Bible Verses used by the Early Church
Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. Genesis 6:1, 2.
There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Genesis 6:4.
God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah. 2 Peter 2:4, 5.
The angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Jude 6.
Quotes of the Church Fathers
The angels transgressed this appointment and were captivated by love of women. And they begat children, who are those who are called demons. Justin Martyr (c. 160, E), 1.190.
All things therefore being completed which are in heaven, and in earth, and in the waters, and the human race also having multiplied, in the eighth generation, righteous men, who had lived the life of angels, being allured by the beauty of women, fell into promiscuous and illicit connections with these; and thenceforth acting in all things without discretion, and disorderly, they changed the state of human affairs and the divinely prescribed order of life, so that either by persuasion or force they compelled all men to sin against God their Creator. In the ninth generation are born the giants, so called from of old, not dragon-footed, as the fables of the Greeks relate, but men of immense bodies, whose bones, of enormous size, are still shown in some places for confirmation. But against these the righteous providence of God brought a flood upon the world, that the earth might be purified from their pollution, and every place might be turned into a sea by the destruction of the wicked. – Recognitions of Clement, Book 1, Chapter 29
“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 into defilement and altogether emptied of their 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 exhausted by the weight of lust, and changed into flesh, they trode the impious path downward. For they themselves, being fettered with 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.
Angels sinned and revolted from God. Justin Martyr (c. 160, E), 1.238.
The other angels were created by Him, and entrusted with the control of matter and the forms of matter. . . . Just as with men, they have freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice. . . . Some men are diligent in the matters entrusted to them by you, and others are faithless. It is the same among the angels. They are free agents, being created that way by God, as you will observe. Some of them have continued in those things for which God had made them. They have remained over the things to which He had ordained them. But some outraged both the constitution of their nature and the oversight entrusted to them. . . . These angels fell into impure love of virgins and were subjugated by the flesh. . . . Those who are called giants were begotten from these lovers of virgins. Athenagoras (c. 175, E), 2.142.
These angels, then, who have fallen from heaven, and haunt the air and the earth, and are no longer able to rise to heavenly things, and the souls of the giants, who are the demons who wander about the world, perform similar actions. Athenagoras (c. 175, E), 2.142.
“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.” — Irenaeus, Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching, Chapter 18
The angels who had obtained the superior rank, having sunk into pleasures, told the women the secrets that had come to their knowledge. In contrast, the rest of the angels concealed them, or rather, reserved them for the coming of the Lord. Clement of Alexandria (c. 195, E), 2.446.
By our sacred books, we are instructed how from certain angels, who fell of their own free will, there sprang an even more wicked demon brood. Tertullian (c. 197, W), 3.36.
Those angels who invented them [jewelry, etc.] are assigned under condemnation to the penalty of death. They are the same angels who rushed from heaven on the daughters of men. . . . If it is true, they laid bare the operations of metallurgy, divulged the natural properties of herbs, promulgated the powers of enchantments, and traced out every curiosity, even to the interpretation of the stars. They conferred appropriately—and as it were, peculiarly—upon women that instrumental means of womanly ostentation: the radiances of jewels, . . . the dyes of orchil with which wools are dyed, and that black powder itself with which the eyelids and eyelashes are made prominent. Tertullian (c. 198, W), 4.14, 15.
I lay down this one proposition: that those angels—the deserters from God, the lovers of women—were likewise the discoverers of this curious art [of astrology]. And on that account, they were also condemned by God. . . . For we know the mutual alliance of magic and astrology. Tertullian (c. 200, W), 3.65.
Such was the beauty of women that it turned the angels aside. As a result, being contaminated, they could not return to heaven. Being 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. They taught the dyeing of wool and everything that is done. When they died, men erected images to them. Commodianus (c. 240, W), 4.203.
From the seed [of the fallen angels and women], giants are said to have been born. By them, arts were made known in the earth. They taught the dyeing of wool and everything that is done. When they died, men erected images to them. Yet, because they were of an evil seed, the Almighty did not approve of their being brought back from death when they had died. For that reason, they wander and they now subvert many bodies. And it is these whom you [pagans] presently worship and pray to as gods. Commodianus (c. 240, W), 4.203.
When men multiplied on the earth, the angels of heaven came together with the daughters of men. In some copies, I found “the sons of God.” What the Spirit means, in my opinion, is that the descendants of Seth are called the sons of God, because of the righteous men and patriarchs who have sprung from him (even down to the Savior himself). However, the descendants of Cain are named the seed of men, as having nothing divine in them, because of the wickedness of their race. . . . However, if it is thought that these refer to angels, we must take them to be those who deal with magic and sorcery, who taught the women the motions of the stars and the knowledge of things celestial. By the power of those angels, they conceived the giants as their children, by whom wickedness reached its peak on the earth. Finally, God decreed that the whole race of the living should perish in their impiety by the deluge. Julius Africanus (c. 245, E), 6.131.
All of these things [i.e., the making of jewelry] the sinning and apostate angels put forth by their arts, when, lowered to the contagions of earth, they forsook their heavenly vigor. They also taught women to paint the eyes with blackness drawn around them in a circle and to stain the cheeks with a deceitful red. Cyprian (c. 250, W), 5.434.
God, in His foresight, sent angels for the protection and improvement of the human race—lest the devil . . . should either corrupt or destroy men through his subtlety. Since He had given these angels a free will, He admonished them above all things not to defile themselves with contamination from the earth and thus lose the dignity of their heavenly nature. . . . However, while the angels lived among men, that most deceitful ruler of the earth, by his very association, gradually enticed them to vices and polluted them through sexual relations with women. Thereafter, not being admitted into heaven because of the sins into which they had plunged themselves, they fell to the earth. Lactantius (c. 304–313, W), 7.64.
They strive to turn men away from the worship and knowledge of the true Majesty, so men will not be able to obtain immortality. That is because these angels lost [immortality] because of their wickedness. Lactantius (c. 304–313, W), 7.66.
Certain of the angels, refusing to submit themselves to the commandment of God, resisted His will. And one of them indeed fell like a flash of lightning upon the earth, while others, harassed by the dragon, sought pleasure in sexual relations with the daughters of men, and thus brought on themselves the deserved recompense of the punishment of eternal fire. Disputation of Archelaus and Manes (c. 320, E), 6.205.
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