Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/621

 PTOLEMAIS

553

PUBLICAN

tery of life has been discovered. In the reaction that follows disillusionment mental healing becomes a centre of attention. Our phase will lose significance as preceding phases have done, and a juster estimation of the place of bodily and mental factors as co-ordi- nate influences for health will recur.

CuTTES, Three Thousand Years oj Mental Healing (New York, 1911): Lawrence, Primitive Psychotherapy and Quackery (Bos- ton, 1910) (both of these lack sympathy for preceding genera- tions) ; TuKE, Influence of the Mind on the Body (London, 1872) (subsequent editions enlarged) ; Debcum, Rest, Hypnotism, Mental Therapeutics (Philadelphia, 1907); Dubois, Mental In- fluence in Nervous Disorders (tr. New York, 1907) ; MCnsterberq, Psychotherapy (Boston, 1909) ; Psychotherapeutics, a Symposium (Boston, 1910); Walsh, Psychotherapy (New York, 1911).

James J. Walsh.

Ptolemaeus, Claudius. See Geography and THE Church.

Ptolemais, a titular see in Egypt, metropolis of The- bais Secuuda. Ptolemais owes its name to Ptolemy Soter who built it on the site of a village named Si (with the article, Psi, whence the Coptic Psoi, or Psoi; Arabic Absay; Greek Sois and Syis). The capital of the nome of Thinite, it supplanted Thebes as capital of Thebais; as important as Memphis, its administration was copied from the Greek system. A special cult in honour of the Ptolemys, particularly of its founder, was established. In the sixth century it was the civil metropolis of Thebais Secunda. Le Quien (Oriens christianus, II, 605) mentions three bishops: the Melitian .\mmonius; Heraclides, present at the Coun- cil of Ephesus (431); Isaac, who signed the letter of the bishops of Thebais to the Emperor Leo (457) and was present at the Council of Constantinople under the Patriarch Gennadius. A Greek "Notitia epis- copatuum" refers to the see about 820. It had also some Coptic bishops (Zocga, "Catalogus codicum copticorum", 329). The Coptic "Notitia? episcopa- tuum" do not mention the see, but otherCoptic docu- ments cite it frequently, and allusion is made to its medical school. To-day it is known as Menshtyeh"or Menshah, contains 8000 inhabitants, belongs to the district of Girgeh, Province of Sohag, on the western bank of the Nile, and is a railway station between Cairo and Thebes.

Kmith, Diet, of Greek and RomanGeogr. (London, 1878), s. v.; MuLLER, Notes a Ptolemy, cd. DiDOT, I, 720; Am^lineau, Gio- graphie de I'Egypte a t'epoque copte (Paris, 1893), 381.

S. P^TRinilS.

Ptolemais (Saint-Jean d' Acre), a titular metrop- olis in Phoenicia Prima, or Maritima. The city of Acre, now Saint-Jean d'.Vcre, was called Ptolemais in 281 or 267 b. c, by Ptolemy II, surnamed Philadel- phus, and since then this name has subsisted con- jointly with the primitive one, at least as the official name. Quite early it possessed a Christian community visited by St. Paul {Acts, x.xi, 7). The first bishops known are: Clarus, present about 190 at a council held concerning the observance of Easter; ^Eneas, at Nicaea, 325, and at Antioch, 341; Nectabus at Con- stantinople, 381; Antiochus, friend and later adver- sary 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 Tjtc, 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. aevi, I, 66). From this date to the taking of the city by the Arabs in 1291 the bishopric was governed by the Patriarch of Jeru- salem. Concerning the titular bishops up to 1592 see Eubel, op. cit., I, al.so II, 88; III, 105. The official list of the Roman Curia (Rome, 1884) does not men- tion 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 CouncU of Jerusalem, was qualified as metropolitan; the same conditions now exist. The Melkite, or Greek, metropolis num- bers 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.

Vailh6 in Diet, d'hist. et degeog. eccL (Paris, 1910), s. v. Acre, SaLfit-JiMu d\ with an important bibliography.

S. PETRIDfcs.

Ptolemy of Lucca. See Bartholomew of Lucca.

Ptolemy the Gnostic, a heretic of the second century and personal disciple of Valentinus. He was probably still living about 180. No other certain details are known of his life; Harnack's suggestion that he was identical with the Ptolemy spoken of by St. Justin is as yet unproved (Text. u. Unter- such. New. Ser. XIII, Anal. z. alt. Gesch. d. Chr.). He was, with Heracleon, the principal writer of the Italian or Western school of Valentinian Gnosticism. His works have reached us in an incomplete form as follows: (1) a fragment of an exegetical writing preserved by Irenaeus (Adv. Har., I, viii, 5); (2) a letter to Flora, a Cliristian lady, not otherwise known to us. This letter is found in the works of Epiphanius (Haer. XXXIII, 3-7). It was written in response to Flora's inquiry concerning the origin of the Law of the Old Testament. This law, Ptolemy states, cannot be attributed to the supreme God, nor to the devil; nor does it proceed from one law-giver. A part of it is the work of an inferior god; the second part is due to Moses, and the third to the elders of the Jewish people. Three different sections are to be distinguished even in the part ascribed to the in- ferior god: (1) The absolutely pure legislation of the Decalogue which was not destroyed, but fulfilled by the Saviour; (2) the laws mixed with evil, like the right of retaliation, which were abolished by the Saviour because they were incompatible with His nature; (3) the section which is typical and sym- bolical of the higher world. It includes such pre- cepts as circumcision, fa.sting, and was raised by the Saviour from a sensible to a spiritual plane. The god who is the author of the law, in so far as it is not the product of human effort, is the demiurge who occupies a middle position between the Supreme God and the devil. He is the creator of the universe, is neither perfect, nor the author of evil, but ought to be called just. In his interpretation of the universe, Ptolemy resorted to a fantastic system of eons. Thirty of these, as he believes, rule the higher world, the pleroma. This system becomes the basis of a wild exegesis which discovers in the prologue of St. John's Gospel the first Ogdoad. (See Gnosticism.)

Iren,eU8, Adv. Hcer., I, cc. i-viii; LiPsins in Diet. Christ. Biog., s. V. PtolemcEus, I.

N. A. Weber. Publican, in the Gospels, is derived from the puhlicanus of the Vulgate, and signifies a member or employee of the Roman financial companies who farmed the taxes. From the time of the Republic the Roman State relieved itself of the trouble of collecting the taxes in the provinces by putting up the taxes of each in a lump sum to auction. The highest bidder received the authorization to extort the sum from the province in question. Such a system afforded ample opportunity for rapacious exactions on the part of the company and its officials, and the abuses were often intolerable. On account of these, and more, perhaps, because of the natural though impotent Jewish hatred of the Roman supremacy, those of the Jews who found it profitable thus to serve the foreign rulers were objects of execration to their countrymen. In the Gospel narrative we find