20th Century: Back to Methuselah

So we are jumping back in time a little bit today and focusing on the play "Back to Methuselah" written in 1921. The play itself divides into five acts, the first act focusing on Adam and Eve, acts 2 through 4 focusing on humanity and it's psychological evolution and the fifth act ending with a reflection by biblical characters on the other arcs. Overall themes include humanity eliminiating suffering, cruelness etc. from the human condition and transcending matter and into something else.

Lilith is an overarching figure, but she stays off stage for much of the play. Act 1 demonstrates that she is the creator figure of Adam and Eve and Eden, not a God figure. She is a maternal figure for certain, but is not the first wife of Adam or anything remotely relating to the mythology that has preceeded her. Indeed, really not any aspect of the Lilith mythology appears in the Lilith character in the play. She is far removed from the first wife of Adam, mother of demons etc. rather she is an insightful, intelligent creator figure.

Very little research seems to have been done about Lilith herself in this play, perhaps only borrowing the name for the sake of a good name.

Romantic Lit - Goethe's Faust

The first time that we see Lilith used as a literary character, rather than a figure of religious mythology used within text, is in Goethe's Faust. The mention here is intensely breif, but it is still noteworthy.

Faust: Who's that there?
Mephisto: Take a good look.
Lilith.
Faust: Lilith? Who is that?
Mephisto: Adam's wife, his
first.
Beware of her.
Her beauty's one boast is her dangerous hair.
Then Lilith winds it tight around young men
She doesn't soon let go of them again.
(4206–4211)

Faust: A lovely dream I dreamt one day
I saw a green-leaved apple tree,
Two apples swayed upon a stem,
So tempting! I climbed up for them.
The Pretty Witch: Ever since the
days of Eden
Apples have been man's desire.
How overjoyed I am to think, sir,
Apples grow, too, in my garden.
(4216 – 4223)

Translation by Martin Greenburg, 1992.

So, what do we make of this first apperance? She is called "pretty witch," with keeps in line with the ancient tradition of her being beautiful woman but deadly. Note that the idea that she is Adam's first wife is consistant with Ben Sira. In addition, the idea of her hair being a part of the mythology, as mentioned in Erubin 100b. (See earlier entries.) The focus here seems to be on her ability to seduce and the fact that it makes her a demonic character.

Overall, she is used as an extremely minor character who only briefly appears on Walpugris Nacht, but in terms of the history of her development this is key. She is a demonic figure, certaintly, but the mythology from Ben Sira and earlier corrosponds almost exactly to Ben Sira and the Talmud,