Philo of Alexandria gives us one of the clearest early Jewish readings of Genesis 6 outside the apocalyptic traditions associated with 1 Enoch. In Questions on Genesis, he speaks quite directly: angels assumed human form, joined with women, and produced giants. In On the Giants, however, he turns the same passage into an allegory about bodily appetite, reason, and virtue.
That combination makes Philo especially useful, but also easy to oversimplify. He appears to accept the angelic interpretation as a real account of what happened, yet reconstructing the event is not his primary interest. He is far more concerned with what Genesis 6 reveals about human beings who live for pleasure rather than virtue.
Philo does not settle the meaning of Genesis 6 for us. What he does provide is an important first-century Jewish witness to how the passage could be read within a Greek-speaking, philosophically informed setting.
Who Was Philo, and Why Do His Angels Matter for Genesis 6?
Philo lived in the Greek‑speaking Jewish community of Alexandria around the time of Jesus. Immersed in Greek philosophy, he wrote many treatises that seek harmony between the Torah and thinkers like Plato and the Stoics. His hallmark method is allegory: beneath the literal story he looks for a spiritual meaning about the soul, virtue, and God.
That makes him very different from the apocalyptic authors of 1 Enoch or Jubilees, who expand Genesis 6 into detailed narratives about Watchers and giant wars. Philo, by contrast, stays close to the wording of the Septuagint Genesis and reads it like a philosopher: angels become topics in metaphysics (the structure of the cosmos and its spirits) and moral psychology (how the soul is drawn toward virtue or pleasure).
In these passages, Philo clearly reads the “sons of God” as angels. Jaap Doedens summarizes his stance this way: “According to Philo, the ‘sons of God’ in Gen 6:1–4 are angels, the very same beings whom – in the vocabulary of Philo – philosophers other than Moses call ‘demons’.” (Jaap Doedens, The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4, Mohr Siebeck 2019, p. 254). This places Philo alongside other Second Temple Jewish texts, including 1 Enoch and Jubilees, that also interpret the passage angelically. It does not by itself establish how universal that interpretation was.
Philo matters because he gives us a philosophically trained Jewish reading that is both direct and complicated. In Questions on Genesis, he describes angels assuming human form and producing giants. In On the Giants, he insists Moses is not telling a fable, but spends far more time exploring the passage’s moral symbolism.
At the same time, his context heavily shapes his language. When Philo talks about angels, he also talks about “souls,” “powers,” and what Greek philosophers call daimones. His terminology is flexible, and he is comfortable letting the same passage speak on more than one level. For modern readers that means we must constantly ask whether he is describing how the unseen realm actually operates, sketching a picture of how the soul behaves, or doing both at once.
| Philo work / passage | Genre & focus | How Genesis 6 is used | Literal vs. allegorical tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| On the Giants (De Gigantibus) | Philosophical/moral treatise; allegorical commentary on early Genesis | Genesis 6:1–4 as a springboard to discuss giants, angels, and three kinds of humanity, with emphasis on pleasure vs. virtue | Mixed but leaning allegorical; assumes angels and giants yet dwells on symbolic meaning |
| Questions and Answers on Genesis (on Gen 6:4) | Verse‑by‑verse Q&A exegesis | Directly asks how giants could be born and answers in terms of angels taking human form and begetting them with women | Strongly literal on angels, their transformation, and the birth of giants |
| Other Genesis comments | Scattered remarks in broader allegorical commentaries | Uses “sons of God” language for angels and also for especially virtuous humans | Conceptual and flexible, not focused on historical details |
Philo’s Angelic Reading: Souls in the Air, Sons of God, and the Birth of Giants
Angels as “demons” and souls in the air
In On the Giants, Philo introduces angels in terms shaped by Greek demonology: “Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels; and they are souls hovering in the air.” Here he aligns Moses’ angels with the daimones of Greek philosophy and describes their ordinary “place” as the air, not the earth.
He immediately defends this against the charge of fable: “And let no one suppose, that what is here stated is a fable, for it is necessarily true that the universe must be filled with living things in all its parts, since every one of its primary and elementary portions contains its appropriate animals and such as are consistent with its nature…” Philo argues from a cosmological principle: if sea and land are populated, the air must also have its proper animals, namely souls or spirits.
He presses the point by appealing to the limits of sight: “It is therefore necessary that the air also should be full of living beings. And these beings are invisible to us, inasmuch as the air itself is not visible to mortal sight. But it does not follow, because our sight is incapable of perceiving the forms of souls, that for that reason there are no souls in the air; but it follows of necessity that they must be comprehended by the mind, in order that like may be contemplated by like.” Angels, then, are real although unseen; they are to be known by intellect, not by the eyes.
This broader picture undergirds his treatment of Genesis 6: angelic beings are spiritual “souls in the air” who can cross into human affairs. Later, when he speaks of angels assuming bodily form, that move rests on this prior conviction that the cosmos is thick with invisible spirits.
Giants born from angels and women
When he turns directly to Genesis 6:4 in Questions on Genesis, Philo asks, “On what principle it was that giants were born of angels and women? (Ge 6:4).” He first notes that poets call men born from the earth “giants,” but then distinguishes Moses’ account from poetic exaggeration by explaining that these giants arose from a mixed procreation.
His answer is the clearest statement of his literal reading:
“But he relates that these giants were sprung from a combined procreation of two natures, namely, from angels and mortal women; for the substance of angels is spiritual; but it occurs every now and then that on emergencies occurring they have imitated the appearance of men, and transformed themselves so as to assume the human shape; as they did on this occasion, when forming connexions with women for the production of giants.”
Here Philo says that angels, whose nature is spiritual, can “imitate” human appearance and “assume the human shape,” and that Genesis 6:4 describes such an occasion, resulting in the birth of giants. He offers this as a direct explanation of the passage rather than dismissing it as a fable.
The account fits his earlier cosmology: invisible souls in the air can, in certain circumstances, appear in bodily form and enter into human relations, including sexual unions. The story of Genesis 6 is therefore, in his view, unusual but not philosophically absurd.
“Sons of God”: angels and exemplary humans
In the same passage Philo reflects on the expression “sons of God” and makes an important distinction:
“But sometimes Moses styles the angels the sons of God, inasmuch as they were not produced by any mortal, but are incorporeal, as being spirits destitute of any body; or rather that exhorter and teacher of virtue, namely Moses, calls those men who are very excellent and endowed with great virtue the sons of God; and the wicked and depraved men he calls bodies, or flesh.”
For Genesis 6, he still identifies the “sons of God” as angels, as the surrounding explanation shows. But he also generalizes the phrase: by analogy, it can describe humans whose lives are shaped by virtue rather than by flesh. Conversely, the wicked are merely “bodies” or “flesh.” Philo thus uses the terminology of the passage to sketch a moral hierarchy among humans without abandoning its angelic reference in the original story.
On the Giants: Allegory, Pleasure, and the Three Kinds of Humanity
Questions on Genesis treats Genesis 6 in a relatively direct way. On the Giants ranges more widely. It is a philosophical homily that uses the giants verse as an entry point into the soul’s struggle between passion and virtue, and the different “births” a human life can display.
Moses versus pagan fables about giants
In the middle of On the Giants, Philo anticipates a reader who might see Moses as echoing Greek giant‑myths. He responds:
“‘And there were giants on the earth in those days.’ Perhaps some one may here think, that the lawgiver is speaking enigmatically and alluding to the fables handed down by the poets about giants, though he is a man as far removed as possible from any invention of fables, and one who thinks fit only to walk in the paths of truth itself… Therefore he utters no fable whatever respecting the giants; but he wishes to set this fact before your eyes, that some men are born of the earth, and some are born of heaven, and some are born of God: those are born of the earth, who are hunters after the pleasures of the body, devoting themselves to the enjoyment and fruition of them…”
Philo insists that Moses “utters no fable whatever respecting the giants.” The narrative is, for him, truthful, even if it also bears symbolic meaning. He then immediately draws the moral taxonomy he finds in the verse: “earth‑born” people devoted to bodily pleasure, “heaven‑born” people oriented to higher goods, and “God‑born” people characterized by true virtue. The giants exemplify the earth‑born category.
Wicked “angels” and daughters of pleasure
Developing this typology, Philo casts certain wicked humans as pseudo‑angels chasing sensual “daughters”:
“These are the wicked who, assuming the name of angels, not being acquainted with the daughters of right reason, that is with the sciences and the virtues, but which pursue the mortal descendants of mortal men, that is the pleasures, which can confer no genuine beauty, which is perceived by the intellect alone, but only a bastard sort of elegance of form, by means of which the outward sense is beguiled; and they do not all take all the daughters in marriage, but some of them have selected some of that innumerable company to be their wives; some choosing them by the sight, and others by the ear, others again being influenced by the sense of taste, or by the belly, and some even by the pleasures below the belly…”
Here the language of “angels” and “daughters” is applied to human characters: people who claim a spiritual status while actually pursuing bodily pleasures through sight, hearing, taste, and sexual appetite. This does not necessarily mean Philo is redefining the Genesis 6 angels as merely human. In light of his more direct comments elsewhere, it is better understood as an allegorical use of the story to expose similar patterns in human life.
Good and evil angels
Philo’s moral use of angel language rests on a broader distinction between righteous and unrighteous angels:
“But as men in general speak of good and evil demons, and in like manner of good and evil souls, so also do they speak of angels, looking upon some as worthy of a good appellation, and calling them ambassadors of man to God, and of God to man, and sacred and holy on account of this blameless and most excellent office; others, again, you will not err if you look upon as unholy and unworthy of any address.”
This distinction may help explain how Philo understood the Genesis 6 angels, although he does not fully systematize the connection here. His allegory applies a similar warning to humans who pursue pleasure under a pious guise.
Philo’s three kinds of humanity mapped
Across these passages Philo uses the Genesis 6 material to chart a moral landscape of humanity. The table below synthesizes his main categories and how they relate to the story.
| Category / image in Philo | Definition and traits | Relation to Genesis 6 language | Spiritual takeaway |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Born of the earth” | People dominated by bodily pleasure, appetites and material concerns | Aligned with the giants and with the wicked who cling to “flesh” | Warned that devotion to pleasure makes them like the giants, headed for judgment |
| “Born of heaven” | Those oriented toward higher, rational and moral goods, yet still imperfect | Linked by analogy to “sons of God” when Philo extends the term to virtuous humans | Encouraged to keep ascending rather than sliding back into the earth‑born state |
| “Born of God” | Truly virtuous, contemplative people whose lives reflect God’s character | Presented as a third class disclosed through Moses’ reference to giants | Held up as the proper goal of human life: likeness to God rather than to the giants |
| Wicked men “assuming the name of angels” | Humans who cloak their vice in spiritual language while hunting every form of sensual pleasure | Allegorical counterpart to the angels taking daughters of men; they pursue “daughters of pleasure” | Exposed as counterfeit “sons of God,” whose real kinship is with fleshly giants |
In this way Philo turns a brief pre‑Flood narrative into a map of the moral life. The core of his exhortation is that devotion to bodily pleasure aligns a person with the giants and with fallen angels, while a life shaped by virtue and contemplation aligns one with heaven and with God.
Literal Story, Allegorical Lens: How Far Can We Press Philo on Genesis 6?
Holding together Philo’s literal statements about angels and his rich allegory raises a methodological question: how much weight can his writings bear when we reconstruct early interpretations of Genesis 6?
Doedens observes that Questions on Genesis “focuses more on the sensus litteralis; the angels are understood as adopting a human form in order to engage in connections with women” (Doedens, The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4, p. 254). On the Giants, by contrast, gives far more attention to flesh and spirit, pleasure and virtue, and the three levels of humanity. Philo moves between literal and allegorical exposition rather than offering a systematic doctrine of angels and giants.
The clearest evidence comes from Questions on Genesis, where Philo describes angels assuming human shape and forming unions with women that produce giants. In On the Giants, he also insists that Moses is not repeating a poetic fable. Together, these passages make Philo an important early witness to the angelic reading. They do not show that every Jewish interpreter accepted it, nor do they answer every question about how Philo imagined the event.
Philo’s silence about 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and related elaborations should be handled carefully. We can say that he does not rely on those texts in these discussions. We cannot determine from that silence whether he lacked access to them, considered them unimportant for this purpose, or declined to treat them as authoritative.
A modest use of Philo allows us to say that he:
- Provides an important early Jewish witness to the angelic interpretation of Genesis 6.
- Describes spiritual beings assuming human form as the mechanism by which the giants were produced.
- Uses the narrative to develop a wider moral contrast between earth-born, heaven-born, and God-born lives.
Beyond those points, many details remain underdetermined. Philo does not explain exactly how he imagined the giants’ bodies, what their mixed origin meant physically, or how he would coordinate the episode with every other biblical account of angels. His writings give us several clear affirmations, but not a complete reconstruction.
Conclusion
Philo gives us clear evidence of one early Jewish reading of Genesis 6. In Questions on Genesis, he describes spiritual beings assuming human shape and joining with women to produce giants. In On the Giants, he insists Moses is not telling a fable, but uses the passage chiefly to contrast lives ruled by bodily pleasure with lives oriented toward virtue and God.
That does not make Philo a final authority on Genesis 6, nor does it answer every question about the Nephilim. It shows that the angelic interpretation could be treated as a serious reading of the passage within first-century Greek-speaking Judaism. His literal and allegorical readings belong together, and both must be considered if we want to represent him fairly.
This article was written by Jake Mooney, a storyteller and researcher who has spent over 25 years studying Genesis 6, the Nephilim, ancient mythologies, and Second Temple literature. The analysis is based on reading Philo’s On the Giants and Questions on Genesis in standard English translations and comparing those texts with modern scholarship such as Jaap Doedens’ The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4, all weighed carefully against the biblical text.
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