YEAR OF OUR LORD 437. NOTICE OF ACACIUS, BISHOP OF BEROEA.
(Oriens Christianus, tom. II, col. 782.)
Acacius, who had been a monk, was consecrated bishop of Berrhœa by Eusebius of Samosata, who secretly traveled through and ordained clergy for the Churches of the East under the Emperor Valens. He shepherded his Church for fifty years while maintaining the rule of monastic life, though tempered by a civil virtue, says Theodoret in A *Historia religiosa*, c. 2, who also mentions him in *Historia ecclesiastica*, lib. v, c. 4. Is this not the Acacius, priest and monk, from whom Basil writes in epistola 144—which is addressed to the clergy of Berrhœa—that he learned many things? He took part in the first general council of Constantinople. He was sent shortly thereafter to Pope Siricius, in order to reconcile the Roman and Alexandrian Churches with Flavian of Antioch; this was because he himself, along with Diodorus of Tarsus, had laid hands upon Him against agreed-upon pacts which had been confirmed by oath: as Sozomen reports in lib. VI, c. 21. Later, however, he harbored serious enmity against John Chrysostom and gave his support B to his deposition at the synod held at the Oak, being one of the principal authors of that storm. In the year 431, he stubbornly defended the cause of Nestorius against Cyril of Alexandria, even though, due to his advanced age, he could not attend the general council at Ephesus. In the year 432, the bishops of the East, by the will of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger, gathered at Berrhœa to negotiate a reconciliation, a business that was not concluded until the following year. Since he assumed the episcopate around the year 379 or 380 and held it for fifty-eight years, he must have died in the year 437, having extended his life to one hundred and sixteen years. For in the year 431 or at least 432, the bishops of the East wrote C in their synodical letter to the Emperor Theodosius: that the God-loving and most holy Father and Bishop Acacius had informed the holy synod (of Ephesus) by letter, that (Cyril’s chapters) accorded with the impiety of Apollinaris. These things were indeed known to a man who completed 110 years of life, and spent his whole life laboring in evangelical struggles, and participated in many synods. One should read Theodoret, *Hist.*, lib. iv, c. 25; *Hist. relig.*, lib. v, c. 2; Sozomen, lib. vii, c. 27; Palladius, *Dial. de vita S. Joannis Chrysostomi*; and the various acts pertaining to the synod of Ephesus. D
LETTERS OF ACACIUS.
LETTER I. AD CYRILLUM ALEXANDRINUM ARCHIEPISCOPUM.
It appears above, col. 99, among the letters of St. Cyril.
LETTER II. TO ALEXANDER OF HIERAPOLIS, METROPOLITAN BISHOP OF EUPHRATESIA.
It appears in the *Synodicon Casinense*, cap. 41, among the works of Theodoret, below, tom. LXXXIV.