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1 Enoch 15 reflects ideas found in Greek mythology, where gods have children with mortal women. Plato’s Apology calls these children demigods, born from gods and nymphs. Enoch follows a similar idea, describing the Watchers having children with human women who become giants.
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Plato Apology
Classical
But this is just the ingenious riddle of which I was speaking: the demigods or spirits are gods, and you say first that I don't believe in gods, and then again that I do believe in gods; that is, if I believe in demigods. For if the demigods are the illegitimate sons of gods, whether by the Nymphs or by any other mothers, as is thought, that, as all men will allow, necessarily implies the existence of their parents. You might as well affirm the existence of mules, and deny that of horses and asses. Such nonsense, Meletus, could only have been intended by you as a trial of me. You have put this into the indictment because you had nothing real of which to accuse me. But no one who has a particle of understanding will ever be convinced by you that the same man can believe in divine and superhuman things, and yet not believe that there are gods and demigods and heroes.
Date: 395 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Enoch 15:7
Pseudepigrapha
6 But you were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. 7 And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for the spiritual ones of heaven, in heaven is their dwelling. 8 And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. 9 Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called. 10 As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.
Date: 200-50 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Glasson suggests that our author may have been influenced by Greek ideas about the δαίμονες. He cites Plato's Apology 15 (27B–E), where Socrates suggests that the δαίμονες may be the bastard children of gods and nymphs or other women, and Hesiod Works and Days 110–27, according to which the δαίμονες came forth from the men of the golden age. But the similarities do not seem to be substantial. These two separate ideas are not brought together in Greek literature. Moreover, the δαίμονες are generally thought to be good rather than evil. This is certainly so in Hesiod. They are never construed as a horde of evil spirits responsible for evil in the world. The term δαίμων does not occur in this passage of 1 Enoch, and δαιμόνιον occurs only in 19:1 and 99:7 ..."
Nickelsburg, George W. E.
A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108
(p. 273) Fortress Press, 2001
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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