NP-2353Folder 09 — People & Texts to Investigate
Early Church Fathers on Genesis 6
Most pre-Nicene Christian writers held the angelic reading — a fact often forgotten.
HISTORICAL SOURCEINTERPRETATION
The record
Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria and others discuss the angelic reading, several treating Enochic material with respect. Tertullian defends the Book of Enoch explicitly.
The shift
From roughly the third century onward, discomfort with angelic reproduction, changing philosophical assumptions, and the growing authority of the Sethite reading move the consensus. Julius Africanus is an early voice for the Sethite view.