THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
the Cilician gates to Tyana, the birthplace of Apollonius, a Roman colony after Caracalla; from thence perhaps to Mazaka-Eusebea, called Caesarea, the most important and still flourishing city in Cappadocia, the metropolis of the province, the birthplace of Basil the Great. Nazianzus and Nyssa, the episcopal sees of the two Gregorys, were places of no importance.
(Johannes Weiss.)
Bibliography: The article Kleinasien in der Apostolischen Zeit, in Hauck-Herzog, RE, 3d. ed.. x, 535-563, is a scholarly and comprehensive treatment of the subject, and should be consulted for further information and titles of works dealing with particular localities and special topics. Ritter, Erdkunde, xviii, xix, 2, Berlin, 1858-59, and Sievers, Asien, pp. 78-86, 556-562, Leipsic, 1893, give a general description. For the history: G. F. Hertzberg, Die Geschichte Griechenlands unter der Herrschaft der Rimer, vol. ii, Halle, 1868; T. Mommsen, Romische Geschichte, vol.v, Berlin, 1904, available for the English reader in the transl. by T. T. Dickson, Provinces of the Roman Empire, i, chap, vii, New York, 1887; J. Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung , i, 333-349, Leipsic, 1881. A complete collection of inscriptions from Asia Minor has been undertaken by the Vienna Academy, of which vol. i, containing the inscriptions in the Lycian language, has been issued (1900). Of great value in English are W. M. Ramsay, in Classical Review, iii (1889), 174 sqq., The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, in Supplementary Papers of the Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. iv, 1890; idem, The Church in the Roman Empirebefore A.D. 170, London, 1893 ; idem, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, 2 vols., ib. 1895-97; idem, St. Paul as Traveller and Roman Citizen, ib. 1899; idem, Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, ib. 1904; articles on the several cities in DB and EB. The article in Ruggiero, Dizionario Epigrafico di Antichita Romane is highly commended. On the political history of the provinces the best monograph is V. Chapot, La province romaine proconsulate d'Asie, Paris, 1904.
ASINARII, as-i-ne'ri-ai : Originally a nickname of the Jews, because they were said to worship an ass (see Ass); afterward applied also to the Christians, of whom the same story was told. It is not impossible that the Jews were the first to shift the reproach from themselves to the Christians. Tertullian (Ad nationes, i, 14; Apologia, xvi) tells how an apostate Jew, bitterly hostile to the Christians, exhibited in Carthage a picture representing a god with ass's ears and a hoof on one foot, clad in a toga and holding a book, with the inscription DEUS CHRISTIANORUM 0N0K0IHTH2 [" Onokoietes, the God of the Christians;" the meaning of " Onokoietes " is not very clear; it has been explained as "ass-priest" or " ass- worshiper "; another reading is 0N0K0ITH2, "lying in an ass's manger " (?); perhaps there is a ribald implication]. More offensive to the Christians was the "travesty crucifixion" which the Jesuit Garrucci discovered in 1856 in the ruins of a building on the southern declivity of the Palatine, which was possibly a school for the imperial pages. In that case it was probably sketched in an idle moment by one of the~3 lads, in mockery of the religion of his Christian comrades. It represents a man's body with an ass's head, not strictly hanging on a cross, since the feet are supported by a platform, but with the arms outstretched and fastened to the transverse piece of a T-shaped cross. To the left is a smaller figure, raising one hand in an attitude of adoration, and under it is the inscription AAEEAMENOS SEBETE [i.e., okfiirat] eiXJN (" Alexamonos worships his god "). It is now in the Museo Kirclieriano in Rome.
In 1870 Visconti discovered another inscription in the same building, with the words AAEHAMEN02 FIDELIS. Both of these probably belong to the beginning of the third century. That there is nothing improbable in a Christian having been among the imperial pages at that time is shown by Tertullian (Apologia, xxxvii) and by an inscription of the year 217, given by Rossi.
(A. Hauck.)
Bibliography: Older treatments of the subject, still useful, are Morinus, De capite asinino deo Christiano, Dort, 1620; H. Heinsius, De laude asini, p 186, Leyden, 1629; T. Hasscus, De calumnia olim Judwis et Christianis impacta, Erfurt, 1716. Later discussions are, P. Garrucci, in Civilta cattohca, series 3, vol. iv (1856), 529; DC A, i, 149. For the " travesty crucifixion," cf. F. Becker, Das Spottcrucifix der rbmischen Kaiserpalaste, Breslau, 1866; P. Garrucci, Storia delta arte Christiana, plate 483, vi, 135, Prato, 18S0; F. X. Kraus, Das Spottcrucifix vom Palaiin und neuentdecktes Graffito, Freiburg, 1872; DCA, i, 516.
ASMODEUS, as"mo-di'us (in the Talmud, Ashmedai): An " evil spirit," first mentioned in the apocryphal book of Tobit (iii, 8), as loving Sara, the daughter of Raguel at Ecbatana, and causing the death of her seven successive husbands on the bridal night. But Tobias, the eighth, escaped, under the direction of Raphael, by burning "the ashes of the perfumes " with the heart and liver of a fish which he had caught in the Tigris. When Asmodeus smelled the fumes, he fled to Upper Egypt, and was bound there by Raphael (Tobit viii, 1-3). The figure of this demon is taken from the Persians who greatly influenced later Jewish angelology and demonology. He is Parsee in origin, and to be identified with iEshma of the Avesta, the impersonation of anger (the primary meaning) and rapine.
Once adopted by the Jews, Asmodeus, thanks to rabbinic fancies, took on greater dimensions. Thus he is said to have been implicated in Noah's drunkenness and to be the offspring of the incest of Tubal-cain with his sister Naamah; he is reputed to have driven Solomon from his kingdom, but later Solomon forced him to serve in building the Temple, which he did noiselessly by means of the worm Shamir, whose whereabouts he revealed to Solomon.
Bibliography: J. A. Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, i, 351-361, 823, Frankfort, 1700; A. F Gfrorer, Geschichte desUrchristenthums, i, 378-424, Stuttgart, 1838; T. Benfey and M. A. Stern, Ueber die M onatsnamen, p. 201 , Berlin, 1836; F. H. H. Windischmann, Zoroastrische Studien, ed. F. Spiegel, pp. 138-147, ib. 1863; Kohut, Ueber die jildische Angelologie und Damonologie in ihrer Abhangigkeit vom Parsismus, in Abhandlungen fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes, iv (1866), 72-S6; F. Spiegel, Eranische Altcrthumskunde, ii, 131-133, Leipsic, 1873; Griinbaum, Beitrage zur vergleichenden Mythologie aus der Haggada, in ZDMG, xxxi (1877), 215-224; consult also commentaries on Tobit.
ASMONEANS. See Hasmoneans.
ASPERSION WITH HOLY WATER: A rite of frequent use in the Roman Catholic Church. It has a place in the administration of baptism and extreme unction, in the nuptial blessing, and in the ceremonies of sepulture, as well as in the conserration of objects for divine worship and in blessings of all kinds. Persons entering or leaving a church make the sign of the cross with holy water. A solemn form of aspersion, practised in