In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, since they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, “Who makes His angels spirits,” that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as “angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that God's ministers ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called “incubi,” had often made wicked assaults on women, and satisfied their lust on them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and carrying out this impurity is so generally affirmed that it would be impudent to deny it. From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there are some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is felt by the body), which are capable of lust and of physical union with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, “For if 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.” 2 Peter 2:4 I think he speaks rather of those who first fell away from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture gives the fullest testimony that even godly men have been called angels; for of John it is written: “Behold, I send my messenger (angel) before Your face, who shall prepare Your way.” Mark 1:2 And the prophet Malachi, by a particular grace specially given to him, was called an angel. Malachi 2:7 But some are troubled by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection between those who are called angels of God and the women they loved were not men like our own breed, but giants; just as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few years ago, when the destruction of the city now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her father and mother, who by her gigantic size towered over all others? Astonishing crowds came from all quarters to see her, and what struck them most was that neither of her parents was quite up to the tallest ordinary stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even before the sons of God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection with the daughters of men, or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection with the daughters of Cain. For this is what the canonical Scripture itself says in the book in which we read of this; its words are: “And 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 fair [good]; and they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, because he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. There were giants on the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, these became the giants, men of renown.” These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate that there were already giants on the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives from the children of men, when they loved them because they were good, that is, fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture to call those who are beautiful in appearance “good.” But after this connection had been formed, giants were born then too. For the words are: “There were giants on the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men.” Therefore there were giants both before, “in those days,” and “also after that.” And the words, “they bore children to them,” show plainly enough that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they fathered children for God, not for themselves — that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual intercourse, but fulfilling the duty of propagation, intending to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but citizens to people the city of God; and to these they as God's angels would bear the message that they should place their hope in God, like him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their offspring would be coheirs of eternal blessings, and brothers in the family of which God is the Father. 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 wives for themselves from all whom they chose,” it was immediately added, “And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with these men, because they also are flesh.” For by the Spirit of God they had been made angels of God, and sons of God; but turning toward 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 not all the copies show this, some having only the name sons of God. And Aquila, whom the Jews prefer to the other interpreters, 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 they were fathered by gods, together with whom they themselves also were gods, according to that expression of the psalm: “I have said, You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” 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 allow 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-established succession. For though there is some truth in these apocryphal writings, 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 determine 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 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, sank into this community when they forsook righteousness. Nor need we wonder that giants should be born even from these. For not all of their children were giants; but there were more then than in the remaining periods since the deluge. And it pleased the Creator to produce them, so that it might be shown in this way that neither beauty, nor size and strength, are of much importance to the wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that belong to the good alone, 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, who were of such great stature, and so expert in war. The Lord did not choose them, nor did He give the way of knowledge to them;⁠a but they were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness.”