HistoricalChristian.Faith

Jerome on the Nephilim

Dates: c. 420 Summary: Jerome approaches Genesis 6 philologically in his Hebrew Questions on Genesis. He notes that the Hebrew Elohim is of common gender, so that Aquila renders the phrase "sons of gods," understanding them as the Holy Ones or Angels, while Symmachus has "sons of the powerful." On Genesis 6:4 he adds that the name "falling ones" (giants) fittingly applies to angels and the children of the saints. He thus leans toward the angelic, Hebrew-philological reading of Genesis 6 — yet he firmly classes the Book of Enoch itself as apocryphal.

Claims & evidence

Aquila's "sons of gods" understood as the Holy Ones or Angels

The Hebrew word Elohim (), is of common gender: and both God and gods are called by this name. Hence, Aquila, in the plural number, dared to call them Sons of gods, understanding them to mean the Holy Ones or Angels. For God stands in the assembly of gods: but in the midst of them He judgeth gods… Therefore, Symmachus, following a similar interpretation, says: The sons of the powerful saw the daughters of men, and so on.

— Hebrew Questions on Genesis, historicalchristian.faith. Jerome surveys the Greek versions, noting Aquila's "sons of gods" (= angels) and Symmachus's "sons of the powerful."

The name "falling ones" fits angels and the children of the saints

For falling ones, or giants, Symmachus interpreted them as violent ones. And it is fitting for the name of falling ones to apply to angels and the children of the saints.

— Hebrew Questions on Genesis, historicalchristian.faith. Jerome connects the etymology of "falling ones" with angels and the children of the saints.

Jerome classes the Book of Enoch as apocryphal

Jude the brother of James, left a short epistle which is reckoned among the seven catholic epistles, and because in it he quotes from the apocryphal book of Enoch it is rejected by many. Nevertheless by age and use it has gained authority and is reckoned among the Holy Scriptures.

— Lives of Illustrious Men, ch. 4 (on Jude), historicalchristian.faith. Jerome explicitly calls 1 Enoch "the apocryphal book of Enoch," noting that Jude's quotation of it is the very reason the epistle "is rejected by many."

… those who think that the whole book ought to be followed by the one who has made use of a part of the book, seem to me to admit the Apocryphal Book of Enoch (or of the Enochs), concerning which Judas the Apostle gave testimony in his Epistle, among the sacred Scriptures of the Church …

— Commentary on Titus (on Titus 1:12), historicalchristian.faith. Arguing that Paul's quoting the pagan poet Epimenides no more canonizes him than Jude's quoting Enoch canonizes that book, Jerome again treats 1 Enoch as apocryphal — cited by an apostle, but not thereby Scripture. Jerome is one of the witnesses against on the argument page The canonicity of 1 Enoch (assessment: weak).

Notes

• Jerome's contribution is chiefly lexical: he weighs the renderings of Aquila and Symmachus rather than building a sustained argument, but the weight falls toward the angelic reading.
• His phrasing "angels and the children of the saints" sits somewhat between the camps, but his appeal to Elohim and Aquila's "sons of gods" inclines to the angelic interpretation against Chrysostom's strict Sethite line.
• Lead resolved — a misattribution (per De Young, Lord of Spirits). De Young reports that Jerome gave "protracted arguments of how the book of Enoch would have survived the flood" (e.g., that Noah carried a copy on the ark), as evidence that even a late-4th/early-5th-c. Father did not dismiss the watchers material. No such argument is found in Jerome's works; on the contrary, Jerome twice classes 1 Enoch as apocryphal (above). The ark-survival argument is in fact Tertullian's (On the Apparel of Women I.3): the book, "having been published before the deluge," was preserved because "Noah, the survivor of the deluge," handed on its contents — or, failing that, was later restored by the Spirit, "as, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian storming of it, every document of the Jewish literature is generally agreed to have been restored through Ezra."
• The likely seed of the misattribution. Tertullian's defense (above) leans on an Ezra-restoration analogy, and Jerome has a genuine and well-known Ezra-restoration line of his own — but about the Mosaic text, not Enoch: "whether you prefer the view that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch or that Ezra re-edited it. In either case I make no objection" (The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary / Against Helvidius §7, historicalchristian.faith). De Young invokes exactly this Jerome line elsewhere (the Lord of Spirits episode "As Delivered by Angels," paraphrased "whether what we have is what Moses wrote, or Ezra restored it, this is what it says"). The garbled lead — "Jerome argued how Enoch survived the flood" — appears to fuse Tertullian's Enoch-specific argument with Jerome's Mosaic-text remark through their shared Ezra topos.