ACACIUS (St.), bishop of Amida, in Mesopotamia, in 420, was distinguished by his piety and charity. He sold the plate belonging to his church, to purchase seven thousand Persian slaves who were ready to die with want and misery; and giving each of them some money, sent them home. Veranius, their king, was so affected with this noble instance of benevolence, that he desired to see the bishop; and this interview procured a peace between that prince and Theodosius I.
There have been several other eminent persons of the same name; particularly, A martyr under the emperor Decius: A patriarch of Antioch, who succeeded Basil in 458, and died in 459: A bishop of Miletum in the fifth century: A famous rhetorician in the reign of the emperor Julian: and, A patriarch of Constantinople in the fifth century; who was ambitious to draw the whole power and authority of Rome by degrees to Constantinople, for which he was delivered over irretrievably to the devil by pope Felix III.