See ACCHO.
Ptolema´is [ACCHO]
See ACCHO.\par
Ptolema’is. See Accho.
Originally ACCHO; the old name is resumed, Jean, d’Acre. Paul visited the Christians there on his return from his third missionary journey, between Tyre and Caesarea (Act 21:3; Act 21:7-8).
[Ptolema’is] See ACCHO.
PTOLEMAIS (Act 21:7).—The same as Acco (Jdg 1:31), now the port ‘Akka, called in the West, since Crusading times. Acre or St. Jean d’Acre. Acco received the name Ptolemais some time in the 3rd cent b.c., probably in honour of Ptolemy ii., but although the name was in common use for many centuries, it reverted to its Semitic name after the decline of Greek influence. Although so very casually mentioned in OT and NT, this place has had as varied and tragic a history as almost any spot in Palestine. On a coast peculiarly unfriendly to the mariner, the Bay of ‘Akka is one of the few spots where nature has lent its encouragement to the building of a harbour; its importance in history has always been as the port of Galilee and Damascus, of the Hauran and Gilead, while in the days of Western domination the Roman Ptolemais and the Crusading St. Jean d’Acre served as the landing-place of governors, of armies, and of pilgrims. So strong a fortress, guarding so fertile a plain, and a port on the highroad to such rich lands to north, east, and south, could never have been overlooked by hostile armies, and so we find the Egyptian Thothmes iii., Setl i., and Rameses ii., the Assyrian Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal, and several of the Ptolemys engaged in its conquest or defence. It is much in evidence in the history of the Maccabees,—a queen Cleopatra of Egypt holds it for a time, and here some decades later Herod the Great entertains Cæsar. During the Jewish revolt it is an important base for the Romans, and both Vespasian and Titus visit it. In later times, such warriors as Baldwin i. and Guy de Lusignan, Richard Cœur de Lion and Saladin, Napoleon i. and Ibrahim Pasha are associated with its history.
In the OT it is mentioned only as one of the cities of Asher (Jdg 1:31), while in Act 21:7 it occurs as the port where St. Paul landed, ‘saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day,’ on his way to the new and powerful rival port, Cæsarea, which a few decades previously had sprung up to the south.
The modern ‘Akka (11,000 inhabitants) is a city, much reduced from its former days of greatness, situated on a rocky promontory of land at the N. extremity of the bay to which it gives its name. The sea lies on the W. and S., and somewhat to the E. The ancient harbour lay on the S, and was protected by a mole running E. from the S. extremity, and one running S. from the S.E. corner of the city. Ships of moderate dimensions can approach near the city, and the water is fairly deep. The walls, partially Crusading work, which still surround the city, are in the ruined state to which they were reduced in 1840 by the bombardment by the English fleet under Sir Sidney Smith. Extending from Carmel in the south to the ‘Ladder of Tyre’ in the north, and eastward to the foothills of Galilee, is the great and well-watered ‘Plain of Acre,’ a region which, though sandy and sterile close to the sea, is of rich fertility elsewhere. The two main streams of this plain are the Nahr Na‘mân (R. Belus), just south of ‘Akka, and the Kishon near Carmel.
Under modern conditions, Haifa, with its better anchorage for modern steamships, and its new railway to Damascus, is likely to form a successful rival to ‘Akka.
E. W. G. Masterman.
(SAINT-JEAN D’ACRE)Ptolemais, a titular metropolis in Phoenicia Prima, or Maritima. The city of Acre, now Saint-Jean d’Acre, was called Ptolemais in 281 or 267 B.C., by Ptolemy II, surnamed Philadelphus, and since then this name has subsisted conjointly with the primitive one, at least as the official name. Quite early it possessed a Christian community visited by St. Paul (Acts 21:7). The first bishops known are: Clarus, present about 190 at a council held concerning the observance of Easter; Æneas, at Nicæa, 325, and at Antioch, 341; Nectabus at Constantinople, 381; Antiochus, friend and later adversary of St. John Chrysostom, and author of some lost works; Helladius at Ephesus, 431; Paul at Antioch, 445, and at Chalcedon, 451; John in 518; George at Constantinople, 553 (Le Quien, "Oriens christianus", II, 813). The see was a suffragan of Tyre, which then depended on the Patriarchate of Antioch. With the Latin conquest the province of Tyre was attached to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Latin bishops resided there, and a list of them from 1133 to 1263 may be found in Eubel (Hier. Cath. med. ævi, I, 66). From this date to the taking of the city by the Arabs in 1291 the bishopric was governed by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Concerning the titular bishops up to 1592 see Eubel, op. cit., I, also II, 88; III, 105. The official list of the Roman Curia (Rome, 1884) does not mention Ptolemais as a bishopric, but it may have been known as an archbishopric. The Greeks elevated the see to the rank of metropolitan depending on the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. This occurred before 1672, when Joasaph, present at the Council of Jerusalem, was qualified as metropolitan; the same conditions now exist. The Melkite, or Greek, metropolis numbers 10,000 faithful, 36 priests, 30 churches or chapels, 17 schools, 3 orphanages, and a monastery of 23 monks. There is a Latin parish directed by the Franciscans, a hospital, school for boys, the Ladies of Nazareth with a school, and a Protestant school and hospital of the Church Missionary Society.-----------------------------------VAILHÉ in Dict. d’hist. et de géog. eccl. (Paris, 1910), s. v. Acre, Saint-Jean d’, with an important bibliography.S. PÉTRIDÈS. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
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Ptolemais is the ancient Canaanite town of Acco (mentioned in Jdg_1:31 and in the corrected text of Jos_19:30), still known in Arab. as ‛ Akka. Standing on the rocky promontory which forms the northern boundary of the sandy Bay of Acre, protected by the sea on the W., S., and S.E., and strongly fortified on the landward side, it came to be regarded as the key of Palestine, and its chequered history is chiefly a record of sieges, of which it has probably had to endure more in ancient and modern times than any other Syrian town. Between it and the hills of Galilee lies the fertile Plain of Acre, six miles in width, watered by the Nahr Namein, the ancient Belus, a river famous for the manufacture-Pliny (HN_ xxxvi. 65. 26) says the invention-of glass at its mouth, as well as for the murex shells from which purple dye was extracted by the Phcenicians.
The town rose to considerable importance under the Macedonian kings of Egypt, who converted it into a Greek city, and its new name-given probably by Ptolemy Soter, and retained when the rival kings of Syria gained the mastery-continued to be used till the end of the Roman period, after which the old native name was revived. The city played a prominent part in the Maccabaean wars. There Simon routed the Syrian Greeks (1Ma_5:15), and there Jonathan was treacherously captured by Trypho (1Ma_12:45-48). Ptolemais had an era dating from a visit of Julius Caesar in 47 b.c. Augustus was entertained in it by Herod the Great (Jos. Ant. xv. vi. 7), and Claudius established it as a colonia (Pliny, HN_ v. 17). The Romans used it as a base of operations in the Jewish war, at the outbreak of which its inhabitants proved their loyalty to Rome by massacring 2,000 Jews resident in the city and putting others in bonds (Jos. BJ_ II. xviii. 5).
Ptolemais is mentioned only once in the NT. St. Paul touched it in sailing from Tyre to Caesarea (Act_21:7). Its distance from Tyre is 25 miles. The Apostle saluted the Christians whom he found in the town, and remained a day in their company. The founder of the Church is not known. Philip the Evangelist, who laboured in Caesarea, has been suggested.
Under the name of Accon (St. Jean d’Acre of the Knights of St. John), the town was the scene of many conflicts in the time of the Crusaders, who made it their chief port in Palestine. Its capture by the Saracens brought the kingdom of the Franks to an end. The destruction of the city ‘produced terror all over Europe; for, with its fall in 1291, the power of the Christian nations of the West lost its last hold upon the East’ (C. Ritter, The Comparative Geography of Palestine and the Sinaitic Peninsula, 1866, iv. 361). Reconstructed in the 18th cent., besieged in vain by Napoleon (1799), captured by Ibrahim Pasha (1831), and bombarded by the fleets of Britain, Austria, and Turkey (1840), it still has some commercial importance, though the recent growth of Haifa has told heavily against it.
Literature.-A. P. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, new ed., 1877, p. 265 f.; G. A. Smith, HGHL_4, 1897; W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 1864, p. 308; C. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria4, 1906; E. Schürer, HJP_ II. [1885] i. 90 f.
James Strahan.