Mind of the Church

The mind of the Church, faithfully rendered into English

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Annotatio LXXI — Genesis 6:2

“The sons of God, seeing the daughters of men.”

Annotatio LXXI

”The sons of God, seeing the daughters of men.” — Genesis 6:2

Philo, in the book On Giants, explaining this, says that the sons of God — whom here Moses [calls] Angels, but the Philosophers call Genii [spirits] — are aerial souls which have descended into bodies.1 Concerning which opinion, see below. Philo in the same place asserts that the stars are animate, in these words: “Heaven has the stars; for these are wholly immortal and divine souls, and therefore are moved in a circle: because this motion is akin to mind; for the mind of each of these is most perfect.” The same thing he holds in the book On the Making of the Six Days [On the Creation], and in the book On Dreams. On which matter, consult Annotation 108 of this book.

Footnotes

  1. Left margin: Whether the angels are aerial souls, as Philo thought; or whether the stars are animate, as the same [Philo] reckoned. (Num Angeli sint animae aereae ut sensit Philo, an stellae sint animatae ut idem existimavit.) ↩