NOTES. PREFACE, p. xi. An erroneous translation by the LXX. of that verse in the sixth Chapter of Genesis, &c. THE error of these interpreters (and, it is said, of the old Italic version also,) was in making it OF AYER TE DAY, "the Angels of God," instead of "the Sons"-a mistake, which, assisted by the allegorizing comments of Philo, and the rhapsodical fictions of the Book of Enoch, was more than sufficient to affect the imaginations It is lamentable to think that this absurd production, of which we now know the whole from Dr. Laurence's translation, should ever have been considered as an inspired or authentic work. See the Preliminary Dissertation prefixed to the Translation. of such half-Pagan writers as Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, and Lactantius, who, chiefly, among the Fathers, have indulged themselves in fanciful reveries upon the subject. The greater number, however, have rejected the fiction with indignation. Chrysostom, in his twenty-second Homily upon Genesis, earnestly exposes its absurdity; and Cyril accounts such a supposition as frus magias, "bordering on folly." εγγυς μωρίας, Ac cording to these Fathers (and their opinion has been followed by all the theologians, down *One of the arguments of Chrysostom is, that Angels are no where else, in the Old Testament, called "Sons of God," but his commentator, Montfaucon, shows that he is mistaken, and that in the Book of Job they are so designated, (c. 1. v. 6.) both in the original Hebrew and the Vulgate, though not in the Septuagint, which alone, he says, Chrysostom read. † Lib. ii. Glaphyrorum.-Philæstrius, in his enumeration of heresies, classes this story of the Angels among the number, and says it deserves only to be ranked with those fictions about gods and goddesses, to which the fancy of the Pagan poets gave birth :-" Sicuti et Paganorum et Poe"tarum mendacia adserunt deos deasque transformatos "nefanda conjugia commisisse."-De Hæres. Edit, Basil. P. 101. from St. Thomas to Caryl and Lightfoot *,) the term "Sons of God," must be understood to mean the decendants of Seth, by Enos-a family peculiarly favoured by heaven, because with them, men first began "to call upon the name of the Lord"-while, by "the daughters of men," they suppose that the corrupt race of Cain is designated. The probability, however, is, that the words in question ought to have been translated "the sons of the nobles of great "men," as we find them interpreted in the Targum of Onkelos, (the most ancient and accurate of all the Chaldaic paraphrases,) and, as it appears from Cyril, the version of Symmachus also rendered them. This translation of the passage removes all difficulty, and at once relieves the Sacred History of an extravagance, which, * Lightfoot says, "The sons of God, or the members of the Church, and the progeny of Seth, marrying carelessly and promiscuously with the daughters of men, or brood of Cain, &c." I find in Pole that, according to the Samaritan version, the phrase may be understood as meaning "the Sons of the Judges."-So variously may the Hebrew word, Elohim, be interpreted. |