by
Damien F. Mackey
Presuming that the “sons of God” of
Genesis 6:2 were actually angels of the fallen variety, as many commentators
will insist, then a comparison of this verse with the situation recorded in the
Book of Tobit, of a very perverse kind of demon, Asmodeus, falling in love with
the beautiful woman, Sarah, might help to throw some light on what this may all
mean.
In my latest
article:
Archangel Raphael - Binder of Demons and Healer. Part Two: An Antediluvian
Visitation
I had noted
that some major players in the Book of Tobit parallel some in Enoch 1, whose
account of the Watchers appears to be, in turn, a recalling (albeit apocryphal)
of that period described in Genesis 6, when the world prior to the Flood went so
bad that God decided to destroy it (vv. 1-8):
When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and
daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that
the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they
chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My
Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days
will be a hundred and twenty years’. The Nephilim were on the earth in those
days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans
and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
The
Lord
saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and
that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the
time.
The Lord regretted that he had made
human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, ‘I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have
created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along
the ground—for I regret that I have made them’. But
Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
I wrote:
There are some elements I find common to
Enoch 1 and the Book of Tobit.
The angel Raphael, of course.
The particularly evil demon.
The female object of desire by the
demon(s).
The holy man, observer and scribe.
….
and I
continued with this attempt to make sense of those enigmatic verses of Genesis
6:2, 4:
Angel Raphael in the
Book of Enoch
The
Nephilim
Whitney
Hopler has written about Enoch
1, the angel Raphael, and the demons, as follows in her article, “The
Watchers and Nephilim Damage Earth and Archangel Raphael Heals It”.
I
give relevant parts of it here with comments
The book of 1 Enoch, which is
part of the
Christian
and
Jewish
apocrypha (non-canonized books of
the Bible and
Torah),
describes how
demons
(fallen angels) called the Watchers corrupt the people on Earth by teaching
them a variety of sinful practices and having sex with them, creating giant
offspring called Nephilim.
Mackey’s comment: The
philosophically-minded (and myself as well) have great difficulty with the
notion of fallen angels (demons) “having sex” with human beings. (Cf. Genesis
6:2)
It seems metaphysically
absurd.
The demon Asmodeus, in the
Book of Tobit, does not attempt to have sexual intercourse with Sarah, with
whom he has fallen in love, but he does terminally prevent Sarah’s husbands
from consummating their marriage (6:14-15):
Tobias replied to Raphael, 'Brother
Azarias, I have been told that she has already been given in marriage seven
times and that each time her bridegroom has died in the bridal room. He died the
same night as he entered her room; and I have heard people say it was a demon
that killed them, and this makes me afraid. To her the demon does no harm because he loves her, but as
soon as a man tries to approach her, he kills him’.
And I think that there may be
a parallel here with the situation in that most intriguing verse of Genesis
6:2: “The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they
took wives for themselves, whomever they chose”. The Hebrew word, nashim (נָשִׁים), translated as “wives”, appears to have a
broader meaning, including e.g. “females”, “girls”.
Sarah had to suffer demonic
obsession from Asmodeus, but, in other cases, the “sons of God” - presuming
that this most controverted phrase actually refers to angels (gone bad) - may
have possessed women at will, perhaps indicating a willingness on the part of
the women. The mystical Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich (d. 1824) claimed to
have witnessed in vision this widespread demonic possession of antediluvian
womanhood, these women being apparently willing accomplices (Life of Jesus Christ, Vol. I):
I saw Cain's descendants becoming more and more
godless and sensual. They settled further and further up that mountain ridge
where were the fallen spirits. Those spirits took possession of many of the
women, ruled them completely, and taught them all sorts of seductive arts.
Their children were very large. They possessed a quickness, an aptitude for
everything, and they gave themselves up entirely to the wicked spirits as
their instruments. And so arose on this mountain and spread far around, a
wicked race which by violence and seduction sought to entangle Seth's posterity
likewise in their own corrupt ways. Then God declared to Noe His intention to
send the Deluge.
[End of quote]
Rather than the “sons of God”
being the physical (impossible) progenitors of those “very large” children,
presumably the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4: “The Nephilim were on
the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the
daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men
of renown”, they were more realistically the demonic driving force behind the
human procreation of an extraordinarily different type of human being –
extremely strong, clever, cunning, capable, violent and wicked.
Neanderthalic,
perhaps.
Saint Paul himself pointed to Abram “to indicate the way of faith and of hope.” Abram’s confidence in God’s promise to give him a son was truly a hope “against every hope”, precisely because of his advanced age, and the sterility of Sara, his wife. But Abram believed, and his faith gave way to a new hope, a hope which, to all appearances was unreasonable. His hope “opens new horizons, making him capable of dreaming what is unimaginable.” Hope, the Holy Father said, allows us “to enter into the darkness of an uncertain future to journey in the light.”It is a difficult journey, though, he continued. Even Abram had moments of crisis and discouragement. In the Gospel passage, the scene where Abram questions God takes place at night – but, the Pope said, in the heart of Abram there is the darkness of disappointment, of discouragement. Even though he spoke familiarly with God, Abram in these moments felt alone, old and tired, with death on his doorstep.
