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| Chapter LV
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Chapter LV.
But, that we may grant to him in a spirit of
candour what he has not discovered in the contents of the book of
Genesis, that “the sons of God, seeing the daughters of men, that
they were fair, took to them wives of all whom they
chose,”4251
we shall
nevertheless even on this point persuade those who are capable of
understanding the meaning of the prophet, that even before us there was
one who referred this narrative to the doctrine regarding souls, which
became possessed with a desire for the corporeal life of men, and this
in metaphorical language, he said, was termed “daughters of
men.” But whatever may be the meaning of the “sons of
God desiring to possess the daughters of men,” it will not at all
contribute to prove that Jesus was not the only one who visited mankind
as an angel, and who manifestly became the Saviour and benefactor of
all those who depart from the flood of wickedness. Then, mixing
up and confusing whatever he had at any time heard, or had anywhere
found written—whether held to be of divine origin among
Christians or not—he adds: “The sixty or seventy who
descended together were cast under the earth, and were punished with
chains.” And he quotes (as from the book of Enoch, but
without naming it) the following: “And hence it is that the
tears of these angels are warm springs,”—a thing neither
mentioned nor heard of in the Churches of God! For no one was
ever so foolish as to materialize into human tears those which were
shed by the angels who had come down from heaven. And if it were
right to pass a jest upon what is advanced against us in a serious
spirit by Celsus, we might observe that no one would ever have said
that hot springs, the greater part of which are fresh water, were the
tears of the angels, since tears are saltish in their nature, unless
indeed the angels, in the opinion of Celsus, shed tears which are
fresh.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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