Note 41 — Quest. XIX.

This was the opinion of most if the fathers, in the three first centuries of the church, namely, Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Clemens, Alexandrinus, Lactantius, Irenæus, Cyprian, and others. Some of them appeared to have taken the hint thereof from some MS. of the LXX translation, which rendered the words in Gen. vi. 2. instead of the sons of God, the angels saw the daughters of men, &c. This translation being used by them, instead of the Hebrew text, which they did not well understand; though others took it from a spurious and fabulous writing, which they had in their hands, called Enoch, or, the prophecy of Enoch, or rather, Liber, παρα εγρηγορων, de Egregoris, a barbarous Greek word, used to signify angels, and taken from the character given them of watchers, in Daniel. Of this book, we have some fragments now remaining, in which there is such a ridiculous and fabulous account of this matter, as very much, herein exceeds the apocryphal history of Tobit. It gives an account of a conspiracy among the angels, relating to this matter; the manner of their entering into it, their names, the year of the world, and place in which this wickedness was committed, and other things, that are unworthy of a grave historian; and, the reckoning it among those writings, that are supposed to have a divine sanction, is little other than profaneness and blasphemy. Some of the fathers, who refer to this book, pretend it to be no other than apocryphal, and, had they counted it otherwise, all would have reckoned it a burlesque upon scripture; therefore Origen, who, on other occasions, seems to pay too great a deference to it, when Celsus takes notice of it, as containing a banter on the Christian religion, he is, on that occasion, obliged to reply to him, that book was not in great reputation in the church, Vid. Orig. contra Celsum, Lib. V. And Jerom reckons it among the apocryphal writings, Vid. Hieronym. in Catal. Script. Eccles. cap. 4. And Augustin calls it not only apocryphal, but, as it deserves, fabulous. Vid. ejusd. de Civ. Dei. Lib. XV. cap. 23.