Recently I ordered a calendar with artwork of what the publishing house called “Dark Goddesses.” I thought the artwork was nice, and I liked the theme. I showed my wife the ad (after I had placed my order), and she noticed that one of the illustrations was of a goddess named “Lilith.” She said, “But Lilith isn’t a goddess.”
Her comment got me thinking. Who is Lilith, and is Lilith really a goddess?
Note: The book Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by the scholars Jeremy Black and Anthony Green is my primary source in this post for the demonology of Sumer and Babylonia.
Lilith and Sumerian Demons
Before we study Lilith, we need to understand the Sumerian and Babylonian concepts of demons. The Mesopotamian people saw demons differently than we do. They believed that demons are complex and some are benevolent while still demonic.
One example is the demon Pazuzu. While Pazuzu is a demon, he protects people from pestilent winds. He also protects pregnant women. Therefore, there were numerous amulets of Pazuzu for protection. Interestingly, Black and Green describes Pazuzu as a “demonic god.”
Another interesting example is the demon Lamastu, who is a threat to pregnant women and infants. Black and Green describes Her as “a type of goddess” (pages 115-116) in that, although a demon, Her name in cuneiform is written in a manner for a goddess. Also, like goddesses, She has her own sacred animal (a donkey) and a boat that She uses to travel through the Underworld. In addition, unlike most demons who are limited to acting upon orders of gods, Lamastu has Her own agency and can act on Her own.
The Mesopotamian demon lilitu is central to the story of Lilith. According to Black and Green, the lilitu “are a family of a sort of demon. They are not gods.” These demons, which can be male or female, roams the desert and are threats to pregnant women and infants. (page 118).
Lilith of Myth and Folklore
Today, when people think of Lilith, we usually think of the Hebrew variant of the lilitu. In some translations of the Hebrew text Isaiah 34.14, the name “Lilith” is used, while “demon” or “night-hag” is used in others. As a demon, Lilith appears in various other ancient Jewish sources, such as the Dead Sea scrolls and Rabbinic writings. Like the Mesopotamian lilitu, the Hebrew Lilith resides in the desert and is a threat primarily to women and infants.
The most famous Hebrew story of Lilith is that she was Adam’s first wife before Eve. In this story, Lilith was created from the Earth like Adam and was to be his equal. However, she considered herself more than equal to Adam and insisted on having sex on top rather than in the missionary position. When Adam refused, she became frustrated and flew out of the Garden in a rage. Lilith then swore that she would forever kill the children of Adam.
It’s important to note that this story isn’t old and is not in the Bible. The oldest recording of this story is found in the Alphabet of Ben Sira, which dates between 700 – 1000 C.E. A similar story is found in the 13th century C.E. Jewish work Zohar in which Lilith is described as “a hot fiery female who first cohabited with man.”
There are many other stories of Lilith. A very different story is in the Gnostic-esque Treatise on the Left Emanation, another 13th-century C.E. work in which Lilith was created as one androgynous being with Samael. In this story, not only were Lilith and Samael a singular androgynous being but so were Adam and Eve.
Lilith Reimagined
It was during the 19th-century Romantic period that we begin to see a reimagining of Lilith. In the 1883 poem Adam, Lilith, and Eve, Victorian poet Robert Browning portrayed Lilith and Eve as friends. Eve admits she never loved Adam, while Lilith says she always had. Nowhere in the poem does he describe Lilith as a demon. In addition, Charles Leland (famous for his book Aradia: Goddess of the Witches) associated Aradia with Lilith.
Lilith became a symbol of modern feminism in the early 1970s. In 1972, the Jewish Feminist Theologian Judith Plaskow wrote The Coming of Lilith. In her story, Lilith is portrayed not as a demon but as a wronged woman who was slandered by Adam and who struggles against sexism and misogyny.
The reimagined Lilith as a feminist icon is still popular today. It sparked the short-lived music festival Lilith Fair and the still-running magazine Lilith. These, along with numerous film and television productions.
Lilith Deified
It’s with modern Western Esotericism that Lilith achieved deification. Late 19th and early 20th-century magical orders venerated Lilith and incorporated Her into their rituals. Some early occult writers expressed special reverence for Lilith. Aleister Crowley, for example, included “Lilith” in the many middle names of his first child.
Several Wiccan elders dramatically reimagined Lilith and turned Her into a goddess. Gerald Gardner claimed that Lilith had been continuously worshiped from ancient times. Another influential Neopagan elder, Raymond Buckland, held that Lilith is a dark moon goddess and equated Her with the Hindu goddess Kali.
Lilith is popular today among many of the Left-Hand Path (LHP). Of course, there’s a wide variety of views among LHP practitioners about Lilith. Some see Her as a goddess. Some see Her as married to Satan. She’s a mother goddess to some and a sex goddess to others.
Lilith Conclusion
There is nothing that I have read to support Leland’s and Gardner’s claim that Lilith has been worshiped since antiquity under any name.
However, while there's no evidence that Lilith was worshiped by ancients, since Lilith is part of the larger Near Eastern culture, it would help to consider their ideas about demons. As we have seen, Mesopotamian demons are much more complex than those in the Abrahamic worldview. We see this in the entities of Pazuzu and Lamastu, who blur the lines between gods and the demons.
Lilith has been reimagined numerous times over the eons. She’s gone from a Near Eastern demon to Adam’s first wife to a feminist icon. When one considers our knowledge of Mesopotamian beliefs about demons and demonic gods, it’s perfectly realistic to consider the possibility of Lilith’s newest incarnation as a goddess.
