The Holy Martyrs Juventinus and Maximinus

Now Julian, with less restraint, or should I say less shame, began to arm himself against true religion. He wore, indeed, a mask of moderation, but all the while he was setting snares and traps that caught everyone deceived by them in the ruin of wickedness. He began by polluting the wells in the city and in Daphne with foul sacrifices, so that everyone who used the springs would share in the abomination. Then he thoroughly polluted the goods laid out in the Forum, for bread and meat and fruit and vegetables and every kind of food were sprinkled. When those who were called by the Savior’s name saw what had been done, they groaned and lamented and voiced their disgust. Even so they ate, for they remembered the apostle’s law: “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no question for conscience’ sake.” [a]

Two officers in the army, who were shield bearers in the emperor’s guard, at a certain banquet lamented rather warmly the abomination of what was being done. They used the admirable words of the glorious young men in Babylon: “You have handed us over to an ungodly ruler, an apostate beyond all the nations on the earth.” One of the guests reported this. The emperor arrested these most worthy men and tried, by questioning them, to find out what words they had used. They took the emperor’s inquiry as an opportunity to speak openly, and with noble zeal they answered: “Sir, we were brought up in true religion. We obeyed excellent laws, the laws of Constantine and his sons. Now we see the world full of pollution, food and drink alike defiled with abominable sacrifices, and we lament. We mourn these things at home, and now, before your face, we express our grief; for this is the one thing in your reign that we resent.” As soon as the man whom sympathetic courtiers called most gentle and most philosophical heard these words, he took off his mask of moderation and showed the face of ungodliness. He ordered cruel and painful floggings to be inflicted on them, and he took their lives. Or should we not rather say that he set them free from that sorrowful time and gave them crowns of victory? He pretended, indeed, that they were punished not for the true religion, though that was the real reason they were killed, but for their insolence. He gave out that he had punished them for insulting the emperor, and ordered this report to be spread abroad, begrudging these champions of the truth the name and honor of martyrs. The name of one was Juventinus, of the other Maximinus. The city of Antioch honored them as defenders of true religion and laid them in a magnificent tomb, and to this day they are honored with a yearly festival. Other men who held public office and were of high standing showed the same boldness of speech and won the same crowns of martyrdom.