Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. A Kalendar of theStli cent, published by Fronto; the Classical Latin Martyrologies. The York, Sarum, and Hereford Kalendars. The festival of these saints has been observed at Rome since the 4th cent. There is a mass for them in the Sacramentary of S. Gregory. The Acts of these saints are contained in those of S. Eugenia (Dec. 25), these acts are, however, somewhat apocryphal. The father of S. Eugenia is said to have been Philip, Bishop of Alexandria, but there was no such bishop of that important city. Papebroeck, the Bollandist, says that instead of these Acts proving to be gold, they are mere dross, and Tillemont says they are fable and fiction.] HE following story belongs to the domains of legend, not to history. Once upon a time when Commodus was Emperor of Rome, there was a noble gentleman named Philip who was for the seventh time made consul, and given the praefectship of Egypt. And he sailed for Alexandria with his wife Claudia, his daughter Eugenia, and his eunuchs Protus and Hyacinth. And when he had assumed his office, he expelled all the Christians out of Alexandria. But Eugenia believed in Christ with all her heart. And when her parents had found for her a suitable match, she fled from home to a villa of her father’s, with the two eunuchs, who believed in the Lord SS. Protus and Hyacinth.

Was well as she; but none of them were as yet baptized. Now Eugenia had disguised herself as a boy, and on their way they fell in with Helenus, Bishop of Heliopolis, and ten thousand Christians singing praises to God as they wended on their way to exile. And she and her eunuchs were instructed and baptized by Helenus, and he sent her to live among the monks of the desert.

In the meantime, Philip was in despair, he sought high and low, but could not find his daughter. Then he erected to her honour a golden statue, and ordered all nations and languages to fall down and worship the golden image he had set up.

And after three years, on the death of the abbot of the monastery where Eugenia was, she was elected in his room. Now it fell out that a certain woman of Alexandria named Melanthia, troubled with a quartan ague, came to the monastery, and was miraculously healed by Eugenia. Then she fell desperately in love with the handsome, smooth-faced abbot; and when all her ogling and languishing speeches were met with disdain, her love was turned to hate, and she went to Philip the prefect, and denounced Eugenia as having made an attempt on her honour.

Eugenia is summoned to Alexandria, the court assembles, she declares her sex, Claudia cries out that she recognises her daughter, and casts herself on her neck; lightning falls from heaven, and consumes Melanthia on the spot; there is a general rejoicing, and Philip and Claudia are converted and baptized. Philip at once combines the pastoral staff of Bishop of Alexandria with the sword of prefectorial rule.

Many of course are converted. Amongst others Basilissa, a damsel of royal race at Rome, by the assiduous instructions of Protus and Hyacinth, whom Eugenia has given to Basilissa, and she is baptized by Pope S. Cornelius, according [Sept, ii to another account, by Pope Soter, — one is as likely to be Irue as the other.

Then there arises great commotion in Rome, when Basilissa is discovered to be a Christian; Basilissa is executed, and with her Protus and Hyacinth. Eugenia undergoes excruciating martyrdom, and Claudia flies to heaven. Like the play of “ Hamlet,” the romance of Eugenia ends in a general slaughter of the actors.

It is scarcely worth entering into the consideration of the ridiculous anachronisms and impossibilities contained in this story, which is evidently nothing more, and at first was intended to be nothing more, than a religious romance, with which Christians were supplied in place of the stories of Apuleius, Petronius Arbiter, and Achilles Tatius. Even Christian bishops did not disdain to exercise their pens on these romances, to undo in some measure the harm done by erotic novels in those heathen days. Heliodorus, the author of Theagenes and Chariclma, became Bishop of Tricca. If we may trust Nicephorus Callistus, he was given the choice between suppressing his novel and renouncing his bishopric, and chose to stand by his romance. Achilles Tatius, the author of “ The Loves of Leucippus and of Clitophron,” became also a bishop.

It is a mistake to treat as fact what was never intended to be other than a pleasing and harmless tale with a dash of romance in it.

The relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of SS. Protus and Hyacinth were translated in the 9th century to Seligenstadt, of their translation Eginhardt has left ns an account. Seligenstadt lies between Frankfort-on-the-Main and Aschaffenburg. Apparently the bodies were entire, it was not merely a few of their bones which were thus brought to Germany.

The monastery was invaded by the Swedes in the Thirty Years7 War, and the bones of the Saints torn from their shrines; but some of them were recovered. Sept. it.

SS. Felix and Regula. Two other bodies of SS. Protus and Hyacinth were, however, found on the Salarian way in the catacomb in the 10th century, and were translated to Metz. Two other bodies, entire, in San Felice at Pavia; two others again, also entire, in the abbey of S. Maria de Castihone, in the diocese of Parma. Two more at Mantua; two entire bodies of the same saints were translated with Papal authority, at Florence in 1428. These lie in a brazen sarcophagus. Two more bodies were translated by Pope Clement VIII. from the church of S. Salvatore to that of S. John of Florence, at Rome, in 1592. Two more bodies at Como, translated first in 724, then in 1096, then in 1317,