The sexually rampant, child-killing demoness Lilith is often regarded as the prototypal succubus. She comes to us via Jewish tradition, but her roots are in Mesopotamia where she first appears in the great Epic of Gilgamesh as the darker, chthonic aspect of the godess Innana. As the goddess of love and sex, Innana embodied very different qualities to the marriage-bound and fertile icon that we would anticipate - she was never married; she bore no children (with one possible exception) and she had lovers whenever she pleased. She was linked symbolically to sex without marriage and her activities did not carry Judeo-Christian overtones - for example, Her cult devotees may have engaged in religious prostitution.
Lilith may incorporate other Mesopotamian demons such as the Lilu, the Lilitu and the Ardat-lili all of whom posed a particular threat to pregnant women and infants. Ardat-lili was deemed incapable of normal sexual behaviour, took her frustrations out on young men and specialised in preventing conception. Often mentioned in magical texts, she seems the archetype of frustration of traditional womanhood.
From these Mesopotamian threads, Lilith was woven into the Jewish pantheon where she became the first wife of Adam, raised up from filth and sediment in contrast to his pure dust. Regarding herself as Adam's equal, she refused to lie beneath him during sex. And when her patience with him was at an end, she left him.
Since she had parted from Adam before the fall, Lilith escaped the punishment of death. The Talmud mentions her several times as a demoness with long, black hair, a feature which made its way to her legs thus becoming one of her most distinguishing characteristics. In one case it contributed to her being revealed as the Queen of Sheba who came to test Solomon's wisdom. He found her appealing to the point of considering marriage until he noticed her hairy legs.
A 2nd century Jewish text endowed her with "dominion over every creature that creepeth". It also associated nocturnal emissions with her presence, heralding the re-emergence of her sexual aspect. In early medieval times Christian theologians cast her as the mother of Satan while contemporary Jewish tradition regarded her as the wife of Asmodeus, King of Demons. Her sexual persona came to dominate in both Christian theology and Jewish folklore, culminating in the protestant theologian Johann Weyer naming her as the Queen of the Succubi.
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