Lecture II. Primitive Animism. 259
Lil were transferred to the new creation of the Semitic mind,
and the siren who lured men to their destruction ceased to be
a serving-maid, and became the female Lilît herself. But the
origin of the powers she exercised was never forgotten. When
the name and character of the Babylonian Lilît were borrowed
by the Hebrews under the form of Lilith, she was conceived of
as a single individual spirit rather than as a class. Isaiah (xxxiv.
14) tells us how Lilith shall haunt the desolate ruins of Edom,
and find among them“a place of rest”; while, according to the [282]
Rabbis, Lilith had been the first wife of man, in appearance the
fairest of women, but in reality a vampire demon who sucked at
night the blood of her victims.
The lord and ruler of the Lils was the god who was worshipped
at Nippur. He bore, accordingly, the title of En-lil,“the lord of the
ghost-world,”and his temple was one of the oldest sanctuaries of
Sumerian Babylonia.^223 It was a centre of primeval civilisation,
and the source of the magical arts which gathered round the
belief in the spirits of the underworld. But the lordship of the
underworld implied also a lordship over the earth, of which it
formed a part. En-lil,“the lord of the ghost-world,”thus became
in time the ruler, not only of the dead, but also of the living. His
empire ceased to be confined to the realms of darkness, and was
extended to this upper world of light and of mankind. Up to the
last, however, his primitive character was never forgotten. In the
story of the Deluge he appears as the destroyer of men; Namtar,
the plague-demon, is his minister; and like Kingu, the demon-god
of chaos, he wore the tablets of destiny, which determine when
men shall die.^224
(^223) By assimilation En-lil became El-lil. The name is literally“ghost-lord,”
where the singularlilrepresents a class. Hence En-lil is“lord of the ghosts”in
general, conceived of as“the devil”is often conceived of in Christian literature,
or as Hades sometimes meant all the denizens of the underworld in Greek.
Dialectic forms of the name are Mul-lil and U-lil.
(^224) Under Semitic influence these“tablets of destiny”lost their primitive
signification, and became, like the Urim and Thummim of the Old Testament,