THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
self next to the cause of temperance, to the relief of the stricken in the famine years of 1845^46, to remedial schemes of colonization. At a time when orthodoxy and public beneficence had no intimate connection, he succeeded in uniting the propagation of the Gospel with the distribution of material aid. In this field he was assisted by the " Assembly of Christian Friends " of Amsterdam, which included such men as Capadose, Da Costa, Beets, and Groen van Prinsterer. But, while no branch of philanthropy failed to receive his attention, Heldring devoted his particular efforts to rescue work among the fallen. For the reclamation of unfortunate women he established an asylum at Steenbeck in 1847, and to gain support for this institution traveled throughout the country preaching the Gospel of charity toward the weak. The asylum was followed by other institutions for the protection of young women and girls, and by a seminary for the training of teachers for work in that field.
(Theodor Schafer.)
Bibliography: His autobiography was published by his son, L. Heldring, at Leyden, 1881, Germ, transl., Giitersloh, 1882; N. Beets, Zum Gedachtniss an 0. G. Heldring, Hamburg, 1876.
HELENA, hel'e-na, SAINT: 1. The most famous of the saints of the church bearing the name of Helena was the mother of Constantine the Great (q.v.). Little is known of her life, although it is certain that her importance in the career of her son was less than is generally supposed. There is no doubt that she was of humble birth, and the legend which makes her a British princess is late. Her only child, Constantine, seems to have been born at Xaissus in Upper Mcesia in 274, while she herself probably came from Drepanum, later called Helenopolis, on the Gulf of Nicomedia. According to Ambrose, she was a female tavern-keeper, and it is not certain whether her marriage with Constantius was at first legal. Her husband divorced her in 292 to marry Theodora, the stepdaughter of Maximus Herculius, for reasons of state, and Helena then retired to obscurity, although her son, after his accession, recalled her to court and heaped honors upon her. Late in life, after the defeat of Licinius in 324, she visited Palestine, founded churches in various cities, and dispensed much charity, but the date of her conversion to Christianity is unknown. She was still living when Crispus was murdered in 326, and overwhelmed her son with reproaches for the assassination of her grandson. Nevertheless, Constantine had coins struck in her honor. The place and date of her death are uncertain, but she must have died between 326 and 328 or 329. Her body was brought to Constantinople by her son, although the church of Aracceli in Rome, the city of Venice, and the monastery of Hautvilliers near Reims have all claimed to be her final resting-place. The best-known legend connected with her is the invention of the Holy Cross (see Cross, Invention of the), a tradition told neither by Eusebius nor by Cyril of Jerusalem, but first by Rufinus, on whom Socrates, Sozomen, and others based their accounts. The foundation of the legend is Josephus' story of the Jewish convert Helena, queen of Adiabene {Ant. XX., ii., iv. 3), and this tradition was
first transferred to the mother of Constantine in the latter part of the fourth century. Her day ig Aug. 14. See Constantine the Great and His Sons, L, § 2.
2. A second St. Helena is the Russian Grandprincess Olga, the widow of Igor, who was baptized at Constantinople 955, when she assumed the name of Helena. Her day in the Julian calendar is Julv 11. '
3. A third saint of this name is Helena of Skufde in Sweden, where she was murdered by her noble kinsmen of West Gothland about 1160, after her return to Sweden from a pilgrimage. She was canonized by Alexander III. in 1164, and her remains are interred on the island of Seeland. Her cult is restricted to the Scandinavian countries and her day is July 31. (Adolf Harnack.)
Bibliography: 1. Sources are: Eusebius, Life of Constantine, iii. 41-47; Socrates, Hist, eccl., i. 17-18; Sozomen, Hist, eccl., ii. 1-2; Rufinus, Hist, eccl., x. 7-8; Theodoret Hist, eccl., i. 18. The Vita by the cenobite Altmannus (d. 882), with comment, is in ASB, Aug., iii. 548-599. Consult: DeMas Letrie, Hist, de Vile de Chypre, Paris, 1852-61 (for traditions as to place of her death); Abbe' Lucot, S. Helene, sa vie, son culte en Champagne,
son suaire a Chalons, son corps a Paris, Paris, 1877; S. Beissel, in Geschichte der Trierer Kirchen, i. 82-90, 123 124-131, Trier, 1887; H. V Sauerland, Trierer Geschichtsquelten, pp. 61-79, 140 sqq., 144-172, ib. 1889; Ceillier, Auteurs sacres, iii. 118-119, 143, 579-580, vii. 482-483, viii. 71-72, 114-115, 516, x. 44, xii. 697, xiii. 524-525; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, i. 397 sqq., ii. 211, 290, 455; Neander, Christian Church, ii. 7, 31, 377; DCB, ii. 881- 885; KL, v. 1735-39.
3. E. Castremont, , Hist, de I' introduction du christiannisme sur le continent russe el la vie de S. Olga, Paris, 1879; KL, v. 1741.
3. ASB, July, vii. 329-333; KL, v. 1739-41.
HELIAND, THE, AND THE OLD-SAXON GEN- ESIS : Until recent times the only Old-Saxon Bibheal poem known was the harmony of the Gospels called the Heliand, which is found in approximately complete form in two manuscripts, one at Munich (originally in Bamberg) and the other in London. These two manuscripts give a poem of 5,983 verses; smaller fragments are also found in manuscripts at Prague and in the Vatican, the latter being originally from Mainz, whence it was taken successively to Heidelberg and Rome. As early as 1875 E. Sievers advanced the theory that an interpolation (lines 235-851) in the Anglo-Saxon version of Genesis attributed to Csedmon (q.v.) was taken from an Old-Saxon original, and this hypothesis was confirmed when, in 1894, K. Zangemeister discovered in the Vatican manuscript already noted not only the original of the Anglo-Saxon passage, but also two other portions of an Old-Saxon version of Genesis, giving 617 verses treating of the fall of the evil angels and the fall of man (corresponding to the passage in the Anglo-Saxon Genesis), 134 verses of the history of Cain and Abel, and 177 of the fall of Sodom.
The Heliand and Genesis are closely related, both in vocabulary and in formulas, phrases of considerable length occasionally recurring, almost without alteration, in both texts. This is confirmed by the only external authority regarding the text, t he Prcefar tio in librum antiquum lingua Saxonica conscriptum, copied by Flacius Illyricus in 1562 in his Catalogus testium veritatis from a source now lost. Although