Career
Along with Antonius Hambroek and Joannes Cruyf, he was among the longest-serving missionaries of the Dutch colonial era in Formosa. On arriving in Formosa, Junius took up residence in the village of Sakam, in the vicinity of Fort Provintia in present-day Tainan City. Described as more energetic than his contemporary, George Candidius, Junius was involved in the pacification of Taiwanese aborigines following the slaughter of sixty Dutch people by the natives of Mattau.
This took the form of a short punitive war against the offending villages by Dutch forces, resulting in the killing of "a few dozen" aborigines and a Pax Hollandica which followed after the recalcitrant tribes had been cowed.
Following this campaign, Junius continually urged the authorities in Batavia to send more clergymen to Formosa to assist in the instruction and conversion of the now amenable natives, something in which he was supported by the governor of the time, Hans Putmans. However, he was ultimately disappointed by the response from the colonial administrative centre.
In 1641, he was called to Batavia to report to the Consistory (the religious administrative body for Asia), and asked whether he would like to continue his service in Formosa. He agreed to return for two years, provided that
These requests were agreed upon, and Junius returned to Formosa until late 1643.
One commentator remarks that
"At the end of thirteen years he could report that one thousand and seventy people had been baptized at a single station, Soulang, "and a proportionate number at the other villages," of which he names five".
On December 14, 1643, Junius again went to Batavia at the end of his commission. The Consistory again requested him to return to Formosa to continue his ministry, but this time Junius declined and decided instead to go back to his homeland, Holland. He died of the plague in Amsterdam in 1655.
Junius was related to the orientalist Philippus Baldaeus and Isaac Junius, a painter of Delftware.
A portrait of Junius (48 years old) after Anthonie Palamedesz.