ASEAS ("AtroIoO, 1 Es 9".— One of the sons of Annas who ai;reed to put away his ' strange ' wife, called Isshijah (.Ti}^: = ' whom J" lends'), Ezr 10".
ASEBEBIAS ('A.rf^rjjSfaj, AV Asebebla). — A Levite who accompanied Ezra to Jems., 1 Es 8".
ASEBIAS (A "Afffflid, B omits, AV Asebla).— A Levite who retumea with Ezra, 1 Es 8**.
ASENATH (njr!<).— The daughter of Poti-pherah, priest of On, and wife of Joseph. She was the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh (Gn 41*^ *" 46*'). The name may mean • belonging to (or favourite of) Neith' {Oxf. Heb. Lex. s.v.). She is com- memorated by the Greek Church apparently on Dec. 13, and by the Ethiopian on the 1st of Senne. The story of A. has been made the subject of a remarkable novel which exists in Greek (the original language), Syriac, Armenian, and Latin, as well as in many mediajval European versions made from the Latin. The Latin is itself not older than the 13th cent., and is the work, as is believed, of Robert Grosset«ste, bishop of Lincoln, or of one of the scholars as.soci- ated with him. The name of the romance is either the History of A. ot The Book of the Con- fcs.tion of A. It has been a-ssigned by its last editor, P. Batiffol, to the 5th cent. It is certain, liowever, that the Syriac version is as old as the 6th cent., and the probability is that the originai is at least as early as the 3rd cent.
In its present form it is a Christian version of • Jewish legend. A full account of the story may be .«een in Hort's article in Smith's Z>ic<. Christ. Bwgr. Summarised it runs thus : A. is the proud and beauti-
ful daughter of Pentephres of Heliopolis. She lives in magnificent seclusion and deipises all men. Her father and mother propose that she shall marry Joseph, now prime minister to Pharaoh. She rejects the thought with scorn. However, Joseph soon arrives at the house on one of hia journeys through Egypt to collect com. Asenath sees liim and at once falls in love. But Josepli, who has a horror of all women, will have notliing to say to her, and can- not even kiss her, since she worships idols. He blesses her, and tlien she retires to her room. Here she shuts herself up for seven days in sack- cloth and ashes, throws her idols out of tlie window, and does strict penance. On the 8th day she utters a long prayer. Thereafter an angel comes to her in the form of Joseph and blesses her, and gives her to eat of a mystic honeycomb, on whicli the sign of the cross is made. A., then accepted of God, arrays herself in beautiful garments, and goes forth to meet Joseph, who now returns to the house. The parents are away, but the be- trothal takes place in their absence ; and then the wedding in Pharaoh's presence. At this point the Armenian version makes a break, and ends the first part; here also in Syr., Arm., and Lat., but not in any known Greek MS, occurs a lamentation of Asenath for her former pride.
The second part of the book contains the story first of A.'s introduction to Jacob when he came to Egypt, and then, at great length, of an attempt on the part of Pharaoh's firstborn son to abduct A., — an attempt in which he enlists the services of Dan and Gad, and in which he is baffled by Benjamin, Simeon, and Levi, and loses his life. This part of the story, which is very well told, has hardly any religious interest, save in tlie forgiveness of Dan »ad Gad by A. But in the first part of the book the religious element is far more prominent. Stress is lai<l on purity and on repentance.
The rni3:m d'etre of the book, or rather, of the Jewish legend which lies beliind it, is to evade the difficulty of Josei)h's marriage with a heathen wife: and, as Batilfol and Oppenheim (see Lit.) have shown, the original legend made A. a Jewess by birth. It identified her with tlie daughter of Dinah, Jacob's daughter, and of Shechem. This has been slurred over in the Greek novel ; but it is implied by certain wonla in the Syriac, where A.'s visit to Jactfb is de.scribed.
The romance is altogether one of the most successful, from a literary point of view, that the apocryphal literature afl'ords. It was widely known in Europe by means of the extracts from it which Fratcr Vincentius (Vincent of Beauvais) included in his Speculum llistoriaU in the I3th oentory.
Lrr»RATUK». — VlnrenfB Lat. vereion and a fraprment of the Or. in Fabricius' Cod. Pinid. V. T. : Sjrioc in I^nil's Aneedota Syriaca, iii. 1S70 ; Ijit. tr. of Syriac by Oppcnbcim, Faliula Jwvhi et AtrnflhiT, 188« ; Or. by P. Batiffol from tour M.S.S in Stnaia Patrittiea, Ksso ; Ijit. (oomplete \er8i(n0 from two Cnm- bridge iI.SS coniniiinicated l)y the prt'Bcnt writer to M. IlatilToI, and publiahed hv him op.cU. ; Aruicnian n-centlv pultliHhed at Venice hy P. Baaile. M. K. .JamES.
ASH (nh, 'oren, rl-nn, pinux) (Is 44", AV. RV has fir, with ash in m.). — The conditions to be fulfilleil by this tree are that its wood should be suitable to be carved into an image, and nsed for fuel ; that it should be a familiar tree, pUinled, as distingtiishcd from the forest trees mentioned in the former part of the verse ; and that it should be nouri.ihed by rain, and not by artificial irrigation, as in the ca.se of almost all the cultivated trees of Syria and Palestine. These conditions exclude several of the candidates. They make it improbable that the unknown tree 'arnn, described by Abu Failli a« growing in Arabia Petra'a, is mtended. Surh a tree would not be