God, when He had made the whole world, and subjected things earthly to
man, and arranged the heavenly elements for the increase of fruits and rotation
of the seasons, and appointed this divine law—for these things also He
evidently made for man—committed the care of men and of all things under heaven
to angels whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this
appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those
that are called demons; and besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to
themselves, partly by magical writings, and partly by fears and the punishments
they occasioned, and partly by teaching them to offer sacrifices, and incense,
and libations, of which things they stood in need after they were enslaved by
lustful passions; and among men they sowed murders, wars, adulteries,
intemperate deeds, and all wickedness.
Whence also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the
angels and those demons who had been begotten by them that did these things to
men, and women, and cities, and nations, which they related, ascribed them to
god himself, and to those who were accounted to be his very offspring, and to
the offspring of those who were called his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to
the children again of these their offspring. For whatever name each of the
angels had given to himself and his children, by that name they called them. …
Commodianus corroborates Justin's account in 240CE when he writes, "From the seed [of the fallen angels and women], giants are said to have been born. By them, arts were made known in the earth. They taught the dyeing of wool and everything that is done. When they died, men erected images to them. Yet, because they were of an evil seed, the Almighty did not approve of their being brought back from death when they had died. For that reason, they wander and they now subvert many bodies. And it is these whom you [pagans] presently worship and pray to as gods.
ReplyDelete