or more correctly Ashe, the principal author of the Babylonian Talmud. He was born at Babylon A.D. 353 (A.M. 4113). His Jewish biographers relate that he was appointed head of the college of Sori, in Babylon, at the age of fourteen! He held this post till his death in 426. Rabbi' Abraham benDior asserts, in his Kabbalah, p. 68, that since the days of Rabbi Jehuda- Hannasi, or Rabbenu-Hakkadosh, in no one but Ashe had been combined at once knowledge of the law, piety, humility, and magnificence. His fame attracted to his lectures many thousands of students. The expositions of the Mishna which he delivered in his lectures were collected, and form the basis of the Babylonian Talmud. The continuation was the work of his disciples and followers: it was completed seventy-three years after the death of Ashe by R. Jose, president of the college of Pumbedita in Balylon. (Compare the Tsema h David, first part, in the years 4127 and 4187; Sepher Juchtson, fol. 117; Hal'choth Olam, p. 18; Wolfii Bibliotheca Ilebrea, i, 224.) (See TALMUD).
a learned monk of St. David's, whence (the name of that place in Latin being written Menapia or Menevia) he obtained the appellation of ASSERIUS MENEVENSISN. Asser was invited to the court of Alfred the Great, as is generally believed, in or about the year 880, but probably earlier, merely from the reputation of his learning. His name is preserved by his Annales Rerum Gestarum -Efredi Magni.-Cave, Hist. Lit. anno 890; Eng. Cyclop. (See ALFRED).