LILITH: FROM POWERFUL GODDESS TO EVIL QUEEN

LILITH: FROM POWERFUL GODDESS TO EVIL QUEEN Maria Fernandes

And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. (Gen 27-28)

The figure of Lilith has been object of innumerous representations since at least the second millennium b.c.e., but mostly since the early Middle Ages. After being depicted in Jewish Medieval literature as the queen of Hell, wife of Samael, she was used by both Jews and Christians to represent the incarnation of evil. For Christians, she became temptation itself and was often represented, in painting and in sculpture, as the serpent who led Eve into sin. XIXth century Romantics also picked Lilith as a motive, in their paintings and poems, and the XXth and XXIst centuries have revived her myths through occultists, writers, movie producers and musicians. She even gave the name to the first Jewish feminist journal, founded in 1976, Lilith Magazine. The unending fascination she seems to provide, even nowadays, in our secular, rational world, appears to be rather curious, hence I propose to revisit and question her role and functions as the first woman ever created on earth and the first human being who dared to overdo the purpose of her creation. Lilith is first accounted for in Sumerian literature, where she was called Dimme. Several authors see a brief mention of her in the epic of Gilgamesh, in which she was identified with the demon dwelling inside a willow (Graves and Patai 82). She was later found in ancient Mesopotamia, as a wind spirit (Lilitu) or as one of Anu’s daughters, called Lamashtu or Lamartu, who was said to be the most terrible of all female demons: she killed children, consumed human flesh and blood, devastated plants and soiled rivers and streams, sent nightmares, caused miscarriages, and brought disease. In Babylonia, a special class of priests, the Ashipu, was employed to defeat her harmful effects. This demon has also been said to corre*

University of Lisbon, Centre for Classical Studies and Centre of History.

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spond to the ghul)1 of pre-Islamic Arabian myths. She was portrayed on amulets as a lion- or bird-headed female figure kneeling on an ass, holding a double-headed serpent in each hand and suckling dogs or pigs at her breasts (Ginzberg V.88). In old incantation formulae, reference is made to Lilith in the plural, as wind spirits or demons, rather than to one specific demon, one of the ways to overcome their witchcraft being to grasp them by their tresses or their plaits. Some authors see in the Lilith mentioned in the Bible (Is 34:14) the she-demon matched in Jewish literature to Samael. However, this position has been criticized under the argument that lilith in Isaiah refers to a kind of birds, dwelling in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine, perhaps goat-suckers or similar, which probably justifies the later traditions claiming that Lilith was a vampire (Hoffeld 430-440). One of the treatises of the Mishnah)2 seems to have borrowed the image of the ancient dark goddess, portraying her as a wind evil spirit, a night spirit or a demon with long hair, wings and a human face, of whom women must beware. Like the terrible screech-owl of Is 34:14, Lilith dwelt in the ruins or lurked in the deserts, waiting to lure and doom young men who travelled alone (Ber. 3a, Shab. 151b, Er. 100b, Nid. 24b; Zohar I, XVI 34b))3. In the Middle Ages, an anonymous writing dated of the Xth century (Le Zohar 667), known as the Alphabet of Ben Sira)4, gave a story of Lilith, whose myth entered the Jewish folklore, probably explaining the widespread custom of using amulets in babies’ cradles for protection against her powers. The story goes as follows: Lilith was Adam’s first wife, created from the earth at the same time as him (Gn 1:27-28). They came to fight about the manner of their intercourse, because Adam refused to lie beneath her, saying that she was only fit to be in the bottom position, for he was to be the superior one. Lilith did not accept such statement and reminded him that they both had been created at the same time, from the same material, and none was to be superior to the other. However, her husband would not listen and insisted upon his superiority over her. Lilith was extremely angry; in her rage, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew off into the air. Adam turned to God complaining of her behaviour and asked him to get her back to him, and the Lord complied, sending three angels after her.

1

Ghuls (from which comes the modern word “ghoul”) were supernatural beings who were cannibals. The female ghul opposed to travel and often appeared to men in the desert and occasionally prostituted herself to them (Sykes 84).

2

Hebrew compilation containing the Sages’ oral traditions about the Pentateuch’s normative rules, dated about 200 c.e.

3

The works cited are treatises of the Mishnah: Berakhot (1st division), Shabbat and Erubin (2nd division) and Niddah (6th divison). They may be found on-line in the Reformatted Soncino Talmud version (). The Zohar is a cabbalistic writing that became known in the late XIIIth century, attributed to Moses de Leon and considered by G. Scholem as one of the most notable productions of Jewish mystical literature (Les Grands Courants de la Mystique Juive 219-220). I used the edition by Mopsik (1981). A version may be found online at .

4

The Alphabet of Sirach. [n.p.], [n.d.]: (accessed April, 2002).

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They caught up with her in Egypt, in the Red Sea, an abode of demons, and urged her to return. She refused to go back and the angels threatened her that if she did not return, they would drown her. Even so, she stubbornly stuck to her decision, and declared that she would rather have that punishment than go back to Adam, and that she had been created to harm new-born infants. However, she made an oath in the Lord’s name, that whenever she saw the image or the names of those three angels in an amulet, she would lose her power over the infant. So the angels returned to God empty-handed, and God had to create another woman for Adam, but this time he made her from one of the man’s ribs, certainly to avoid more misunderstandings or disputes, thus indulging with his sentiments of supremacy over his wife. In most authors who recount this tale, unlike the Alphabet’s text publicly available, the angels threaten to kill one hundred of the demon children Lilith bore every day. This could be explained by the existence of later revisions of that work, which were known in Europe in the eleventh century and included a description of a sexual relationship between Lilith and a “great demon”, which was later identified as Samael (Dan 17-40). Graves (82) suggests that this legend bears traces that Lilith was a former fertility goddess, and Ginzberg (V.65-68) comments that the Lilith of Ben Sira merges with the earlier accounts of her as an ancient demon, who killed infants and endangered women in childbirth, this later version of the myth having many parallels in Christian literature from Byzantine and later periods. Developments of this legend are found in cabbalistic writings, namely in the Treatise on the Left Emanation, by R. Isacc ha-Kohen, and in the Zohar, where Lilith became the wife of Samael, the angel of death, hence the Queen of Darkness, mother to winds and demons. It is interesting to observe that, after her flight from Paradise, cabbalistic Judaism has turned Lilith into a powerful demon, with some curious features that place her very close to God. Considering God’s two sides, rigor and mercy, and the balance there has to exist between them, cabbalists hypostatized the Lord’s presence, calling it the Shekinah, God’s feminine trait. Lilith is conceived as the counter-image of the Shekinah; while the latter is mother to Metatron, the greatest power in the angelic world, Lilith is the mother of Samael’s demons. Sometimes, because of Israel’s sins, the Shekinah falls to the Lord’s “other side” (his dark side, in which rigor prevails over mercy), and whenever that happens, Lilith receives an influx of life in her stead (Scholem1 163-169). Since this myth was devised to underline the patriarch’s authority in Jewish culture, I would now look briefly into the relations between men and women in biblical times. It is known, as Kawashima (1-22) remarks (though underlining the complex different pictures given in the Bible of the status of women in the Israelite family), that in the biblical legal system women possessed almost no rights and, as far as sexual relationships are concerned, those were lawful only under the blessing of marriage, whereas the power of consent resided in their father and, once married, in their husband. Marriages were usually arranged between 735

the young couples’ parents, and love was clearly not a relevant motive for such an alliance to take place. Nonetheless, husband and wife were expected not only to share their lives in accordance with the Torah, but they were bound to be friends, accomplices and share an intimate bond of trust and respect, as well as of attention for each other’s needs and tastes. A very good example of this can be found in the movie Fiddler on the Roof, where the husband, at a certain point, dares to ask his middle-aged wife if she loves him. The question is so unusual that the wife simply dismisses it with “you’re a fool!”. Only when he insists most seriously does she understand that he really means it, and starts to ponder the question. She then makes a description of what their life had been for twenty-five years: “I’ve washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children…” and again shows her surprise at such an unprecedented inquiry: “After twenty-five years, why talk about love right now?” Therefore, most definitely, love was not an issue when it came to marriage, or rather, the thought, the idea of love was not present, it almost seemed to be an oddity; when it came to practice, though, it often proved to be capital, and this Jewish couple will come to this exact conclusion. Going back to our couple, the husband, who is facing some hard decisions concerning his own daughter’s marriage, presses his wife to answer his question, and she bursts out: “I’m your wife!”, as if that statement could settle the matter. Again, the husband, patiently, urges her to answer him, and again she has to make an effort to take it seriously: “Do I love him?...” She then resumes her recollection, this time talking to herself: “For twenty-five years I’ve lived with him, fought with him, starved with him; for twenty-five years my bed is his; if that’s not love, what is?” and concludes, musingly: “I suppose I do.” “Then I suppose I love you too”, the husband finally states. The conclusion they both reach witnesses the little thought that was given to such apparent trifles. Rabbinic haggadahR5 is full of stories and examples of couples who came to the rabbis asking for help and advice, showing that their concern in maintaining their marriage in good harmony went far beyond the mişwahR6 of procreation. In the midrash Shir-Hashirim Rabbah, for example, a story is told of a couple who had lived together for ten years without having any children, which clearly was a major problem and usually led to a divorce. Instead, the two spouses were so attached to each other that they could not separate, and the story stresses the value of love between them and the actions they took in order to maintain their relationship, even with that serious handicap that they did not know whether they would eventually overcome (Atzmon 23-24). The Talmud actually enhances the wife’s role in a good, sound, marital partnership and gives paramount importance to sexual relationship between married couples. The Halakhah ruled that intimate relationship between husband and wife 5

From the Hebrew root nagad, “say”, one of the two primary components of rabbinic tradition, the other being halakhah, usually translated as “Jewish law” (Wald 454).

6

God’s commandment.

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should happen only by mutual consent: “A man is forbidden to compel his wife to the [marital] obligation”; “Whosoever compels his wife to the [marital] obligation will have unworthy children” (Er. 100b). If one of the spouses felt any animosity against the other for whatever reason, they should restrain from having sexual intercourse, and the same should happen if, for instance, the wife was asleep or drunk. This tenet, dictated by simple common sense, was certainly meant for those cases in which the husband might feel he could use his wife as an object of his own, for him to play or use at pleasure. It was the way to ensure that the wife would be given the same regard as her husband felt he deserved, and brought her to the same level as himself, granting her the right to deny her caresses to a pressing husband who might not respect her particular mood at a particular time. This allows us to consider that the rabbis disavowed the idea shared by many men, then as even today, of men’s superiority over their wives, at least in this specific matter. One may then support Lilith’s contention in her famous argument with Adam, when she feels it is not fair that he should impose as a rightful regulation the exact way they should enact when having sexual intercourse. It is clear that we stand here before an issue of pride. The classical story told to children about the fall of humanity teaches that man was mad enough to try to equal his creator (although the greatest blame is put upon the woman, who enticed him to do so), pride being the bait: the wish to be like God, as powerful and wise as he was. In the case of Lilith and Adam, pride and self-appreciation led to chaos. Adam stated bluntly that he was superior to Lilith and that she should submit to him. She was hurt by his arrogance and, being equally conceited, for both were made the same way, by the same crafter, simply refused to abide by his laws, since she could recognize him no authority that would justify his claims. Had he been clever enough to ask her to humour him, stating his preferences and pleading with her to play along with his liking, now and then making allowance for what she was partial to, he would perhaps have been able to keep her by his side. Such as it was, his intolerance gave way to an evil plight with serious consequences for mankind. In fact, Lilith was so angered by her thick-headed husband that she dared to speak the name of the Lord, the Ineffable Name, as recorded in the tales that recount us the story. This shows us that, in the beginning, the Name could be pronounced, at least in exceptional circumstances. However, it availed her no help from her creator, so she chose to depart, never to come back. It is odd that she should have chosen such a path. It was Adam who first asserted his superiority over her (now, the Lord had not given him permission to do so) and he was the one clearly trying to submit her to his will. So he seemed to be the one needing a reprimand, so that he could come to his senses. Why did she not kick him out of Paradise, until he did? She probably felt he was being unfair and she was offended, for obviously his love for her was not enough for him to understand that he was wronging her. When she realized that, she felt she could not live

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for eternity with someone who did not appreciate her as she deserved, and as he should, for he had been created for her, as she for him. Why did she not ask the Lord to be the judge between them? There is more than one answer to this riddle. First, the Lord is not a woman, and she might have feared that he could take her man’s party. Second, perhaps she was so hurt by Adam’s attitude that she could not bear the idea of having him in his life after such display of disrespect towards her. Finally, and this was perhaps the most important reason, she must have felt that her creator had failed her. Why had he not gone to her defense, why had he not rebuked her smug husband for wanting to subdue her and had not established clear rules for both of them, so that none would even think of trying to best the other? How could the God of justice bear to watch her husband try to force and humiliate her, and not interfere on her behalf ? This was what triggered Lilith’s rebellion against the Lord and this was what made her decide to leave. Strangely enough, we observe that she didn’t just leave, she flew away, and Adam did not go to her pursuit. We could ask why not, since the tale clearly shows that he wanted her back at all costs. Apparently he could not, otherwise he would have. Instead, he turns to God and complains: “Sovereign of the universe!, the woman you gave me has run away”. The fact that Adam required God’s intervention instead of chasing Lilith gives us, therefore, an interesting piece of information: unlike Lilith, he could not fly. This seems impossible, since they had been made from the same dust, in the same way, and both were equals. What made the difference, then? We may infer that the uttering of the Ineffable Name gave Lilith the power she needed to do it, and similarly we may conclude that the man could have done the same to go after her. However, he did not, but disturbed God in his distress. This means that Lilith’s action was bold and reckless, and that she crossed a boundary that she was not meant to – the same put into words in the second commandment given to Moses: “you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Ex 20:7). Lilith’s recklessness is twofold: her wings symbolize her animalism, but, on the other hand, they stand for knowledge and moral elevation (Bitton 118). Anyway, Lilith cast herself away so far from God’s reach, both in distance and by means of her deeds, that he did not summon or address her directly, as he did when talking to Adam or, later on, to Eve, but he sent three of his angels to bring her back. Once again, we may ask why God accepted to bring Lilith back to Paradise, after she had fled so defiantly, making ill use of his Name. Was he hoping she would repent of her sedition towards her God and longing to forgive her and have her back under his wing? Was he sorry for Adam, seeing him lost and lonely without his mate? Or was he just upset because his creation had proved more independent or self-assured than he had ever foreseen? And I have still another question: was Lilith Adam’s soulmate, or rather his bodymate? God’s first intention seemed to be the latter, according to Gn 2:24: “and they become one flesh”. Indeed, in such way Adam seems to have felt it, for the argu738

ment was about the position he preferred when mating, and only afterwards did he bring forth his superiority issue. The fact is when the angels reach Lilith, she is already out of range, as far as Paradise and heaven are concerned. The angels’ menace of drowning her is void, and in fact she so understands it; it seemed unlikely they would dare to destroy God’s creation. If, then, we consider the later versions of the myth, in which the angels threaten her with the death of her children, we infer that she has already gone over to the accuser, Samael, and that she bears the multitude of his children, the winds and demons that haunt the world. Even so, they would take her back with them: then it looks like she could still be restored to grace, and God would still be willing to pardon her, let alone her desolate husband. In spite of God’s ever forgiving mercy, however, Lilith persists with a downright refusal of his love and indulgence: rather than submitting or risking disappointment again, she proclaims her freedom and states her newly acquired power of fright and destruction, although she is forced to recognize her creator’s supremacy as she agrees to make the pact with his messengers. Personifying a projection or reification of human fears and desires, Lilith was looked, until very recently, as an evil, wanton creature whose sole aim is terror and destruction. More than that, she dwelled in the collective imagery as the prototype of foulness and indecency (Bitton 114). It might be said that it was because her story was written by men, with the virtuous aim of educating women. A perfect example is found in one of Victor Hugo’s poems, where the story we know comes to be reversed and Lilith is a somber outcast, rejected by Adam due to her quarrelsome, proud stubbornness and sent by him into a dark cloud of shadow and dream, where she became a night wraith: Femmes! l’homme est le roi; tremblez, et songez bien / à la sombre Lilith, née avant Ève; / Adam la renvoya dans l’ombre et dans le rêve; / Lilith répudiée est un spectre de nuit. / Lilith était l’orgueil, la querelle et le bruit; / [...] Elle roule à jamais dans la noire nuée.[7

We had to wait until the XIXth century, when emotions overpowered reason and the reasons of the heart were above every other reason, to look at a different image of Lilith. She continues to be dark, it is true, she is treacherous, a power of the underworld, but she has new features that had been overlooked. She is pitiful, and her sorrow and misery are chanted, along with her webs of deceit. She is beautiful beyond measure, her long hair being one of her most sexy attributes; she creeps into the minds and awakens deep sentiments of passion and even love, God’s ultimate weapon. There we may look at the close resemblance between the Lord and the woman he created, indeed in his own image, not dreaming that she would one day taunt him and proclaim her boundless freedom.[8 7

La Fin de Satan. Hetzel, 1886.

8

Some examples are poems by D. G. Rossetti and R. Browning, as well as paintings by Rossetti and John Collier.

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From an etiological goddess, symbolizing the violence of nature and of the elementary powers bringing forth draught, disease and all kinds of evil that afflict humanity, Lilith became a pure spirit devised by God to be the mother of men who, through pride and arrogance, turned out to be the mother of demons instead, a symbol of sexual perversion and a fearsome power of darkness. Power is the key-word here: Lilith had indeed an unusual amount of power, first as the wife of man, then as an independent being who dared to say “no” to her partner and to her creator, and ultimately as the companion of God’s opponent, the Queen of Dread who spread terror and misery into the world. As long as she kept on sweeping away life, that is, killing new-born babies and dooming the souls of careless men, the angel of death granted her dominion over the whole land without hindrance. She was the mistress of her own deeds and decisions with the one, tiny exception of that old pact she had once made with God’s messengers. Unreciprocated love, from both her husband and her creator, was what led Lilith to act as she did, and the measure of her wickedness was only matched by the measure of her anguish when she felt that they had failed her. Her world was shattered, her reason foundered; she had to begin anew and forge herself a brand new way of life, in such a manner that she would never risk to be let down again. She is the first woman to have allowed her emotions to meddle with such a simple commandment as to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gn 1:28). The Lord gave no special instructions about sentiment, or feelings, but only bid Adam and Lilith to healthily breed, and be happy among all the things he had given them. She was who exceeded his directions by far, and not only she brought on fright and chaos onto the world, but she also added new attributes to humanity, the emotions, which she displayed and let loose, thus giving a new meaning to relations between men and, above all, between husband and wife. What distinguished Lilith from all the other beings created by God – with the one exception of her second husband, Samael - was that she was brave enough to use the full strength of the power bestowed on her, when she was not supposed to do so, and even test it beyond every reasonable prevision. The force that drove her to such extremes was love, the same love quoted in the Bible in Song 8:6: “[...] For love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame”. God had bestowed upon Lilith his double nature, his bright side as his dark side. Thus she contained the beauty and power of creation, the strength of bliss and the arcane knowledge and wisdom that came to be the motor of so many works produced by human creativity. She turned these attributes to raging hatred and destruction, thus wasting the harmony the Lord had devised for his creation. Lilith personifies the sitra ahra (“the other side”) inherited from the creator, embodying the darkest feelings and emotions of men, while keeping the beauty and power of the bright side – a whole God’s image on earth.

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