ACHTERFELDT JOHANN HEINRICH. See
Hermes, Georg.
ACCEMETI, a-sem'e-tai or a"cei-me'ti,-te (" Sleepless"): An order of monks who sang the divine praises in their monasteries night and day without cessation, dividing themselves into three choirs for the purpose and undertaking the service in rotation. A certain Alexander (ASB, Jan., i. 1018-28) founded their first monastery on the Euphrates about the year 400, and a second at Constantinople. The abbot Marcellus spread the custom in the East. Monks from his monastery were transferred in 459 by the consular Studius to the monastery newly founded by him in Constantinople and called, after his name, the Studium, which later became famous. The members of the order are sometimes called Studites. In the controversy with the Theopaschites (q.v.) they opposed the views of the papal legate, and in 534 they were disavowed and excommunicated by Pope John II.
G. Khuger.
ACOLYTE: A member of the highest of the minor orders of the Roman Catholic Church. The order was established in the fourth or fifth decade of the third century, at the same time as the other minor orders, probably by Pope Fabian (236-250), but was not known to the East. The name (from the Gk. akolouthos, " a follower, attendant ") indicates that the acolyte was originally the personal attendant of the bishop or of the presbyters. In this capacity he appears in Cyprian's epistles, where acolytes carry letters and fraternal gifts as
Acolyte
Acta Martyrum
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
directed by their bishop; and the same thing is seen in Augustine's time. This close connection with the higher clergy explains the position of the acolytes at the head of the minor orders. In the year 251 the local Roman Church had not less than forty-two acolytes (Eusebius, Hist, eccl., VI. xliii. 11). When the canonical age for the different orders was fixed, acolytes were required to be under thirty (Siricius, Ad Himerium, xiii.; 385 a. t>.). In the Middle Ages the liturgical functions of the acolyte assumed greater prominence, including the charge of the altar-lights and the eucharistic wine. In Rome the acolytes were divided by special assignment among the various churches and regiones of the city. Since the close of the Middle Ages, the order has had only a nominal existence, though the Council of Trent (Session xxiii., De reform., xvii.) expressed a desire to see it restored to its former practical activity. In his investigation of the origin of the minor orders, Harnack has given Fabian as the founder of that of the acolytes; but he considers that it was an imitation of the pagan ritual system, in which special attendants (calatores) were assigned to the priests. However, this and the other minor orders may perfectly well have grown out of the needs of the Church without any copying of the pagan system. H. Achelis.
Since the Middle Ages the order has been understood as conferring the right to act as official assistant of the subdeacon in a solemn mass. No canonical age is now explicitly prescribed, but the requirement of a knowledge of Latin excludes the very young. J. T. C.
Bibliography: Bingham, Origines, book i.; J. Mabillon. Museum Italicum, ii. 84, Paris, 1687-89; L. A. Muratori, Liturgia. Romana vetus, ii. 407, Venice, 1748; A. Harnack, Die Quellen der sogenannten apostolischen Kirchenordnung nebst einer Untersuchung iiber die Ursprung des Lectorats und der anderen niederen Weihen, TU. ii. 5 (1886), 94 sqq.; R. Sohm, Kirchenrecht, i. 128-137, Leipsic, 1892.
ACOSTA, JOSE DE: Jesuit; b. at Medina del Campo (26 m. s.s.w. of Valladolid), Spain, about 1539; d. at Salamanca as rector of the university Feb. 11, 1600. He joined the Jesuits as early as 1553. In 1571 he went to the West Indies and later became second provincial of Peru. He wrote Confessionario para los euros de Indios, in Kechua and Aymara (1583), perhaps the first book printed at Lima; a catechism in Spanish and the native tongues (Lima, 1585); De natura novi orbis et de promulgatione evangelii apud barbaros (Salamanca, 1589), which he afterward translated into Spanish and incorporated in the Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Seville, 1590; Eng. transl., The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, London, 1604), one of the most valuable of the early works on America; De Christo revelato et de temporibus novissimis (Rome, 1590); Concilium provinciate Limense in anno MDLXXXIII. (Madrid, 1590); Concionum tomiiii. (Salamanca, 1596).
ACOSTA, URIEL (originally Gabriel da Costa): Jewish rationalist; b. at Oporto, Portugal, 1594; d. at Amsterdam 1647 He belonged to a noble family of Jewish origin but Christian confession, and was educated as a Roman Catholic. In early manhood he wished to return to the faith of his
fathers; and, as an open change from Christianity to Judaism was not allowed in Portugal, he fled to Amsterdam, where he was circumcised and admitted to the synagogue. Disappointed in the teaching and practise of the Amsterdam Jews, he criticized them unsparingly; in particular he aroused their resentment by declaring that the Law made no mention of the immortality of the soul or a future life. After the publication of his Examen dos tradicoens phariseas conferidas con a ley escrita (1624) they put him out of the synagogue and brought him to trial before the magistrates on a charge of atheism. He was imprisoned, fined, and his book was burned. After some years he made public recantation of his alleged errors, was scourged in the synagogue, and trampled upon at the door. According to rumor, he died by his own hand. He left an autobiography, Exemplar humance vita;, published by Philip Limborch (Gouda, 1687; republished in Latin and German, with introduction, Leipsic, 1847).
Bibliography: T. Whiston, The Remarkable Life of Uriel Acosta, an Eminent Free-Thinker, London, 1740; H. Jellinek, U. Acosta's Leben und Lehre, Zerbst, 1847; I. da Costa, Israel en de volke, Haarlem, 1849, Eng. transl., London, 1850; H. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 3d ed., x. 120-128, 399-401.