According to the Talmud, Lilith was the first wife of Adam, before Eve. Lilith refused to lie down for Adam in sexual submission,
and fled the Garden of Eden. She went to Yahweh (God) and tricked him into giving his
secret name, his name of power. Because Lilith now
had power over Yahweh, she demanded he give her wings and she flew to the desert. Adam
begged Yahweh to send Lilith back to him and
Yahweh sent the three angels Senoi, Sansenoi and Samangloph to find her and bring her
back. They found her on the banks of the Red Sea, copulating with demons, and giving birth
to hundreds of demon children. She refused to return and was told that she would lose a
hundred of her children every day if she did not, but still she refused.
Adam was given a new mate: Eve. You know the
story, they fell from favour with Yahweh and Adam decided upon celibacy. Then Lilith had her revenge. Every night she came to
him as succuba, capturing his semen and making demon babies. In some versions of the
legend, Samael, the Demon King was one of these and she took him for her mate and
companion.
Various legends of Lilith saw her as a
threat to children, possibly in revenge for the killing of her own demon babies. Patricia
Monaghan says, "Lilith threatened
children as well, for she has power over all infants in their first week... Mothers could
protect their children however, by hanging an amulet marked 'Sen Sam San" for the
protective angels Sensenoi, Samangalaph, and Sanoi" - around the child's neck.
"Because she liked her victims smiling she tickled the infant's feet. It giggled,
thereupon Lilith strangled it... Mothers
were also wary of kites, pelicans, owls, jackals, wildcats and wolves, all disguises
favoured by Lilith, who went as well by 40
other names and represented a terrifying power that the Sumerians called Lamasthu, the Greeks Lamia,
and other people Gilou, Kishimogin, or Baba
Yaga." 1
According to the Farrars, "Lilith was
not her original name, which appears to have been lost. She acquired it by identification
with the Sumerian 'night hag' Lilitu. As
such, she is the 'screech-owl' or 'night monster' of Isiah xxiv:14." 2
They go on to say, "So much for the blackening process. Lilith
(whatever her own name was), is clearly a concept much older than Eve.
Whether she was the First Woman, co-equal with the First Man - or farther back than that,
the uncreated Primordial Mother who gave birth to the First Man (or the first Male God)
and then mated with him - she was totally unacceptable to emerging Hebrew patriarchalism.
So Eve was invented - created by a male God
out of Adam's male body, as complete a reversal of the natural order as Zeus's giving
birth to Athene by swallowing her pregnant
mother, Metis." 3
A much deeper interpretation of Lilith
appears in Raphael Patai's book, The Hebrew Goddess, where he considers "the
Talmudic material about Lilith is complemented by much richer data
contained in Aramaic incantation texts" 4, and gives
a most wonderful history of Lilith from piecing together the various
sources. I'll be adding more about Lilith as time goes on, but for now,
if you're interested in her, get a copy of Patai's book!
Notes:
1. Patricia Monaghan, The Book of Goddesses and Heroines,
Llewellyn Publications, 1993, pp.208-9
2. Janet and Stewart Farrar,
The Witches Goddess, Phoenix Publishing Co., 1987, p.131
3. Ibid.
4. Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, Wayne State University Press, Third
Enlarged Edition, 1990, p.224
Some graphics used with
permission of Renee Rosen, The Lilith
Shrine
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