The Secret History of Lucifer: And the Meaning of the True Da Vinci Code by Lynn Picknett Page B
Authors: Lynn Picknett
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heaven, especially as she refused to obey the rules of Yahweh because she knew his secret, ineffable name.'
The new husband was appalled by Lilith's assertiveness in bed: she refused to lie beneath him in the `missionary position' (anything other than the man-on-top position has traditionally been denounced as `accursed' by both Muslims and Catholics). Unimpressed by Adam's declarations of male supremacy in which he cited God as his authority, she taunted his sexual technique before using her convenient wings to fly away. Then when God's angels arrived to take her back, she cursed them and threw herself enthusiastically into orgiastic sex with `demons', who apparently knew a thing or two about pleasing a lady, producing a hundred children a day - all, of course, devilish.
Eve was much easier to cope with, although being a woman she still managed to get expelled from Paradise for bad behaviour. (But, as Jeffrey Burton Russell notes, although `The story of Eden readily lent itself to an attack on women ... In fact no good reason existed for blaming Eve for original sin any more than Adam .1)2
Lilith is no longer found in the Bible, but she resurfaced in medieval times as nothing less than the Devil's mother, `In parody of the Blessed Mother and the angels, she joins the ranks of demons singing praises round the throne of her son. '3In another version of her later myth, she and her daughters, the ilim, continued to wreak havoc in men's lives as lustful she-devils whose nightly attacks caused nocturnal emissions, against which medieval Jews carried talismans. (Like their notorious mother, the ilim always squatted on top of their male victims, apparently adding to the horror.) Christian monks lived in terror - or so they claimed - of an attack from `the harlots of hell', or succubae, and slept with hands holding a crucifix uncomfortably crossed over their genitals to ward them off. `It was said that every time a pious Christian had a wet dream, Lilith laughed ...'4 We may be amused at such an unsophisticated interpretation of a natural physiological phenomenon, but it must be remembered that to good Christian men, this was a truly terrifying attack, for they believed their souls were being sucked out of them together with their semen. Lilith's daughters - also called Lamia, Hora, Daughters of Hecate among other titles - caused `men to dream of erotic encounters with women, so the succubae can receive their emission and make therefrom a new spirit .15
In fact, one common name for the succubae was Brizo, after the Greek goddess of dreams whose title, in turn, came from brizein, `to enchant'. `Like Babylon's dream-goddess Nanshe, Brizo brought prophetic dreams which were subsequently identified as "wet" dreams.'6
Lilith and her brood were also designated as `night hags', actually beautiful succubae whose lovemaking expertize was so exquisite that once mortal men experienced it they could never be satisfied ever again by coupling with ordinary human women. But she-devil though she may be, Lilith's continuing power over both Jewish and Christian imaginations was clearly intense. As A. T. Mann and Jane Lyle write in their classic Sacred Sexuality (1995): `In the Pyrenean cathedral of St-Bernard-de-Comminges, Lilith has found her way into a church: a carving there depicts a winged, birdfooted woman giving birth to a Dionysian figure, a Green Man." Dionysus was a middle-eastern rustic wine-god whose ceremonies included drunken orgies in which his priestesses, the Maenads, tore men to pieces.
The same area in the south of France where Lilith may be found in church has legends of Herodias - the wife of Herod who made Salome ask him for John the Baptist's head - having ended her days by drowning in a local stream. After which, she joined her sisters, the night hags, and still waits to swoop down on the unwary male traveller.
Of course there was a male version of the succubae, the incubae which lay with women as they slept. In medieval
The new husband was appalled by Lilith's assertiveness in bed: she refused to lie beneath him in the `missionary position' (anything other than the man-on-top position has traditionally been denounced as `accursed' by both Muslims and Catholics). Unimpressed by Adam's declarations of male supremacy in which he cited God as his authority, she taunted his sexual technique before using her convenient wings to fly away. Then when God's angels arrived to take her back, she cursed them and threw herself enthusiastically into orgiastic sex with `demons', who apparently knew a thing or two about pleasing a lady, producing a hundred children a day - all, of course, devilish.
Eve was much easier to cope with, although being a woman she still managed to get expelled from Paradise for bad behaviour. (But, as Jeffrey Burton Russell notes, although `The story of Eden readily lent itself to an attack on women ... In fact no good reason existed for blaming Eve for original sin any more than Adam .1)2
Lilith is no longer found in the Bible, but she resurfaced in medieval times as nothing less than the Devil's mother, `In parody of the Blessed Mother and the angels, she joins the ranks of demons singing praises round the throne of her son. '3In another version of her later myth, she and her daughters, the ilim, continued to wreak havoc in men's lives as lustful she-devils whose nightly attacks caused nocturnal emissions, against which medieval Jews carried talismans. (Like their notorious mother, the ilim always squatted on top of their male victims, apparently adding to the horror.) Christian monks lived in terror - or so they claimed - of an attack from `the harlots of hell', or succubae, and slept with hands holding a crucifix uncomfortably crossed over their genitals to ward them off. `It was said that every time a pious Christian had a wet dream, Lilith laughed ...'4 We may be amused at such an unsophisticated interpretation of a natural physiological phenomenon, but it must be remembered that to good Christian men, this was a truly terrifying attack, for they believed their souls were being sucked out of them together with their semen. Lilith's daughters - also called Lamia, Hora, Daughters of Hecate among other titles - caused `men to dream of erotic encounters with women, so the succubae can receive their emission and make therefrom a new spirit .15
In fact, one common name for the succubae was Brizo, after the Greek goddess of dreams whose title, in turn, came from brizein, `to enchant'. `Like Babylon's dream-goddess Nanshe, Brizo brought prophetic dreams which were subsequently identified as "wet" dreams.'6
Lilith and her brood were also designated as `night hags', actually beautiful succubae whose lovemaking expertize was so exquisite that once mortal men experienced it they could never be satisfied ever again by coupling with ordinary human women. But she-devil though she may be, Lilith's continuing power over both Jewish and Christian imaginations was clearly intense. As A. T. Mann and Jane Lyle write in their classic Sacred Sexuality (1995): `In the Pyrenean cathedral of St-Bernard-de-Comminges, Lilith has found her way into a church: a carving there depicts a winged, birdfooted woman giving birth to a Dionysian figure, a Green Man." Dionysus was a middle-eastern rustic wine-god whose ceremonies included drunken orgies in which his priestesses, the Maenads, tore men to pieces.
The same area in the south of France where Lilith may be found in church has legends of Herodias - the wife of Herod who made Salome ask him for John the Baptist's head - having ended her days by drowning in a local stream. After which, she joined her sisters, the night hags, and still waits to swoop down on the unwary male traveller.
Of course there was a male version of the succubae, the incubae which lay with women as they slept. In medieval
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