Lilith: Adam's First Wife And Mother Of All Demons

2024 Author: Bailey Albertson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 12:53

Lilith is the first wife of Adam and the "mother" of all demons

Most Christians will predictably answer the question of who the first woman was - Eve. However, there is another version, partially cut from the Bible. Today we will talk about the predecessor of Eve - Lilith.

Lilith's origin

Lilith's name is not mentioned in the approved text of the Bible. However, in the ancient apocryphal of the Old Testament, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Lilith is a full-fledged character. According to this version, God created Adam and Lilith from earth (or clay). However, Lilith did not want to obey her newly-made husband, reasonably arguing: "We were both created equal from the earth."Subsequent events diverge in different traditions, but the essence remains the same. So, in the version of the Ben-Sira Alphabet, Lilith pronounces the secret name of the god Yahweh and is carried away. Adam complains to Yahweh about his wife, and he sends three angels after her. However, even overtaken by three servants of God, she refuses to return to Adam. For this, Yahweh punishes her - every night one hundred of her newborn babies will die. And in the Garden of Eden she, of course, is not allowed.

All Christians know what happened after that. God creates a wife for Adam who would obey him, using his rib for this. It is noteworthy that the passage about Lilith is cut rather roughly. Even before the description of the creation of Eve, it is said: “And God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female created he them. It was on the Sixth Day of Creation. Thus, Lilith is nevertheless mentioned in passing in the Bible. However, the Bible does not say where the created woman went. But on the Seventh day, God creates Eve from Adam's rib. Nobody remembers the escaped wife.

Lilith is constantly credited with various deformities - either she is covered with hair everywhere except her head, then she has a snake body, or a dragon's tail

In the kabbalistic tradition, the exiled Lilith is the mother of all demons, as well as the devil-temptress, the progenitor of the succubi. Succubi are demons that seduce young men at night. From such a union, it is believed, new demons are born. And it is Lilith who is credited with marrying Samael - the commander of all demons. He is often identified with Satan himself, hence the popular belief that Lilith is the Devil's wife. From their marriage, a blind Dragon was born, but he himself can no longer generate anything.

Succubus - Winged Temptresses - Popular Video Game Characters

In Kabbalah, there is a distinction between “senior” and “junior” Lilith. The "elder" is married to Samael, and the "younger" is married to Asmodeus. At the same time, it is important to understand that in fact all this is one devil, but her two different hypostases.

Origin of the name

The origin of the word lilith itself is still ambiguous. From Hebrew it translates as "night" - and this is the most likely version. In addition, some Semitic languages call the owl, the owl. And the Sumerian word "lil" means air and ghosts. It is quite possible that the name of the first woman is a play on words, because "lil" is a ghost, and "lilu" is night.

Lilith in culture

Lilith is a very popular image in popular culture. She is portrayed in different ways - either as a barely human-like entity (for example, "Evangelion"), then as a beautiful and intelligent woman ("Faust"), then as a mysterious angel promising blissful oblivion (K-12), then as a strong and a cunning pretender who pursues her own interests ("Chilling Adventures of Sabrina"). The image of the first woman who dared to rebel against her husband and God will hardly ever cease to attract the attention of creators.

In "Evangelion" Lilith is the progenitor of all people

Lilith is definitely a vivid and inspiring image from the early Christian apocrypha. Now it has survived only in kabbalistic and occult traditions, but mass culture actively popularizes it and interprets it in its own way in modern works.