EFFORTPOST Types of Vampires: Lilith

Congratulations vampiricels You made it to another week, and to another essay post from the greatest of all rDrama Houses

Lilith is a being from Hebrew mythology with a rather multilayered history. While it’s a bit of an oversimplification to just call her a vampire, Lilith’s mythology heavily overlaps with vampires in the way that demons and succubi overlap with vampires, and she has long been associated with blood sucking.

EARLIEST LEGENDS:

As mentioned in my previous House Vampire post, most of the mythology associated with modern vampires originated in early modern south and eastern Europe. However, the idea of a blood or at least life force draining being of undead or demonic origin has independently emerged across cultures and time periods. Even the ancient Mesopotamians and pre-Jewish Israelites had mythological beings that can be retroactively thought of as vampire esque.

Mesopotamia is a historic term for a region of the Middle East mostly encompassed by modern day Iraq and Syria. The history of the region is essentially a history of recorded civilization, as the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers gave rise to some of the earliest known agricultural societies. The ancient Sumerians in particular represent the arguable start of continuous western history, and what I mean here is that actual Sumerian records have survived into the present day. Their language is still known and their mythological influences remain in literary studies. The same is true of their immediate successors; the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, etc.

In other words, Sumer represents the start of when firsthand accounts of the past remain preserved and knowable into the present day. While agricultural civilizations may have existed before Sumer, and while there’s evidence for particular cultures going back into the Ice Age, anything before Mesopotamia’s time is only known through archaeology. We can only guess as to what those people thought of themselves.

Though it’s disputed by mainstream academics, some believe Lilith’s earliest legends go back to Sumerian culture, which means we Vampires may be as old as society itself Samuel Noah Kramer, an academic on Sumer and Assyria, translated the ki-sikil-lil-la-ke as "Lilith" in Tablet XII of the Epic of Gilgamesh dated c. 600 BC. This part of the Epic involves a tree that is overtaken by a serpent and a spirit before Gilgamesh kills the serpent and causes the spirit to flee. The parallel to the Biblical garden of Eden is clear, though not all experts agree on a direct connection.

At the very least, Sumerian culture produced the Edimmu, reanimated ghosts of the improperly buried who drained the life force of their victims. These beings are obviously reminiscent of vampires, but that may be a post for a later day. Sumerian and Akkadian mythology also has the Lilu as a kind of winged demon, with Lilitu as the feminine term.

BABYLON AND THE ANCIENT HEBREWS

Though the Sumerian cities were eventually conquered and lost their political independence, the abstract culture remained relevant in the Middle East for several thousand years. The educated elite of the successor civilizations studied their mythology and language much in the way that medieval nobles would learn about Latin and Greco-Roman legends. Babylon was one such empire, and though they were only one of the Bronze Age powers to dominate the Fertile Crescent, Babylon became particularly infamous in history thanks to later biblical influence. People who have never even heard the word Mesopotamia still vaguely know the word Babylon, the very name now forever associated with the original Jewish diaspora and negative concepts like wickedness and apostasy.

Seriously, you could talk to a hundred people on the street and none of them would know anything about, say, Elam, or Assyria, or Mitanni, or what have you. But thanks to Judaism’s ultimate influence on western history, everyone knows about Babylon. Their ancient infamy has been forever preserved through biblical folklore, very much like Lilith herself.

Meanwhile, the ancient Israelites (Hebrews) were the group of people who — no points for guessing this — ultimately founded Judaism. Hebrew culture goes back even further than this though, with the earliest Israelites practicing the same polytheistic religion as the nearby Canaanites and Phoenicians. (Who eventually founded Rome’s best buddy Carthage) Scholarly consensus believes Yahweh was one of these many gods and that the Israelites gradually evolved into a monotheistic society by worshipping him over the others. The changing views on Baal illustrate this development; Baal was simply the northwestern semitic word for lord and was used in pre-Jewish times to refer to many different gods, even Yahweh. As Judaism became codified the word fell out of favor, and the Bible itself associates the word with paganism and false idolatry. Meanwhile and in contrast, the classical era Carthaginians continued to worship a distantly related Baal Hammon as their supreme god, entirely independent of Jewish influence. With the passage of time Hebrew mythology took a negative view on the Canaanite myths that contradicted their emerging religion, and it’s possible a similar hostility emerged towards the foreign influences of Babylon — that is, Hebrew folklore sought to associate Babylonian influence with sin and apostasy as a way of preserving their native culture in the face of imperial assimilation. In this way Babylon may have served as an indirect vector for Sumerian mythology to influence Judaism, but only in the sense that Jewish texts took entities like the lilitu and made them even more demonic and sinister

Ancient Israel would have been exposed to Mesopotamian culture through the Babylonian conquest, but there’s no way to prove if Lilith is definitively connected to the Sumerian myths. In any case, Lilith appears unambiguously in several of the Hebrew texts that would go on to inspire the Bible. She appears once in the Hebrew Bible in prophecy regarding the Kingdom of Edom. There is also an either pre or post Jewish reference in the Arslan Tash tablets, though the exact authenticity of these artifacts is of endless debate. The Dead Sea Scrolls also make a definite reference, though it’s notably in plural. There are five references to Lilith in the Babylonian Talmud. The Midrash Rabbah collection contains two references to Lilith, the first a vague suggestion to a woman before Eve — similar to Lilith’s medieval depictions — and the second a direct reference.

Assyriologist 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. This would certainly be possible through Babylonian cultural influence. This view is challenged by some modern research such as by Judit M. Blair (2009) who considers that the context indicates unclean animals. Still, even this interpretation suggests an association between Lilith and impurity, not unlike the more early modern depictions of vampires and succubi as corrupters.

It’s further worth noting that the Greek Old Testament translated the references into onocentaurs or satyrs. The Romans translated them into lamias, somewhat similar as child preying monsters, but also with snake tails. Some early English translations also preserved the references to lamias.

MODERN LILITH

Even if she started as a type of demon, Lilith is most remembered as a singular entity from the Bible and so inevitably made the transition from Jewish to Christian European lore. I think this is notable because her influence mostly consisted of unofficial folklore rather than in Church approved canon. I doubt theologists debated her role in things the way they debated concepts like the Holy Trinity, and some translations of the Bible even turned her references into other creatures entirely. Still she persevered as a traditional Hebrew demon the more superstitious simply couldn’t manage to shake. Her further references in the Bible were probably written to invoke her existing infamy — in other words, her name was shorthand for sin and adultery/child killing just as Baal became short hand for false idolatry and paganism.

Lilith survived in Mesopotamian folklore as late as the 6th Century AD. She features as a “type” of demon in Jewish occult incantation bowls made in the Sassanid controlled Middle East to protect households and their children. The Alphabet of Sirach, written in an Islamic country between the 8th-10th centuries, (exact date unknown) is one of the earliest works to mention Lilith as Adam’s first wife, the prevailing interpretation of her by the Middle Ages. This may represent a conflation of older ideas, as some Jewish texts mention a cryptic “first Eve” and Lilith was already a byword for sin.

Indeed it was her appearances in fringe Jewish mysticism that established her connection to the biblical Eden, as opposed to mainstream church doctrine. The first medieval source to depict Adam and Lilith in full was the Midrash abkir, the figure reappearing centuries after the Middle Eastern references. Kabbalistic mysticism established a direct relationship between Lilith and God, and the Zohar and Treatise on the Left Emanation also mention connections to Adam, Cain, demons, and other mystic figures like Asmodeus and Samael. Some versions even preserved the plural Liliths, with a lesser one as Adam’s first wife and a greater one having always been a demon.

Just like the more general vampires, Lilith achieved mainstream prominence in early modern Europe. Her being Adam’s first wife became widely popularized with the 17th century Lexicon Talmudicum of German Hebraist scholar Johannes Buxtorf. Lilith's earliest appearance in the literature of the Romantic period was in Goethe's 1808 work Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy. Paintings of Lilith became popular around the mid 19th century. The Victorian poet Robert Browning re-envisioned Lilith in his poem "Adam, Lilith, and Eve" published in 1883, notably focusing on her emotional attributes rather than her demonic reputation. Scottish author George MacDonald also wrote a fantasy novel entitled Lilith, first published in 1895. Many of the traditional characteristics 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.

Today Lilith remains a popular figure in Wicca and other neo-pagan followings. Sympathetic portrayals generally have her as a human witch rather than a demon or vampire, though there are of course vampire centric stories that often invoke her. Some feminists see her as an icon, a woman who exercised free will rather than conforming to expectations. You’ll even see cringe types naming their kids after her.

To me Lilith is a fascinating concept because of how long lived her motif has become. Even if her origins are nebulous and subject to endless interpretation, I personally find it interesting that a legend could survive this long and create a kind of cross-cultural continuity to human history. It’s doubly intriguing that the character has survived largely through myth and folklore, never having been reinforced by actually mandated religious canon from an organized church.

There aren’t many other Bronze Age characters that still elicit an emotional reaction from people, as opposed to just purely clinical academic attention.

AS A VAMPIRE:

As you may have gathered, Lilith isn’t just a vampire but there definitely are connections. There are arguably three different ways of looking at the concept, but all invoke vampiric traits.

As demons, the lilitu were known for prowling in the night and could sometimes cause storms. (A trait shared by a few vampire variants like Strigoi with hail) These demons are said to possess wings, which I think is notable as this was many thousands of years before bats became associated with vampires.

The Hebrew Lilith was sometimes a kind of demon and sometimes a specific individual, with the demonic Lilith possibly becoming one and the same with the concept of a previous Eve over time. As a demon Lilith was notable for blood sucking and child killing. The superstitious made prayers to keep Lilith away from their children. Lilith was also seen as a kind of succubi and was said to cause male, heh, “nocturnal emissions”. She could take the form of either men or women and seduce their partners. Children born to these arrangements would be cursed by her and eventually killed. The Alphabet of Sirach portrays her as hunting men for semen and blood, to create more demons and sustain her life force respectively. It’s possible Lilith in particular inspired the s*x appeal that modern vampires are often given, as she was portrayed this way by 19th century depictions around the time the concept of more human-like vampires was taking off.

The biblical Lilith is an individual and is more of a demon or witch than a kind of creature, but she is still sometimes associated with blood sucking and the child killing that particular vampire types are known for. The 1950 Knox Bible outright translates her Old Testament references into “vampire”.

IN POPULAR CULTURE:

In The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, the White Witch (the main antagonist of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) is said to be a descendant of Lilith, referred to as Adam's first wife.

The character Leeloo in the movie The Fifth Element, a futuristic fantasy, turns the concept of Lilith on its head by saving humanity instead of devouring it. Leeloo is depicted as fair-skinned and with strawberry blonde hair, young and lithe, similar or identical to the romantic era paintings. Leeloo is represented as the original woman (first wife of Adam) and is born speaking the "Divine Language".

In the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion — a show that makes many references to Jewish mysticism — Lilith is a seed of life created by an alien race that ultimately created life on Earth instead of Adam, the intended seed. The antagonist Angels are the progeny of Adam, with the “Lilin” actually being the human race of the setting.

In Fall from Heaven, a semi-officially supported mod for the Firaxis game Civilization IV, the character Os-Gabella is heavily inspired by Lilith. She refused to be the wife of Nemed, a character inspired by the biblical Adam, and instead corrupted two of his later children into the first vampires. Os-Gabella comes to lead a civilization of demons, while her children go on to establish a kingdom of vampires with blood sucking as an actual 4X game mechanic.

IN HOUSE VAMPIRE CULTURE:

We’re all quite familiar with the concept of a vampire temptress

Mavis