Giants & the Origin of Evil
Where Evil Spirits Come From
1 Enoch 15 says the spirits that trouble humanity are the disembodied giants.
The short answer
In 1 Enoch 15 the giants' bodies die but their spirits remain on Earth, homeless and destructive. This is the earliest surviving text to give demons a concrete origin story, and it explains why the Watchers' petition for mercy is refused: the damage outlives the perpetrators.
Stated directly in 1 Enoch. Whether it happened is a separate question.
The mechanism the text proposes
Because the giants are hybrids, the text argues, they belong to neither realm. Their flesh dies as human flesh does; their spirit half persists as heavenly beings do. What remains has no assigned place and no rest, and it afflicts the living.
This one passage is the load-bearing beam under centuries of later demonology, in traditions whose members never read 1 Enoch.
In the text
Chapters that carry this
Read the passage rather than taking the summary on trust.
Related
Connected concepts
The Nephilim
The offspring of the Watchers and human women, and the ruin that follows them.
Chapters 7, 9, 10, 15
Intercession & the Denied Petition
Enoch carries the Watchers' appeal upward, and comes back with a refusal.
Chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
The Great Judgment
The trial that frames the entire book, announced in chapter 1 and executed in chapter 10.
Chapters 1, 5, 10, 16, 22
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