St. JULIANA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR
By Richard P. Mc Brien
Juliana (d. ca. 305) was an early fourth-century martyr who probably died at Naples or at Cumae, which is near Naples, during the persecution of the emperor Maximian. The principal, though legendary, episode associated with her life is the lengthy argument she supposedly had with the Devil, who tried to persuade her to obey her pagan father and to marry a Roman prefect. Condemned to death, she was beheaded after a furnace and boiling oil did no harm to her. There is evidence of her cult inEngland at least as early as the seventh century.
Her feast is not on the General Roman Calendar.
