HistoricalChristian.Faith
HistoricalChristian.Faith
Dates: c. 1274 Summary: Bonaventure (d. 1274), in his Collations on the Hexaemeron, does not adjudicate who the "sons of God" were. Instead he reads the Genesis 6 episode typologically: the sons of God taking the daughters of men, together with Lamech's bigamy, prefigures the lawlessness that brought on the Flood and foreshadows the Antichrist. His interest is figural and prophetic, not the angelic-vs-Sethite identity question.
The first mystery is that of the creation of beings, and there the Antichrist is represented by Lamech who was the first to introduce bigamy and was a transgressor of the natural law and given to extreme lust. Then "the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair, and they took wives for themselves, as many as they wished." Because of this came the Flood. And hence it is possible to surmise what the Antichrist will be like: he is the filthiest one. And his symbolic meaning is shown in this, that he would kill the one to whom a token had been given, that is, the Jews represented by Cain. Wherefore Lamech "shall be avenged seventy times sevenfold," for his sin will be greater than the sin of the Jews.
— Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 15, source. Bonaventure weaves Lamech's bigamy and the sons of God / daughters of men together as a "mystery" foreshadowing the Antichrist and the Flood, without specifying the identity of the sons of God.