A Christmas Homily

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" - Isaiah 34:14

It was in the middle of a dinner party a few nights ago that I first heard the story of Lilith - demonic seductress, bringer of wet dreams, killer of babies and (most contentiously) the First Wife of Adam.

There is a passage in The Alphabet of Ben Sira, a medieval Aramaic and Hebrew text, that tells of how God created a woman from the earth, at the same time that he created Adam. This woman, Lilith, essentially got Adam rather miffed by refusing to assume the missionary position. ("She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.'")

Lilith, in the first recorded assertion of female rights, packed her bags and left for the Red Sea, leaving Adam to turn to God yet again to satisfy his most basic of needs. This time, God fashioned Eve from Adam's rib in the hope that all future domestic disputes could quickly be settled by reminding Eve that she was indeed born into a lower position. Not content to leave well enough alone, Adam begged God to bring back Lilith, who by now had found less demanding consorts in various demons who inhabited the Red Sea. God sent three angels after her, threatening to kill a hundred of her offspring for every day that she did not return. Still unmoved, she did not return to Adam's side. (At least until after the debacle with the serpent and the apple - some sources believe that when Adam swore off sexual intercourse for a hundred years in repentance, Lilith started to visit him in his dreams and have her way with him, collecting his semen to make young 'uns of her own. Who said test-tube babies were a modern invention?)

Lilith, ever vengeful, also swore to kill the offspring of Adam and Eve, unless the names of the three angels were invoked in protection. Hence she is thought to be responsible for cot deaths, although this part is conveniently downplayed by feminists who hold Lilith up as a symbol of female independence and equality.

A gentleman at my dinner table wisecracked that the story of Adam and his two wives is a good reminder that man was never meant to be monogamous. The learning point I'd prefer to take away is that if a man disrespects a woman and wants to take up with somebody else, it may well cost him a body part.