Augustine of Hippo

There is another representation of the same truth: Elisha's action in first dispatching his servant with his staff to raise the dead child. The son of the woman who had given Elisha hospitality had died; the news was brought to Elisha, and he sent his servant with the staff. "Go," he told him, "lay the staff on the dead child." Was the prophet unsure what to do? The servant went on ahead and placed the staff on the corpse; but the dead child did not revive. "If a law capable of giving life had been granted to us, then of course righteousness would have been obtainable through the law." The law sent through a servant did not bring life. But Elisha, who had sent his staff with his servant, was to follow later himself and bring the child to life. After hearing that the child had not revived, Elisha came in person; he was a type of our Lord, who had sent his servant ahead of him with a staff that represents the Law. He came to the dead child lying there and placed his body over him. But the dead person was an infant and Elisha a grown man, so he contracted his adult stature and somehow curtailed it, making himself like a child so that he matched the corpse in size. The dead child arose when the living man had fitted himself to him; the Lord accomplished what the staff had failed to do; grace achieved what the Law could not.

What is the point of the addition you thought you should make to this comparison drawn from the example of blessed Elisha, namely, that he raised a dead boy by breathing into his face? Do you really think that the breath of Elisha became the soul of the boy? I would not have thought that you had wandered so far from the truth. If the very same soul, then, that had been taken from the living boy so that he died, was restored to him so that he came back to life, what was the point of your saying that nothing was taken away from Elisha? You imply that we believed that something passed from him into the boy as a result of which the boy was once again alive. But if you said this because he exhaled and still remained whole, what need was there to say this with regard to Elisha raising the dead boy, since you could, in any case, say this of anyone who exhales without raising anyone from the dead? Heaven forbid that you should believe that the breath of Elisha became the soul of the boy when he came back to life! And so, you have certainly spoken without sufficient reflection when you wanted the only difference between what God first did and what Elisha did to be that God breathed once, while Elisha breathed three times. You did, in fact, say that Elisha breathed into the face of the dead son of that Shunammite woman, just as happened at the first beginnings of our race. "And when the divine power," you said, "had by the breath of the prophet warmed the dead members and restored them to life in their former strength, nothing was taken away from Elisha, though by his breath the dead body received its soul and mind restored to life. The only difference is that the Lord breathed into the man's face and he was alive, while Elisha blew into the face of the dead boy three times." Your words make it sound as if it is only the number of breaths that keep you from believing that the prophet did the same thing as God did. This point too must be corrected. There was a great difference between that action of God and this action of Elisha. God breathed the breath of life by which the man became a living soul; Elisha breathed a breath that was neither sentient nor living but symbolic and intended to signify something else. Moreover, the prophet did not cause the boy to come back to life by giving him a soul; rather, because he loved him, he got God to do this. As for your saying that Elisha breathed three times, either your memory—as often happens—or a faulty manuscript has led you astray. What else can I say? You should not look for examples and arguments to bolster your case; you should, rather, correct and change your position. If you want to be a Catholic, do not believe, do not say, do not teach that God made the soul, not from nothing but from his own nature.

This opinion dishonors the holy martyrs; no, altogether removes the possibility of holy martyrdom. For, according to the Priscillianists, the martyrs would act more justly and wisely if they did not confess to their persecutors that they were Christians and by their confession make homicides of their persecutors, but rather, if by lying and by denying what they were, they preserved the advantage of the flesh and the intention of the heart and did not allow their persecutors to perform the wicked deed they had in mind. For these persecutors were enemies of the truth itself, not neighbors of theirs in the Christian faith to whom they were obliged to speak the truth with their tongue that they spoke in their heart. For if Jehu (whom as an example of lying they look on with greater show of prudence than on the others) falsely declared that he was a servant of Baal in order to kill the servants of Baal, how much more justly, according to the perversity of the Priscillianists, would the servants of Christ in time of persecution declare falsely that they are servants of demons in order that the servants of demons not kill the servant of Christ! And if Jehu sacrificed to Baal in order to kill people, how much more justly would they sacrifice to idols in order that people not be killed! Why, according to the remarkable doctrine of these liars, should it be prejudicial to them to profess falsely the worship of the devil in the open, provided they preserved the worship of God in their heart? But not in this manner have the true martyrs, the holy martyrs, understood the apostle. They have seen and kept what has been said, "With the heart a person believes unto justice, and with the mouth profession of faith is made unto salvation," and, "In their mouth was found no lie." So, they have departed irreprehensibly where they will no longer have to be on guard against being tempted by liars, because they will have no more liars, whether strangers or neighbors, in their celestial gatherings. As for Jehu, who by an impious lie and a sacrilegious sacrifice sought to kill the impious and the sacrilegious—him they would not imitate, not even if the same Scripture had said nothing about what kind of man he was. But, since it has been written that he did not have a righteous heart in the sight of God, what did it profit him to receive some transitory reward of temporal rule for some obedience that he displayed in utterly destroying the house of Ahab in accordance with his lust for Ahab's dominion? I exhort you, brother, rather to defend the true opinion of the martyrs, that you may be against liars; not a teacher of falsehood, but an advocate of truth. Pay close attention, I beseech you, to what I say, in order that you may find out, despite your laudable zeal to apprehend and correct or else to shun the impious, how much you must be on guard against a doctrine that you are rather injudicious in thinking should be taught.

The Almighty, who cannot possibly will anything unjust, is able to set in motion even the inclinations of their will in people's hearts in order to accomplish through these people whatever he wishes to achieve through their agency. What meaning can these words have that the man of God addressed to King Amaziah: "Do not allow the army of Israel to go out with you, for the Lord is not with Israel and all the children of Ephraim. And if you think to prevail over them, God will put you to flight before your enemies; for it belongs to God both to help and to put to flight"?How does the power of God help some in war by giving them confidence and turns others to flight by instilling them with fear, except for this reason, that he who has made all things as he willed in heaven and on earth, also works in the human hearts? We also read of what Joash, king of Israel, said when he dispatched a messenger to King Amaziah, who had a mind to go to war with him. Having mentioned certain things, he went on to say, "Sit at home. Why do you provoke evil that you should fall and Judah with you?" The Scripture then went on to add, "And Amaziah would not listen to him because it was the Lord's will that he should be delivered into the hands of enemies because he sought after the gods of Edom."
There you see how God, wishing to punish the sin of idolatry, influenced the heart of this man with whom he was justly angry, that he would not heed salutary advice but, in his contempt for it, would engage in battle, there to perish together with his army.

How do we say that they have been advised who have died before the coming of the evils that followed their death, if after death they perceive whatever misfortunes befall the human life? Or is it that we are mistaken when we imagine that they are at rest when the restless life of the living concerns them? What is this, then, that God promised to the most devout king, Josiah, for a great reward, telling him that he would soon die in order that he might not see the evils that he was threatening to send on that place and that people? The words of God are these: "Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: My words, which you have heard and which you feared from my mouth when you heard what I said about this place and those who dwell in it, that it be forsaken and become a curse, and you rent your garments and wept in my sight, shall not come to pass, says the Lord of hosts. Behold I shall bring you to your fathers, and you shall be brought with peace, and your eyes shall not see all the evils that I bring upon this place and those who dwell in it." And Josiah, alarmed at the dire threats of God, wept and tore his garments and then was made secure by an early death from all future ills, because he would so rest in peace that he would not see those evils. The souls of the dead, then, are in a place where they do not see the things that go on and transpire in this mortal life. How, then, do they see their own graves or their own bodies, whether they are buried or lie exposed? How do they take part in the misery of the living, when either they are suffering their own evil deserts, if such they have merited, or they rest in peace, such as was promised to this Josiah? For there they undergo no evils either by enduring them themselves or by compassionate suffering for others, but they are liberated from all evils that when they lived here they endured for themselves and out of compassion for others.

In the third book of this work we made a passing reference to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as 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 upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it. From these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly 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 spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." [2 Peter 2:4] I think he rather speaks of these who first apostatized 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 affords the most ample 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 peculiar grace specially communicated to him, was called an angel. [Malachi 2:7]

But some are moved 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 over-topped all others? Surprising crowds from all quarters came to see her, and that which struck them most was the circumstance that neither of her parents were 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 thus speaks even the canonical Scripture itself 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 unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became the giants, men of renown." These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate that already there were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives of 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, then too were giants born. For the words are: "There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men." Therefore there were giants both before, "in those days," and "also after that." And the words, "they bare children to them," show plainly enough that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begot children to God, not to themselves — that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual intercourse, but discharging 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 co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren 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 them wives of all which they chose," it was immediately added, "And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with these men, for that they also are flesh." For by the Spirit of God they had been made angels of God, and sons of God; but declining towards 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 all the copies do not 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 begotten 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 be susceptible of 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-ascertained succession. For though there is some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet 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 ascertain 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 that 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, sunk into this community when they forsook righteousness. Nor need we wonder that giants should be born even from these. For all of their children were not giants; but there were more then than in the remaining periods since the deluge. And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that it might thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size and strength, are of much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are the peculiar property of the good, 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, that were of so great stature, and so expert in war. Those did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge unto them; but they were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished through their own foolishness."