Angels-INCUBI AND SUCCUBI

The notion of spirit beings or demons who take the form of human
beings to have sex with people is ancient. In Western angel lore, speculation
on such ideas grew out of two short verses in chapter 6 of Genesis:
The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and
they took to wife such of them as they chose. (6:2)
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward,
when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men,
and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men
that were of old, the men of renown. (6:4)
In these rather strange verses, “sons of God” is taken to indicate
angels. However, although Scripture does not condemn these actions,
the traditional interpretation of these passages is that these sons of
God are fallen angels. This interpretation provided biblical legitimation
for the elaborate notions of incubi and succubi that later developed
in the Middle Ages.
Incubi took the form of handsome men and seduced women,
whereas succubi took the form of beautiful women and seduced men.
Although sterile themselves, incubi could supposedly impregnate
women with seed taken by succubi from men—a belief that was sometimes
used to explain a pregnancy resulting from a secret affair. This
type of explanation not only absolved the woman from charges of
licentiousness, but, because the sperm was taken from a man, also
saved the child from being slain as an offspring of a demon. Such
explanations were also useful for explaining sexual dreams in a society
where any form of illicit sex was viewed as demonic.
There were, however, other medieval traditions that asserted
incubi could impregnate mortal women with their own seed and that
succubi could become pregnant by mortal men. It was rumored, for
instance, that Merlin the magician was the offspring of such a union.
This notion of semidemonic children was useful for explaining such
phenomena as deformed babies. Incubi were sometimes referred to as
demon lovers. Also, some writers asserted that succubi were the same
as the wood nymphs of European folklore.
Mortals who willingly responded to the seductive wiles of these
beings risked damnation. A papal bull issued by Pope Innocent in
1484, for instance, asserted that “many persons of both sexes, forgetful
of their own salvation, have abused incubi and succubi.” Some of the
church fathers, including St. Anthony, asserted that demons sometimes
took the form of seductive naked women and tried to lure them
away from their devotions. These experiences served to reinforce later
assertions of the existence of succubi.