Lilith - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History of Lilith

Origins of Lilith

Lilith is probably the echo of a demon female sumérien, then Babylonian, Lilitû or Ardat Lili . Its dominant features are already its air character , its sexuality and its Fécondité unbounded. Regarded as a demon devorator, it is related to Déesse mother. Goddess-snake, goddess winged (thus combining the characters chton IEN and air), for Marija Gimbutas it corresponds to the Déesse mother which one finds the trace since the higher Paléolithique. It would be present in the epopee of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh and the willow , under the name of Lillaka , account in which it approaches the goddess Inama (Astarté). One also finds it in the “goddess-with-snakes” of the Minoan Civilization, but also under the features of Isis, the winged goddess of the old Egypt .

It would have been taken again by the Jewish tradition at times of the captivity of Babylon. At biblical times, it is a notation symbolic of the preexistent Matriarcat to the Patriarcat, but finally supplanted by the advent of this last.

Various etymology S is considered:

the Sumérien lil , the Wind;
the sumérien lulti , lasciviousness;
the Hebrew laïl , the night;
Hebrew lou' has , mouth.

Lilith in the Bible

Lilith is seldom expressly indicated in the Bible, the number of occurrences depends on the translation.

In the Book of Isaïe chapter XXXIV verse 14. It appears in a particularly sinister context, during the fall of the kingdom of Edom, in a pitch desert, among brambles, the nettles and the thistles:

The animals of the desert will meet there with the jackals, and the wild goat will shout there with his/her companion. There too the lilith will put back and find its quiet dwelling| Livre of Tests, translation of John Nelson Darby

The translations of Louis Segond and Augustin Crampon, respectively use “spectrum of the night” and “spectrum of the nights”.

The Book of Job, chapter XVIII, verse 15, also evokes it in its lamentations: one tears off the malicious one safe from his tent to trail it towards the King of Frights, Lilith settles there with residence and one spreads sulfur on his fold . Its name is absent from translations of Segon, Crampon or Darby.

The figure of the Middle-aged lust evoked in the Psaume 91,5 is sometimes identified to him, sometimes it is another demon of the same passage to which one gives his name: You will fear neither Lilith neither the arrow which flies day, neither Deber, the plague which goes in the ténèbre, nor Keteb, the plague which devastates at midday

Where one translates by Lilith , certain Bibles translate by spectrum of the night, feather bed, onocentaure, cat-hooting, owl, owl.

The book of the Genèse, which passes for directly inspired by God, offers two accounts of the creation of Eve:

in the first, Adam is created at the same time as the first woman (who is not named) starting from Argile;
in the second, Eve, is conceived starting from a coast (supernumerary) taken on the body of Adam so that it is his similar and his equal. Neither the elohist nor the Yahviste (the Script S of the Bible) say word as for the need for this second creation.

Also, very early, the rabbis tried to solve contradiction between these two contradictory passages. Taking again certain Semitic legends, these rabbis saw there the proof of the existence of a “other first woman”.

In the Cabal

It is to solve this contradiction that the rabbis will enrich the myth by Lilith, which finds a development important in a collection written between 8th and the 10th centuries after J. - C., the alphabet of Ben Sira , the comment of the Ecclésiaste.

At the beginning (Béréshit), Lilith, is only the generic name of a class of demons females: it thus comes from the Enfer S, of dust. It is in the alphabet of Ben Sira that is explained the destiny of Lilith: it is drawn from the same ground as Adam (as the Alphabet of Ben Sira calls Adam-Kadmon ), therefore is regarded as its equal. She refuses to be held below him when they make love, which causes an argument. She calls upon the name of the Eternal then, of the wings push to him, and she gives up Adam and the Eden. In front of the complaints of Adam, God sends three angels to convince Lilith, which refuses. She is thus that which says not at the same time to the man and God.

Its punishment is initially to see all his/her children dying in the birth: but, despaired by this death which is born from it, it goes Suicide R. the angels give itself him the capacity to kill the children of the men (until the Circoncision, at the eighth day, for the boys, and until the twentieth day for the girls). It meets then the demon Samaël, the wife and settles with him in the valley of Jehanum, where it takes the name of Adam-Bélial .

To be avenged, Lilith becomes the snake which causes the Chute of Eve, and encourages Caïn to kill Abel. As his/her children entretuent themselves, Adam refuses to sleep with Eve, which makes it possible Lilith to give birth to clouds of demons (with the sperm of Adam which falls to ground) during a hundred and thirty years.

Later, in the Livnat ha Sappir , Joseph Angelino identifies Lilith with the Queen of Sheba, in its role of temptress; one of the two prostitutes who dispute a child in front of Solomon is also Lilith.

In the Talmud and the Zohar

In the Démonologie of the midrach and Zohar (the Book of splendors), there are two Lilith, the small one and the large one:

the large one is the wife of Samaël, it is the woman of the depravity. The Geonim explain that it controls 480 legions, as much as the numerical value of its name. , Despite everything, to have saved some children (of which the son of the king Nabuchodonosor), it is authorized to go up on Earth with the approach of the Crépuscule.
the second is the wife of Asmodée, prince of the Hells where Lilith reigns in all majesty, with the three other queens of the demons: Igrat, Mahalath and Nahemah and all their Cohorte S which gives rise to children by Légion S.

Rabbi Yehouda Bar Rabbi (another generic name: the priest-saver born of a priest ) clarifies it in its Rabba Genesis: “ the blessed Saint is it had created a first woman, but the man, seeing it rebel, full with blood and secretions, was isolated. Also the blessed Saint is it began again himself there and created one second of it to him” (Genesis Rabba 18:4). Then: “ Caïn which quarreled with Abel for possession of first Eve, killed it… to be sure to be the only owner about it (of small Lilith his/her own mother). With them two, they generated the diabolic portion of humanity like Adam and Eve generated the beneficial portion of it… ” (Genesis Rabba 22:7 - > 30).

Lilith: a Messaline before the letter

Whatever the exégètes, Lilith is always described or perceived as a managing woman who has an ascending fort on Adam and an insatiable sexual appetite. This said, there exist several versions Hebraic S of this myth, Ci below, one of most widespread.

Adam would have separated from Lilith for several reasons, very of order sexuel : even perhaps

Lilith which refused to see its body deformed by the pregnancies practiced the Contraception the Avortement (what goes against the Commandement formulated later in the Bible " Grow and multipliez") ;
Adam suspected Lilith, the insatiable one, to fornicate with the " Incubates S (male demons), thus contravening the Command " You will have other husbands only your époux" ;
Adam, did not wish to practice the sexual relationships mainly or only while sticking to the Missionary position . But, Lilith, it, rejected the most traditional postures (which gave all the superiority to the man during the Sex act) and particularly that known as missionary position who would impose on the woman a lower position . Lilith thus clearly asserted its statute of " paire" ;
Finally, Lilith, weary to undergo the reproaches, the scenes and the requirements of his/her companion, revolts openly.

Adam, under the blow of anger and wanting to show authority, the hunting of the terrestrial paradise. YHVH, prevented, sends the 3 angels of the Médecine (Snvi, Snsvi and Smnglof) to try to reason it.

But she refuses obtempérer at the requests of the Divine one, which is one of its character traits. Finally, driven out by the man of the Paradise, Lilith, éperdue, right flees in front of it, until the accesses of the Red Sea. There, she seeks the human ones but finds only animals and demons. Driven out of Humanity it is thrown in the `mischief' and starts (or continues) to maintain the relationships with the large demon but also to number of demons and démones Succube S.

Finally YHVH takes note of the irremediability of its turpitudes and definitively surface of the Earth rejects it towards the abyss, at the bottom of the Océan S, it remains there then benefitting from the underwater caves, to join the Géhenne procreating with the passage, a multitude of demons as well Aquatique S as Infra-terrestrial. It becomes thus the Femme of the three worlds , only the celestial world remaining to him closed.

Of " First Femme" with " First démone"

Lilith exceeds quickly the Succube S, maidservants appointed of Lucifer, without in being one itself. It obtains the title of " quickly there; First démone" , the favorite one of Lucifer. But, the wife of Lucifer, main Grande of the maidservants called Succube S on the other hand does not have any authority on the male demons (much more many) placed under the exclusive cane of her husband, wire of Satan. Once again, she is avenged by misleading it abundantly. He, the horn in its turn with Eve.

In these oceanic depths where Prayer multiple S and objurgations try to maintain it there to prevent it from disturbing the life of the Men and particularly young men (by definition, still little tested), on ground. But these rather effective prayers of day, lose of their force at the beginning of the Nuit, Lilith, helped, propelled by all the forces of the evil, benefits from it to leave the Abysses. The Mother S and the bride S, must do everything to avoid leaving them wire and husband only with the accesses of the Crépuscule. Because then, become an easy prey for this démone, always with the mounting, they would be involved, directly, towards the Débauche for always.

The image of Lilith

Physically, according to the Tradition:

Lilith would be russet-red, dark of dye, eyes (black or brown dark): “I am black, but I am beautiful”,
Eve would be châtain (even fair), of dye and clear eyes: “I am Eve, the clear one”,
on this subject the table of John Collier Lilith (in 1892), represents Lilith, with the clear dye and hair, which could be just as easily called Eve (episode of the Snake included/understood).

Morally like psychiquement (always according to the Tradition):

Lilith functions alternatively like image of the sexual demon and femme fatale, sterile, where Eve is more seen like the woman also ideal génitrice.
As a supplanted or given up woman, for the benefit of another woman, Lilith represents anti-family hatreds, the hatred of the couples and the children.

Lilith and children: devoured itself by the Jealousy, it hardly hesitates to kill the newborns going until devouring them, being enivrant of their blood. If the guard of the Mothers is too vigilant, Lilith unearths their corpses, emptying them their entrails, leaving only some straws of Paille.
always according to the Jewish Tradition, Lilith, punished by the sterility, pushes Lucifer, disguised in snake, to pervert Eve charnellement by having it. From this union against-nature, is born the first umbilicated man (with a Nombril contrary to his/her various parents), makes a monstrous being of it: Caïn which makes the first murder on Earth, by killing Abel, his own brother. Thus, Lilith, is quadrupling and terribly avenged: through the man betrayed (Adam), through the ridiculed and misled mother, the perverted child become assassin (Caïn) and fourthly by the killed child. Well beyond revenge, Lilith can enjoy badly the `for the evil' as practicing satanism.

Various variations of the myth

Lilith in arts

One can count very many malefic heroins, which at least in one their facets take again a facet of Lilith (sexuality unslung, diverted procreation, illicit sexuality, morbidity related to sexuality, woman free, equal of the man), and whose name is made on the model of the redoubling of two L : Lily, Lila, Lilac, Liliane, etc…

Lilith is a computer of the end of the year 1970 (see Niklaus Wirth/

Lilith in painting

Lilith in literature

Berbiguier of Newfoundland of Thyme in “ the Goblins (Chapter I with X)” takes again the antithesis of Eve, Lilith, which it dedicates however both with the demon:

CH. Eve, Pécheresse : “ How to flee this company, chaired by Belzébuth, Lucifer and Asturet, most dangerous of the demons, the seducer of our mother Eve, author of the Original sin ? Ah! why God didn't it pulverize this infernal demon, when, by easy way, it took the shape of a snake, to insinuate to Eve the desire for tasting the forbidden fruit? we would not have known human miseries, our heart would be pure as when it left the center of the Creator. ”
Lilith, prince of Succubes . Description that Berbiguier gives to “ the infernal Court ” is completely tasty there, here: “ Princes and high-ranking dignitaries. Belzébuth, supreme leader; Satan, détrôné prince; Eurinomist, prince of Death; Moloch, prince of the country of the Tears; Pluto, prince of Fire; Side, prince of Incubate; Lilith, prince of Succubes; Léonard, large-Master of the Sabbath S; Baalberith, large pontiff; Prosperine, archi-she-devil ”.

Rémy de Gourmont (in 1892) gives another version of the myth of Lilith: the Creator, modelling Lilith with Clay, sensuellement rounded the hips and the centres of Lilith and was with clay court for the head. It then dug a hole to him in the belly to make him the brain.

Anatole France, in “ the girl of Lilith ”, invents mysterious Leïla, girl of Lilith, of which here the Prayer: “ My God, promise to me death, so that I taste the life. My God, give me the remorse, so that I find the pleasure. My God, make me equal daughters of Eve! ”

Marcel Schwob, in “ Lilith, Cœur doubles ”, renews the myth while making paint with the hero of the book, the Divinity like a creature of the one of its tables: (tired of these terrestrial beauties)… “Then it liked Lilith, the first woman of Adam, who was not created of the man. It was not made of red ground, like Eve, but of inhuman matter; it had been similar to the snake, and it was it which tried the snake to try the others. It appeared to him that it was more really woman, and the first, so that the girl of the North that he finally liked in this life, and which he married, he gave him the name of Lilith. But it was a pure whim of artist; it was similar to these figures préraphaélites which he revived on his fabrics. It had the eyes of the color of the sky, and its long blond hair was luminous like that of Bérénice, which, since it offered it to the gods, is épandue in the firmament. Its voice had the soft sound of the things which are close breaking; all its gestures were tender like lissements of feathers; and so often it seemed to belong to a world differ from that from ici-bas that it looked it like a vision”.

The Lolita of Vladimir Nabokov, in 1955, preceded by a poem in the middle of the years 1920 ( Lilith ).

Spartakus FreeMann, in “Lilith within Jewish Mysticism”, 2002, includes the traditional topics: " Sexe- Revolts and Violence and Religion ".

In 1981, Primo Levi publishes Lilith , collection of news where in one of it, “Lilith”, he reports the myth of Lilith which a Jewish soldier tells him.

Three pearls of Domerat of Anna Galore.

Other uses: Victor Hugo, the princess Leïleff of Catulle Mendès; Alina Reyes, Lilith (Romance), Réza Barahéni, Lilith (Romance); Colette de Belloy, possible Lilith or One , Pierre Mourlon-Beernaert, female faces of the Gospel , Philippe Pissier, Letters in Lilith

In the song

Cabaret Holy-Lilith is a song of Hubert-Felix Thiéfaine.

Lilith is a song of the group Plaid on which Björk sings (album Not for threes ).

Lilith is the name of an album of Jean-Louis Murat.

Soliloquy For Lilith is an album of the experimental group British Nurse With Wound.

In English, one exploits the phonetic proximity between the Lys ( lilium , and especially their plural, lilies ) and Lilith, and the opposition between the Virgin Mary whose lily is the emblem and Lilith: one can announce the song of the group Genesis Lilywhite Lilith .

Lilith is also the name of a group of music of Quebec, Canada.

" Lilith Infinite" is the name of a collective of electronic music founded in 2005 by French Michel Brossault and Philippe Pissier (translator of Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, Phil Hine, etc). The heading returns to the poetess and Polish courtesan Diana Sylwia Orlow, alias Lilith von Sirius (1971-1997).

With the cinema

In 1964, Jean Seberg interprets a nymphomaniac in the film Lilith of Robert Rossen.

Lolita de Nabokov was carried twice to the cinema, in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick (Lolita of Kubrick) and in 1997 by Adrian Lyne (Lolita of Lyne).

Others

Publisher (Lilith Sunday) of the singer Hubert-Felix Thiéfaine.

Lilith in Psychoanalysis

Clean topics

This myth which conveys, the majority of the archaisms and prototypes inherent in the psychoanalysis is too rich (and too fluctuating) to be entirely explored. Here is thus an approach of some of the main themes:

Topics antiquated S:

Phantasm S, “dévorement” (or devoration) of the children and their skins,
the abductive Seduction forced `quasi ' of the young men,
the magic Thought , fusion Real/Unreal;

limiting Topics:

the Good and the Badly;
Unconscious collective (Imaginary collective?).
Humanity and Animality: the woman and the Snake;

archetypal Topics:

God and Devil, Hell and Paradise;
the Man and the Woman, the New-born ;

the Sexuality: the Object-choice, competition, the Achievement: the Man, the Woman and the Child (the terrestrial Trinity);

the relation man woman: attraction repulsion (Gynotropisme and Misogyny); Seduction, impulses (the That) and Repulsion, Sexual relations, Pregnancy, Fruitfulness/sterility, the Competition man woman;
the relation woman woman: pregnancy, fruitfulness sterility, the competition woman woman, the mirror.

close Topics: Real/Unreal.

Paradoxically and although inherent in the Jewish Culture, this topic very rich was so to speak not explored by the large traditional psychoanalysts Freud, Jung, etc which preferred `to furrow' the broad topics of the Greek Mythologie where nearest (but all the same rather distant) would be that of Jocaste.

The competition woman/woman

Prelude competition of the Mirror.
With the birth of Eve, Lilith, up to that point single woman, is discovered a triumphing, adult rival like it (since apparently, both were created adult). By a quasi morbid Jealousy, Lilith will cause the Perversion/Perte of this rival via the Snake (the demon, the Gnose/Knowledge) like, already, itself had been it by this last.

Finally, through this episode, the two women, rather dissimilar at the beginning, end up resembling each other in Miroir (what the passage of the antique Terra cotta confirms in the table of Collar).

Lilith and Women's right

In the Years 1970, some Militant be Groupuscule the “Cause of the women” took again Lilith and its image as carries torch of their fight. Indeed, contrary to Eve, that the Bible presents as having been conceived starting from a coast of Adam so that it dependant and is thus subjected to him, Lilith would have been formed starting from Argile like Adam and would be thus more “equal” to him. What would place the woman in a statute, either of Subordination, but of parity - equality vis-a-vis the man.

Another feminist current , less radical, bases him on the existence in the companies of the Paléolithique of an initially prevalent but évincé current matriarcal, little by little, by the triumph of the patriarchate in the Neolithic companies . Thus at the time of the passage of a company of hunters-gatherers to that passage of a company of pre farmer S where the man until there nomadisant remains fixed in one (proto) - village that it controls. See on this subject the article of Mary Daly, in “ If God were a woman ”, (opus quoted): “… a Théologie (Tout-puissant E) represents male God, the Almighty… “If God is male, then the male is God”. All the more extremely as it is camouflaged and allegedly practiced “in the name of God”, the religious capacity of patriarchal type hiding place a radical violence]] with respect to the women: it imposes and justifies the male experiment like standard, as well as stereotypes without serious theological base on the masculine and the female one. In the Church, the decision-making power belongs to unmarried men whose Légitimité is, in the facts, that which they grant mutually. That means that not only the whole of the women, but also the majority of the men undergoes [[violence]]. That also means that the institution deprives itself on the one hand important of the humanity and an image of God brought by the women. ”

See too

The use of Lilith in astronomy: the black moon.

Diana Orlow, aka Lilith von Sirius (Poznan 1971 - Hamburg 1997), poetess, parolière and Polish courtesan celebrated by musical formations like Jad Wio, Von Sirius, Aryos or Lilith Infinity. Various documents: http://pissierarchives.canalblog.com/archives/diana_orlow__lilith_von_sirius_/index.html Its literary work on line: http://www.paganguild.org/pissier/sommaire.html

Scientific bibliography

Books :

Pascale Auraix-Jonchière, Lilith, misadventures and metamorphoses of a myth between university romanticism and decline , Presses Blaise Pascal, Paris, 2002. Collection romantic Books , ISBN 2-84516-210-3
Jacques Bril, Lilith or the obscure mother , Bouscat: The Spirit of Time, 1998
Michel Camus, Anthem in Lilith , Paris, Letters sharp, 2000
J. of Gravelaine, the return of Lilith , Paris, blue Space, 1985
“ evil with female, theological Reflections starting from feminism ”, Paris, Harmattan, 1999.
" Lilith, the Noire" Moon; , file arranged by Daniel Giraud, Montpeyroux, Droplets of Dew, 2000, ISBN: 2-913736-06-8.

Articles :

“ Theology of the release to female and feminist theology of the release ”, Alternative South, Vol.VII, 2000,1, p 225-241, Paris, Harmattan.
What is crowned? International review of Pastoral Catechesis and , Lumen Vitae , n° December 4th, th and th 1999.
Marc-Alain Descamps, “Lilith or the permanence of a myth”, Imaginary & Unconscious, volume 3 (2002), No 7, p 77-86
Ruth Fox, “Where are the woman-keys of the Writing in Lectionnaire of today? ” in National Catholic To defer - the USA, May 94
Paulinas. I. Gebara, “the fundamental causes of the ideas “preconceived” concerning the women”, in “ As inconvenienced flihas of Eva Na Igreja da América Latina ”, pp. 27-35, Paulinas 1990, transl. NR. Roose.
J. of Palacio, “the figure of Lilith in the novel of inter-war period”, Novel 20-50, 1991, No 12, p 7-86, pp. 87-98, ISSN 0295-5024
Vanessa Rousseau, “Lilith: A forgotten androgyny”, Files of social sciences of the religions, 2003, vol. 123, p 61-75 ISSN 0335-5985
E.W. Vogelsang, “The confrontation between Lilith and Adam: the fifth round”, Newspaper off analytical psychology, 1985, vol. 30, No 2, p 149-163 ISSN 0021-8774

With reading

Lilith and his/her sisters , anthology presented by Lea Silhol, editions of Oxymore, Emblémythiques collection, 2001

Internal bonds

the Bible, the Talmud
the Gorgone S, Lamie S, Park Greek Mythologie.
Anna Galore published a thriller having for backdrop the myth of Lilith, “the Three Pearls of Domérat”

External bonds

Lilith, in particular Founded Obscure Mother on the book of Jacques Bril, presentation of the myths related to Lilith, followed by a fast psychoanalytical study.
Lilith within Jewish mysticism: a study of the origins of Lilith in the Jewish religion.
Anatole France, the girl of Lilith, ED. Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1924, pp. 65-87.
Marcel Schwob, Lilith, Cœur doubles , ED. Paul Ollendorf, Paris, 1891, pp. 87-94.
http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4240/alphabet.html

Sources

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