From the Collection of Medals and other Antiquities of Casalius (17th
century).
In Leclerc’s _History of Medicine_.
]
The legend which associated “the sons of God” with the daughters
of men before the Flood, and the suggestion that they imparted a
knowledge of medicine to the inhabitants of the earth, is traceable
in the traditions of the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Persians,
as well as in Jewish literature. In the 6th chapter of Genesis it is
said that “they saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they
took them wives of all that they chose.” From these unions came the
race of giants, and the wickedness of man so “great in the earth”
that the destruction of the race by the Flood resulted. The apocryphal
Book of Enoch, composed, it is agreed, about 100 or 150 years before
the birth of Christ, is very definite in regard to this legend,
showing that it was current among the Jews at that period. We read in
that Book, that “They (the angels) dwelt with them and taught them
sorcery, enchantments, the properties of roots and trees, magic signs,
and the art of observing the stars.” Alluding to one of these angels
particularly it is said “he taught them the use of the bracelets and
ornaments, the art of painting, of painting the eyelashes, the uses
of precious stones, and all sorts of tinctures, so that the world was
corrupted.”