Annotatio LXXII

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

Chrysostom, in the twenty-second homily on Genesis, refuting those who said that by the “sons of God” whom Moses here mentions, not men but Angels must be understood, says that Angels were never in divine Scripture called “sons of God” — nay, not even “sons.”¹ Yet the contrary is found, once and again, in the book of Job: in whose second chapter it is read concerning the angels, “When on a certain day the sons of God had come, and stood before the Lord, Satan also was present among them”;² and in the same volume, chapter 38, concerning the Angels it is added, “When the morning stars praised me, and all the sons of God jubilated.”³ It appears that Chrysostom was in this deceived by the Septuagint edition: in which, for that which we have according to the Hebrew truth — “When the sons of God had come” — it is written ἦλθον οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ Θεοῦ, that is, “The angels of God came”; and where Jerome, from the Hebrew source, translated “And all the sons of God jubilated,” the Septuagint rendered ὅτε ᾔνεσάν με φωνῇ μεγάλῃ πάντες ἄγγελοί μου, that is, “When all my angels praised me with a loud voice.” Nor does that favor Chrysostom which Paul writes to the Hebrews, “To which of the angels did he ever say, Thou art my Son?”⁴ — since there he does not deny that the angels are called sons of God by grace, but only [denies it] by nature.⁵ For in this manner Christ alone is called, and is, [the] Son.