IUNIUS, FRANÇOIS (FRANÇOIS DU JON). - Protestant theologian and philologist, b. at Bourges on 1 May 1545, d. at Leiden on 13 Oct. 1602. While still very young, he exercised the pastoral ministry in the Walloon church of Antwerp (1565), then in the same capacity at Limburg and subsequently at Heidelberg (1567), where he also collaborated with Emanuele Tremellius on the Latin translation of the Old Testament (Frankfurt, 1579).
In 1578 Elector Palatine Frederick III appointed him professor of theology at Neudstadt, which he left shortly thereafter in order to carry out a diplomatic mission entrusted to him by Henry IV. After returning once more to Neudstadt and Heidelberg, he finally withdrew to Leiden, where he succumbed to the plague. The best known among his very numerous works are the Admonition chrétienne and the Animadversiones on Bellarmine’s polemical writings. A first complete edition of his works was published at Geneva in 1613 under the title Opera theologica Francisci Iunii biturigi, preceded by the autobiography written in 1592; it was republished by A. Kuyper in 1882.