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224 Ass-Worship Assault and Battery this stone

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

meant by Posidonius and others by The upper millstone being also

is

their "ass' statue."

metaphorically called "the ass," the enemies of the

Jews took advantage of this circumstance to accuse them of worshiping a veritable ass. He claims also that a four-cornered stone is the determinative for Typhon in the hieroglyphs. But this explanation is too far-fetched to be acceptable; besides, it must not be forgotten that Mnaseas, the oldest authority for the legend, does not call the ass 6i>oc but KavSuv. Another suggestion, that of Michaelis, that the enemies of the Jews may have seen a cherub in the Temple ,

with an

negatived at once by the fact that the cherubim were certainly never so represented. None of these attempted explanations is based on facts. Nor are Philo's statement (i. 371) that the Jews' golden calf represented Typhon (see Winer, "B. R," s.v. "Kalb"), and the connection of the ass-cult with that of Seth-Typhon asserted by Movers ("Die Phonizier," i. 297, 365), and by W. Pleyte ("La Beligion des Pre-Israelites," Leyden, ass's head,

is

1865, p. 143).

For explanation of the supposed Ass-Worship, the Diony sos-cult must be taken into consideration. Diouysos, or Bacchus, was, under the name of Sabazios, worshiped by the Accusation Phrygians according to some, Dionysin Alleg-ed os himself was Sabazios, according to Bacchus- others Sabazios was his son. DionysWorship. os was identified with the Semitic divinity Adonis, which easily suggests the name of the God of the Hebrews. It is said that Dionysos encountered Aphrodite and Adonis in Lebanon; he loved their daughter Beroe (Nonnus, " Dionysiaca," xlvi.). Dionysos is identified with pretty nearly all Oriental deities, as, for example, with Moloch, Baal, Melkart, and Hadad. F. Lenormant says, therefore, in the " Dictionnaire des Anti-

Origin of



quites,"

s.v.

"Bacchus"-

"The

disposition

was

so

marked

to identify the son of Semele (Bacchus) with the various deities of the Orientals that it was even pushed to the extreme of asserting that the Jews likewise worshiped Dionysos (Plutarch, Bymposiaca, iv. 6), an assertion based upon nothing further than the similarity of sound between the name Jehovah, Sabaoth, and that of Sabazios (Valerius Maximus, i. 3, § 2; other passages at Lenormant), likewise upon the existence of the golden vine in the Jerusalem Temple (Josephus, 'Ant.' xv. 11, § 3)." The similarity of the names Sabaoth and Sabazios, and the existence of the golden vine in the Temple, were then sufficient to suggest to the heathens, who knew very little about Jewish worship, that the Jews, like many other nations, cherished some kind of a Dionysos-worship. It is known that the excessive hilarities at the so-called "Feast of the Water-Drawing " at the Festival of Tabernacles gave cause to the accusation that the Jews celebrated Bac'

'

chanalia (see Z. Frankel," Juden und Judenthum nach Romischer Anschauung, "in " Monatsschrift, " 1860,ix. 125 et seq. and Biichler, in " Rev. Et. Juives, " xxx vii. Now, the ass was sacred to Bacchus and an 181). unfailing member of his train; the god is often represented as riding upon one. Note the alleged statue in Jerusalem of Moses riding upon an ass, mentioned above. Silenus, Bacchus' constant companion, also ,

224

upon an ass. Creuzer ("Symbolik, " i. 480) remarks that Silenus is the ass. The ass was considered a phallic animal, and when once the Jews were accused of the cult of Dionysos, it was not going very much further to accuse them of sexual excesses, as Tacitus does, holding them capable of every shamef ulness. One charge involves the other, and calumniators of the Jews would not be likely to hesitate at an additional falsehood or two. The fables additionally connected with the asscult, such as the fattening of a Greek every seven years for an offering to the ass-god the attempt of Zabid of Dora to rob the Jews of this god; Tacitus' story of the finding of the water-springs by the wild asses: all of them follow from the idea that the Jews worshiped Dionysos. Everything additional is the offspring simply of the hatred that the world For this hatred there of antiquity bore to the Jews. is no explanation. rides



[Tacitus' story of the finding of the water-springs on a genuine Idumean narrative found in Gen. xxxvi. 24, according to which " 'Anah (= the ass), son of Zibeon the Horite, found the hot springs (D, D < ) in the wilderness while feeding the asses of rests

The whole story, accordingly, points where the first ass-cult legend as told by Josephus (" Contra Ap." ii. 10) originated according Apollo, the god of the Idumean city of to Mnaseas. Dora, represented by Zabid us the Idumean, carrying the golden head of an ass at the battle of Dora, is Baal Anah, who probably became afterward the Gnostic god Anael. It was the identification of the Jews with the Hyksos by Manetho that occasioned the Jews to be accused of Ass-Worship that is, See J. G. Muller, "Des Seth-Typhon worship. Flavius Josephus Schrift Gegen Apion," p. 258; Schurer, and "Gesch." i. 3, iii. 104.— K.] his father."

to Idumaea,

—

siue dc Animalihus 199 ; Jablonski.PanOieon Egyptian,

Bibliography: Bochart. Hierozoicon, Scriptures Sacrce, 1793,

i.

Franktort-on-the-Oder, 1750; Eckhel, Doctrina Nummorum Veterum, viii. 173, Vienna, 1798; Michaelis, Das Mosaische

Becht, 1770-1776. iv. 184; Movers, Die Phimizier: Pleyte, I.e.; Gratz, in Monatsschrift, xxi. 193; Kenan, L'Eglise Chretienne, 2d ed., 481; Marc- Aurele, 64; Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, 2d ed., vit. 84 Harnack, Gesch. der AltchrMlichen Literatur, i. 167 ; Schurer, Gesch. iii. 104, 416. Compare also Smith, Dictionary Christian Antiquities, art. Asinarii and the description of an Ass Festival in the Middle Ages, in Protest., R. E., 3d ed., s.v. Eselsfest. S. Kr. K.



ASSABAN

MORDECAI

Rabbi and (|«3XK) author born at Morocco in 1700 and died at Aleppo about 1760. He was chief rabbi of Leghorn, and emigrated to Jerusalem about 1729, where he dwelt for thirty years. He was the author of a " Widdui " (confession of sins), entitled "Zobeah Todah." Assaban was renowned as a cabalist. ,





Bibliography:

Azulai,

Shem ha-Gedolim

(Vienna, 1864),

11.

19a.

M. Fk.

G.

AND

ASSAULT BATTERY An English law term for injury to the person a crime recognized from the earliest stages of human law. Disputes about property, about contracts, or about the rights

—

man in the family or in society, arose later in the course of social evolution but from the earliest times personal injuries gave rise to disputes which had to of



be settled by some tribunal or arbiter. In ancient law, redress for injuries to the body