Editing Lilith (section)

== Greco-Roman mythology ==
{{Main|Lamia (mythology)}}
[[File:The_knight_and_the_mermaid.jpg|upright|thumb|''The Kiss of the Enchantress'' ([[Isobel Lilian Gloag]], {{circa|1890}}), inspired by Keats's "[[Lamia (poem)|Lamia]]", depicts Lamia as half-serpent, half-woman]]
In the Latin [[Vulgate]] Book of Isaiah 34:14, Lilith is translated ''[[lamia]]''.

According to [[Augustine Calmet]], Lilith has connections with early views on vampires and sorcery:

{{blockquote|Some learned men have thought they discovered some vestiges of vampirism in the remotest antiquity; but all that they say of it does not come near what is related of the vampires. The lamiae, the strigae, the sorcerers whom they accused of sucking the blood of living people, and of thus causing their death, the magicians who were said to cause the death of new-born children by charms and malignant spells, are nothing less than what we understand by the name of vampires; even were it to be owned that these lamiae and strigae have really existed, which we do not believe can ever be well proved.

I own that these terms [''lamiae'' and ''strigae''] are found in the versions of Holy Scripture. For instance, Isaiah, describing the condition to which Babylon was to be reduced after her ruin, says that she shall become the abode of satyrs, lamiae, and strigae (in Hebrew, lilith). This last term, according to the Hebrews, signifies the same thing, as the Greeks express by strix and lamiae, which are sorceresses or magicians, who seek to put to death new-born children. Whence it comes that the Jews are accustomed to write in the four corners of the chamber of a woman just delivered, "Adam, Eve, be gone from hence lilith." ... The ancient Greeks knew these dangerous sorceresses by the name of lamiae, and they believed that they devoured children, or sucked away all their blood till they died.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Calmet|first1=Augustine|title=Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants: of Hungary, Moravia, et al. The Complete Volumes I & II. 2016|date=1751|isbn=978-1-5331-4568-0|page=353|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform }}</ref>}}

According to Siegmund Hurwitz the Talmudic Lilith is connected with the Greek [[Lamia (mythology)|Lamia]], who, according to Hurwitz, likewise governed a class of child stealing lamia-demons. Lamia bore the title "child killer" and was feared for her malevolence, like Lilith. She has different conflicting origins and is described as having a human upper body from the waist up and a serpentine body from the waist down.{{sfnp|Hurwitz|1980|p=43}} One source states simply that she is a daughter of the goddess [[Hecate]], another, that Lamia was subsequently cursed by the goddess Hera to have stillborn children because of her association with Zeus; alternatively, Hera slew all of Lamia's children (except Scylla) in anger that Lamia slept with her husband, Zeus. The grief caused Lamia to turn into a monster that took revenge on mothers by stealing their children and devouring them.{{sfnp|Hurwitz|1980|p=43}} Lamia had a vicious sexual appetite that matched her cannibalistic appetite for children. She was notorious for being a vampiric spirit and loved sucking men's blood.{{sfnp|Hurwitz|1980|p=78}} Her gift was the "mark of a Sibyl", a gift of second sight. Zeus was said to have given her the gift of sight. However, she was "cursed" to never be able to shut her eyes so that she would forever obsess over her dead children. Taking pity on Lamia, [[Zeus]] gave her the ability to remove and replace her eyes from their sockets.{{sfnp|Hurwitz|1980|p=43}}