Nephilim, Giants, and Monsters

In the ancient world, Watchers, also known as Grigori, are said to have taken human wives who bore Giants. These Angelic beings are referred to as the Sons of God in the Old Testament, in the Book of Genesis, and as Angels in the New Testament, in the Letters of the Apostles. References to the Fallen Angels as Watchers can be found in apocryphal works such as the Book of Enoch.

Many of the Early Church Fathers believed that the conception of Giants, known as Nephilim, were in fact the physical offspring of Fallen Angels and Human Women. Later Church Fathers and Theologians would take on the Sethite interpretation that the Sons of God were the descendants of the Patriarch Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, and that the Nephilim were the offspring of the intermingling of the children of Seth and Cain.

It was believed in this allegorical interpretation that the Sons of God were a group of celibate, contemplative monastics who lived on Mount Hermon, who were seduced by the Daughters of Cain, known as the Daughters of Men, and that they conceived offspring who became tyrannical leaders and warlords, otherwise known as the men of renown. These men of renown would become the subject of Mesopotamian myths, as well as Egyptian, Greek, and Roman. These powerful and terrible Kings and Pharaohs would become divinized as gods and demigods. They are referred to as Giants for their large physical stature or their ferocity, power, and wealth. Later Theologians would take the position of the Incubi and Succubi: that Fallen Angels had collected the seed of men through nocturnal emissions or diabolical intercourse by way of illusion, using the manipulation of the elements such as light or air, and then transporting the seed of men into women. Some Fathers believed these Evil Spirits used Astrology (not to be confused with horoscopes, but the study of heavenly bodies, what we now call Astronomy). The Demons would use planetary alignments or moon cycles to affect the gestation of the infant, allowing for Gigantic stature. Today, we might speculate that this may be true, but that Demons may also manipulate the cells during gestation.

In the Old Testament, the origin of the Nephilim and Giants are found in Genesis 6:1-4, and Giants are mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:28, Deuteronomy 2:21, Deuteronomy 3:11, Numbers 13:32, specifically the Anakim and the Rephaim, such as Og whose bed was 18 feet long. These Giants were said to have made the Israelites appear as being of an insect-like proportion, similar to grasshoppers. This may have been Jewish hyperbole or been an exaggeration born out of cowardice, since most real-life Giants found in archeological digs, such as the North American Mound Builders, were only found to be 9-12 feet tall, and some maxing out at 18-20 feet tall. The Gibeonites who a remnant of the Anorites were Giants and warred against David and his men. Ish′bi-be′nob one of the descendants of the Giants weilded a new sword made of bronze that weighed three shekels. He inteneded to kill David but was slewn himself by Abi′shai the son of Zeru′iah. Another Giant was Saph who had six fingers and toes on each hand and foot a total of 24 digits, he was was killed Jonathan the son of Shim′e-i, David’s brother. Both accounts appear in in 2 Samuel 21:15-22. Goliath the most famous and known of Biblical Giants is found in 1 Samuel 17.

Ezekiel 32:27, alludes to possibly being about the imprisoned spirits of dead Giants in Sheol. In the New Testament, St. Paul and St. Jude write about the imprisoned spirits in 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6, which was a reference to The Book of Enoch. In the Book of Enoch, the Nephilim were drowned in the flood, and their spirits were chained in the abyss, also known as Tartarus. St. Paul could be interpreted to have also alluded to the story of the Watcher's in Corinthians 11:10, where he warns Women to cover their heads in the Church so as not to seduce the Angels. This could also be meant to convey decorum in a place of reverence as the Angelic Host comes down during the Cherubic Hymn when the Consecration of the Eucharist begins at Divine Liturgy or Mass. Another reason for women covering their heads is to prevent men from lusting after them, as long hair was considered attractive in the ancient world.

The Church Fathers have this to say on the origin of Nephilim and Giants. 

Pope St. Clement of Rome, Clementine Homilies, Homily VIII, Chapter XIII:

“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.”

St. Justin Martyr, Second Apology, Chapter V:

“God, when He had made the whole world, and subjected things earthly to man, and arranged the heavenly elements for the increase of fruits and rotation of the seasons, and appointed this divine law — for these things also He evidently made for man — committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women.”

St. Irenaeus, Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching:

“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.”

St. Ambrose of Milan (A.D. 379):

“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. And let us see whether by any chance the men who only take care of their body and not of their soul are similar to the Nephilim and at the same time to those giants who were born from the earth according to the tales of the poets and despised the authority of the gods by confiding in the hugeness of their body. Must we really consider as different from giants those men who, even though they are composed of body and soul, despise the most precious good of the soul, that is, the activity of the mind, and show themselves to be imitators of this flesh, as if confirming that they were heirs of their own mother’s foolishness. They only struggle in vain when they believe that they will conquer the heaven with their bold desires and their earthly activities. On the contrary, by choosing a lower way of life and despising the higher life, they are condemned with greater severity since they are guilty of voluntary sins.

St Augustine City Of God 

Nevertheless, it is the testimony of Scripture (which tells us nothing but the truth) that angels appeared to men in bodies of such a kind that they could not only be seen but also touched. Besides this, it is widely reported than Silvani and Pans [Satyrs and Fauns], commonly called incubi, have often behaved improperly toward women, lusting after them and achieving intercourse with them. These reports are confirmed by many people, either from their own experience or from the accounts of the experience of others, whose reliability there is no occasion to doubt. Then there is the story that certain demons, whom the Gauls call Dusii, constantly and successfully attempt this indecency. This is asserted by so many witnesses of such a character that it would seem an impertinence to deny it. Hence I would not venture a conclusive statement on the question whether some spirits with bodies of air (an element which even when set in motion by a fan is felt by the bodily sense of touch) can also experience this lust and can so mate, in whatever way they can, with women, who feel their embraces. (1)

St Thomas Aquinas 

Some say that demons in their assumed bodies are in no way able to procreate; and that the “sons of god” [in Gen. 6:4] do not signify angels acting as incubi, but rather the sons of Seth, and that the “daughters of men” signify those who descended from the race of Cain. But because the contrary is held by many, and [because] what seems true to many cannot be entirely false according to the Philosopher…it can therefore be said that by their [i.e., the demons’] action generation is completed inasmuch as they can put human semen in a place appropriate to the corresponding matter, just as they can also bring together the seeds of other things in order to bring certain effects to fruition…So only what is local motion is attributed to them, not, however, generation itself, the beginning of which is not the power of demon or the body assumed by him, but rather the power of that one whose semen it was. Hence the one born is not the demon’s, but rather is the son of a certain human.” (12)

St Thomas Aquinas also writes.

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. ii.), so that the person born is not the child of a demon, but of a man.” (13)

St Thomas also writes.

Nevertheless it is possible that stronger and bigger humans could be produced in such a way because demons, wishing to appear miraculous in their deeds, are able to actively contribute to this by observing the designated positions of the stars and the disposition of the man and woman, and particularly if the seeds that are used as instruments achieve a certain increase of power through such use.” (20)

Beyond human beings of gigantic stature or of preternatural origins and abilities, some believe that some Nephilim may have been more beastly due to copulation with both animals and humans. These may have been Nephilim born through generations of reproduction with Fallen Angels, humans, Nephilim, or beasts in a variety of orders or combinations. This could account for the Greek Chimera, Minotaur, Cenophali, amongst other mythological demigods and monsters. Such creatures mentioned in the Bible are the Terror by Night, known also as Lilith, Hairy Ones, known in the ancient world as Satyrs and Fauns, and the  Lion-Headed Men of Moab and the Lion-Faced Men of Gad.

Lilith, also known Biblically as the Terror by Night, is a demon of lust based on various pagan gods and Jewish folklore. She is believed to be a reference to the demon goddess Lamashtu, or the Babylonian goddess Ishtar or Inanna. In Jewish folklore, the Terror by Night or Lilith is a succubus-like harpy demon. Lilith was originally believed to have been a daughter of Cain who took one of the Watchers for a husband and gave birth to hideous monsters. A later version stated that she was the insubordinate wife of Adam, who was formed from the clay of the Earth like him, and left the Garden of Eden to copulate with Satan or the Fallen Archangel Samael and became the mother of demons. The Terror by Night is found in Psalm Psalm 91:5 and Isaiah 34:14, where it is referenced as a Lamia in the Latin Vulgate Bible. Lilith is associated with screech owls and serpents or harpies and, like Baal, is sometimes a generalized reference to a certain type of pagan deity. She is associated with nighttime impurity and infanticide. It was believed she stole men's seed to birth hellspawn and would strangle babies in their crib, which could be an allegory for SIDS.

Satyrs or Fauns, known in the Bible as the Hairy Ones or the hairy goats, were based on pagan nature gods like Pan. They are known for sexual depravity and impurity and are found in Isaiah 13:21 and Isaiah 34:14  accompanying Lilith or the Lamia. These could be interpreted as demons who have dominion over nature or are of a perverse and hedonistic nature. St. Anthony of Egypt was said to have encountered these creatures, who appeared of less demonic origin but were misunderstood creatures who lamented man's idolatry of them as deities. In Witchcraft and Satanism, Satyrs or Fauns have a connection to the English Green Man or the occultic Baphomet.

St. Isidore of Seville

Last Chapter of Book 8

“Satyrs are they who are called Pans in Greek and Incubi in Latin. And they are called Incubi from their practice of overlaying, that is, debauching. For they often lust lecherously after women, and copulate with them; and the Gauls name them Dusii, because they are diligent in this beastliness. But the devil which the common people call an Incubus, the Romans called a fig Faun; to which Horace said, ‘O Faunus, love of fleeing nymphs, go gently over my lands and smiling fields.’” (17)

In the Bible, the Lion-Headed Men of Moab are mentioned in  2 Samuel 23:20, referenced as Ariels, which is a Hebrew word or description. Lion-Faced Men of Gad are mentioned in 1 Chronicles 12:8; they were fierce warriors from the land of Gad in Mesopotamia who are described as having the faces of lions. These beings are said to be like werewolves or Cenophali (Dog-Headed Men), only with the heads and faces of lions. They are sometimes enemies of the Hebrews and other times allies of King David. They likely have their roots in other ancient mythologies and pantheons, such as the Sumerian Urmahlullu, and the Babylonian Akkad, who were tied to the god Nergal, who had the face of a lion.

Other interpretations of possible Nephilim are the horrific Locust with the faces of Men in the Book of Revelation in Revelation 7:9. These creatures are similar to the Greek Chimera but more specifically the the Persian Manticore. These monsters come the abyss of the Demon Abbadon. Many modern day Evangelicals interrupt the words of Christ when He is speaking about the end times as being like "as in the days of Noah" Matthew 24:37 to mean a world filled with Nephilim, Giants, and terrible monsters.

Some Evangelicals also believe that carnivorous dinosaurs or the dinosaurs themselves were a type of Nephilim before the flood or a preadamite world that was destroyed in the cataclysmic battle between the Angels of God and the Fallen Angels of Lucifer. This idea of a reconstructed universe is called Gap Theory. 

I had a friend God rest his soul named James who believed the Nephililim were an allegory of the mixing of types and that it predicted man's downfall through genetic chimeras of people,  animals, or plants or maybe all three together. 

While the Church after the 4th century abandoned this theological interpretation held by some of the earliest Fathers of the Church some modern day Theologians and Exorcists such as Fr. Iannuzi believe that the third of the stars that fell in the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation is not specifically only talking about the fall of Angels but of other beings with rational souls like Angels and Humans in other words extraterrestrials or aliens. The late Fr. Malachi Martin who helped research the Dead Sea Scrolls talked about Gap Theory and in his opinion that linguistically speaking no one really knows who or what the the Sons of God's are because according to Malachi Martin we don't have a precise word to properly describe or understand what the Nephilim are as he explained on an episode of Coast To Coast AM with the late Art Bell. 

Many people today speculate whether things like Sasquatch or Mothman are Nephilim but in the Catholic world the theological interpretation of demonically spawned giants has been deserted and picked up by Evangelicals such as the late Dr. Michael Heiser.

It is a fascinating subject as most topics with much speculation are be they creation, the pre-deluvian world, and eschatology the study of the end times or the unraveling of prophecy. Overall I remain open to the different theological interpretations held within in the Church and do not strictly adhere to one or another because I like most people simply do not know it is after all a mystery of faith.