Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology and Greek Menaea. In the latter also* on Oct. 8th, are commemorated together the three Pelagias, the Penitent (Oct 8th), the martyr at Tarsus (May 4th), and the martyr at Antioch, commemorated this day, though she is not called a martyr. Authorities Eusebius, lib. viii., c. 12; S. Ambrose, in his book, De Virginibus, lib. iii., also in his De vera Libertate ac Servitute; S. Chrysostom, two sermons on S. Pelagia.] S. Pelagia, a fair young girl of fifteen, at Antioch, living with her mother and sister, was pursued in the persecution of Numerian. Her exquisite loveliness made her and her mother fear that she would be given over to worse than death. Accordingly, as the soldiers approached to take them, hand in hand they rushed to the river, and were drowned locked in one another's embrace. There is some discrepancy in the accounts of her death. Eusebius says that she, her sister, and mother cast themselves into the river, and he is much more likely to be right than S. Chrysostom, who lived so long after, and who says that they threw themselves off the roof of their house, as the soldiers rushed up stairs to take them. The menology of the Emperor Basil has a different story, and probably commemorates another Pelagia. According to this account a young girl, pursued by soldiers, and dreading, to fall into their brutal power, spread out her hands to heaven and besought God to take her to Himself, a pure flower, untouched by the rough hands of men. And as she prayed, her spirit fled, and she bowed on the face of the desert sand, and the soldiers found her dead.