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Bible Dictionaries
Ptolemais
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Πτολεμαΐς)
Ptolemais is the ancient Canaanite town of Acco (mentioned in Judges 1:31 and in the corrected text of Joshua 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 (1 Maccabees 5:15), and there Jonathan was treacherously captured by Trypho (1 Maccabees 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 (Acts 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.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Ptolemais'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/p/ptolemais.html. 1906-1918.
