A short allegorical treatise on Genesis 6:1-4 (the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the giants) read as a psychology of souls and the spirit of God.
On the Giants is a short exegetical treatise by the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, working verse by verse through Genesis 6:1-4: the multiplication of humankind, the sons of God taking wives from the daughters of men, and the birth of the giants. Rather than reading this as a folk tale about supernatural beings mating with women, Philo treats it as an allegory of the soul. He identifies the 'angels' of Moses with the 'demons' of Greek philosophy, arguing that the whole cosmos, including the air, must be filled with living, ensouled beings; some souls descend into bodies and are dragged under by bodily life, while others resist the pull of the flesh and rise back toward the incorporeal realm they came from.
The treatise's center of gravity is Numbers/Exodus material on the spirit of God, prompted by Genesis 6:3 ('My spirit shall not remain among men forever'). Philo asks why the divine spirit does not permanently abide in most people, and answers that attachment to the flesh is the obstacle: the spirit can rest on a Moses or on the seventy elders because they have withdrawn from bodily distraction, but in the mass of humanity it departs almost as soon as it arrives, like a visitor turned away by an inhospitable household. He works through Leviticus's incest laws and the phrase 'I am the Lord' as further illustrations of the choice between pursuing fleshly pleasure and pursuing God, and holds up Moses standing still beside God, and unmoving, as the model of the soul that does not waver.
The closing sections return to the 'giants' of Genesis 6:4 and reinterpret them without myth: Moses is not retelling Greek stories of Titans warring on heaven, but classifying humanity into three types - men of earth (given over to bodily pleasure), men of heaven (contemplatives, lovers of learning), and men of God (priests and prophets who have risen above the created order). Abraham is his test case, moving from 'man of heaven' to 'man of God' as his name changes, while Nimrod, 'the giant', exemplifies the deserter who abandons reason for the flesh. The work matters as a compact demonstration of Philo's method: turning a strange-sounding biblical episode into a manual for moral and spiritual psychology using the tools of Greek philosophy.
“"And the angels of God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, took wives for themselves from all of them, whom they chose" (Gen. 6:2).”
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“If, then, you think of souls, demons, and angels as differing only in name but as one and the same thing underlying them, you will cast off a most grievous burden, superstition.”
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“"Now the giants were upon the earth in those days" (Gen. 6:4). Perhaps someone supposes that the lawgiver is here hinting at the things fabled by the poets about the giants, though he stands as far apart as possible from myth-making, and holds it right to set foot on the very tracks of truth.”
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“So he introduces no myth whatsoever about giants; rather, he wishes to set this before you: that some men are of earth, some of heaven, and some of God.”
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“But do not suppose that this taking-away happens by way of cutting off and separation; rather, it is like what happens with fire”
— On the Giants · read this chapter →
It is Philo's allegorical commentary on Genesis 6:1-4, the passage about the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the giants born from their union. Philo reads the episode not as literal myth but as a psychological allegory about souls, the flesh, and the spirit of God's limited presence in human beings.
Philo denies Moses is retelling Greek tales of Titans. Instead the 'giants' represent one of three types of people - those wholly given over to earth and bodily pleasure - contrasted with men of heaven (lovers of learning) and men of God (priests and prophets like Abraham).
Philo identifies the biblical 'angels' with what Greek philosophers call demons: souls that fly through the air, some of which descend into bodies and are dragged down by fleshly life, while others resist and remain closer to the incorporeal, divine realm.
Philo argues the chief obstacle is the flesh itself, which he calls a foundation of ignorance. The divine spirit rests durably only on figures like Moses who have withdrawn from bodily distraction; in most people it departs almost as soon as it arrives.
Abraham illustrates the ascent from 'man of heaven' to 'man of God.' While still called Abram in Chaldea he was a contemplative searcher of nature; after his renaming, tied to the divine command to be blameless, he becomes a man of God.
No. Philo explicitly rejects a literal, myth-based reading of Genesis's giants and instead uses the term as a symbol for a type of person wholly absorbed in bodily pleasure, exemplified later by Nimrod, whose name he glosses as 'desertion.'
Allegorical Interpretation I · Allegorical Interpretation II · Allegorical Interpretation III · Every Good Man is Free · Flaccus · On Abraham · On Dreams · On Drunkenness · On Flight and Finding · On Husbandry · On Joseph · On Mating / Preliminary Studies