Acacius (surnamed Monophthalmus, from his hav- ing but one eye), was the disciple of Eusebius of Cass- area, in Palestine, whom he succeeded in the see of Ca:sarea in 340. He was one of the chiefs of the Arian party, and a man of ability and learning, but unsettled in his theological opinions. He was deposed as an Arian by the Synods of Antioch (A.D. 341) and Seleu- cia (359). Subsequently he sul ascribed the Nicene creed, and therefore fell out with the Anomceans, with whom he had before acted. He died A.D. 363. St. Jerome (de Scrip, cap. 98) says that he wrote seven- teen books of commentaries upon Holy Scripture, six on various subjects, and very many treatises, among them his book Adrersus Marcellum, a considerable fragment of which is contained in Epiphanius, Hos?-es. 72. Socrates (lib. ii, cap. iv) says that he also wrote a life of his predecessor, Eusebius. — Cave, Hist. Lit. anno. 340 ; Lardner, Works, iii, 583.
Acacius, bishop of Berea, was born about the year 322, in Syria. He embraced the monastic life at an early age under the famous anchorite Asterius. About A.D. 378 he was promoted to the see of Berea by Eu- sebius of Samosata ; and after 381 Flavian sent him to Rome, to obtain for him communion with the West- ern bishops, and to effect the extinction of the schism in the Church of Antioch, in both which designs lie succeeded. At the commencement of the 5th ecntury he conspired with Theophilus of Alexandria and oth- ers against Chrysostom, and was present in the pseu- do-council ad Quercwn, in 403, where Chrysostom was deposed. In the great contest between Cyril and Nestovius, Acacius wrote to Cyril, endeavoring to ex- cuse Nestorius, and to show that the dispute was in reality merely verbal. In 431 the Council of Ephe- sus assembled for the decision of this question. Aca- cius did not attend, but gave his proxy to Paul of Emesa against Cyril, and addressed a letter to the Oriental bishop, accusing him of Apollinarianism. In 432 he was present in the synod of Berea, held by John, and did all in his power to reconcile Cyril and the Orientals. His death occurred about 43G, so that he must have attained the age of 114 years. Of
41 ACCAD
the numerous letters which he wrote, three only, ac- cording to Cave, are extant, viz., two Epistles to his Primate, Alexander of llierapolis ; one to Cyril. — Cave, Hist. Lit. anno 430 ; Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. iv.
Academics, a name given to such philosophers as adopted the doctrines of Plato. They were so call- ed from the Academia, a grove near Athens, where they studied and lectured. The Academics are divided into those of the first academy, who taught the doc- trines of Plato in their original purity ; those of the second, or middle academy, who differed materially from the first, and inclined to skepticism ; and those of the new academy, who pursued probability as the only attainable wisdom. The Academics and Epicu- reans (q. v.) were the prevailing philosophical sects at the time of Christ's birth. — Tennemann, Hist. Phil. §§ 127-138.
Ac'atan (AicaTav), the father of Johannes, said to be one of those who returned from the Babylonian captivity (1 Esdr. viii, 38) ; evidently the same with Hakattan (q. v.) of the parallel text (Ezra viii, 12).
AcathoiiCi, not catholic; a name sometimes used by members of the Papal Church to distinguish Pro- testants, under the arrogant assumption that the word " Catholic" is to be appropriated sole]}' to Romanists. See Catholic.
Ac'cad (Heb. Akkad', 12X, forti-ess ; or, accord- ing to Simonis Onomast. p. 27G, bond, i. e. of con- quered nations; Sept. 'ApxaS [prob. by resolution of the Dagesh.like p;w^1? for piuia^], Vulg. Achad), one of the five cities in "the land of Shinar," or Bab- ylonia, which are said to have been built by Nimrod, or, rather, to have been "the beginning of his king- dom" (Gen. x, 10). iElian (Be Animal, xvi, 42) men- tions that in the district of Sittacene was a river call- ed Argades ('Apyac7]c,\ which is so near the name Ar- chad which the Sept. give to this city, that Bochart was induced to fix Accad upon that river (Phaleg, iv, 17). Mr. Loftus (Trav. in Chald. and Susiana, p. 96) compares the name of a Hamitic tribe emigrating to the plains of Mesopotamia from the shores of the Red Sea, and which lie says the cuneiform inscriptions call A kkadin ; but all this appears to Jae little more than conjecture. In the inscriptions of Sargon the name of Akkad is applied to the Armenian mountains instead of the vernacular title of Ararat (Rawlinson, in Herodotus, i, 247, note). The name of the city is believed to have been discovered in the inscriptions under the form Kinzi Akkad (ib. 357). It seems that several of the ancient translators found in their He- brew MSS. Accar (^2X) instead of Accad (Ephrem Syrus, Pseudo- Jonathan, Targum Hieros., Jerome, Abulfaragi, etc.). Achar was the ancient name of Nisi bis (see Michaelis, Spicileg. i, 226) ; and hence the Targumists give Nisibis or Nisibin ("p3n:i3) for Ac- cad, and they continued to be identified by the Jewish literati in the times of Jerome (Onomast. s. v. Acad). But Nisibis is unquestionably too remote northward to be associated with Babel, Erech, and Calneh, "jn the land of Shinar," which could not have been far distant from each other. On the supposition that the original name was Akar, Col. Taylor suggests its iden- tification with the remarkable pile of ancient buildings called Akkrr-kiif, in Sittacene, and which the Turks know as Akker-t-Xiiiir/'nl and Ahher-i-Babil (Chesney's Survey of the Euphrates, i, 117). The Babylonian Tal- mud might be expected to mention the site, and it occurs accordingly under the name of Aggada. It oc- curs also in Maimonides (Jud. Chaz. Tract. Madee, fol. 25, as quoted by Hyde). Akker-kuf is a ruin, consisting of a mass of sun-dried bricks, in the midst of a marsh, situated to the west of the Tigris, about five miles from Bagdad (Layard's Babylon, 2d scr. p. 407). The most conspicuous part of this primitive monument is still called by the natives Tel Nimr&d,