In Hebrew it is, word for word, thus: “Giants were in the land in those same days; and also after the sons of the princes went in to the daughters of men, they bore to them; these are the mighty who were of old, men of name.” In Chaldee it is thus: “Giants were in the land in those days. For after the sons of the nobles went in to the daughters of men, and took children from them, they too turned out robust — those famous men who were renowned of old.” And the reading of the Seventy Translators (as Augustine cites it in chapter 23 of book 15 of The City of God) ran here thus: “Now there were giants upon the earth in those days. And after that, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of men and begot for themselves, those were the giants, men of old, men of name.”²

Moses signifies by these words what kind of offspring and progeny was produced from that wicked mingling of the sons of God with the daughters of men…³

…namely [an offspring] most notorious for impiety, cruelty, obscenity, and savagery of manners, and which, presiding by its gigantic height and strength of body, was most proud, most ferocious, violent, sparing none, oppressing all, and reckoning whatever pleased it to be also lawful. And at the same time Moses indicates this: that it was chiefly on account of this kind of men that the Flood came, so that their enormous and intolerable pride, impiety, and cruelty might be punished with a signal and, for all ages, memorable punishment.⁴

Now the Latin reading signifies that the origin of those giants was from the mingling of the sons of God with the daughters of men, as though before that there had been no such monsters of the human race, or, if there had been, certainly not so frequent and so huge; for this is indicated by the phrase, “For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men.” But according to the Hebrew reading and that of the Septuagint, which we set down a little above, it is signified that there were giants both before and after the mingling of the sons of God with the daughters of men. And Augustine contends that this is plainly indicated by the words of divine Scripture, when it is said: “Giants were upon the earth in those days, and after that, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of men and begot for themselves, those were the giants and men of name.” “Therefore,” says Augustine, “there is no doubt that there were many giants before the Flood, and that these were citizens of the earth-born society of men; but that the sons of God, who according to the flesh were propagated from Seth, declined, justice being forsaken, into this society. Nor is it to be wondered at that giants could be born even of these; for not all were giants, but there were certainly more then than after the Flood. And it pleased the Creator to create them, that even hence it might be shown that not only the beauties, but also the magnitudes and strengths of bodies, are not to be greatly esteemed by the wise man, who is beatified by spiritual and immortal goods, the proper goods of the good, and not by those common to good and bad. Recalling which matter, another Prophet says: ‘There were the giants, those renowned men who were of old, of great stature, expert in war. The Lord did not choose them, nor did he give them the way of knowledge, but they perished; and because they had not wisdom, they perished through their folly.’” Thus Augustine.⁵

Now these giants are said to have been “of old,” or “from the beginning,” mighty and famous; whereby it is signified that they flourished chiefly about the first age of the world — that is, from the beginning of the world up to the Flood; for this time is called “from the beginning,” or “of old.” For in place of that word “of old” the Hebrew is holam, which signifies a hidden and concealed time, that is, one whose beginnings, because of their antiquity, lie hidden from mortals. And that phrase “men of name,” as it is in Hebrew — that is, “men of renown,” namely celebrated and famous — denotes that the vastness and strength of body of those giants, the ferocity of their spirit, the savagery of their manners, and their warlike deeds, were bandied about in men’s frequent talk not only in their own times but also in the succeeding ages down to the age of Moses, and were of celebrated fame among all.⁶

But it must be carefully explained what Moses wished to signify by the word “giants” in this place. For it pleases many that by the word “giants” are signified not those who are commonly called giants, men…⁷

…I mean of unusual bulk and height of body, but proud, impious, cruel men, in fine like, in the savagery of their manners, to those giants whom the poets fabled to have dared even to make war against the gods. In this opinion Philo seems to have been, in the book On the Giants; for, treating these very words of Moses, “Now there were giants in the land in those days,” he says: “Someone might perhaps think that the lawgiver here hints at what the poets fable about giants, since these things, though immensely swollen with fables, cling to the very traces of truth. For this reason Moses cast out of his commonwealth the praised and elegant arts of painting and statuary, because they corrupt truth with falsehoods, deceiving credulous minds through the eyes. Moses, then, brings forward no fable about giants, but wishes to teach you this: that some men are of the earth, some of heaven, some of God. Of the earth, those who hunt the pleasures of the body, seeking from everywhere the matter of each (and giants, as the name indicates, are so called as it were gēgeneis, that is, earth-born). And men of heaven are called those who pursue the arts and sciences, which are the glory and ornament of our mind, given from heaven. For what in us is heavenly is the mind, by which one both contemplates the motions of heaven and, exercising itself in the rest of the arts, acquires for itself acuteness for understanding such things. And men of God are rightly named the Priests and Prophets, whose dignity is too great for them to mix themselves with the human commonwealth and become citizens of the world, but who, more sublime than all sensible things, have migrated into the intelligible world, having obtained there a dwelling, enrolled in the commonwealth of ideas and incorruptible things.” Thus Philo.⁸

Josephus too seemed to refer the word “giants” not to bulk of body, but to wickedness of manners, writing thus in the first book of the Antiquities: “Many angels of God, coupling with women, procreated an insolent offspring, contemning all law and right through confidence in their strength, whose deeds, not unlike those which the Greeks relate about giants, have been handed down to posterity.” To the same opinion the words of Chrysostom and of the Damascene too are cited in the Catena. Those of Chrysostom are these: “I think that by ‘giants’ Scripture here means not an unusual kind of men or an unwonted form, but heroes and strong, warlike men.” And those of the Damascene: “I judge that those are here called giants who were of most robust body; whence the saying, ‘A giant shall not be saved by the greatness of his strength.’” To the opinion of these Cyril must be joined, who, at the beginning of the ninth book against Julian, disputing about this very passage of Moses, writes thus: “It is the custom of divine Scripture to call the wild and fierce and robust ‘giants.’ For of the Persians and Medes who were to devastate Judaea, God said through Isaiah: ‘Giants shall come to fulfill my fury,’ etc. For we do not say that the giants were, as the Greek poets have it, of such lofty bodies that they could snatch islands from the midst of the sea and hurl them into heaven, but foul of aspect and monstrous and reckless; nor yet, however, so far transcending the measure of humanity as it seemed good to the Greek sages, who were lying, to say.” Thus Cyril.⁹

But, on the contrary, others (whose opinion is the truer) judge that by Moses are called “giants” men of remarkable height and vastness of body, with which, however, there was at the same time joined an incredible savagery…¹⁰

…and cruelty, and likewise pride and impiety; such, indeed, as the Interlinear Gloss describes them here — namely huge of body, proud of spirit, exceedingly strong, and disorderly in manners; whence they are called “giants,” that is, “sons of the earth.” But Cassian, in Conference 8, ch. 21, says that they were most robust hunters, most violent and most truculent men, who were called “giants” because of the enormity of their bodies, or of their cruelty and malice. “For these were the first among men to begin to ravage their neighbors and practice plunder, content rather to pass their life by booty than by the sweat and labor of their own work; and whose crimes had so grown up that the world could not be expiated except by the inundation of the Flood.” Thus Cassian.¹¹

Ambrose too, in On Noah and the Ark, ch. 4, follows the same interpretation. “The author of divine Scripture,” he says, “does not wish the giants to be seen, after the manner of the poets, as sons of the earth, but asserts that those whom he calls by this name were generated from angels and women, wishing to express the greatness of their body.” Although in the same place, carrying over what is here written about the giants to a mystical understanding, Ambrose says that those are like the giants who pursue only the things of the flesh, but have no care for the soul — whence they can be named “sons of the earth”; and because they oppose the divine will and precepts, they seem, after the manner of the giants, to make war with the powers above. The blessed Augustine too, in the book of Questions on Genesis, q. 3, and in book 15 of The City of God, ch. 23, interprets what Moses here writes about the Giants of true and commonly so-called giants.¹²

Theodoret, moreover, illustrates and at the same time confirms this interpretation with brilliant testimonies of divine Scripture. For he says thus in the 48th question on Genesis: “Some say that those whom divine Scripture calls ‘giants’ are those who lived many years; but some say they are men, haters and adversaries of God. Those who think thus do not suppose that they had bodies larger than other men. But I, when I hear Scripture saying that Enac was sprung from the giants, and that the iron bedstead of King Og was nine cubits in length and four in breadth; and likewise when I hear the spies of Joshua relating that the Hebrews, in comparison with the giants who were in the land of Hebron, were as locusts; and God saying, ‘I delivered up the Amorite, whose height was like the cedars and his strength like the oaks’ — I judge that there were certain exceedingly large men, God wisely dispensing this, that men might know that God, as the omnipotent Creator, distributed to men so great a measure. For it was very easy for God to create men larger than they are; but, in order to cut down pride and restrain arrogance, he did not give men the largest bodies. For if, endowed with small bodies, man exalts himself not only against his fellows but even against God the Creator of all, what would they not have committed had they obtained the largest bodies?” So Theodoret. And, if it please, let it be permitted to add to these what Berosus Annianus set forth about giants of this kind at the beginning of his History: “They write,” he says, “that in those first times, before the general inundation of the lands, there was around Lebanon Henos, a very great city of Giants, who lorded it over the whole world from the setting of the sun to its rising; these, trusting in the vastness and strength of their body, and with the weapons they had invented…”¹³

“…and with the weapons they had invented, oppressed all; they ate men, procured abortions and prepared them for food; they had intercourse with mothers, daughters, sisters, with males and with beasts; and there was no crime they did not commit, all reverence for religion and the gods being despised.” So he.¹⁴

I have found, in the sacred writings, that by the word “Giants” are called men eminent above all in five respects: that is, in vastness of body, in strength, in knowledge and power in war, in pride beyond the human measure, and finally [men] who, on account of their inhumanity and cruelty, were most formidable and terrible, and on whose account chiefly the Flood was sent. And, to omit the scriptural passages cited by Theodoret, what I have said can be plainly recognized from certain other passages of Scripture. David, Psalm 18: “He rejoiced,” he says, “as a giant to run his course” — there you have giant-like agility and swiftness; and Psalm 32: “A giant shall not be saved by the greatness of his strength” — there you have strength and might. Solomon, Proverbs 9: “And he knew not that there are giants there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell.” Isaiah, ch. 14, speaking of the king of Babylon: “Hell beneath was troubled to meet thee at thy coming, it stirred up the giants for thee” — hence it appears that the Giants were a kind of men terrifying and most to be feared. Baruch 3: “There were those renowned giants who were from the beginning, of great stature, expert in war” — from this it is clear that the Giants excelled in height of body and knowledge of the art of war. Isaiah, ch. 26: “Let not the giants rise again; therefore hast thou visited and crushed them, and destroyed all their memory.” Job, ch. 16: “He hath rushed upon me like a giant.” Wisdom 14: “When in the beginning the proud giants were perishing, the hope of the world, fleeing to the boat, sent back to the age the seed of birth, which was steered by thy hand.” Ecclesiasticus 16: “The ancient giants did not obtain pardon for their sins, who were destroyed trusting to their own strength.” From these last two scriptural passages it is plain that the Flood was sent chiefly for the sake of destroying the Giants. It appears, therefore, what force and notion underlies the word “Giants” in the sacred writings: for that word signifies the tallest of all mortals, the most robust, the most warlike, and, on account of their savagery, the most horrible.¹⁵