Secret Knowledge and the Protection of the Soul: Cynewulf's Juliana as Patroness and Dialectician

Juliana of Nicomedia, the focus of Cynewulf’s Old English poem Juliana, was martyred during the fourth century and became the patroness of those seeking protection from illness. In Cynewulf’s version, Juliana refuses to marry the heathen king Eleusius and, despite torment, courageously maintains her soul’s integrity against the deceptive onslaught of a demon who visits her prison cell. Such resistance to demonic attack might easily lend itself to associations with illness. Victoria Thompson has noted that Anglo-Saxon writers described contagion as an assault upon the body from outside, parallel to Satan’s attacks upon the soul. Juliana’s resistance to her demonic visitor ultimately forces him to reveal his secret knowledge of human vulnerabilities, which the saint transforms into a shield for the souls of the faithful, insuring their spiritual strength against enemies just as her name was invoked to defend the vulnerable body against illness.

Juliana’s acquisition of this secret knowledge, central to her role as a patroness of those who seek protection from external attack, occurs through three dialectical exchanges in the poem: a debate with her heathen father, Africanus; a confrontation with Eleusius himself; and finally a dispute with the demon in her prison. Juliana’s courageous witness in these debates facilitates the dialectical process of inventio, seeking truth and wisdom by discovering arguments in defense of Christian teaching. Having received a divine command to restrain the demon, Juliana holds him þurh deop gehygd  (“through deep thought,” 431b). Cynewulf’s text thus associates her strength and courage with the intellectual processes of reflection and deliberation that strengthen the soul. These processes enable her to fortify the faithful against the attacks of both demons and, through allegorical association, the illnesses that seek to invade the body.