April, 1917 Bulletin of the Brooklyn Entomological Society 



beard hanging to his waist. Perhaps, after humans multiplied, as 

 told in Genesis i, Adam, first man, was prototype to head a great 

 race, to become the child of destiny. 



Life with Adam was not satisfactory. He claimed obedience, 

 either of woman to man, or impersonally to the chosen of destiny, 

 Lilith claimed equal rights, having been created out of the same 

 clay, and at the same time. When she realized how hopelessly 

 obstinate Adam was in his reactionary views, she reached a deci- 

 sion not unlike that of the end-of-the-nineteenth century Nora in 

 Ibsen's "Doll's House." She flew out of Eden and away from 

 Adam, who in her stead got Eve for his second wife, taken from 

 his thirteenth rib on the right side. 



Note that in all tradition Lilith is able to fly, and so was more 

 easily able to bear a brood of winged children. Note, too, that 

 in their endeavor to reconcile the conflicting Biblical stories, the 

 ancient Oriental adepts created legendary prototypes of suffra- 

 gists and " antis." Note, also, that Eve was quite the opposite in 

 disposition, the type of absence of self will. She was dark, prob- 

 ably Ethiopian, like the later Queen of Sheba, who, marvelously 

 beautiful, was probably negro. Eve served Adam with such fidel- 

 ity and submissiveness that the poet declares she was a rib of his 

 own body. Imagery can go no farther than this. 



Lilith, having flown southward, met a certain Ba-alj married 

 him, and settled in the valley of Jehannum. 



Naturally, then, the loyal descendants of Adam could not speak 

 too illy of this woman who abandoned Adam, and apparently 

 originated divorce. Even Jehannum became accursed and the 

 children of Israel were warned not to intermarry with this outcast 

 posterity. The place developes into an abode of darkness, and 

 further until, in the attempts to localize a Hell, it becomes one of 

 the planes, Gehenna differing from Tophet. Similarly tradition 

 has localized heaven in planes, the " seventh heaven " remaining 

 as the highest attainable bliss. In the Mohammedan conception 

 of Hell, Jehannum remains particularly the abode of reputation- 

 less women. Thus Lilith was consigned by tradition to consort 

 only with devils. 



The Phoenician whom Lilith married, and who shares her ob- 

 loquy, is still recalled by name, Samael. The term Ba-al is 



