Commodianus is one of the earliest surviving Latin Christian poets. Recent scholarship places him most likely in North Africa, probably Carthage, during the third quarter of the third century, while acknowledging that much about his life remains uncertain. In one short passage he connects angels, women, giants, arts, images, and wandering beings worshiped as gods. He narrates the sequence without visible hesitation, but some of his pronouns leave uncertain whether he means the angels, their giant offspring, or both. Here I want to distinguish what he clearly says from what remains ambiguous, then consider how his account should be weighed against Scripture.
Genesis 6:1–4 itself speaks briefly of “sons of God,” “daughters of man,” and the Nephilim. By “sons of God,” ancient readers often understood heavenly beings; by “Nephilim,” a mysterious group associated with power, violence, and (in many traditions) giant stature. There are other ways to read those terms, but the focus here stays on Commodianus’s angelic view, because that is what he clearly assumes.
His poem is not Scripture. Like the non‑canonical Book of Enoch, it is an ancient attempt to make sense of a difficult biblical text. That makes it valuable as a historical witness, but not as doctrinal authority.
What Did Commodianus Think Happened in Genesis 6?
Commodianus reads Genesis 6 in terms of angelic beings joining with women, not human princes or the line of Seth. His discussion appears in section III of Instructions, titled “The Worship of Demons” in the English translation used here (Intratext, Commodianus, Instructions).
A substantial block of that poem lays out his reading. In the first lines, Commodianus describes God’s initiative: “When Almighty God, to beautify the nature of the world, willed that that earth should be visited by angels, when they were sent down they despised His laws.” A few words later he explains why these angels did not remain faithful to their commission: “Such was the beauty of women, that it turned them aside; so that, being contaminated, they could not return to heaven.”
Because God sends the angels, their initial descent does not appear to be the rebellion. Commodianus locates their disobedience after they encounter the women and “despise His laws.” That sequence suggests a violated boundary, although he does not explain the boundary in detail.
Midway through the same passage, he says that from the seed of these contaminated angels and the women, giants came into being, and that God responded in judgment: “Then the Highest uttered His judgment against them; and from their seed giants are said to have been born.”
In this passage, Commodianus gives no signal that he is offering a symbolic interpretation or considering human kings or the line of Seth. He speaks of angels sent by God who then fall, placing him within the supernatural trajectory also found in several Second Temple Jewish traditions. It is safest to say that he narrates the sequence as an account he accepts, rather than trying to reconstruct a complete historical doctrine from this short poem.
Giants, New Skills, and the Spirits Behind Idols
Immediately after mentioning the giants’ origin, Commodianus writes: “By them arts were made known in the earth, and they taught the dyeing of wool, and everything which is done.” The antecedent of “them” is unclear. He may mean the angels, the giants, or the rebellious group collectively.
At minimum, Commodianus connects the introduction of these arts with the corrupt sequence he has just narrated. The wording does not let us confidently assign the teaching to both angels and giants or build a broader theory about his attitude toward all human culture.
Later in the same poem he narrates what happens when these giants die. Humans respond to their deaths by creating images of them, and God responds by refusing to restore them:
“and to them, when they died, men erected images. But the Almighty, because they were of an evil seed, did not approve that, when dead, they should be brought back from death.”
Human memory and divine judgment are juxtaposed. Men erect images for the dead figures, while Commodianus says that God does not bring those of “evil seed” back from death. It is safer to report that statement directly than to turn this brief poetic line into a developed doctrine about resurrection.
Finally, he turns from past to present. The closing line of the quotation makes the decisive link from ancient giants to his own pagan contemporaries: “Whence wandering they now subvert many bodies, and it is such as these especially that ye this day worship and pray to as gods.”
Commodianus appears to connect the dead giants, the images erected for them, and the wandering beings worshiped as gods. Yet the compact sequence and shifting pronouns make the exact antecedents difficult to follow. The most cautious conclusion is that he links the Genesis 6 episode with hostile spiritual powers behind pagan worship. His precise genealogy for those powers is less explicit than a modern paraphrase can make it sound.
He is therefore saying more than simply calling idols powerless objects. He locates real hostile powers behind pagan worship, while leaving some uncertainty about exactly how the angels, giants, dead figures, images, and wandering beings relate to one another.
The sequence he sketches can be seen at a glance:
| Stage in Commodianus’s Story | What Happens | Key Outcome for Humanity |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Angels descend and fall through lust | God sends angels to earth; they break His law by desiring women | Heavenly beings enter human history in rebellion |
| 2. Giants are born from their seed | Unions of angels and women produce giant offspring | A new, powerful race appears among humans |
| 3. Arts and skills are introduced | The text says “by them” arts were made known, but the antecedent may be the angels, the giants, or both | The arts are connected with the corrupt Genesis 6 sequence |
| 4. Dead figures are memorialized | Men erect images after “they” die; the context likely points to the giants, but the pronouns are compressed | Images become part of Commodianus’s explanation of pagan worship |
| 5. Wandering beings are worshiped as gods | Commodianus says wandering beings subvert bodies and receive worship, though their exact identity is not stated with complete clarity | Pagan idolatry is connected with hostile spiritual powers |
This is how Commodianus connects the Genesis 6 tradition with his anti‑idolatry polemic. The broad movement is clear: angels fall, giants are born, arts and images enter the account, and wandering beings receive worship as gods. The exact subject of every action is less certain because several steps depend on ambiguous pronouns.
How Firmly Did Commodianus Hold This View—and Why Look at It Today?
Commodianus recites this framework without visible hedging in the passage. That supports treating it as the account he presents, but Instructions is polemical poetry rather than a systematic commentary on Genesis.
Some ancient Christian writers offer several possibilities or mark their interpretations as speculative. Commodianus does neither here. He recites the angelic descent, the giants, the statement about arts, the rise of images, and the worship of wandering beings as a continuous account.
The fallen-angels tradition appears to be an important part of Commodianus’s explanation of supernatural influence on human affairs. That fits the anti-idolatrous and apocalyptic concerns of his surviving poetry. In this passage, Genesis 6 becomes part of his explanation for why the nations worship hostile powers.
First, Commodianus shows that an angelic reading of Genesis 6 is not a modern novelty. A third-century Christian poet writing in Latin could present angels joining with women and fathering giants as part of an explanation for pagan religion. The passage does not tell us how widely his original readers shared or recognized every part of that interpretation.
Second, he gives a concrete example of how early Christians could integrate Jewish Second Temple traditions into their own thinking. His sequence—angels, giants, arts, demons behind idols—tracks closely with themes that appear in non‑canonical works like 1 Enoch. He is not quoting those texts, but he moves in the same orbit.
Third, he forces a question about how we treat such material. If an early Latin Christian poet uses the Genesis 6 tradition as part of an argument about pagan gods, how should we receive it? Commodianus is historically important, but not decisive. His reading is a witness to how one early Christian interpreted Genesis 6, not the standard by which we must read it.
When I sat down with his poem, what struck me was the lack of tentativeness. There is no “perhaps,” no “some say.” He simply tells the story. That does not make him right; it does make him a serious data point in the long history of Genesis 6 interpretation.
Genesis 6 Is Still Hard: What’s Debated and How to Navigate It
Here I step back from Commodianus’s certainty to mark the edges of what can be claimed. As I put it in my own summary, “it is essential to recognize that both ancient and modern scholars continue to grapple with the complexities of this biblical passage.”
That sentence counters any temptation to let one ancient witness settle things. Commodianus gives a vivid angelic reading, but he is part of a “grappling” process that stretches from Jewish Second Temple writers through the church fathers and into contemporary scholarship.
I also stress that “There are many unanswered questions, and unfortunately, the internet is filled with disinformation and sensationalized content surrounding the topic of the Nephilim in Genesis.”
This pushes against a rejected view in sight here: that online material about the Nephilim is generally reliable. I consider that false. In my judgment, much of what now circulates under the banner of Genesis 6 is distorted by fictional embellishment, conspiratorial speculation, or simple sloppiness.
That raises the question of how to proceed. One proposed answer is to lean on curated, research‑based resources that foreground primary sources and careful argument. I describe the project in exactly those terms: “By compiling ancient sources, conducting meticulous research, and providing quality analysis, Chasing the Giants aims to be a dependable and searchable database of information on the ‘sons of God’ and the Nephilim, tracing their origins from the Genesis account.”
This is not a claim to final authority. It is a methodological commitment: gather what ancient writers actually said, check it, cite it, and distinguish clearly between Scripture, historical interpretation, and modern inference. Commodianus’s poem enters that collection as one testimony among many.
Behind these cautions lie several live debates that I do not try to close:
- Whether “sons of God” in Genesis 6 must be angels, or could be human rulers or the line of Seth.
- Whether the Nephilim are directly the offspring of those unions, or a distinct group present “in those days, and also afterward.”
- How much of the Second Temple elaboration (angels teaching arts, giants’ spirits becoming demons, detailed angelic names and numbers) reflects the original intent of Genesis, and how much is theological storytelling.
- How later biblical texts (like Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4) are drawing on Genesis 6 and on those expanded traditions.
These remain open questions. Honest study has to face those uncertainties rather than pretend they are not there. That becomes the governing boundary of the whole discussion: Genesis 6 is important, but hard; ancient witnesses like Commodianus are illuminating, but not binding.
In light of that, it helps to see three broad approaches side by side:
| Approach | Who are the ‘sons of God’? | What are the Nephilim? | How is the passage used? | Notes on certainty/debate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commodianus’s angelic–giant–idol view | Literal angels sent by God who fell through lust | Giant offspring of angels and women; later wandering spirits | Explains origin of arts and the real powers behind pagan idols | Treated by him as straightforward history with no sign of doubt |
| Representative non‑angelic (Sethite/royal) view | Human figures: either Seth’s line or powerful rulers | Mighty human warriors, not hybrids; “giants” may be hyperbole | Warns about social corruption and intermarriage, not angelic rebellion | Prominent in later Christian interpretation and still defended by some modern interpreters |
| Methodological stance here | Leans toward a supernatural reading but keeps alternatives in view | Sees “giant” traditions as part of reception history to be studied carefully | Uses Genesis 6 to explore evil, idolatry, and spiritual conflict with Scripture central | Stresses complexity, unresolved questions, and need for sourced, Christ‑centred study |
Within those options, my own emphasis is less “follow Commodianus” than “learn how to weigh him.” That means testing each claim against Scripture, resisting modern sensationalism, and refusing to treat any single interpretation—angelic or otherwise—as exhausting the mystery of the text.
Why a Story of Angels and Giants Points Us Back to Christ
Studying Commodianus can feel a long way from ordinary discipleship. Angels descending in lust, giants, disputed teachers of arts, and wandering beings behind idols are not common subjects in many church Bible studies. Yet engaging with Genesis 6 and its reception should ultimately serve a recognizably Christian end rather than becoming speculation for its own sake.
On that framing, Commodianus does two things for a Christian reader.
First, he dramatizes the depth of the problem. In his account, the world has been twisted not only by human sin but by rebellion in the heavenly realm. Because his phrase “by them” is ambiguous, however, we should not use this poem to claim confidently that either angels or giants originated human technology. The New Testament speaks clearly about hostile spiritual powers, but it does not give the giants the role Commodianus assigns within his anti-idolatry argument.
Second, he highlights the danger of idolatry. For him, bowing before a statue is never neutral. It is an encounter, however unwitting, with wandering spirits opposed to God. That sharpens the relevance of biblical passages that already call idols “nothing” in themselves but assume that demonic powers stand behind them (as in 1 Corinthians 10:19–21). Commodianus gives a particular backstory to those powers; Scripture gives the remedy in Christ.
Within that larger frame, Jesus becomes the decisive answer to the very questions Commodianus is trying to solve. If fallen angels and their offspring corrupted the world before the flood, and if wandering spirits still mislead, then the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the true Son of God mark God’s response. The Gospels do not linger on Nephilim traditions, but they do present Jesus as confronting unclean spirits, liberating those under their power, and promising final judgment on the forces of darkness.
Engaging traditions like Commodianus’s, then, should not shift our focus from the core of the faith. It should deepen our sense of why the New Testament speaks in such strong terms about spiritual conflict and about Christ’s victory. The point is not to master every ancient giant story, but to see more clearly the scale of the enemy Christ defeats.
That, in the end, is where I want to leave the reader: intrigued by the strangeness of Genesis 6 and its ancient interpreters, cautious about modern disinformation, and anchored in the conviction that whatever happened “in those days,” the final and clearest word about spiritual powers comes from Jesus himself.
Conclusion
Commodianus presents an angelic reading of Genesis 6: God sends angels, they fall through lust, and giants are born from their seed. He then connects that sequence with arts, images, wandering beings, and pagan worship, although the pronouns do not allow every actor to be identified with equal confidence. In this short poem, the Genesis 6 tradition becomes part of his explanation of idolatry and the world’s corruption.
That makes his poem a significant witness to how early Christians could read Genesis 6, but not a final authority. The passage remains complex and contested; responsible readers will weigh Commodianus alongside Scripture, other ancient voices, and careful modern work, keeping Christ’s teaching and victory at the center. Used that way, his strange chain of angels, giants, and idols can sharpen our sense of the Bible’s warnings about spiritual powers without becoming a new dogma of its own.
Jake Mooney is the creator of Chasing the Giants, where he examines Genesis 6, the Nephilim, ancient sources, and modern scholarship without presenting speculation as certainty. He writes as an independent layman researcher collecting the words of more credentialed scholars.
This study worked from the Intratext English translation of Commodianus, checked its claims against the biblical text, and set them in conversation with wider debates about Genesis 6. Care was taken to separate what Commodianus asserts, what later traditions develop from him, and where Scripture itself stays silent.
If this kind of careful, source‑driven exploration is helpful, you are warmly invited to subscribe to the free monthly Chasing the Giants newsletter for future work on Genesis 6, Second Temple traditions, and how they intersect with the gospel of Christ.
