Justus of Rome

The Holy Martyr Justus, the soldier of Rome

Martyr · d. 1st century, at Magnesia

Commemorated 14 July — Cast into the fire at Magnesia

Justus was a soldier of Rome to whom, the tradition says, the Life-giving Cross appeared in a vision; he believed in Christ, gave away everything he had to the poor, and confessed the faith openly. Denounced as a Christian, he was sent for trial before the governor at Magnesia in Asia, tortured, and at last cast into a fire, in which he gave up his soul — but the flames, the account adds, did not touch his body. The Greek Menaion keeps him on July 14 with a distich that turns the sentence into a paradox: because he would not throw a victim on the altar's fire, he was himself thrown into the fire, a strange victim.

The passion is brief and of the type that the synaxaria preserve in a few lines. Justus — a Latin name, Iustus, "the just," carried in the Greek books as Ἰοῦστος — was a soldier in the Roman army. The account places the turn of his life in a vision of the Cross: returning, it is said, from a campaign, he saw the Life-giving Cross of the Lord shown to him, and understood it, and believed. He was baptised, and did what the earliest converts of substance were remembered for doing: he distributed his property to the poor and thereafter made no secret of his faith.

He was denounced, and by order of the governor of Magnesia in Asia was brought to trial as a Christian. He would not sacrifice. He was put to various tortures, and, still refusing, was thrown into a fire and there gave up his spirit to God. The Christians who came for the body found it, according to the tradition, untouched by the flames — the sign that the martyrologies of the Asian churches often attach to a death by burning, and the ground of his veneration.

The Slavic calendars call him Justus the Roman and place him in the first century; the notice itself names neither emperor nor governor, and the dating rests on the calendar tradition rather than on anything in the passion.

Feast and commemoration

July 14 (church date; New Calendar civil July 14, Old Calendar civil July 27). The commemoration is universal — Greek Menaion, Slavic calendars and the OCA alike — and falls on the day of the Apostle Aquila, whose service the day carries; Justus has no proper office. Where martyrs' readings are appointed on the day, the Russian books give 1 Corinthians 13:11–14:5 and Luke 10:19–21.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)

Thy martyr Justus, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from thee our God; for possessing thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

Justus is written as a soldier-martyr: a young man, beardless or lightly bearded, in the tunic and chlamys — or, where the military character is stressed, in cuirass and cloak — holding the martyr's cross, and often with the Cross of his vision shown in the upper field, radiant, as the cause of his conversion. The fire into which he was cast may be shown at his feet or in the accompanying scene. He appears in the menaia icons for July among the saints of the fourteenth day. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection; a search of Wikimedia Commons under his Greek, Slavonic and English names returned nothing that could be attributed to this Justus rather than to one of the several others of the name.

Disputed questions

Rome or Magnesia. The OCA styles him "Martyr Justus at Rome" and the Slavic books "Justus the Roman," yet the account they carry sets his trial and death at Magnesia in Asia. The two are reconciled most simply by taking "Roman" of his standing — a soldier of the Roman army, very possibly a Roman by birth — and Magnesia of the place where he suffered. The Greek synaxarion gives him no epithet at all.
The century. A first-century date would place him in the very earliest generation of soldier-martyrs; nothing in the notice compels it, and some working lists leave the century open. It is recorded here as the calendars give it, with that reservation.
Not to be confused with the Justus commemorated on June 1 among Justus, Justin and their Companions, the company beheaded at Rome with Justin the Philosopher about 165; nor with Joses called Barsabbas and Justus, of the Seventy (October 30), listed in the Synaxis of the Seventy Apostles.