According to The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, the lilin or lilim (singular lili) are the daughters of Lilith and Asmodai, engendered while Lilith was still Adam's wife. They are demons, with their function being similar to that of a succubus. While men feared them for this reason, mothers feared the attack of the lilin because they were also said to kidnap children, as Lilith herself did.
Upon deserting Adam and turning against God, Lilith was warned that one hundred of her demonic children would die daily if she did not return to God. She refused, and so it is said that one hundred lilin die daily.
The masculine of lili is lilu, a demon attested in Akkadian mythology. See Lilith for an etymological discussion.
Lilim in popular culture
In the popular anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, the seventeenth Angel, Tabris (Kaworu Nagisa), refers to human beings as "Lilim" or the descendants of Lilith. Adam and Lilith, in the storyline, are giant primordial beings who gave life to the world. Their reunion, however, would cause the the end of the world.
In the ongoing comic book series Lucifer, the lilim are an army of demons descended from Lilith who are led by Lucifer's former consort, Mazikeen.
In the role-playing-game In Nomine, Lilim, 'The Tempters', are a female species of demons who value independence and freedom (at least their own) over anything else.
In Neil Gaiman's novel Stardust, the Lilim are a triad of witch-queens who live in a little house deep in the forests of the Otherworld. They are so old that the youngest of them was ancient when the land the house sits upon was still under the sea.
In the 80's version of Ghost Rider, an entire story arch chronicled Noble Kale and Johnny Blaze traveling America in search of the Lilim, whom the recently arisin Lilith was searching for to build her army.
In the ongoing science fiction comic book series Finder (issue 37 in the storyline The Rescuers), the character Jaeger relates a version of the Lilith myth from the Ascian culture. He adds that among the Ascians, the lilim are real—females born with the ability to reproduce asexually and potentially to overrun the world with their kind.
Lilim, along with Lilith, are featured in the numerous Megami Tensei games.