Lilith (; ), also spelled Lilit, Lilitu, or Lilis, is a feminine figure in Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology, theorized to be the first wife of

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

and a primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden (; ; ) or Garden of God ( and ), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the biblical paradise described in Genesis 2–3 and Ezekiel 28 and 31.. The location of Eden is described in the Book of Ge ...

for disobeying Adam. The original Hebrew word from which the name Lilith is taken is in the

Biblical Hebrew Biblical Hebrew ( or ), also called Classical Hebrew, is an archaic form of the Hebrew language, a language in the Canaanite languages, Canaanitic branch of the Semitic languages spoken by the Israelites in the area known as the Land of Isra ...

, in the Book of Isaiah, though Lilith herself is not mentioned in any biblical text. In

late antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

in Mandaean and Jewish sources from 500 AD onward, Lilith appears in

historiola The historiola is a modern term for a kind of incantation incorporating a short mythic story that provides the paradigm for the desired magical action.Fritz Graf"Historiola" in '' Brill’s New Pauly''. Consulted online on 29 December 2020. It ...

s (

incantation An incantation, spell, charm, enchantment, or bewitchery is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung, or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremonial ri ...

s incorporating a short mythic story) in various concepts and localities that give partial descriptions of her. She is mentioned in the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewi ...

(

Eruvin An eruv is a religious-legal enclosure which permits carrying in certain areas on Shabbat. Eruv may also refer to: * '' Eruvin (Talmud)'', a tractate in ''Moed'' * Eruv tavshilin ("mixing of cooked dishes"), which permits cooking on a Friday H ...

100b, Niddah 24b,

Shabbat Shabbat (, , or ; , , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the seven-day week, week—i.e., Friday prayer, Friday–Saturday. On this day, religious Jews ...

151b,

Bava Batra Bava Batra (also Baba Batra; ) is the third of the three Talmudic tractates in the Talmud in the order Nezikin; it deals with a person's responsibilities and rights as the owner of property. It is part of Judaism's oral law. Originally it, to ...

73a), in the '' Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan'' as Adam's first wife, and in the '' Zohar'' § Leviticus 19a as "a hot fiery female who first cohabited with man". Many rabbinic authorities, including

Maimonides Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (, ) and also referred to by the Hebrew acronym Rambam (), was a Sephardic rabbi and Jewish philosophy, philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah schola ...

and Menachem Meiri, reject the existence of Lilith. The name Lilith seems related to the masculine Akkadian word and its female variants and . The ''lil-'' root is shared by the Hebrew word appearing in Isaiah 34:14, which is thought to be a night bird by modern scholars such as Judit M. Blair. In Mesopotamian religion according to the

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

texts of

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

, and

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

, ''lilû'' are a class of demonic spirits, consisting of adolescents who died before they could bear children. Many have also connected her to the Mesopotamian demon Lamashtu, who shares similar traits and a similar position in mythology to Lilith. Lilith continues to serve as source material in today's

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

Western culture Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, Western society, or simply the West, refers to the Cultural heritage, internally diverse culture of the Western world. The term "Western" encompas ...

occult The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...

ism,

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

, horror, and erotica.

History

In some Jewish folklore, such as the '' Alphabet of Sirach'' (), Lilith appears as Adam's first wife, who was created at the same time and from the same clay as Adam. The legend of Lilith developed extensively during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, in the tradition of Aggadah, the Zohar, and

Jewish mysticism Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), draws distinctions between different forms of mysticism which were practiced in different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbal ...

. For example, in the 13th-century writings of Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the

after she had coupled with the archangel Samael. Interpretations of Lilith found in later Jewish materials are plentiful, but little information has survived relating to the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian views of this class of demons. Recent scholarship has disputed the relevance of two sources previously used to connect the Jewish to an Akkadian – the

Gilgamesh Gilgamesh (, ; ; originally ) was a hero in ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the protagonist of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', an epic poem written in Akkadian during the late 2nd millennium BC. He was possibly a historical king of the Sumer ...

appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets (see below for discussion of these two problematic sources). In contrast, some scholars, such as Lowell K. Handy, hold the view that though Lilith derives from Mesopotamian demonology, evidence of the Hebrew Lilith being present in the sources frequently cited – the Sumerian Gilgamesh fragment and the Sumerian incantation from Arshlan-Tash being two – is scant, if present at all. In Hebrew-language texts, the term or (translated as "night creatures", "night monster", "night hag", or "screech owl") first occurs in a list of animals in Isaiah 34. The Isaiah 34:14 Lilith reference does not appear in most common Bible translations such as KJV and NIV. Commentators and interpreters often envision the figure of Lilith as a dangerous demon of the night, who is sexually wanton, and who steals babies in the darkness. Currently there is no scholarly consensus, with some adhering to the animalistic interpretation, where as others claim 34:14 is referencing a literal demon or a category of demons falling under the specification of "lilith". Historically, certain prominent Jewish rabbis in Talmudic texts feared the likes of liliths, some to such an extent that they recommended men not sleep in a home alone, as any who do would be "seized by Lilith." Jewish incantation bowls and amulets from Mesopotamia from the first to the eighth centuries identify Lilith as a female demon and provide the first visual depictions of her. The said amulets were often symbolic divorce papers, warding off a given lilith that was thought to be haunting one's house or family.

Etymology

In the Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, the terms and mean spirits. Some uses of are listed in the Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD, 1956, L.190), in Wolfram von Soden's '' Akkadisches Handwörterbuch'' (AHw, p. 553), and '' Reallexikon der Assyriologie'' (RLA, p. 47). The

ian female demons have no etymological relation to Akkadian , "evening". Archibald Sayce (1882) considered that the Hebrew and the earlier Akkadian names are derived from Proto-Semitic. Charles Fossey (1902) has this literally translating to "female night being/demon", although

inscriptions from

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

exist where ''Līlīt'' and ''Līlītu'' refers to disease-bearing wind spirits.

Mesopotamian mythology

The spirit in the tree in the Gilgamesh cycle

Samuel Noah Kramer (1932, published 1938) translated as "Lilith" in Tablet XII of the ''

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...

'' dated . Tablet XII is not part of the ''Epic of Gilgamesh,'' but is a later Assyrian Akkadian translation of the latter part of the Sumerian ''Epic of Gilgamesh''. The is associated with a serpent and a zu bird. In ''Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld'', a huluppu tree grows in

Inanna Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...

's garden in

Uruk Uruk, the archeological site known today as Warka, was an ancient city in the Near East, located east of the current bed of the Euphrates River, on an ancient, now-dried channel of the river in Muthanna Governorate, Iraq. The site lies 93 kilo ...

, whose wood she plans to use to build a new throne. After ten years of growth, she comes to harvest it and finds a serpent living at its base, a Zu bird raising young in its crown, and that a made a house in its trunk. Gilgamesh is said to have killed the snake, and then the zu bird flew away to the mountains with its young, while the fearfully destroys its house and runs for the forest. Identification of the as Lilith is stated in the '' Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible'' (1999). Suggested translations for the Tablet XII spirit in the tree include as "sacred place", as "spirit", and as "water spirit", but also simply "owl", given that the is building a home in the trunk of the tree. A connection between the Gilgamesh and the Jewish Lilith was rejected on textual grounds by Sergio Ribichini (1978).

The bird-footed woman in the Burney Relief

Kramer's translation of the

fragment was used by

Henri Frankfort Henri "Hans" Frankfort (24 February 1897 – 16 July 1954) was a Dutch Egyptology, Egyptologist, archaeologist and orientalism, orientalist. Early life and education Born in Amsterdam, into a "Reform Judaism, liberal Jewish" family, Frankfort stud ...

(1937) and Emil Kraeling (1937) to support identification of a woman with wings and bird-feet in the disputed Burney Relief as related to Lilith. Frankfort and Kraeling identified the figure in the relief with Lilith. Today, the identification of the Burney Relief with Lilith is questioned. Modern research has identified the figure as one of the main goddesses of the Mesopotamian pantheons, most probably

Ereshkigal In Mesopotamian mythology, Ereshkigal (Sumerian language, Sumerian: 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒆠𒃲 REŠ.KI.GAL, lit. "Queen of the Great Earth") was the goddess of Kur, the land of the dead or underworld in Sumerian religion, Sumerian mythology. In la ...

. But the figure is more generally identified as the goddess of love and war: Thorkild Jacobsen identified the figure as

in an analysis based on the existence of symbols and attributes commonly recognized to the goddess and on textual evidence.

The Arslan Tash amulets

The Arslan Tash amulets are limestone plaques discovered in 1933 at Arslan Tash, the authenticity of which is disputed. William F. Albright, Theodor H. Gaster, and others, accepted the amulets as a pre-Jewish source which shows that the name Lilith already existed in the 7th century BC but Torczyner (1947) identified the amulets as a later Jewish source.

Lamashtu

Many have alternatively drawn connections between Lilith and the Mesopotamian demon Lamashtu, due to their similar position and traits in both mythologies.

In the Hebrew Bible

The word (or ) only appears once in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Edom. Most other nouns in the list appear more than once and thus are better documented, with the exception of another ''hapax legomenon'': the word '' qippoz''. The reading of scholars and translators is often guided by a decision about the complete list of eight creatures as a whole. Quoting from Isaiah 34 ( NAB):

Hebrew text

In the Masoretic Text: In the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of List of Hebrew Bible manuscripts, ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period (516 BCE – 70 CE). They were discovered over a period of ten years, between ...

, among the 19 fragments of Isaiah found at

Qumran Qumran (; ; ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, about south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjac ...

, the

Great Isaiah Scroll The Isaiah Scroll, designated 1QIsaa and also known as the Great Isaiah Scroll, is one of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls that were first discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947 from Qumran List of manuscripts from Qumran Cave 1, Cave 1. The scroll i ...

(1Q1Isa) in 34:14 renders the creature as plural (or ). Eberhard Schrader (1875) and Moritz Abraham Levy (1855) suggest that Lilith was a demon of the night, known also by the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Schrader's and Levy's view is therefore partly dependent on a later dating of Deutero-Isaiah to the 6th century BC and the presence of Jews in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

in the

Neo-Babylonian Empire The Neo-Babylonian Empire or Second Babylonian Empire, historically known as the Chaldean Empire, was the last polity ruled by monarchs native to ancient Mesopotamia. Beginning with the coronation of Nabopolassar as the King of Babylon in 626 BC a ...

, which would coincide with the possible references to the in Babylonian demonology. However, this view is challenged by Judit M. Blair, who argues that the context indicates unclean animals.

Greek version

The

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

translates both the reference to Lilith and the word for jackals or "wild beasts of the island" within the same verse into Greek as , apparently assuming them to refer to the same creatures and omitting "wildcats/wild beasts of the desert." Under this reading, instead of the wildcats or desert beasts meeting with the jackals or island beasts, the goat or "satyr" crying "to his fellow" and lilith or "screech owl" resting "there", it is the goat or "satyr", translated as "demons", and the jackals or island beasts "" meeting with each other and crying "one to the other" and the latter resting there.

Latin Bible

The early 5th-century

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

translated the same word as . The translation is, "And demons shall meet with monsters, and one hairy one shall cry out to another; there the lamia has lain down and found rest for herself".

English versions

Wycliffe's Bible (1395) preserves the Latin rendering : The Bishops' Bible of Matthew Parker (1568) from the Latin: Douay–Rheims Bible (1582/1610) also preserves the Latin rendering : The Geneva Bible of William Whittingham (1587) from the Hebrew: Then the

King James Version The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English Bible translations, Early Modern English translation of the Christianity, Christian Bible for the Church of England, wh ...

(1611): The "screech owl" translation of the King James Version is, together with the "owl" (, probably a water bird) in 34:11 and the "great owl" (, translated in other versions as a snake) of 34:15, an attempt to render the passage by choosing suitable animals for difficult to translate Hebrew words. Later translations include: * night-owl (Young, 1898) * night spectre (Rotherham, Emphasized Bible, 1902) * night monster ( ASV, 1901; JPS 1917, Good News Translation, 1992; NASB, 1995) *

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the Vitalism, vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead, undead humanoid creatures that often visited loved ones and c ...

s (Moffatt Translation, 1922; Knox Bible, 1950) * night hag ( Revised Standard Version, 1947) * Lilith ( Jerusalem Bible, 1966) * (the) lilith (

New American Bible The New American Bible (NAB) is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Bible first published in 1970. The 1986 Revised NAB is the basis of the revised Lectionary. In the Catholic Church it is the only translation approved ...

, 1970) * Lilith (

New Revised Standard Version The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) is a translation of the Bible in American English. It was first published in 1989 by the National Council of Churches, the NRSV was created by an ecumenical committee of scholars "comprising about thirt ...

, 1989) * (the) night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious ( The Message (Bible), Peterson, 1993) * night creature ( New International Version, 1978; New King James Version, 1982; New Living Translation, 1996, Today's New International Version) * nightjar (

New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT, also simply NW) is a Bible translations, translation of the Bible published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society; it is used and di ...

, 1984) * night bird ( English Standard Version, 2001) * night-bird ( NASB, 2020) * nocturnal animals (

New English Translation The New English Translation (NET) is a free, "completely new" English translation of the Bible, "with 60,932 translators' notes" sponsored by the Biblical Studies Foundation and published by Biblical Studies Press. History and textual basis ...

(NET Bible))

Jewish tradition

Major sources in Jewish tradition regarding Lilith in chronological order include: * c. 40–10 BC

– Songs for a Sage (4Q510–511) * c. 200

Mishnah The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...

– not mentioned * c. 500

Gemara The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) is an essential component of the Talmud, comprising a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aram ...

of the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

* c. 700-1000 The Alphabet of Ben-Sira * c. 900 Midrash Abkir * c. 1260 Treatise on the Left Emanation, Spain * c. 1280 Zohar, Spain.

Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain one indisputable reference to Lilith in ''Songs of the Sage'' (4Q510–511) fragment 1:

And I, the Instructor, proclaim His glorious splendour so as to frighten and to te rifyall the spirits of the destroying angels; spirits of the bastards, demons, Lilith, howlers, and esert dwellers... and those which fall upon men, without warning, to lead them astray from a spirit of understanding, and to make their heart and their minds desolate during the present dominion of wickedness and predetermined time of humiliations for the Sons of Lig t by the guilt of the ages of hosesmitten by iniquity – not for eternal destruction, u for an era of humiliation for transgression.

As with the Massoretic text of Isaiah 34:14, and therefore unlike the plural ''liliyyot'' (or ''liliyyoth'') in the Isaiah scroll 34:14, ''lilit'' in 4Q510 is singular, this liturgical text both cautions against the presence of supernatural malevolence and assumes familiarity with Lilith; distinct from the biblical text, however, this passage does not function under any socio-political agenda, but instead serves in the same capacity as An Exorcism (4Q560) and Songs to Disperse Demons (11Q11). The text is thus, to a community "deeply involved in the realm of demonology", an exorcism hymn. Joseph M. Baumgarten (1991) identified the unnamed woman of ''The Seductress'' (4Q184) as related to the female demon. However, John J. Collins regards this identification as "intriguing" but that it is "safe to say" that (4Q184) is based on the strange woman of Proverbs 2, 5, 7, 9:

Early Rabbinic literature

Lilith does not occur in the

. The Jerusalem Talmud contains one mention in the 1523 Bomberg edition (Shabbat 6:9), which is not supported by any manuscript. The word "lilit" appears five times in the Babylonian Talmud: * "Rav Judah citing

Samuel Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy's transition from Saul to David. He is venera ...

ruled: If an abortion has the likeness of ''lilit'', its

mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

is unclean by reason of the

birth Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...

, orit is a child except that it has wings." (b. Niddah 24b) * " xpounding upon the curses of womanhoodIn a baraita it was taught: She grows her hair like ''lilit'', sits when urinating like an animal, and serves as a bolster for her husband." (b.

100b) * "For a pricking sensation: he should bring an Arrow of Lilith and upturn it, and pour water on it and drink it. Alternatively he can take water of which a dog has drunk at night, but he must take care that it has not been exposed." (b. Gittin 69b). * " Rabbah said: I saw Hormin the son of Lilith running on the parapet of the wall of Mahoza, and a rider, galloping below on horseback, could not overtake him. Once, they saddled for him two mules which stood on two bridges of the Rognag; and he jumped from one to the other, backward and forward, holding in his hands two cups of wine, pouring alternately from one to the other, and not a drop fell to the ground. This was a day of 'They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths', until word reached the house of the king and they killed him." (b.

73a-b). * "R. Hanina said: One may not sleep in a house alone, and whoever sleeps in a house alone is seized by ''lilit''." (b.

151b) The above statement by Hanina may be related to the belief that nocturnal emissions engendered the birth of demons: * "R. Jeremiah b. Eleazar further stated: In all those years 30 years after his expulsion from the Garden of Edenduring which Adam was under the ban he begot

ghost In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...

s and male demons and female demons r night demons for it is said in Scripture: And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years and begot a son in own likeness, after his own image, from which it follows that until that time he did not beget after his own image ... When he saw that through him death was ordained as punishment he spent a hundred and thirty years in fasting, severed connection with his wife for a hundred and thirty years, and wore clothes of fig on his body for a hundred and thirty years. – That statement f R. Jeremiahwas made in reference to the

semen Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is a bodily fluid that contains spermatozoon, spermatozoa which is secreted by the male gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphrodite, hermaphroditic animals. In humans and placen ...

which he emitted accidentally." (b.

18b) The Midrash Rabbah collection contains two references to Lilith. The first one is present in Genesis Rabbah 22:7 and 18:4: according to Rabbi Yehuda beRabbi, God proceeded to create a second Eve for Adam, after Lilith had to return to dust. However, to be exact the said passages do not employ the Hebrew word itself and instead speak of "the first Eve" (, analogical to Adam ha-Rishon "the first Adam"). Although in the medieval Hebrew literature and folklore, especially that reflected on the protective amulets of various kinds, "The First Eve" was identified with Lilith, one should remain careful in transposing this equation to the Late Antiquity. The second mention of Lilith, this time explicit, is present in Numbers Rabbah 16:25. The midrash develops the story of Moses's plea after God expresses anger at the bad report of the spies. Moses responds to a threat by God that He will destroy the Israelite people. Moses pleads before God, that God should not be like Lilith who kills her own children. Moses said:

Incantation bowls

An individual Lilith, along with Bagdana "king of the lilits", is one of the demons to feature prominently in protective spells in the eighty surviving Jewish occult incantation bowls from Sassanid Empire Babylon (4th–6th century AD) with influence from Iranian culture.^{7/sup> These bowls were buried upside down below the structure of the house or on the land of the house, in order to trap the demon or demoness. Almost every house was found to have such protective bowls against demons and demonesses.

The centre of the inside of the bowl depicts Lilith, or the male form, Lilit. Surrounding the image is writing in spiral form; the writing often begins at the centre and works its way to the edge. The writing is most commonly scripture or references to the Talmud. The incantation bowls which have been analysed, are inscribed in the following languages, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Syriac, Mandaic, Middle Persian

Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
, and Arabic. Some bowls are written in a false script which has no meaning.

The correctly worded incantation bowl was capable of warding off Lilith or Lilit from the household. Lilith had the power to transform into a woman's physical features, seduce her husband, and conceive a child. However, Lilith would become hateful toward the children born of the husband and wife and would seek to kill them. Similarly, Lilit would transform into the physical features of the husband, seduce the wife, she would give birth to a child. It would become evident that the child was not fathered by the husband, and the child would be looked down on. Lilit would seek revenge on the family by killing the children born to the husband and wife.

Key features of the depiction of Lilith or Lilit include the following. The figure is often depicted with arms and legs chained, indicating the control of the family over the demon(ess). The demon(ess) is depicted in a frontal position with the whole face showing. The eyes are very large, as well as the hands (if depicted). The demon(ess) is entirely static.

One bowl contains the following inscription commissioned from a Jewish occultist to protect a woman called Rashnoi and her husband from Lilith:

Alphabet of Ben Sira

The pseudepigraphical 8th–10th centuries '' Alphabet of Ben Sira'' is considered to be the oldest form of the story of Lilith as Adam's first wife. Whether this particular tradition is older is not known. Scholars tend to date the Alphabet between the 8th and 10th centuries AD. The work has been characterized by some scholars as satirical

Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...
, but Ginzberg concluded it was meant seriously.

In the text, an amulet

An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word , which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects a perso ...
is inscribed with the names of three angel

An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...
s ( Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof) and placed around the neck of newborn boys in order to protect them from the lilin until their circumcision

Circumcision is a procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin is excised. T ...
. The amulets used against Lilith that were thought to derive from this tradition are, in fact, dated as being much older. The concept of Eve having a predecessor is not exclusive to the Alphabet, and is not a new concept, as it can be found in Genesis Rabbah. However, the idea that Lilith was the predecessor may be exclusive to the Alphabet.

The idea in the text that Adam

Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam).

According to Christianity, Adam ...
had a wife prior to Eve may have developed from an interpretation of the Book of Genesis

The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...
and its dual creation accounts; while Genesis 2:22 describes God's creation of Eve from Adam's rib, an earlier passage, 1:27, already indicates that a woman had been made: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The Alphabet text places Lilith's creation after God's words in Genesis 2:18 that "it is not good for man to be alone"; in this text God forms Lilith out of the clay from which he made Adam but she and Adam bicker. Lilith claims that since she and Adam were created in the same way they were equal and she refuses to submit to him:

After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, "It is not good for man to be alone." He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, "I will not lie below," and he said, "I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one." Lilith responded, "We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth." But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air.

Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: "Sovereign of the universe!" he said, "the woman you gave me has run away." At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, to bring her back.

Said the Holy One to Adam, "If she agrees to come back, what is made is good. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day." The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, "We shall drown you in the sea."

"Leave me!' she said. "I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days."

When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: "Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant." She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels' names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers.

The background and purpose of ''The Alphabet of Ben-Sira'' is unclear. It is a collection of stories about heroes of the Bible

The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
and Talmud

The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
, it may have been a collection of folk-tales, a refutation of Christian, Karaite, or other separatist movements; its content seems so offensive to contemporary Jews that it was even suggested that it could be an anti-Jewish satire

Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...
, although, in any case, the text was accepted by the Jewish mystics of medieval Germany.

''The Alphabet of Ben-Sira'' is the earliest surviving source of the story, and the conception that Lilith was Adam's first wife became only widely known with the 17th century ''Lexicon Talmudicum'' of German scholar Johannes Buxtorf.

In this folk tradition that arose in the early Middle Ages, Lilith, a dominant female demon, became identified with Asmodeus, King of Demons, as his queen. Asmodeus was already well known by this time because of the legends about him in the Talmud. Thus, the merging of Lilith and Asmodeus was inevitable. The second myth of Lilith grew to include legends about another world and by some accounts this other world existed side by side with this one, ''Yenne Velt'' is Yiddish for this described "Other World". In this case Asmodeus and Lilith were believed to procreate demonic offspring endlessly and spread chaos at every turn.

Two primary characteristics are seen in these legends about Lilith: Lilith as the incarnation of lust, causing men to be led astray, and Lilith as a child-killing witch, who strangles helpless neonates. These two aspects of the Lilith legend seemed to have evolved separately; there is hardly a tale where she encompasses both roles. But the aspect of the witch-like role that Lilith plays broadens her archetype of the destructive side of witchcraft. Such stories are commonly found among Jewish folklore.

The influence of the rabbinic traditions

Although the image of Lilith of the ''Alphabet of Ben Sira'' is unprecedented, some elements in her portrayal can be traced back to the talmudic and midrashic traditions that arose around Eve.

First and foremost, the very introduction of Lilith to the creation story rests on the rabbinic myth, prompted by the two separate creation accounts in Genesis 1:1–2:25, that there were two original women. A way of resolving the apparent discrepancy between these two accounts was to assume that there must have been some other first woman, apart from the one later identified with Eve. The Rabbis, noting Adam's exclamation, "this time (''zot hapa‘am'') his isbone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2:23), took it as an intimation that there must already have been a "first time". According to Genesis rabbah 18:4, Adam was disgusted upon seeing the first woman full of "discharge and blood", and God had to provide him with another one. The subsequent creation is performed with adequate precautions: Adam is made to sleep, so as not to witness the process itself (Sanhedrin 39a), and Eve is adorned with fine jewellery (Genesis rabbah 18:1) and brought to Adam by the angels Gabriel and Michael (ibid. 18:3). However, nowhere do the rabbis specify what happened to the first woman, leaving the matter open for further speculation. This is the gap into which the later tradition of Lilith could fit.

Second, this new woman is still met with harsh rabbinic allegations. Again playing on the Hebrew phrase , Adam, according to the same midrash, declares: "it is she 'zot''who is destined to strike the bell 'zog''and to speak n strifeagainst me, as you read, 'a golden bell 'pa‘amon''and a pomegranate' xodus 28:34 ... it is she who will trouble me 'mefa‘amtani''all night" (Genesis Rabbah 18:4). The first woman also becomes the object of accusations ascribed to Rabbi Joshua of Siknin, according to whom Eve, despite the divine efforts, turned out to be "swelled-headed, coquette, eavesdropper, gossip, prone to jealousy, light-fingered and gadabout" (Genesis Rabbah 18:2). A similar set of charges appears in Genesis Rabbah 17:8, according to which Eve's creation from Adam's rib rather than from the earth makes her inferior to Adam and never satisfied with anything.

Third, and despite the terseness of the biblical text in this regard, the erotic iniquities attributed to Eve constitute a separate category of her shortcomings. Told in Genesis 3:16 that "your desire shall be for your husband", she is accused by the Rabbis of having an overdeveloped sexual drive (Genesis Rabbah 20:7) and constantly enticing Adam (Genesis Rabbah 23:5). However, in terms of textual popularity and dissemination, the motif of Eve copulating with the primeval serpent takes priority over her other sexual transgressions. Despite the rather unsettling picturesqueness of this account, it is conveyed in numerous places: Genesis Rabbah 18:6, and BT Sotah 9b, Shabbat 145b–146a and 156a, Yevamot 103b and Avodah Zarah 22b.

Kabbalah

Kabbalistic mysticism attempted to establish a more exact relationship between Lilith and God. With her major characteristics having been well developed by the end of the Talmudic period, after six centuries had elapsed between the Aramaic

Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
incantation

An incantation, spell, charm, enchantment, or bewitchery is a magical formula intended to trigger a magical effect on a person or objects. The formula can be spoken, sung, or chanted. An incantation can also be performed during ceremonial ri ...
texts that mention Lilith and the early Spanish Kabbalistic writings in the 13th century, she reappears, and her life history becomes known in greater mythological detail. Her creation is described in many alternative versions.

One mentions her creation as being before Adam's, on the fifth day, because the "living creatures" with whose swarms God filled the waters included Lilith. A similar version, related to the earlier Talmudic passages, recounts how Lilith was fashioned with the same substance as Adam was, shortly before. A third alternative version states that God originally created Adam and Lilith in a manner that the female creature was contained in the male. Lilith's soul was lodged in the depths of the Great Abyss. When God called her, she joined Adam. After Adam's body was created a thousand souls from the Left (evil) side attempted to attach themselves to him. However, God drove them off. Adam was left lying as a body without a soul. Then a cloud descended and God commanded the earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...
to produce a living soul. This God breath

Breathing (spiration or ventilation) is the neuroscience of rhythm, rhythmical process of moving air into (inhalation) and out of (exhalation) the lungs to facilitate gas exchange with the Milieu intérieur, internal environment, mostly to flu ...
ed into Adam, who began to spring to life and his female was attached to his side. God separated the female from Adam's side. The female side was Lilith, whereupon she flew to the Cities of the Sea and attacked humankind.

Yet another version claims that Lilith emerged as a divine entity that was born spontaneously, either out of the Great Supernal Abyss or out of the power of an aspect of God (the Gevurah of Din). This aspect of God was negative and punitive, as well as one of his ten attributes ( Sefirot), at its lowest manifestation has an affinity with the realm of evil and it is out of this that Lilith merged with Samael.

An alternative story links Lilith with the creation of luminaries. The "first light", which is the light of Mercy (one of the Sefirot), appeared on the first day of creation when God said "Let there be light". This light became hidden and the Holiness became surrounded by a husk of evil. "A husk (klippa) was created around the brain" and this husk spread and brought out another husk, which was Lilith.

Midrash ABKIR

The first medieval source to depict Adam and Lilith in full was the Midrash A.B.K.I.R. (c. 10th century), which was followed by the Zohar and other Kabbalistic writings. Adam is said to be perfect until he recognises either his sin or Cain's fratricide that is the cause of bringing death into the world. He then separates from holy Eve, sleeps alone, and fasts for 130 years. During this time "Pizna", either an alternate name for Lilith or a daughter of hers, desires his beauty and seduces him against his will. She gives birth to multitudes of djinns and demons, the first of them being named Agrimas. However, they are defeated by Methuselah, who slays thousands of them with a holy sword and forces Agrimas to give him the names of the rest, after which he casts them away to the sea and the mountains.

Treatise on the Left Emanation

The mystical writing of two brothers Jacob and Isaac Hacohen, '' Treatise on the Left Emanation'', which predates the Zohar by a few decades, states that Samael and Lilith are in the shape of an androgynous being, double-faced, born out of the emanation of the Throne of Glory and corresponding in the spiritual realm to Adam and Eve, who were likewise born as a hermaphrodite

A hermaphrodite () is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are either male or female are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic.

The individuals of many ...
. The two twin androgynous couples resembled each other and both "were like the image of Above"; that is, that they are reproduced in a visible form of an androgynous deity.

19. In answer to your question concerning Lilith, I shall explain to you the essence of the matter. Concerning this point there is a received tradition from the ancient Sages who made use of the Secret Knowledge of the Lesser Palaces, which is the manipulation of demons and a ladder by which one ascends to the prophetic levels. In this tradition it is made clear that Samael and Lilith were born as one, similar to the form of Adam and Eve who were also born as one, reflecting what is above. This is the account of Lilith which was received by the Sages in the Secret Knowledge of the Palaces.

Another version that was also current among Kabbalistic circles in the Middle Ages establishes Lilith as the first of Samael's four wives: Lilith, Naamah, Eisheth, and Agrat bat Mahlat. Each of them are mothers of demons and have their own hosts and unclean spirits in no number. The marriage of archangel Samael and Lilith was arranged by Tanin'iver ("Blind Dragon"), who is the counterpart of "the dragon that is in the sea". Blind Dragon acts as an intermediary between Lilith and Samael:

Blind Dragon rides Lilith the Sinful – may she be extirpated quickly in our days, Amen! – And this Blind Dragon brings about the union between Samael and Lilith. And just as ''the Dragon that is in the sea'' (Isa. 27:1) has no eyes, likewise Blind Dragon that is above, in the likeness of a spiritual form, is without eyes, that is to say, without colors.... (Patai 81:458) Samael is called the Slant Serpent, and Lilith is called the Tortuous Serpent.

The marriage of Samael and Lilith is known as the "Angel Satan" or the "Other God", but it was not allowed to last. To prevent Lilith and Samael's demonic children ''Lilin'' from filling the world, God castrated Samael. In many 17th century Kabbalistic books, this seems to be a reinterpretation of an old Talmudic myth where God castrated the male Leviathan and slew the female Leviathan in order to prevent them from mating and thereby destroying the Earth with their offspring. With Lilith being unable to fornicate with Samael anymore, she sought to couple with men who experience nocturnal emissions. A 15th or 16th century Kabbalah text states that God has "cooled" the female Leviathan, meaning that he has made Lilith infertile and she is a mere fornication.

The ''Treatise on the Left Emanation'' also says that there are two Liliths, the lesser being married to the great demon Asmodeus.

The Matron Lilith is the mate of Samael. Both of them were born at the same hour in the image of Adam and Eve, intertwined in each other. Asmodeus the great king of the demons has as a mate the Lesser (younger) Lilith, daughter of the king whose name is Qafsefoni. The name of his mate is Mehetabel daughter of Matred, and their daughter is Lilith.

Another passage charges Lilith as being a tempting serpent of Eve.

And the Serpent, the Woman of Harlotry, incited and seduced Eve through the husks of Light which in itself is holiness. And the Serpent seduced Holy Eve, and enough said for him who understands. And all this ruination came about because Adam the first man coupled with Eve while she was in her menstrual impurity – this is the filth and the impure seed of the Serpent who mounted Eve before Adam mounted her. Behold, here it is before you: because of the sins of Adam the first man all the things mentioned came into being. For Evil Lilith, when she saw the greatness of his corruption, became strong in her husks, and came to Adam against his will, and became hot from him and bore him many demons and spirits and Lilin. (Patai81:455f)

Zohar

References to Lilith in the Zohar include the following:

She roams at night, and goes all about the world and makes sport with men and causes them to emit seed. In every place where a man sleeps alone in a house, she visits him and grabs him and attaches herself to him and has her desire from him, and bears from him. And she also afflicts him with sickness, and he knows it not, and all this takes place when the moon is on the wane.

This passage may be related to the mention of Lilith in Talmud Shabbath 151b (see above), and also to Talmud Eruvin 18b where nocturnal emissions are connected with the begettal of demons.

According to Rapahel Patai, older sources state clearly that after Lilith's Red Sea sojourn (mentioned also in Louis Ginzberg

Louis Ginzberg (, ''Levy Gintzburg''; , ''Levy Ginzberg''; November 28, 1873 – November 11, 1953) was a Russian-born American rabbi and Talmudic scholar of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, contributing editor to numerous articles of '' The Jewis ...
's ''Legends of the Jews''), she returned to Adam and begat children from him by forcing herself upon him. Before doing so, she attaches herself to Cain and bears him numerous spirits and demons. In the Zohar, however, Lilith is said to have succeeded in begetting offspring from Adam even during their short-lived sexual experience. Lilith leaves Adam in Eden, as she is not a suitable helpmate for him. Gershom Scholem proposes that the author of the Zohar, Rabbi Moses de Leon, was aware of both the folk tradition of Lilith and another conflicting version, possibly older.

The Zohar adds further that two female spirits instead of one, Lilith and Naamah, desired Adam and seduced him. The issue of these unions were demons and spirits called "the plagues of humankind", and the usual added explanation was that it was through Adam's own sin that Lilith overcame him against his will.

17th-century Hebrew magical amulets

A copy of Jean de Pauly's translation of the Zohar in the Ritman Library contains an inserted late 17th century printed Hebrew sheet for use in magical amulets where the prophet Elijah confronts Lilith.

The sheet contains two texts within borders, which are amulets, one for a male ('lazakhar'), the other one for a female ('lanekevah'). The invocations mention Adam, Eve and Lilith, 'Chavah Rishonah' (the first Eve, who is identical with Lilith), also devils or angels: Sanoy, Sansinoy, Smangeluf, Shmari'el (the guardian) and Hasdi'el (the merciful). A few lines in Yiddish are followed by the dialogue between the prophet Elijah and Lilith when he met her with her host of demons to kill the mother and take her new-born child ('to drink her blood, suck her bones and eat her flesh'). She tells Elijah that she will lose her power if someone uses her secret names, which she reveals at the end: ''lilith, abitu, abizu, hakash, avers hikpodu, ayalu, matrota ...''

In other amulets, probably informed by ''The Alphabet of Ben-Sira'', she is Adam's first wife. ( Yalqut Reubeni, Zohar 1:34b, 3:19)

Charles Richardson's dictionary portion of the '' Encyclopædia Metropolitana'' appends to his etymological discussion of ''lullaby'' "a anuscriptnote written in a copy of Skinner" Stephen Skinner's 1671 ''Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ''">Stephen Skinner (lexicographer)">Stephen Skinner's 1671 ''Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ'' which asserts that the word ''lullaby'' originates from , a Hebrew incantation meaning "Lilith begone" recited by Jewish mothers over an infant's cradle. Richardson did not endorse the theory and modern lexicographers consider it a false etymology

A false etymology (fake etymology or pseudo-etymology) is a false theory about the origin or derivation of a specific word or phrase. When a false etymology becomes a popular belief in a cultural/linguistic community, it is a folk etymology (or po ...
.

Alsatian Krasmesser (16th to 20th century)

Not so much an amulet

An amulet, also known as a good luck charm or phylactery, is an object believed to confer protection upon its possessor. The word "amulet" comes from the Latin word , which Pliny's ''Natural History'' describes as "an object that protects a perso ...
as a ritual object for protection, the "Krasmesser" (or "Kreismesser", circle knife) played a role in Jewish birth rituals in the area of Alsace

Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...
, Switzerland

Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
and Southern Germany between the 16th and 20th century. The Krasmesser would be used by a midwife

A midwife (: midwives) is a health professional who cares for mothers and Infant, newborns around childbirth, a specialisation known as midwifery.

The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughou ...
or by the husband to draw a magic circle around the pregnant or birthing woman to protect her from Lilith and the evil eye

The evil eye is a supernatural belief in a curse brought about by a malevolent glaring, glare, usually inspired by envy. Amulets to Apotropaic, protect against it have been found dating to around 5,000 years ago.

It is found in many cultures i ...
, which were considered to represent the greatest danger for children and pregnant women.

Rabbi Naphtali Hirsch ben Elieser Treves described this custom as early as 1560, and later references to a knife or sword by the birthing bed by both Paul Christian Kirchner and Johann Christian Georg Bodenschatz indicate its continuance. A publication about birth customs by the Jewish Museum of Switzerland also includes oral accounts from 20th century Baden-Württemberg

Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...
which likewise mention circling movements with a knife in order to protect a woman in childbirth.

Greco-Roman mythology

In the Latin Vulgate

The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...
Book of Isaiah 34:14, Lilith is translated '' lamia''.

According to Augustine Calmet, Lilith has connections with early views on vampires and sorcery:

According to Siegmund Hurwitz the Talmudic Lilith is connected with the Greek Lamia, who, according to Hurwitz, likewise governed a class of child stealing lamia-demons. Lamia bore the title "child killer" and was feared for her malevolence, like Lilith. She has different conflicting origins and is described as having a human upper body from the waist up and a serpentine body from the waist down. One source states simply that she is a daughter of the goddess Hecate, another, that Lamia was subsequently cursed by the goddess Hera to have stillborn children because of her association with Zeus; alternatively, Hera slew all of Lamia's children (except Scylla) in anger that Lamia slept with her husband, Zeus. The grief caused Lamia to turn into a monster that took revenge on mothers by stealing their children and devouring them. Lamia had a vicious sexual appetite that matched her cannibalistic appetite for children. She was notorious for being a vampiric spirit and loved sucking men's blood. Her gift was the "mark of a Sibyl", a gift of second sight. Zeus was said to have given her the gift of sight. However, she was "cursed" to never be able to shut her eyes so that she would forever obsess over her dead children. Taking pity on Lamia, Zeus

Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.

Zeus is the child ...
gave her the ability to remove and replace her eyes from their sockets.

In Mandaeism

In Mandaean scriptures such as the '' Ginza Rabba'' and ''Qulasta

The Qulasta, also spelled Qolastā in older sources (; ), is a compilation of Mandaean prayers. The Mandaic word ''qolastā'' means "collection".

The prayerbook is a collection of Mandaic prayers regarding baptisms ('' maṣbuta'') and other sa ...
'', liliths () are mentioned as inhabitants of the World of Darkness.

Lilith is mentioned in a Mandaean magic incantation inscribed in Mandaic on a c. 7th-century Late Antiquity lead amulet designated "BM 135794 II", where she is mentioned together with other demons, in plural form. The first of the charm's text consists of a banning formula that calls for the binding, subduing and destruction of various demons, mentioned by name in plural form, and also talks of the demons of time walking about and harming "the children of Adam and all offspring of Hawa (=Eve)". The lines of this formula are repeated near-identically about three times, with Lilith's name, in plural, appearing in the formula on lines 27, 46 and 55, in the same near-identical line "Sahras, Dews, Rhuas, Humartas and Lilits." At lines 70-100, the banning formula of the charm ends and is taken over by a Mandaic magic story that tells of a gnostic tree made up of different demon groups and of a " Dew" demon dwelling in the tree being cast out of it and expelled from the tree by the archangel Gabriel

In the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), Gabriel ( ) is an archangel with the power to announce God's will to mankind, as the messenger of God. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Quran. Many Chris ...
. In this part of the charm, Lilith is mentioned as a part of this gnostic tree, again rendered in plural. The tree's trunk is said to be made up of " Dews" (or 'dewis' or 'daeva') on lines 76-77, the tree's foliage to be made up of "Latabas" ('devils') on line 77, and its branches to be made up of "Lilits" on lines 77-78. The charm associates the demons with time, using units of time such as "season", "month", "day", "hour", "minute" and so on, and so the charm has been interpreted to be a magical protection against "demons of time" or against time as threatening and harmful elements.

The amulet is part of a set of lead, silver and gold amulets attributed to the family archive of Mah-Adhur Gushnasp, who served as prime minister of the Sasanian Empire

The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...
during Ardashir III's reign, and was discovered by Lietuenant Colonel H.S. Alexander in a lead jar under the foundations of a private house in a mound near el-Qurnah at the confluence of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates in southern Iraq during a private dig between 1910 and 1920, which was then passed on to the British Library and is today housed in the Department of the Ancient Near East in the British Museum. The text was translated by scholar Christa Müller-Kessler and published in 2002 in Cornelia Wunsch and C. B. F. Walker's ''Mining The Archives''.

In Arabic mythology

The occult

The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...
writer Ahmad al-Buni (d. 1225), in his ''Sun of the Great Knowledge'' (), mentions a demon called "the mother of children" ( ام الصبيان), a term also used "in one place".
Folkloric traditions recorded around 1953 tell about a jinn called ''Qarinah'', who was rejected by Adam

Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam).

According to Christianity, Adam ...
and mated with Iblis

Iblis (), alternatively known as Eblīs, also known as Shaitan, is the leader of the Shayatin, devils () in Islam. According to the Quran, Iblis was thrown out of Jannah#Jinn, angels, and devils, heaven after refusing to prostrate himself bef ...
instead. She gave birth to a host of demons and became known as their mother. To take revenge on Adam, she pursues human children. As such, she would kill a pregnant mother's baby in the womb, causes impotence to men or attacks little children with illnesses. According to occult practises, she would be subject to the demon-king ''Murrah al-Abyad'', which appears to be another name for Iblis used in magical writings. Stories about Qarinah and Lilith merged in early Islam.

In Western media

In German media

Lilith's earliest appearance in the literature of the Romantic period (1789–1832) was in Goethe

Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
's 1808 work '' Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy''.

After Mephistopheles offers this warning to Faust, he then, quite ironically, encourages Faust to dance with "the Pretty Witch". Lilith and Faust engage in a short dialogue, where Lilith recounts the days spent in Eden.

In English media

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which developed around 1848, were greatly influenced by Goethe's work on the theme of Lilith. In 1863, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti ( ; ), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brother ...
of the Brotherhood began painting what would later be his first rendition of '' Lady Lilith'', a painting he expected to be his "best picture hitherto". Symbol

A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...
s appearing in the painting allude to the "femme fatale" reputation of the Romantic Lilith: poppies (death and cold) and white rose

A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...
s (sterile passion). Accompanying his ''Lady Lilith'' painting from 1866, Rossetti wrote a sonnet

A sonnet is a fixed poetic form with a structure traditionally consisting of fourteen lines adhering to a set Rhyme scheme, rhyming scheme. The term derives from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (, from the Latin word ''sonus'', ). Originating in ...
entitled ''Lilith'', which was first published in Swinburne's pamphlet-review (1868), ''Notes on the Royal Academy Exhibition''.

The poem and the picture appeared together alongside Rossetti's painting ''Sibylla Palmifera'' and the sonnet ''Soul's Beauty''. In 1881, the ''Lilith'' sonnet was renamed "''Body's Beauty''" in order to contrast it and ''Soul's Beauty''. The two were placed sequentially in ''The House of Life'' collection (sonnets number 77 and 78).

Rossetti wrote in 1870:

This is in accordance with Jewish folk tradition, which associates Lilith both with long hair (a symbol of dangerous feminine seductive power in Jewish

Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
culture), and with possessing women by entering them through mirrors.

The Victorian poet Robert Browning

Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian literature, Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentar ...
re-envisioned Lilith in his poem "Adam, Lilith, and Eve". First published in 1883, the poem uses the traditional myths surrounding the triad of Adam, Eve, and Lilith. Browning depicts Lilith and Eve as being friendly and complicitous with each other, as they sit together on either side of Adam. Under the threat of death, Eve admits that she never loved Adam, while Lilith confesses that she always loved him:

Browning focused on Lilith's emotional attributes, rather than that of her ancient demon predecessors.

Scottish author George MacDonald also wrote a fantasy novel entitled '' Lilith'', first published in 1895. MacDonald employed the character of Lilith in service to a spiritual drama about sin and redemption, in which Lilith finds a hard-won salvation. Many of the traditional characteristics of Lilith mythology are present in the author's depiction: Long dark hair, pale skin, a hatred and fear of children and babies, and an obsession with gazing at herself in a mirror. MacDonald's Lilith also has vampiric qualities: she bites people and sucks their blood for sustenance.

Australian poet and scholar Christopher John Brennan (1870–1932), included a section titled "Lilith" in his major work "Poems: 1913" (Sydney: G. B. Philip and Son, 1914). The "Lilith" section contains thirteen poems exploring the Lilith myth and is central to the meaning of the collection as a whole.

C. L. Moore's 1940 story ''Fruit of Knowledge'' is written from Lilith's point of view. It is a re-telling of the Fall of Man

The fall of man, the fall of Adam, or simply the Fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God in Christianity, God to a state of guilty disobedience.
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as a love triangle between Lilith, Adam and Eve – with Eve's eating the forbidden fruit being in this version the result of misguided manipulations by the jealous Lilith, who had hoped to get her rival discredited and destroyed by God and thus regain Adam's love.

British poet John Siddique's 2011 collection ''Full Blood'' has a suite of 11 poems called ''The Tree of Life'', which features Lilith as the divine feminine aspect of God. A number of the poems feature Lilith directly, including the piece ''Unwritten'' which deals with the spiritual problem of the feminine being removed by the scribes from ''The Bible.''

Lilith is also mentioned in '' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'', by C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalen ...
. The character Mr. Beaver ascribes the ancestry of the main antagonist, Jadis the White Witch, to Lilith.

"Lilith" is a poem by Vladimir Nabokov, written in 1928. Many have connected it to Lolita, but Nabokov adamantly denies this: "Intelligent readers will abstain from examining this impersonal fantasy for any links with my later fiction."

In American media

'' Lilith: A Dramatic Poem'' is a four-act medieval fantasy verse drama written in blank verse

Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th cen ...
by American poet and playwright George Sterling, first published in 1919. Influential critic H. L. Mencken said of Sterling: "I think his dramatic poem ''Lilith'' was the greatest thing he ever wrote." The ''New York Times'' declared ''Lilith'' "the finest thing in poetic drama yet done in America and one of the finest poetic dramas yet written in English." Author Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalism (literature), naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despi ...
said: "It rings richer in thought than any American dramatic poem with which I am familiar." Poet Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an influential American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction stories and poetry, and an artist. He achieved early recognition in California (largely through the enthusiasm ...
wrote: "''Lilith'' is certainly the best dramatic poem in English since the days of Swinburne and Browning. ... The lyrics interspersed throughout the drama are as beautiful as any by the Elizabethans."

In the role playing game series '' Vampire the Masquerade'', Lilith plays a major part in the mythology within the games.

''Lilith'' is a 1961 novel by J. R. Salamanca that tells the story of a man, Vincent, who is seduced by a schizophrenic woman named Lilith. It explores themes of love, obsession, and blurred lines between fantasy and reality. A feature film of the same name written by Robert Rossen and starring Jean Seberg and Warren Beatty

Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career has spanned over six decades, and he has received an Academy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. He also received the Irving G. Thalberg Memor ...
was released in 1964.

In the 2019 adult animated series '' Hazbin Hotel'', Lilith is depicted as the wife of Lucifer and the queen of Hell. Charlie, the protagonist of the series, is Lilith's daughter. According to ''The Washington Times'', ''Hazbin Hotel'' subverts traditional narratives of Lucifer and Lilith by presenting their betrayal of God as heroic and noble.

In the Diablo series of video games, Lilith is depicted as the daughter of Mephisto and the creator of the games world alongside her lover, the angel Inarius. Lilith serves as the main antagonist in Diablo IV.

In Western esotericism

The depiction of Lilith in Romanticism continues to be popular among Wicca

Wicca (), also known as "The Craft", is a Modern paganism, modern pagan, syncretic, Earth religion, Earth-centred religion. Considered a new religious movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esote ...
ns and in other modern occult

The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mysti ...
ism. A few magical orders dedicated to the undercurrent of Lilith, featuring initiations specifically related to the arcana of the "first mother", exist. Two organisations that use initiations and magic associated with Lilith are the Ordo Antichristianus Illuminati and the Order of Phosphorus. Lilith appears as a succubus in Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley ( ; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pr ...
's ''De Arte Magica.'' Lilith was also one of the middle names of Crowley's first child, Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley (1904–1906), and Lilith is sometimes identified with Babalon in Thelemic writings. Many early occult writers who contributed to modern day Wicca

Wicca (), also known as "The Craft", is a Modern paganism, modern pagan, syncretic, Earth religion, Earth-centred religion. Considered a new religious movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esote ...
expressed special reverence for Lilith. Charles Leland associated Aradia with Lilith: Aradia, says Leland, is Herodias, who was regarded in stregheria folklore as being associated with Diana as chief of the witches. Leland further notes that Herodias is a name that comes from west Asia, where it denoted an early form of Lilith.

Gerald Gardner asserted that there was continuous historical worship of Lilith to present day, and that her name is sometimes given to the goddess being personified in the coven by the priestess. This idea was further attested by Doreen Valiente, who cited her as a presiding goddess of the Craft: "the personification of erotic dreams, the suppressed desire for delights". In some contemporary concepts, ''Lilith'' is viewed as the embodiment of the Goddess, a designation that is thought to be shared with what these faiths believe to be her counterparts: Inanna

Inanna is the List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian goddess of war, love, and fertility. She is also associated with political power, divine law, sensuality, and procreation. Originally worshipped in Sumer, she was known by the Akk ...
, Ishtar, Asherah, Anath, Anahita and Isis

Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...
. According to one view, Lilith was originally a Sumerian, Babylonian, or Hebrew mother goddess of childbirth, children, women, and sexuality.

Raymond Buckland holds that Lilith is a dark moon goddess on par with the Hindu Kali.

Many theistic Satanists consider Lilith a goddess, with some recognizing her as the patron of strong women and women's rights. Lilith is popular among theistic Satanists because of her association with Satan and is most often worshipped by women, but not exclusively. Some Satanists believe that she is married to Satan and thus think of her as a mother figure. Others base their reverence for her on her history as a succubus and praise her as a sex goddess. A different approach to a Satanic Lilith holds that she was once a fertility and agricultural goddess.

The Western mystery tradition associates Lilith with the qlippoth of Kabbalah. Dion Fortune writes, "The Virgin Mary is reflected in Lilith", and that Lilith is the source of "lustful dreams".

Lilith is a source of veneration within the Luciferian Tradition of Michael W. Ford. The research and esoteric development of modern Luciferianism recognizes Lilith as equal to Samael, composing the symbol of the "Adversary""Infernal Union - Sinister Initiation and Satanic Psalms", Succubus Productions Publishing, ISBN 9781304971128. Michael W. Ford's works on this Luciferian interpretation was first published in 1999 and the early 2000's, with "Book of the Witch Moon"; "Luciferian Witchcraft" and "Liber HVHI" . The origins of the various mythologies concerning Lilith were then published in works such as "The Bible of the Adversary"; "Adversarial Light - Magick of the Adversary"; "Maskim Hul"; "Sebitti"; "Akhkharu - Vampyre Magick"; "Dragon of the Two Flames" and "The Demons of Solomon", among others. Ford's work explores considerably deep lore commonly overlooked by previously much of common lore concerning Lilith.

"The Luciferian Tarot", the first published Left-Hand Path Tarot Deck and book 2007, depicts several Qlippothic representations of Lilith as a guide and feminine energy reflecting an aspect of the Adversary in Luciferianism. Additional works which focus by a chapter on Lilith are "Infernal Union - Sinister Initiation and Satanic Psalms" and "Whispers of the Jinn" which presents the Arabic and Islamic representation of Lilith. The book on ancient Persian sorcery, known as Yatukdinoih, centered on the cult of the Daevas and Ahriman, identifies a manifestation of Lilith as both the Manichaean "Az" and Zoroastrian demoness, "Jeh". This is based on the traits and lore concerning the direct alignments with Lilith.

Recently, Lilith is the central topic of study in Michael W. Ford's "Lilith and Lamastu: Legends of the Ancient Abyss", which explores the Western mystery tradition within a Luciferian perspective. The Mesopotamian 3rd to 8th century Aramaic Incantation Bowls, hold a good deal of lore concerning the many different types of Lilith-spirits and the depictions of Lilith, yet also the associations between the King of Demons, Bagdana. The modern aim of Luciferian Magick with concern to Lilith, utilizes methods of seeking the nocturnal energies inherent in humanity and is directed towards beneficial workings:

"For the Black Magickan, these are demons of nocturnal desire, the passions of our subconscious that motivate aspects of our consciousness. Igrath, the “Mistress of the Sorcerers” guides and inspires the attainment of magical knowledge and sorcery, including the shaping of the energy of the mind to manipulate the element of air to project upon the astral plane and by dream."

See also

* Abyzou – a Near Eastern demon blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality
* Black Moon Lilith – an astrological and mathematical point
* Daimon

The daimon (), also spelled daemon (meaning "god", "godlike", "power", "fate"), denotes an "unknown superfactor", which can be either good or hostile.

In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology a daimon was imagined to be a lesser ...
– a term for Greek lesser deities, the etymology of the English word "demon"
* Lailah – a Jewish angel, whose name means "night", believed to protect in pregnancy
* Lilith Fair – a travelling music festival
* Norea – a Gnostic figure
* Serpent seed – a fringe belief
* Siren – dangerous female creatures in Ancient Greek religion
* Spirit spouse – an element of shamanism
* Succubus - a type of seductive female demon based on Lilith
* Incubus - a type of seductive male demon based on Lilith

Notes

References

Cited sources

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Further reading

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External links

Lilith
at Jewish & Christian Literature
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{{Authority control

Entering heaven alive
Demons in Judaism
Female demons
Kabbalah
Kabbalistic words and phrases
Mesopotamian demons
Qlippoth
Succubi
Supernatural legends
Demons in Mandaeism
Evil goddesses}