Where it all began
The legend of Lilith is perhaps as old as time itself; perhaps as old as language and as the first stories shared by human voices around newly discovered fires; or as old as man's greed and hunger for power, or as the necessity to rebel against that same greed and hunger. For there can be no power without a resisting force, no creation without destruction, no virtue without temptation, and power, creation and virtue carry within the seed of their own defeat.
Some say that Lilith was there at the very moment when the thought popped into God's head of separating light from darkness to create the universe; the sky, sun, moon and stars; the world with its oceans and land; the animals that walk the earth, fly through the sky and swim in the sea; the forests and plants; and, finally, a people to love, enjoy, and sometimes destroy all that God created. Lilith might have even whispered the idea in God's ear in a voice so soft and sweet that God couldn't help to later recall it as he created the nectars in the flowers from which bees make honey.
Others say that Lilith was God's first mistake, and thus, the first mistake ever made. A mistake so enormous and unforgivable that all eternity would not be enough for God to redeem himself.
For others, Lilith was the first of God's earthly creations who loved him unconditionally; the first to challenge God; the first on whom God turned his back. And, faced with God's rejection, Lilith became the first to rebel against his power, pride and arrogance, to test the limits of free will, and become the seed of all that tempts and threatens humanity.
In any case, this is the legend of Lilith that Magnus heard hundreds of years ago, the legend that once explained his origins and the reason for his existence:
"By the sixth day of creation, God had already made the universe; the day and the night; the sun, moon and stars; and, the earth with land and oceans, animals that walk, crawl, fly and swim, and plants and trees that bear fruit and cover the earth in a mantle of lush colors. He then decided that it was time to attempt his most ambitious project: the design of a race of beings to guard and love all that he had created.
Cautious –for the creation of a people to inherit the earth and continue his work is no small matter –God started with a small idea, a seed, a simple design. He would fashion the new beings after his own image and he would begin with just two people; two people from whom a whole species would sprout; two people to become the mother and father of a whole race and the first guardians of all of God's creation.
With his hands, God moulded out clay two figures, likenesses of himself, self-portraits of sorts, but with just a fraction of his creative power. He was, after all God, and nothing can be as creative and powerful as God. He called one man, and named him Adam, and the other woman, and named her Lilith, and willed the clay to morph into flesh, tendons, heart, bones and blood. When he thought that his creations were sufficiently perfect, though, of course, not as perfect as God, he whispered their names in their newly formed ears and breathed life into them. He then watched in amazement as Adam and Lilith drew their first breath and opened their eyes in wonder, conscious for the first time of their own place in God's kingdom.
God told Adam and Lilith that they were equals, partners in the task of safeguarding and caring for his creation and populating the earth, and he sent them out into the world to enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Pleased and still reluctant to be apart from at all that he had made, God gazed on his handiwork, marvelling and congratulating himself on all that he had accomplished. Like a proud father that cannot see fault in his children, God didn't see that Adam was ambitious and power-hungry. Having recognized in himself a likeness to God, Adam thought himself superior and entitled to rule over God's creation as well as over Lilith. Neither did God see that Lilith was unusually cunning and crafty. He didn't see that she was more interested in silently walking along the paths of the garden, in smelling the flowers and eating the fruits from the trees, in caring for the garden and all in it, than she was in Adam. Truthfully, Lilith thought that Adam, with his grandiose and foolish ideas about his own place in the world, was dull, and more concerned with who was to rule over the earth than with loving and caring for it.
Adam tried in vain to assert his dominance over Lilith, and to bend her to his will. But when Lilith refused to obey or even acknowledge him, a frustrated and angry Adam went to God to issue a protest.
'Why did you, God, creator of all that is beautiful and good, gave me this woman who refuses to obey me and who ignores each of my desires?' Adam asked God in a despairing voice. 'Am I not made in your image? Should I not have power to rule over your creation as your rightful heir?'
'I made you and Lilith equal, so you would populate the earth with descendants that would also be equals,' God reasoned with Adam. In all his wisdom, God had envisioned a world without injustice, wars or inequality; a world in which no one, except God, would have power over anyone else; a world without judgement or bigotry.
'But how can I populate your kingdom when Lilith does not care for me?' whined Adam, in a voice that God couldn't help thinking was annoying and petulant. 'I insist you give me a different companion, one that would be more docile and willing.'
Concerned about the future of his creation, God offered to speak with Lilith on Adam's behalf. He then went in search of her and when he found her, Lilith was sitting on a patch of grass under a tree, holding a beautiful pink rose in between her graceful fingers, her long dark wavy hair adorned with lilies in all colors, and her perfectly formed lips tinted with the ruby red of sweet cherries. Lilith's beauty took God's breath away; for she was the most perfect representation of his ingenuity and artistry: delicate and strong, canning and creative, loving and independent, beautiful and without vanity.
When God asked Lilith why she refused Adam, Lilith's face remained impassive, as if she felt no need to concern herself with Adam's feelings or needs. Lilith simply replied that she found the man uninteresting and petty, more concerned with power than with the task of guarding and loving the creation with which care they had been charged. 'I have no desire to engage in his petty squabbles over who will rule and who will obey.'
'I made you and Adam so you would populate the earth I created for you," said God. "Can you not indulge him if only to please me?'
'I am sorry, father,' replied Lilith. 'I cannot. When you made me, you also gave me free will, and it is this free will that I now exercise when I choose to love you for what you have given me. But because of this free will, I cannot be commanded to love and obey someone for whom I care not.'
'But how can you say you love me and still deny my request?' asked God, feeling a sudden anger and resentment towards this willful child who defied him. One thing is for Lilith to be equal to Adam, thought God; another is to feel entitled to defy the God that created her.
'Precisely because I love you and I love the gifts you have given me is that I must say no,' said Lilith, her voice unyielding, as she turned her attention back to the rose in her hand.
Overcome by the kind of blind rage that only a disobedient and defiant child can awaken in a parent, God unleashed all his wrath. He called on a strong dusty wind that picked Lilith up, lifting and spinning her in the air, knotting her hair and covering her face in a thick layer of grey grime. With a flicker of his wrist, he ordered the wind to take Lilith away, throwing her out of the world, vanishing her to the darkness and emptiness of an unrelenting void, to a place where he would not have to look at her; a place where the mortality and humanity he had first bestowed on her couldn't touch her anymore; a place known as pandemonium.
Afterwards, God made Adam fall into a deep sleep and then removed one of his ribs. From it, he fashioned a woman and called her Eve, and God told her she was to obey, help and follow Adam. Eve was a gift to Adam to replace his rebellious first wife. It was also an attempt –albeit, some may say, a failed one –to replace the daughter that had loved God despite and because of her willfulness and defiance.
Many would say that God's first mistake was to create Lilith and Adam as equals. Yet, perhaps God's mistake, the first mistake ever made, was to be quick to anger, to let pride overpower his love for the child into whom he had breathed life. For in a fit of rage, God created something he never intended: the first exile, the first to be displaced and condemned to wander away from home, lurking at the borders of the world, peering at it from a distance, but without ever being allowed to return. At that moment of rage, God allowed pride, ambition, inequality, injustice, envy, and vengeance into the world he had created; a world that was a little less perfect, a little less gleaming because of it.
That unintended act of creation had an effect that God didn't foresee. Rejected and disillusioned, Lilith, who had unconditionally and freely loved God, who had loved and valued his creation more than Adam had, grew hateful, envious and vindictive. Those dark and malevolent feelings settled in her wound and grew into new kinds of demon, soulless monsters that, once born, she sent into the world to tempt and spoil humanity; to destroy the purity of what God created; to plant Lilith's seeds amid those still allowed to live on the earth from which she had been vanished. Those demons impregnate women, descendants of Adam and Eve, usurping Adam's parentage and throwing the legitimacy of his lineage into question. From those conceptions, warlocks, the children of Lilith, are born: creatures that remain young while the earth grows old; creatures that can call on the power of nature to perform magic; creatures that being in this world, remain apart from it."
On an enchanting night hundreds of years ago, Magnus heard this legend from Annaliese Fen, an enchanting warlock with rubies for eyes, and a musical voice that reminded him of rain falling on the dark forest of his childhood. She told this story to a group of young warlocks with the purpose of uniting them under the common goal of reclaiming what she thought was rightfully theirs. For a while, Magnus, who was still new in the world, didn't yet know love, and was full of self-hatred and self-loathing, allowed himself to be seduced by Annaliese's dream of building a world in which he would finally feel that he belonged. Later, he would understand that eternity would not be long enough to atone for the role he played in the destruction that, in Lilith's name, Annaliese and her followers brought down on the world.
Some of the Nephilim, who also knew this legend, believed that Lilith's children with their magic and their immortality are abominations born from rebellion, revenge and ire. They also believed that warlocks are deceitful and filthy creatures, incapable of love or moral judgement, sent into the world to tempt and corrupt the Nephilim, to turn them against their own people, to make them forget their allegiances and their mission to protect the world against demons. No matter how much some warlocks tried to prove them wrong, Annaliese Fen would always be the example the Nephilim would use to confirm this belief.