To say it was only Seth’s lineage who did this is eisegesis.
- Genesis 6:4 says: ‘The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.’ Nowhere in the text does it say “daughters of Cain”, only daughters of humans. Nowhere in the passage is there a link to Cain. Nowhere! Again, eisegesis is performed to make the text fit a preconceived idea.
- Within the context of the time this passage is set, there are no God-given regulations about marrying between different lineages. None. Sorry – Jews and Gentiles mixing prohibitions come way after this passage’s setting.
- “Sons of God” is the Hebrew beney‘ ha- Elohim and only ever means “sons of God”, spirit beings, commonly angels. In translation, elohim is taken as a spirit being, e.g. Job 38:7, Psalm 82:1,6 (these cannot be men, for how can mortal men be judged by being made to “die like mortals” – a certainty for mortals and therefore not a judgement?), and Daniel 3:25. A nail in this particular coffin comes from the fact that nowhere in Scripture is “sons of God” translated “sons of Seth”, and nowhere in Scripture is “daughters of men” ever translated “sons of Cain”. If there was even one instance, then perhaps the Sethite view may have a foot in the door for its argument, but it has zero support from the text.
- Nowhere in Scripture (nor in genetics) does the marriage between a “holy” and “unholy” person create giant offspring which are worthy of the severe destruction by a flood that God deems appropriate as punishment for this behaviour. There are lots of instances where marriage between supposedly “holy” and “unholy” lineages marry and have offspring, all without judgement of Flood proportions.
A final nail in the “Sethite” coffin comes from 1 Enoch 6:1,2, which expands the Jewish Second Temple writers’ understanding regarding the “sons of God”. If placed alongside Genesis 6:1,2 one can observe their amplified commentary:
| Genesis 6:1,2 | 1 Enoch 6:1,2 |
| When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. | And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: “Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.” |
The Sethite “sons of God” view fails badly when approached ad fontes, using the source material of the time, to inform us what was happening. The Sethite view therefore does not rebut the original idea that angels could marry human women and have offspring with them.
“Sons of God” – Holy Kings / Rulers?
Summed up, this argument stems from reading the Hebrew word elohim in Psalm 82:1,6 as human rulers and uses it to say that the “sons of God” beney‘ ha- Elohim should be “sons of the gods” where kings and rulers were said to be gods. This ignores v7 which says they will die like mortals, which is superfluous if they’re already mortal humans, as all humans will die because they’re mortal. Even the divinised pharaohs were known to be mortal and die like ordinary people – which is why they had great tombs created for them to live in in the afterlife, ordinary folk would exist in the afterlife, but without the luxuries a pyramid sized monument would afford.
Another argument in kings / rulers line is that marriages to kings in ancient times were polygamous and therefore evil, hence the condemnation (and Flood). But Genesis 6:4 doesn’t say anything about polygamy, hence to assert this idea is eisegesis.
The “sons of God” as Sethites or divine kings / rulers has many exegetical problems, relying predominantly on eisegetical suppositions. As such, perhaps it’s best we take the view that the early Church took on it, however “monstrous” later church fathers and writers might suggest it is to our Enlightenment-driven, rationalistic Western ears?
Having laid to rest what the text actually says, with angels being able to marry human women and have offspring with them, we have some serious questions to answer regarding how this could possibly happen…
Demon sperm?
For procreation, between humans there has to be sperm and eggs. But spirit beings don’t have sperm, so how does reproduction between humans and angelic beings work?
It’s a great question and one which might be answered by asking us to consider where God got the seed from for creating Jesus in the womb of Mary. Granted, God can create sperm ex nihilo (out of nothing), but could God have used existing matter in order to create sperm which fertilised one of Mary’s eggs? Christians believe Jesus was fully God and fully human, so sperm would have been used in the fertilisation process. As Jesus was male, parthenogenesis is not a viable answer, as this would have produced a daughter for Mary.
Aquinas spots this problem and tries to answer where the sperm required for reproduction comes from. He claims that demons must extract it from men [appearing as a succubus] as demons themselves do not have sperm and then place it inside women [appearing as an incubus] [2]. For him, the spirit being merely acts like a transport receptacle for the sperm. However, this doesn’t address God’s harsh Flood judgement; fertility clinics which transport sperm and fertilise eggs in vitro when helping couples who are experiencing difficulty in conception don’t experience God’s wrath by being wiped from the face of the earth. It also doesn’t explain why the mixing of human sperm and eggs produced abnormal offspring which exhibited voracious appetites and bloodlust behaviour:
2. And they conceived from them and bore to them great giants.
1 Enoch 7:2-5 (Nickelsberg translation)
And the giants begot Nephilim, and to the Nephilim were born †Elioud†.
And they were growing in accordance with their greatness.
3. They were devouring the labor of all the sons of men, and
men were not able to supply them. 4. And the giants began to kill men and
to devour them. 5. And they began to sin against the birds and beasts and
creeping things and the fish, and to devour one another’s flesh. And they
drank the blood.
Something is very different about the conception of these Watcher – human offspring.
One potential solution may be as follows: could fallen Watchers, responsible for various parts of creation, take existing matter and refashion it into viable sperm, just as humans form new objects from existing matter? Over the past 30 years, humankind’s increased knowledge has increased to the point of being able to create designer life, having discovered how to rearrange genetic material via CRISPR technology. If this is how mortal humans can perform such wonders, why not the immortal Watchers, tasked with working with the hidden mysteries of the universe? It’s a question worth reflecting upon and one which Aquinas couldn’t possibly have imagined the scope of 21st century human abilities in his 13th century existence.
We may not be able to fully explain how the Watchers were able to manipulate matter to create illegitimate, hybrid life. However, life was believed to have been formed inside the women’s wombs that the Watchers had intercourse with.
It is the illegitimate nature of the life the Watchers and human women created that arose the wrath of God. Cosmic ordained boundaries had been breached, and order needed to be restored as the forces of chaos began to unravel the creation, which we shall read about in the next part.
Immortality, Marriage and Defilement
The Watchers were created as immortal, spiritual beings (1 Enoch 15:6-7); there was no need for them to have wives for reproductive purposes. There was initially created a myriad of immortal angelic host before the founding of the earth (Job 38:7); those who have not fallen are mentioned in Revelation 5:11; none of these could be reproducing, and thus not require marriage, as Jesus says (Matthew 22:30; Luke 20:34-36). The numbers of the heavenly Children of God were therefore fixed. However, the number of human Children of God would be able to increase; being made only two in number originally, sexual reproduction was a requirement and instruction in order to increase our numbers. It was this ability to create offspring of our own that the Watchers were jealous of and caused them to cross the God-ordained cosmic boundaries between heaven and earth and engage in sexual relations, resulting in spiritually and physically illegitimate offspring.
These cosmic ordained boundaries were attempted to be crossed in the story of Lot in Sodom. Here though, instead of the angels wanting to have sexual relations with humans, it’s the reverse, where the city’s men want to have sexual relations with Lot’s angelic guests (Genesis 19). Note: it was not the act of homosexuality which was condemned here (contra to many popular interpretations), but as Jude 7 says: ‘Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they [the fallen Watchers], indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust [went after other flesh], serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.’ The “likewise” of Jude 7 links back to Jude 6 and the falling of the Watchers through unnatural relations with human women, meaning Jude specifically had in mind the crossing of cosmic ordained boundaries, which brought about each of the two judgements he mentions.
Conclusion
When answering the question of whether angels could marry human women and have offspring with them, we should examine each of the possible solutions proposed since the original penning of the text and the earliest beliefs about it. Of the various hypotheses that seek to desupernaturalise the text, we find them all falling short of being able to provide sensible explanations that don’t fall apart upon examination.
Simply put, angels did marry human women and have offspring with them. These were the angels that left their first estate and proceeded to try and create their own sons in their own image, as part of their hubris towards their own Creator.
Next Time – Having looked a group of fallen “sons of God” (angels) called the Watchers, we explore their offspring, the “bastard sons of God”, the gibbōrim (giants) and the Nephilim. What happened to these hybridised spirits when they were judged and slain? Why were there Nephilim after the Flood if supposedly everything had been wiped off the face of the earth except Noah?
Bibliography
Augustine, City of God
Aquinas, Summa Theologica
Footnotes
[1] City of God, Book 15, Chapter 23.
[2] ‘Still if some are occasionally begotten from demons, it is not from the seed of such demons, nor from their assumed bodies, but from the seed of men taken for the purpose; as when the demon assumes first the form of a woman, and afterwards of a man; just as they take the seed of other things for other generating purposes, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii.), so that the person born is not the child of a demon, but of a man.’ – Aquinas Summa Theologica, Part 1, Question 51, Article 3, Reply to Objection 6. Throughout history there have existed sexually active spirit beings: an incubus is a male evil spirit that attacks women, a succubus is a female evil spirit that attacks men. Whether the spirit itself is gendered, or merely appearing as a particular human gender is open to conjecture. However, gender would not be an issue for heavenly beings if reproduction was not part of their immortal constitution.
