Ace. See Accho.
Acel'dama CkK*\capd, from the Syro-Chaldaic !n"C'1 3£n, chahal' dema ' , field of the blood, as it is ex- plained in the text, dypug a'ip.aroc, see Critica Biblica, ii, 447), the field purchased with the money for which Judas betrayed Christ, and which was appropriated as a place of burial for strangers — that is, such of the nu- merous visitors at Jerusalem as might die during their stay, while attending the festivals (Matt, xxvii, 8 ; Acts i, 19 ; the slight discrepancy between these pas- sages has been unduly magnified by Alford, Comment. in loc. post. ; see Olshausen, Comment, iii, 61, Am. ed.). It was previously "a potter's field." The field now shown as Aceldama lies on the slope of the hills be- yond the valley of Hinnom, south of Mount Zion. This is obviously the spot which Jerome points out (Onomast. s. v. Acheldamach) as lying on the south (Eusebius, on the north) of Zion, and which has sinco been mentioned (although with some variation) by al- most every one who has described Jerusalem. San- dys describes it (Relation of a Journey, p. 187), and relates the common story that the Empress Helena caused 270 ship-loads of its flesh-consuming mould to be taken to Rome, to form the soil of the Campo Santo, to which the same virtue is ascribed. Cas- tela affirms that great quantities of the wondrous mould were removed by divers Christian princes in the time of the Crusades, and to this source assigns the similar sarcophagic properties claimed not only by the Campo Santo at Rome, but by the cemetery of St. Innocents at Paris, by the cemetery at Naples (La Sainct Voyage, de Hierusalcui, 1603, p. 150; also Roger, p. 160), and by that of the Campo Santo at Pisa. This plot seems to have been early set apart by the Latins, as well as by the Crusaders, for a place of burial for pilgrims (Jac. de Vitriaco, p. 64). The
ACEPIIALI
50
ACHAIA
charnel-house is mentioned by Maundeville (Travels, I 1822, p. 175, Bohn's ed.) as belonging to the Knights Hospitallers. Sandys shows that, early in the seven- teenth century, it was in the possession of the Arme- nians. Roger (La Terre Saincte, p. 1G1) states that ! they bought it for the burial of their own pilgrims, and ascribes the erection of the charnel-house to them. They still possessed it in the time of Maundrell, or, rather, rented it, at a sequin a day, from the Turks, j Corpses were still deposited there ; and the traveller observes that they were in various stages of decay, I from which he conjectures that the grave did not make that quick dispatch with the bodies committed to it which had been reported. "The earth, here- abouts," be observes, "is of a chalky substance; the | plot of ground was not above thirty yards long by lifteen wide ; and a moiety of it was occupied by the charnel-house, which was twelve yards high" (Jour- ney, p. 136). Richardson (Travels, p. 5C7) affirms that bodies were thrown in as late as 1818 ; but Dr. Robinson alleges that it has the appearance of having been for a much longer time abandoned: "The iield or plat is not now marked by any boundary to distin- guish it from the rest of the hill-side ; and the former I charnel-house, now a ruin, is all that remains to point out the site. . . . An opening at each end enabled us to look in; but the bottom was empty and dry, ex- cepting a few bones much decayed" (Biblical Re- searches, i, 524; comp. Wilde's Shores of the Mediter- ranean, 184-4 ; Barclay's City of the Great Kin//, p. 207). Its modern name is Hah ed-damm. It is sep- arated by no enclosure; a few venerable olive-trees (see Salzmann's photograph, " Champ du sang") occu- py part of it, and the rest is covered by the " charnel- house," a ruined square edifice — half built, half exca- vated—perhaps originally a church (Pauli, Cod. Di- plom. i, 28), but which the latest conjectures (Schnltz, Williams, and Barclay) propose to identify with the tomb of Ananus (Joseph. War, v, 12, 2). It is said (Kraft, Topogr. p. 193) to contain the graves of sev- eral German pilgrims ; but the intimation (Hitter, Erdk. xv, 463) that a pottery still exists near this spot does not seem to be borne out by other testimony. (See, on the subject generally, Schlegel, De agro San- guinis, Hamb. 1705 ; Worgcr, Ilakeldama, in Meneltici Tkesaur. p. 222.)— Kitto, s. v. See Potter's Field. Acepllali (d and tctrpaXi)'), literally, those who have no chief. The term is applied to various class- es of persons (see Biedermann, De Acephalis, Freiberg, 1751). 1. To those at the Council of Ephesus who re- fused to follow either St. Cyril or John of Antioch.
2. To certain heretics in the fifth century who denied, with Eutyches, the distinction of natures in Jesus Christ, and rejected the Council of Chalcedon. About the year 482 the Emperor Zeno endeavored to extin- guish these religious dissensions by the publication of an edict of union, called Henoticon. The more mod- erate of both parties subscribed the decree, but the ob- ject was generally unsuccessful. The Monophysite patriarch of Alexandria was among those who sign- ed the decree ; which so greatly displeased many of his party that they separated from him, and were denominated Accphali, that is, without a head. See Moxophysites and Henotkox. These Acephali were condemned in the synod of Constantinople, 536.