Volume XIX, Issue VIa: C. S. Lewis and Lilith
Myth and Theology, a Thread by Lewis
Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.” – C. S. Lewis in A Grief Observed
I just began re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia as my granddaughter has been reading them and we like to share what we are reading. I don’t know why I didn’t stop and ponder it before, but as Mr. Beaver describes the origins of Jadis, the white witch, he says that she is a descendent of Lilith – “Adam’s FIRST wife.” Of course, that does not register as most of us know that Adam was married to EVE. That led me to do some research and discover the origins of a legend – the Legend of Lilith.
Apparently the legend has its beginnings in Jewish extra-Biblical tradition such as Kaballah (where Jonathan Cahn gets much of his ‘prophecy’) and stems from a perceived need to reconcile the creation accounts from Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:22. In Genesis 1:27 it is stated that God created them (mankind) “in His Image.” The next chapter details the taking of Eve “from the side of man” and most of us would, using Occam’s Razor, simply assume that the first mention of the creation of mankind is simply a broad description, much like the preface of a novel, which is further articulated in the following chapter.
But the Jewish scholars saw a problem in that they saw this as two distinct accounts. In the first, they said, the Divine made man and woman from the earth. Lilith, however would not submit herself to Adam, so God made EVE from his side. Lilith, the legend continues, had relations with demons, spawning evil creatures such as malevolent giants. It is worth noting that Jadis is described in the Chronicles as “quite tall.”
Lewis was a devotee of Victorian Author and Pastor George MacDonald, who wrote a dark novel ‘Lilith’ in which the legend is central to MacDonald’s tale of life, death and salvation. MacDonald was a Christian Universalist and explores the redemption of the character Lilith. He does so by creating a ‘parallel universe’ in which Mr. Vane steps from his library into a world where “dreamers sleep until the end of the world in death.” The tale involves a heroic quest and the waking of the sleepers.
Of course C. S. Lewis’s Narnia is also a parallel world and it seems quite plausible that MacDonald’s Lilith is an inspiration to Lewis. Indeed, the place in The Last Battle where ‘the good Telmarine’ is welcomed by Aslan might be inspired by the ideas of MacDonald. Lewis, no doubt, also wrestled with the nature of salvation. It seems contemporary Christian thinkers are much obsessed with ‘Limited Atonement’ as contrasted with the sentiment of 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
In a soon to be published piece I wrote for Lost Pen Magazine [click to read], I shall take up the problem of Susan’s ‘falling away’ as described in Lewis’s The Last Battle. Look for it on September 25.
Lilith, by George MacDonald
