Eva or Lilith - who is the first woman?

Lilith is probably the most mysterious person in human history. Few know that before Eve Adam had another woman - Lilith, which the God created at the same time from the same material as himself. She insisted on being equal to Adam, could not bear the man dominating her, and so she escaped from him. Then God creates Eve of his flesh so that he can have a woman to obey. One of the important Kabbalah texts says, "At the time that Jehovah created Adam, he created a woman called Lilith, who, like Adam, was taken from the earth. She was given to Adam as a wife. But a dispute arose between them, and she uttered the forbidden name of Jehovah, and she was ousted. Subsequently, her image is strongly demonized. Legends tell that the snake that seduced Eve was Lilith (it is depicted with a snake wrapped around her body) - that was part of Lilith's revenge to prove that Eve was not perfect. In the mythology of all peoples it is claimed that Lilith was also the first vampire - after she had been banished from Paradise, she began to eat newborn babies, drink the blood of her dead men and eat their flesh.

Appears as an incredibly beautiful woman with long hair and tempting appearance. Although most of the Lilith legends come from Jewish folklore, the description of the Lilith demon is also found in Persians, Babylonians, Mexicans, Greeks, Arabs, Englishmen, Germans, Orientalists, and Indians. In medieval Europe, she was declared Satan's wife. It was believed that Lilith had been assisted in her bloodthirsty midnight suicide adventures that had gathered near her near the mountains of darkness; and celebrated with Lilith's demon-lover - Samamel (Samuel was a fallen angel, in fact the Lucifer of the Bible), whose name means the poison of God. Created in the patriarchal period, almost all ancient religious books legitimize the power of the man and express his fear of the independent woman. Lilith and Eve are the symbol of double femininity, made up of two impossible to merge parts of her: the unmarried woman of power and the other who has resigned with him in the name of the family and the continuation of life. Even the beginning of the Bible Genesis takes us to a long-known mystery: God created man in His image; in the image of God created it: man and woman created them. (Genesis 1:27) Furthermore, the Lord God created man from earth from earth and breathed into his nostrils a breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2: 7) It is clear from these quotations that man is created by two equal halves: man and woman; from earth to which life is breathed. Then he was settled in Eden and the ban on eating the Tree of knowing good and evil. And here is the riddle: Adam suddenly turns out to be alone in the paradise garden; And the Lord God said, It is not good for man to be alone; I will create a suitable assistant to him. (Genesis 2:18) And the Lord God created the woman from the rib he took from the man and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:22) And the man said, This is already bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she will be called Woman because she was taken from the Man. (Genesis 2:23). Why, since the woman is already created, Adam finds himself alone in the Garden of Eden and has to make him a new companion in life? What happened to the first woman? The Pentateuch kept silent on this issue. Moreover, the Christian translators of the Old Testament are trying to erase a name from his texts. This dangerous and frightening name is Lilith. In the canonized by the Holy Christian Church books the memory for it is forever erased. In the book of Prophet Isaiah, for example, it was replaced with an owl. But who is Lilith and why should she have disappeared from the translations of the sacred Hebrew books?

Lilith by Roberto Ferr

She is created with the man and is equal to him in strength, intellect and origin. Unborn like him. And it is the first work of God that opposes man's inequality. She refuses to obey Adam, abandoning the paradise garden in protest and carrying with him the knowledge Yahweh has given her - the formula containing the secret sacred name of God. Since then, her demonization has also taken place - an expression of the male fear in front of her woman, who has fallen out of control. The world of the Patriarch describes her as a seducer of men, a murderer of children, a demon, a commander of the night world, and part of the darkness of the night itself. In the Babylonian Talmud, whose texts are much later recorded by those of the Torah, Lilith is described as a demonic being with long hair and wings. The Shabbat Tract, 151b, warns lonely the man sleeping at home that he can be captured by Lilith's demons against his will. In the ancient Mesopotamian culture, Lilith's idol, pictured as queen of the night, is a beautiful woman with wings holding a rod.

The Shabbat Tract, 151b, warns lonely the man sleeping at home that he can be captured by Lilith's demons against his will. In the ancient Mesopotamian culture, Lilith's portrait, depicted as Queen of the Night, is a beautiful woman with wings holding a rod and a ring, respectively, signs of the male and female beginnings, and legs ending with bird's fingers - another hint of the celestial its origin. She has two lions and has owls on both sides.

Demon of love Lilith

However, her demonization does not agree with many poets and artists, describing her as an extremely attractive young woman with a snake in her hands - a symbol of eternal temptation and her connection to the creative natural beginning.
The Victorian poet Robert Browning wrote about Lilith in his poem "Adam, Lilith and Eve." The author portrays Lilith and Eve as friends sitting on both sides of Adam.

In the face of Death, on the one hand, Eva says she never loved Adam, and Lilith admits to her that she has in her soul boundless love for him:

As the strongest poison left my lips,
I thought If, despite the lie,
He removes the mask from my soul with a kiss
I crawl, his slave - spirit, body and everything!

Dante Gabriel Rossetti expresses his sincere admiration for her in her poem "The Black Moon" about her ability to enchant men and make them lose their minds.
Rudyard Kipling also talks about Lilith and Adam in his poem "The Oldest Song". In it, Lilith blames Adam that he has always pretended to love Eve and rins his pain by choosing to share her life with her instead of her real beloved.
In the texts of authors such as Goethe, Gumilyov, Nabokov and Tsvetaeva her image is opposed to those who are only with the kitchen and household Eva In the picture "Lilith" the English writer and painter John Collier depicts a beautiful naked woman with long, blond hair and a perfect porcelain body wrapped in a huge snake and gently resting on her face. According to Marianne Wallach-Fleur, her resistance is against Adam's thirst to rule over the world, not against God. And since she has not transgressed Yahweh's commandments not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, she is free from responsibility for human sin. The later Eve was the embodiment of the subordination and disadvantage of the woman, conditioned by the patriarchate. As Lilith is a lively and full-blown image, Eva is underdeveloped and physically and spiritually dependent on her master and lord. But because it is also God's creature, which is the measure of man's original perfection, Adam's second wife senses her inferiority and strives to overcome it.

Venus square Pluto and Lillith the Dark Goddess

This puts the man in a very divided position. On the one hand, his vast ego and his thirst to rule in the world of the Form, like God in the non-material world, are still very strong. On the other hand, he remembers that there was a beautiful, independent and proud woman equal to him and his relative as a Siamese twin, with which things could have looked quite different unless it was that disastrous thirst to possess and use the other according to his divine purpose. Eve is boring, Lilith; now unattainable. It has long outgrown the past, preserving its independence from Adam. The time that the man and his second wife had to fight for their physical survival was won for the development of the spirit years.

One day, Eva also meets Lilith, embracing Eden's walls, and sees she is not a demon but a woman like her, but she is much smarter, more beautiful, educated, purposeful and free. Poisoned by the fall, Eve responded to Lilith's friendly and joyous rush to her with her resentment and thirst to transfer her dark passions. Eva accuses Lilith of being selfish because she is not ready to obey Adam and sacrifice for him. And the perfect woman bitterly turns her back, continuing on her path dedicated to knowledge. But each time Rosh-Hashanne came; the birthday of the Creation, and Yom Kippur - the day of remission of sins, she returns again to Eden's wall and expects Adam and Eve to go to her to reconcile with them and work together to grow up to it is through them that the original divine plan can be fulfilled. But her wait is in vain, for pride and foolishness hold Adam and Eve who have been expelled from heaven. Since then, the gap between the daughters of Eve and those of Lilith has continued to grow, the first undeservedly tolerated, the second undeservedly rejected in the human world. The impossibility of Lilith's daughters to have the knowledge at the same time, and the husband, causes them the same great suffering as the euphoria daughters suffer from the lack of freedom and male respect.

The solution to the conflict is in Adam in his readiness to give up his own selfishness and return to the original plan of God. The road to a spiritually androgynous man, made up of two different bodies but united by equality of intellect, soul, and rights, is obviously tough and very long.

Viewed in a more philosophical perspective, Lilith and Eve have similar features, and they are ... feminine. That is why some develop the theory that they are like the halves of a whole, which complement and unite in one image - the first woman and the first man from which mankind originated. This gives an answer why men carry all these negative traits in ourselves, for which our ancestors were driven out of Heaven. It is noteworthy that the woman has played a leading role since its inception. And any ancient religious books to affirm the Patriarchate and to legalize the man's authority over the woman, since the days of Eden Garden, women have their ways and approaches to the man by which they displace him from the throne. The name of the independent and rebellious Lilith has frightened the clergy. In the canonized by the Holy Christian Church books, the memory for her is erased. In the book of Prophet Isaiah, her name was replaced with a "vulture". Lilith disappears even from translations of sacred Hebrew books. In the Talmud of Babylon described as a demonic being with long hair and wings. In other images she holds a rod and a ring symbolizing her male will and her female nature.

Eventually, Lilith leaves Paradise, referring to himself the mystery of Creation-the name of God, and with him knowledge. It may even be said that Lilith is the first intellectual in the world.