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174 immortality, and anointing herself with the blessed oil of incorruption, and that her name should be written in the book of life never to be effaced." She should no longer be called "Asenath" (DJDN), but City of Refuge ("Manos" DUD), for through her many Gentiles (eOvij) should take refuge under the wings of the divine Shekinah (compare Rev. xiii. 6), and under her walls those that turn to God, the Most High, should find protection in repentance. (This is clearly the meaning of the original text and what follows defies explanation. ) The angel then prepares her for the arrival of Joseph as her bridegroom, and tells her to put on her bridal gown, "prepared from the beginning of the world," which glad tidings she receives with a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord "who rescued her from darkness and led her from the deep abyss unto light. She then orders bread and wine to be set before the angel; but nothing is said of the eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine to which Joseph and the angel had both alluded in connection with her looked-for conversion. Instead of this, a miraculous incident is told. honeycomb of wondrous odor is provided by the angel— prepared, as he says, by the bees of paradise from the dew of the roses, as food for the angels and all the elect Christian ones of God. The angel puts some Interinto the mouth of Asenath, saying: " Behold, thou eatest the bread of life polation. and drinkest t"he cup of immortality, and art anointed with the ointment of incorruption. Behold, thy flesh shall bloom with the fountain of the Most High, and thy bones fatten like the cedars thy youth shall not see old of the garden of God age and thy beauty shall never vanish but thou shalt be like the walled mother-city for all (Syriac Version, "who take refuge with the name of the Lord God, the King of all the worlds "). Here again allusion is made to the Hebrew noun " manos" (refuge) Then, in several manuscripts and the for Asenath. Syriac translation, the story is told that the angel makes a cross over the honeycomb with his finger and the same is turned into blood. Another miracle Some bees are. slain by the angel, but rise follows. again, thus symbolizing the resurrection. Obviously, this episode is an interpolation by a Christian writer, who removed the passage relating to the eating of the covenant bread and the drinking of the covenant wine alluded to afterward. Asenath, however the main story continues tells the angel to bless also her seven virgins; and he does so, calling them seven columns of the " City of Refuge," and wishing them He then disappears in a also to attain eternal life.

A





—

—

fiery chariot

drawn by

lightning-like horses.

Asenath then washes her face with pure water from the well, and behold! her whole being is transformed. She is amazed at her own beauty; and when she goes to meet Joseph he does not recognize her. She tells him " I have cast all my idols from me and, behold a man from heaven came to me today and gave me of the bread of life, and I ate, and I drank of the blessed cup, and he gave me the name City of Refuge, saying, In thee many heathen will seek refuge in God. " Joseph, in return, blesses " God has laid the foundation of thy her, saying walls and the children of the living God shall dwell



!

'

'

'

'





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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Asenath

thy refuge, and the Lord God will be forever." They then kiss each other. (The rather strange symbolism contained in the narrative, which says that Joseph kissed her three times, in the city of

King

their

thereby giving her the breath of life, the breath of wisdom, and the breath of truth, is hardly part of the original story.) Joseph accepts Asenath's invitation to partake of the meal she has prepared, Asenath insisting upon being permitted to wash his Asenath's parents and relatives also come to feet. partake of the meal, and, greatly amazed at her uncommon beaut}', they praise " the Lord who reviveth the dead." The wedding- feast is not given by Potiphar, who wanted Joseph to stay with Asenath at once, but by Pharaoh himself, who places golden

Wedding- crowns upon Feast

Given by Pharaoh,

their heads, "such as were house from of old " (that is long prepared by God), and makes them kiss each other while he blesses them

in his

He has all the princes of as father. the land invited, and proclaims the seven days of the nuptial festivities to be national holidays, decreeing that whosoever should do any work thereon should be put to death. It is obvious that this is, to all intents, a typical story of the conversion of a heathen to Judaism. There is no other savior or sin-forgiving power mentioned throughout the book than the God of Israel. In fact, the conception of the Shekinah under whose wings the heathen came to take refuge, of the power of repentance by which all impurity of the soul is removed and eternal bliss is secured by Typical the heathen, is so thoroughly Jewish Story of that the Christian copyists seem to Convert to have been puzzled by it and thus led Judaism, into confusion and error, as the manuscripts in ch. xv. show. But the leading idea of the story becomes clear and intelligible only by recurrence to the Hebrew name, " Asenath," which, by a transposition of the letters, is made to read " nasat " (she has fled) from her idolatry, and which also suggests the idea of "manos" (refuge) and " nas " (to flee), also taken as " refuge " (Ps. lix.

—

Sam.

Deut. xix. 3; and Ex. xvii. Wayera, ed. Buber, ii. 110, where "nisah" occurs in Gen. xxii. 1, and "nes" in Ps. lx. 6; and Yalkut, Judges, iii. 1, where the word " lenassot " is taken in the sense of " refuge " " God is refuge to His worshipers; while from the wicked the refuge departs " (Job xi. 20). Every proselyte is, according to Philo ("De Monarchia," i. | 7; "De Victimas Offerentibus," §10; "De Septenario," § 2; " De Creatione Principum, " § 6 " De Caritate, " § 12 "De Poenitentia," §§ 1, 2; " De Execratione," § 6; 17;

II

15).

xxii. 3;

Compare

also Tan.,





"Fragmenta ad Ex.

xxii." § 20;

compare Num. R.

without a natural protector, because he has left his parents and his parental faith, and therefore seeks refuge under the wings of God as his Protector (Ruth ii. 12). This view of the proselyte claiming protection in some city of refuge, emphasized by Philo, has found expression also in the Halakah (see Sifre, Deut. 259; Targ. Yer. on Deut. xxiii. 16, 17). Asenath is presented as the type of a true proselyte who, finding herself forsaken when renouncing her idolatry, seeks and finds refuge in God. It seems viii.),