HistoricalChristian.Faith

John Chrysostom on the Nephilim

Dates: c. 407 Summary: Chrysostom is strongly Sethite and openly polemical. He brands the angelic interpretation a "blasphemy" and "the height of absurdity," arguing that angels are nowhere in Scripture called sons of God, and that incorporeal beings cannot marry (citing Christ's word that at the resurrection they "neither marry nor are given in marriage"). He identifies the "sons of God" as the godly descendants of Seth through Enosh, and the "sons of men" as the line of Cain.

Claims & evidence

The angelic interpretation is a blasphemy; angels are never called sons of God

You see, there is need to make a careful study of this passage and confute the fanciful interpretations of those people whose every remark is made rashly… so that you will not lend your ears idly to people uttering those blasphemies… I mean, they claim that this remark is made not about human being but about angels; these (they say) he called sons of God. Let them demonstrate firstly where angels are called sons of God; they would not, however, be able to show this anywhere. While human beings are called sons of God, angels are nowhere so called.

— Homily 22 on Genesis, books.google.com. Chrysostom insists Scripture calls human beings, never angels, "sons of God."

Incorporeal angels cannot marry — the height of absurdity

Is it not a particular hallmark of folly to claim that angels descended to have intercourse with women, and that incorporeal nature of theirs was reduced to association with corporeal creatures? Or do you not hear the words of Christ about the being of angels, "At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God"? After all, it is not for that kind of incorporeal creature to ever feel the onset of desire. In response to these people we have to reach the same conclusion, that to admit this notion into one's mind is the height of absurdity.

— Homily 22 on Genesis, books.google.com. He uses the incorporeality of angels and Matthew 22:30 to refute bodily intercourse with women.

The sons of God are the descendants of Seth and Enosh

So since these people took their origin from Seth and from his son named Enosh… those descended from him in the future were called sons of God by Sacred Scripture for the reason of their imitation of the virtue of their ancestors up to his time. On the other hand, he gave the name sons of men to those born after Seth, the descendants of Cain and those taking their descent from him.

— Homily 22 on Genesis, books.google.com. The "sons of God" are the virtuous Sethite line; the "sons of men" are the Cainites.

Becoming a demon is by imitation in sin, not by a violent death

For it is a fact that many of the less instructed think that the souls of those who die a violent death become wandering spirits, (demons.) … But this is not so. I repeat it is not so. For not the souls of those who die a violent death become demons, but rather the souls of those who live in sin; not that their nature is changed, but that in their desires they imitate the evil nature of demons.

— On Lazarus, Discourse 2 (Four Discourses on the Rich Man and Lazarus), historicalchristian.faith. Chrysostom corrects a popular belief that the violently killed turn into demons: one becomes demonic not by manner of death but by imitating the demons' evil will in a life of sin — a change of desire, not of nature.

The same correction in the Matthew homilies

But what can be the reason that they love also to dwell in the tombs? They would fain suggest to the multitude a pernicious opinion, as though the souls of the dead become demons, which God forbid we should ever admit into our conception.

— Homily 28 on Matthew §3, historicalchristian.faith. The same lie, here said to be spread by the demons themselves to win credence; Chrysostom rejects the idea that the dead become demons outright.

Notes

• Chrysostom is the sharpest patristic voice against the angelic reading, framing it not merely as mistaken but as impious "blasphemy."
• His Sethite case rests on lexical (who Scripture calls "sons of God"), christological (angels neither marry nor desire), and genealogical (Seth/Enosh vs. Cain) arguments.
• His christological prop — angels "neither marry" (Matt 22:30), so they could not have fathered the giants — is the objection weighed, and judged not to foreclose the angelic reading, on the does Matthew 22:30 foreclose the angelic reading? argument (assessment: sound).
• Demonization datum (verified). Independently of the Genesis homilies, Chrysostom teaches that one becomes demonic not by manner of death but by imitating the demons in a life of sin — "not that their nature is changed, but that in their desires they imitate the evil nature of demons" — citing Christ's "you are of your father the devil" (John 8:44) as a sonship of imitation. Fr. Stephen De Young adduces this homily (Tucker Carlson Show, "Young giants," 2026) for his "demonization / anti-theosis" theology and, by extension, the reading that the post-flood "unclean spirits" are the spirits of the dead Nephilim. That is a misfit: the homily exists to deny that the souls of the dead become demons and locates the change in the will "not… of nature," and Chrysostom is in any case a Sethite (giants = mere men), so his framework excludes the very identification he is cited to support. The interpretation itself — judged on its real (angelic-camp) witnesses rather than this prop — is weighed on the argument page Are the unclean spirits the spirits of the dead Nephilim? (assessment: contested). (De Young assigns the sermon to Constantinople; both the Lazarus discourses and the Matthew homilies are usually placed in Chrysostom's Antioch years, c. 388–390.)
• Authorship/date of the Genesis homilies (a argument, now adjudicated). In Lord of Spirits ("Land of Giants") De Young casts doubt on counting Chrysostom a firm Sethite witness: he dates the Sethite material to c. 412–413 (after Ephrem and Augustine) and reports that St. Photius the Great's library notes question whether the relevant homilies are Chrysostom's own or "another hand." Weighed on its own argument page — Is Chrysostom's Sethite reading genuinely his, or a later editor's hand? (assessment: weak) — the doubt does not hold. The 67 Homilies on Genesis that carry the Sethite Homily 22 are securely Antiochene, c. 388 (Quasten, Cayré, Altaner/Stuiber; Crépey, REAug 2009; R. C. Hill, FOTC 74) — within Chrysostom's lifetime as a priest, and well before the "412–413" date, which appears in no study and falls after his death in 407. The Photius prop is a misattribution: his Bibliotheca gives a divergent count (61, not 67), which the editors explain as folios lost from his manuscript, and nowhere impugns the homilies' authenticity. A genuine kernel remains — Chrysostom left two overlapping Genesis series whose relation is a real scholarly puzzle (W. A. Markowicz, Theological Studies 24 [1963]), and the written text may have undergone a post-401 recension — but both series are accepted as authentically Chrysostom's, so this page's "strongly Sethite" reading stands.