occasion on which a European plenipotentiary ever entered Peking accompanied by all the pomp and circumstance of his rank.
Outside the Forbidden City the most noteworthy building is the Temple of Heaven, which stands in the outer or Chinese city. Here at early morning on the 21st of December the emperor offers sacrifice on an open altar to Shang-ti, and at periods of drought or famine presents prayers for relief to the same supreme deity. The altar at which these solemn rites are performed consists of a triple circular marble terrace, 210 ft. wide at the base, 150 in the middle and 90 at the top. The uppermost surface is paved with blocks of the same material forming nine concentric circles, the innermost consisting of nine blocks, and that on the outside of eighty-one blocks. On the central stone, which is a perfect circle, the emperor kneels. In the same temple stands the altar of prayer for good harvests, which is surmounted by a triple-roofed circular structure 99 ft. in height. The tiles of these roofs are glazed porcelain of the most exquisite deep-blue colour, and add a conspicuous element of splendour to the shrine.
The other powers of nature have shrines dedicated to them in the altar: to the Earth on the north of the city, the altars to the Sun and Moon outside the north-eastern and north-western angles respectively of the Chinese city, and the altar of agriculture inside the south gate of the Chinese city. Next to these in religious importance comes the Confucian temple, known as the Kwo-tsze-kien. Here there is no splendour; everything is quite plain; and one hall contains all that is sacred in the building. There the tablets of “the soul of the most holy ancestral teacher, Confucius,” and of his ten principal disciples stand as objects of worship for their countless followers. In one courtyard of this temple are deposited the celebrated ten stone drums which bear poetical inscriptions commemorative of the hunting expeditions of King Sūan (827–781 B.C.), in whose reign they are believed, though erroneously, to have been cut; and in another stands a series of stone tablets on which are inscribed the names of all those who have obtained the highest literary degree of Tsin-shi for the last five centuries.
In the south-eastern portion of the Tatar city used to stand the observatory, which was built by order of Kublai Khan in 1296. During the period of the Jesuit ascendancy in the reign of K'ang-hi (1661–1721), the superintendence of this institution was confided to Roman Catholic missionaries, under whose guidance the bronze instruments formerly existing were constructed. The inhabitants of Peking being consumers only, and in no way producers, the trade of the city is very small, though the city is open to foreign commerce. In 1897 a railway was opened between Tientsin and Peking. This was only effected after great opposition from the ultra-Conservatives, but once accomplished the facilities were gladly accepted by all classes, and the traffic both in goods and passengers is already enormous. Out of deference to the scruples of the ultra-Conservatives, the terminus was fixed at a place called Lu-Kou-ch'iao, some 4 m. outside the walls, but this distance has since been covered by an electric tramway. The trunk line constructed by the Franco-Belgian syndicate connects Lu-Kou-ch'iao, the original terminus, with Hankow—hence the name Lu-Han by which this trunk line is generally spoken of, Lu being short for Lu-Kou-ch'iao and Han for Hankow.
Bibliography.—A Williamson, Journeys in North China, Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia (2 vols., London, 1870); S. W. Williams, The Middle Kingdom, revised ed. (New York, 1883); A. Favier, Péking, histoire et description (Peking, 1900—contains over 800 illustrations, most of them reproductions of the work of Chinese artists), N. Oliphant, A Diary of the Siege of the Legations in Peking during the Summer of 1900 (London, 1901); A. H. Smith, China in Convulsion (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1902). (R. K. D.)
PELAGIA, ST. An Antiochene saint of this name, a virgin of fifteen years, who chose death by a leap from the housetop rather than dishonour, is mentioned by Ambrose (De virg. in. 7, 33, Ep. xxxvii. ad Simplic.), and is the subject of two sermons by Chrysostom. Her festival was celebrated on the 8th of October (Wright's Syriac Martyrology). In the Greek synaxaria the same day is assigned to two other saints of the name of Pelagia—one, also of Antioch, and sometimes called Margarito and also “the sinner”; the other, known as Pelagia of Tarsus, in Cilicia. The legend of the former of these two is famous. She was a celebrated dancer and courtesan, who, in the full flower of her beauty and guilty sovereignty over the youth of Antioch, was suddenly converted by the influence of the holy bishop Nonnus, whom she had heard preaching in front of a church which she was passing with her gay train of attendants and admirers. Seeking out Nonnus, she overcame his canonical scruples by her tears of genuine penitence, was baptized, and, disguising herself in the garb of a male penitent, retired to a grotto on the Mount of Olives, where she died after three years of strict penance. This story seems to combine with the name of the older Pelagia some traits from an actual history referred to by Chrysostom (Hom. in Matth. lxvii. 3). In associating St Pelagia with St Marina, St Margaret (q.v.), and others, of whom either the name or the legend recalls Pelagia, Hermann Usener has endeavoured to show by a series of subtle deductions that this saint is only a Christian travesty of Aphrodite. But there is no doubt of the existence of the first Pelagia of Antioch, the Pelagia of Ambrose and Chrysostom. The legends which have subsequently become connected with her name are the result of a very common development in literary history.
See Acta sanctorum, October, iv. 248 seq.; H. Usener. Legenden der heiligen Pelagia (Bonn, 1879); H. Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints (London, 1907), pp. 197–205. (H. De.)
PELAGIUS, the name of two popes.
Pelagius I., pope from 555 to 561, was a Roman by birth, and first appears in history at Constantinople in the rank of deacon, and as apocrisiarius of Pope Silverius, whose overthrow in favour of Vigilius his intrigues promoted. Vigilius continued him in his diplomatic appointment, and he was sent by the emperor Justinian in 542 to Antioch on ecclesiastical business; he afterwards took part in the synod at Gaza which deposed Paul of Alexandria. He had amassed some wealth, which on his return to Rome he so employed among the poor as to secure for himself great popularity; and, when Vigilius was summoned to Byzantium in 544, Pelagius, now archdeacon, was left behind as his vicar, and by his tact in dealing with Totila, the Gothic invader, saved the citizens from murder and outrage. He appears to have followed his master to Constantinople, and to have taken part in the Three Chapters controversy; in 553, at all events, he signed the “constitutum” of Vigilius in favour of these, and for refusing, with him, to accept the decrees of the fifth general council (the 2nd of Constantinople, 553) shared his exile. Even after Vigilius had approved the condemnation of the Three Chapters, Pelagius defended them, and even published a book on the subject. But when Vigilius died (June 7, 555), he accepted the council, and allowed himself to be designated by Justinian to succeed the late pope. It was in these circumstances that he returned to Rome; but most of the clergy, suspecting his orthodoxy, and believing him to have had some share in the removal of his predecessor, shunned his fellowship. He enjoyed, however, the support of Narses, and, after he had publicly purged himself of complicity in Vigilius's death in the church of St Peter, he met with toleration in his own immediate diocese. The rest of the western bishops, however, still held aloof, and the episcopate of Tuscany caused his name to be removed from the diptychs. This elicited from him a circular, in which he asserted his loyalty to the four general councils, and declared that the hostile bishops had been guilty of schism. The bishops of Liguria and Aemilia, headed by the archbishop of Milan, and those of Istria and Venice, headed by Paulinus of Aquileia, also withheld their fellowship; but Narses resisted the appeals of Pelagius, who would have invoked the secular arm. Childebert, king of the Franks, also refused to interfere. Pelagius died on the 4th of March 561, and was succeeded by John III.
Pelagius II., a native of Rome, but of Gothic descent, was pope from 579 to 590, having been consecrated successor of Benedict I., without the sanction of the emperor, on the 26th of
