ASCHE
455
ASH
above, a Gnostic way of viewing the relations between God, man, and nature, tending to dualism and to the confounding of sin with the very nature of matter. See Zockler, Kiitische Gesckickte der Askete (Frankf. 1863, 8vo); Schafij Church History, § 94; Mercersburg Review, 1858, p. 600; Coleman, Ancient Christianity, ch. vii, § 5 ; Bibliotheca Sacra, Oct. 1858, p. 600 ; Bing- ham, Oriff. Eccl. bk. vii, ch. i ; Mosheim, Coram, i, 381. See Hermit.
Asche. See Asser.
Ascitae (q. d. aoKirai, replete) or Ascodrogit.e, heretics who appeared in Galatia about 173. They pretended to be tilled with the "paraclete" of Monta- nus, and introduced bacchanalian indecencies into the churches, where they brought a skin of wine, and, marching round it, declared that they were the vessels filled with new wine of which the Lord speaks in the Gospels. Hence their name from the Greek ckjkoc., which means "a skin."— Augustine, liar, 62; Landon, Eccl. Diet, i, 506. See Montanists.
Ascough, or, according to Godwin, " William Ayscoth, doctor of laws and clerk of the counsel, was consecrated in the chapel of Windsor, July 20, 1438. The year 1450 it happened the commons to arise in sundry parts of the realm, by the stirring of Jack Cade, naming himself John Mortimer. A certain number of lewd persons (tenants for the most part to this bishop), intending to join themselves to the rest of that crew, came to Evendon, where he was then saying of mass. What was their quarrel to him I find not. But certain it is, they drew him from the altar in his alb, with his stole about his neck, to the top of a hill not far off, and there, as he kneeled on his knees praying, they cleft his head, spoiled him to the skin, and, rending his bloody shirt into a number of pieces, took every man a rag to keep for a monument of their worthy exploit. The day before they had robbed his carriages of 10,000 marks in ready money. This barbarous murder was committed June 29th, the year aforesaid." Dr. Fuller supposes that the bishop was attacked because he was "learned, pious, and rich, three capital crimes in a clergyman." He also gives ns the following distich, which may be applicable in other times :
" Sic concusso cadit popular! mitra tumultu, Protegat optamus nunc diadema Deus. " By people's fury mitres thus cast down We pray henceforward God preserve the crown."
—Bioff. Britannica ,• Hook, Eccl. Biog. i, 323. See As- kew.
Ase'as. See Asjzas.
Asebebi'a ('AertjSjjjSia), one of the Levites who, with his sons, joined the caravan under Ezra (1 Esdr. viii, 47) ; evidently the Sherebiah (q. v.) of the gen- uine text (Ezra viii, 18).
Asebi'a CAaifiia), another of the Levites who re- turned in Ezra's party to Palestine (1 Esdr. viii, 48) ; evidently the Hashabiah (q. v.) of the true text (Ezra ' :ii, 19).
As'enath (Heb. Asenath' , MDS, on the signif. see below; Sept. 'AmviQ v. r. ' Ami'viS), the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, whom the king of Egypt bestowed in marriage upon Joseph (Gen. xli, 45; xlvi, 20), with the view probably of strengthening his posi- tion in Egypt by this high connection, B.C. 1883. See Josei'H. Siie became the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh (Gen. xli, 50). No better etymology of As- enath has been proposed than that by Jablonski, who (Panth. Egypt, i, 50 ; Opuscul. ii, 208) regards it as representative of a Coptic compound, Assheneit. The latter part of this word he takes to be the name of Neith, the titular goddess of Sais, the Athene of the Greeks, and considers the whole to mean worshipper of Neith. Gesenius, in his Thesaurus, suggests that the original Coptic form was A smith, which means
who belongs to Keith. That the name refers to this goddess is the generally received opinion (in modern times Von Bohlen alone has, in his Genesis, proposed an unsatisfactory Shemitic etymology [see Lepsius, Chron d. yEgypter, i, 382]) : it is favored by the fact that the Egyptians, as Jablonski has shown, were ac- customed to choose names expressive of some relation to their gods ; and it appears liable to no stronger ob- jection than the doubt whether the worship of Neith existed at so early a period as that of the composition of the book of Genesis (see Champollion, Pantheon Egyptienne, No. 6). Even this doubt is now removed, as it appears that she was realty one of the primitive deities of Lower Egypt (Bunsen, Egypt's Place, i, 389), for her name occurs as an element in that of Nitocris (Neith-akri), a queen of the sixth dynasty (Wilkinson, in Rawlinson's Herodotus, ii, 142, note 2).
A'ser ('Affi/n), the Grseeized form of Asher (q. v.), both the tribe (Luke ii, 36 ; Rev. vii, 0) and the city (Tobit i, 2).
Ase'rer (Sifjap), one of the heads of the temple- servants that returned from the captivity (1 Esdr. v, 32) ; evidently the Sisera (q. v.) of the true text (Ezra ii, 53).
Asgill, John, member of the Irish Parliament, and author of an eccentric book entitled An Argument proving that, according to the Covenant of eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, Man may be translated hence into that eterned Life without passing through Death, al- though the humane. Nature of Christ himself coidd not thus be translated till he had passed through Death (Dub- lin, 1698, 8vo). The Irish Parliament voted it a blas- phemous libel, and expelled Asgill from the House after four days. In 1705 he entered the English Par- liament as member for Bramber, in Sussex. But the English House, resolving to be not less virtuous than the Irish, condemned his bock to be burnt by the com- mon hangman as profane and blasphemous, and ex- pelled Asgill on the 18th December, 1707. After this his circumstances rapidly grew worse, until at last he found something like peace in the King's Bench and the Fleet, between which two places his excursions were confined for the term of his natural life. He died in November, 1738. See Southey, The Doctor, pt. ii ; Coleridge, Works (Harpers' ed.), vol. v ; Allibone, i, 73.