ASPERGES
793
ASSAM
Asperges (Latin, axjiergere, to wa«h, sprinkle),
the lite of sprinkling the congregation with holy-
water before tlic principal Mass on Sunday, so culled
from the words intoned at the Ijeginning of the
ceremony, taken from Ps. 1, throughout the year ex-
cept at ftaster-tide, when Vidi aquam, from Ps. cxvii,
is intoned. It precedes every other ceremony that
may take place before the Mass, such as the blessing
of palms or of candles. It is performed by the
celebrant priest wearing vestments of the liturgical
colour of the day. It is omitted when the Blessed
Sacrament is expo.sed, though many rubricists think
that the sprinkling of the altar only, not of the con-
gregation, should then be omitted. After intoning
the antiphon the pri&st recites the p.salm Miserere
or CimjUcnini, according to the season, sprinkling
first the front and platform of the altar, then himself,
next the ministers and choir, and lastly the congrega-
tion, usually walking through the main part of the
church, though he need not go l)eyond the gate of
the .sanctuary or choir. The ceremony luus Ijeen in
use at least from the tenth century, growing out of
the custom of early antiquity of blessing water for the
faithful on Sundays. Its object is to prepare the
congregation for the celebration of the Mass by mov-
ing them to sentiments of jwnance and reverence
suggested by the words of the fiftieth psalm, or by
impressing on them that they are about to assist at
the sacrifice of our redemption as suggested in the
psalm used at Easter time.
Wapelhorst, Comp Sacr. Liturgia; (New York. 19041. n. 91.
John J. Wynne.
Aspersion. See Baptism.
Aspilcueta, M.\rtin (also Azpilcoeta), generally known;is Navarrus, or Doctor Navarrus, a famous Spanish canonist and moral theologian; b. in the Kingdom of Navarre. 13 December, 1491; d. at Home, 1 June, 1586. He was a relative of St. Francis Xavier, studied at AlcaU and in France, and became professor of canon law at Toulouse and Cahors. Later, he returned to Spain and occupied the same chair for fourteen years at Salamanca, and for seven years at Coimbra in Portugal. At the age of eighty he went to Rome to defend his friend Bar- tolomeo Carranza. Archbishop of Toledo, accused be- fore the Tribunal of the Imjuisition. Though he failed to exculpate the Archbishop, Aspilcueta was highly honoured at Rome by several popes, and wiis looked on as an oracle of learning and prudence. His humility, disinterestedness, and charity were proverbial. He reached the patriarchal age of 95, and is buried at Rome in the national Clmrch of San .A.ntonio de' Portoghcsi. Among other lives of Aspilcueta there is one by his nephew, prefixed to the Roman edition of his works. His "Manuale sive Em-liiridion Confessariorum et Pccnitentium" (Rome, I.iliS) originally written in Spanish, was long a chussical text in the schooLs and in ecclesiastical practice. In his work on the revenues of lienefices, first published in Spani.sh (Salamanca, l.'iCti), trans- lated into Latin (1.5t),S), and dedicated to Philip II and St. Pius V, he maintained that beneficed clergj'- men were free to expend the fniits of their l>eneficcs only for their own necessarj' support and that of the poor. He wrote numerous other works, e. g. on the Breviary, the regulars, ecclesiastical property, the jubilee year, etc. A complete edition of his works was printed at Rome in 1.590 (3 vols, fol.); also at Lyons, 1.590; Venice, 1602; and Cologne, 1615 (2 vols. fol.). .\ c'om|>endium of his writings was made by J. Castellanus (Venice. 1.598).
GiRAijn, Bihl. San-.. 11, .1.14-3.36 (gives Iwt of his writings'!: HuRTKR, Xomenclalor, (1892). I, 124-r.>7.
Thomas J. Shahan.
Asa, The, i.n CAHic.\TrnE of Chkistian Beliefs AND Practices. — The calumny of onolatry, or ass-
worship, attributed by TacitiiB and other writers to
the Jews, was afterwards, by the hatred of the latter,
transferred to the Christians (Tac, 1, v, 3, 4; Tert.,
Apol., xvi; "Ad nationes", I. 14). A sliort lime be-
fore he wrote the latter of these treati.scs (about 197)
Tert ullian relates that
an apostate Jew one
day appeared in the
streets of Carthage
carrying a figure
robeil in a toga, with
the ears and hoofs of
an a.ss, and that this
monstrosity was la-
belled: DeusChristia-
norum Onoeoetes (the
God of the Christians
begotten of an ass).
" \nA the crowd be-
lieved this infamous
Jew ", adds Tert ul-
lian (.\d nationes, I,
14). Minucius Fehx
(Octavius, ix) al-so
alludes to this de-
famatory accusation
against the Christians. The caricature of the Cru- cifixion, discovered on a wall in the Palace of the CiEsars on the Palatine in 18.57, which repre- sents a Christian boy worshipping a crucified figure with an ass's head, is'a pictureil form of this calumny. A Greek inscription, " .Alexamenos worshipping his God", is .scratched on the caricature. This person is generally held to have been a Christian page of the palace, in the time of the first Antonines, whose companions took this means of insulting his religion. Wiinsch, however, conjectures that the caricature may have been intended to represent the god of a Gnostic sect which identified Clirist with the Egj'p- tian ass-headed god T j-phon-Set h (Brt'^hier, Les origines du crucifix, 15 sqt\.). But the reasons advanced in favour of this hypothesis are not convincing. The representations on a terra-cotta fragment discovered in 1881, at Naples, which dates probably from the first centurN', appear to belong to tFie same cate- gory- as the caricature of the Palatine. A figure with the head of an a.ss and wearing the toga is .seated in a chair with a nill in his hand, instnict- ing a number of baboon- headed pupils. On an ancient gem the onoceph- alous teacher of two hu- man pupils is dre.ssed in the pallium, the form of cloak peculiar to sacred personages in early Chris- Engraved Ge.\i. Ill Ce.vtort tian art; and a Syrian
terra-cotta fragment represents Our Lord, book in hand, with the ears of an ass. The ass as a symbol of heresy, or of Satan, is represented in a fresco of the catacomb of Pnetextatus: Christ, the Good Shepherd, is protecting His flock from impurity and liere.sy .symbolizetl as a pig and an ass. This rep- resentation dates from the beginning of the third century (Wilpert, Pitture delle Catacombe, PI. 51, 1). I.EcLERf g in Did. darch. chril.. I. 2042 Niq. (I'arij. 1903).
Maurice M. Hassett. Assam, The Phefecture Apostolic of. in the ec- clesiastical province of Calcutta. India, established in 1889. It is served by the "Society of the Divine Saviour", whose mother-house is at Rome. The
