SPIRITISM BEFORE THE FLOOD

I

THE task we have set ourselves would be inadequately rendered if attention were not called to the mysterious sixth chapter of Genesis, whose record of the marriages of "the sons of God" with "the daughters of men" and the issue of the same is intended to account for the catastrophe of the flood. The text follows:

"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

"That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

"And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

The question arises, Who were these "sons of God" and these "daughters of men" whose union produced the powerful and wicked race the iniquity of which resulted thus and necessitated this judgment?

We who are familiar with the use of the first-named phrase in the New Testament might at first interpret it to mean men of faith, true believers, godly saints; while the second would logically apply to women of the opposite character.

But reflection would recall that Moses was unlikely to be using New Testament terms, and that such phraseology would be foreign to conditions ante-dating the flood.

Also, it might be asked, would godly men contract such marriages and in such a way, inasmuch as a plurality of wives and force in obtaining them seem to be implied? And even if they did, what would further explain the gigantic stature and colossal wickedness of their offspring bringing about so terrible a penalty as the flood?

In searching for a different explanation we find that "sons of God" is used everywhere else in the Old Testament to designate angels, and why should it not be so used here? Moreover if it were so used, it would carry with it a confounding of two distinct orders of creatures and the production of a mixed race, partly human, partly super-human, which would be just such a derangement of the Divine plan as to warrant that which occurred, namely, the almost total extermination of all who were upon the the earth.

Indeed this was the prevailing view of the passage in the ancient synagogue of the Jews and among Christian theologians for the first three or four centuries of the Church. And there is reason to believe it would not have changed in the latter case, had it not been for certain erroneous opinions and practices of Christendom, to which reference will be made later, and with which it was not in harmony.

But naturally there exists a prejudice against such a view. How could such intercourse be possible between the visible and invisible worlds, such an unnatural connection between beings so widely different from each other?

It is our purpose to deal with this question before we conclude, but a more important one precedes it. It is not, as Nicodemus said, "How can these things be?" but rather, Is it true that they are? However inconceivable or inexplicable the fact may be, it is first necessary to show that it is a fact.

In doing this we now address ourselves to two theories that have been most persistently maintained in opposition to it. The first, a Jewish interpretation which holds the "sons of God" to mean men of authority or rank who married women of inferior station; and the second, the Church interpretation already mentioned, which holds that godly men, the descendants of Seth for example, chose for wives women of godless life belonging to the line of Cain.

II

The Jewish interpretation has been paraphrased thus: "When men began to multiply on the earth the chief men took wives of all the handsome poor women they chose. They were tyrants in the earth of those days. Also, after the antediluvian days, powerful men had unlawful connexions with the inferior women, and the children which sprang from this illicit intercourse were the renowned heroes of antiquity, of whom the heathen made their gods."

The ground on which this interpretation was founded is that the Hebrew word for God, Elohim, is sometimes used in the Old Testament to denote judges or princes, hence "sons of God" might mean sons of judges or sons of princes. And the Hebrew word for man, Adam, is occasionally used to denote one whose station in the world is lowly or poor, hence "daughters of men" might mean daughters of the lowly or the poor.

It is admitted that Elohim (gods) is, in a few instances, applied in the Old Testament to Israelitish magistrates acting representatively for Jehovah, but there is nothing in this passage of that character. Moreover this word is not Elohim simply, but Bne-ha-Elohim, a very different expression, which means "sons of God", and which in every other instance stands, not for men of any grade or distinction, but for angels. Therefore, the inference is fair that if in this place, Moses had intended men however great, he would not have used that word but some other, of which there were several from which to choose.

It is admitted also that Adam is, in some places, applied to human beings of low degree, but when women of low degree are meant the word is always used in connection with the word Ish, which is not the case here. Otherwise the word simply means a man, or mankind in general, without distinction of class or condition. Moreover the particular word now under discussion is not Adam simply, but Bnoth-ha-Adam, ''daughters of Men," which occurs nowhere else in the Old Testament, so that no argument can be founded upon its usage.

"In short," to quote another, "women of high station as well as low are Bnoth-ha-Adam," and the title simply means Adam's daughters, female descendants, womankind without distinction.

Indeed it is difficult to understand how such an interpretation of the passage ever found acceptance considering its extreme improbability. How unlikely, to continue quoting, "that all the great men of the day, or even a large proportion of them, should, at the same time and with one consent, contract such alliances? And how unlikely that female beauty should just then have appeared, and only or chiefly, in women of the lower rank; and that it should have possessed such strongly attractive power in the case of all these "sons of God"?

And stranger still, how improbable the results that followed? Why should it have come about that the marriage of the judges, or princes, of that age with women of low degree but of great beauty, should have issued in mighty men of renown, a heroic race of gigantic size, celebrated for their exploits through succeeding time?

And strangest of all, the Hebrew word for "giants" in verse four is Nephilim, which means "fallen ones," as to whom there can be little doubt that they were more than human beings and derived their origin in part from a superhuman source.

A word of explanation seems necessary before leaving the Jewish interpretation, by which of course is not meant that of the ancient Jewish synagogue mentioned above, but that of Jewish teachers of a later time, say, the early centuries of the Christian era. The Jewish synagogue, as was said, held to the angel interpretation.

Just what prompted the change of interpetation from that of angels to that of great men is not known except that it could not have been on exegetical grounds. Fleming, from whose work on The Fallen Angels and the Heroes of Mythology we are quoting, thinks it may have been dogmatic considerations concerning the nature of angels of which we shall speak by and by; but suffice for the present to re-affirm that the angelic interpetation was the first which suggested itself, and that it was very anciently received both by Jews and Christians.

Ill

A fair and clear statement of the later Christian, or Church, interpretation is given by Dr. John Gill in his Exposition of the Old Testament, published in the middle of the 18th century. He says: "Those sons of God were not angels, because angels are incorporeal beings, and can not be affected with fleshly lusts, or marry and be given in marriage, or generate and be generated. Nor were they the sons of judges, magistrates and great personages; but rather is the phrase to be understood of the posterity of Seth, who from the time of Enos, when men began to be called by the Name of the Lord (Gen. IV. 26), had the title of 'sons of God' in distinction from the children of men."

All this is pure assumption on Dr. Gill's part, and was to be expected, since no serious attempt seems to have been made by him to ascertain the real meaning of the words in their place whatever the consequences might be. For example, what ground outside of his own opinion, had he for saying that angels are incorporeal, etc.? And similarly, what ground for saying all that he does say about the posterity of Seth?

However, he has plenty of company among commentators and others, including some of the poets, Milton as an illustration, in Paradise Lost. And yet, that great poet, in Paradise Regained Book II, returns to the angel interpretation, where he makes Satan, after the failure of his first temptation of Christ, in addressing the infernal council, say to Belial:

"Before the flood, thou with thy lusty crew,

False titled sons of God, roaming the earth,

Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men,

And coupled with them, and begot a race."

What, however, explains the abandonment of the earlier angel interpretation for this of the sons of Seth? The most likely answer is that of John Henry Kurtz, D.D., professor of theology at Dorpat, quoted at some length by Fleming, who attributes it to the rise of certain superstitions and unwarrantable practices in the church growing out of false ideas as to the nature of angels.

In other words, it was the coming in of angel worship that drove it out. Angel worship raised its head gradually, but its progress tended to remove everything that might shake confidence in the holiness of angels, or mar the gratification which their worship afforded.

There was also a second cause which was almost equally influential with the first, namely the spread of celibacy, or monkery, as Kurtz calls it, and the reverence with which it came to be regarded in the early centuries. If Genesis VI. 1-4 taught that although the angels in heaven marry not, yet at one time a portion of them, seduced by the beauty of women, came down to earth for the purpose of gratifying amorous propensities, then a weakness of the like kind on the part of "earthly angels" might be more readily excused. As a matter of fact such an apology was pleaded for monkish transgressions, at the time, and it therefore became a pretext for changing angelic "sons of God" into human "sons of God."

It was not until the last century that the angel interpretation began again to find favor with Christian theologians. And for its revival by the way, we are, in a sense, indebted to the destructive critics. Their attacks upon the Bible necessitated a return to the old-fashioned way of studying it with the aid of the grammar and lexicon. Exegesis thus has been restored to its rightful place, and exegesis never attempts to explain away uncommon or supernatural occurrences just because it does not understand them.

We have spoken of Fleming's work on The Fallen Angels, but he, in turn, is indebted to Kurtz above named, and to Maitland's essays on the same subject and on False Worship, as well as to Kitto's Daily Bible Illustrations. Following these authorities he goes on to deal at length with collateral aspects of the question for which we have not the space or time except to mention them. They include the suppositions and assumptions that are involved in the Sethite interpretation, an examination of Genesis IV. 26, which speaks of Seth's descendants, a careful inquiry into the use of a phrase analogous to "the sons of God" wherever it occurs either in the Old or New Testament, and the antithesis of the "sons of God" and "daughters of men."

We have studied him with care, and feel convinced that the improbabilities involved in the Sethite, or as we have called it, the Church interpretation, are so serious as to put it out of court.

IV

In the next chapter we deal with the angel interpretation and the objections to it growing out of the supposed nature of angels. But we conclude this with some general observations in anticipation of it:

1. It has already been suggested that while angels are immaterial beings, yet they appear to possess, or at least are able to assume, some kind of an ethereal, corporeal form. At the same time it is to be remembered that the human race is composed of immaterial beings, clothed at present with gross bodies akin to beasts, but hereafter, in the case of the redeemed at least, to be clothed with spiritual bodies not unlike that of angels. If, therefore, there is in our nature a capability of becoming like angels in some degree, is it so certain that they are as dissimilar to us in all respects as many people believe?

2. We have seen also that angels, both good and bad, are interested in the affairs of men, and have communicated with men. How much more intimate that communication might have been had not sin entered the human family, who can say? And if there is a possibility of greater communication if God willed it so, is it unlikely that evil angels, should it suit their propensities, would endeavor to make it so whether it was His will or not?