Perhaps the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican is the most sacred place in Christianity outside the Holy Land. And in front of him, the Church has placed the sculpture of a nameless man who represents the one who finished off Jesus on the cross. He did not actually kill him, since he had already expired when he pierced his side with a spear, according to the evangelist John. In its canonical text it states that “when they reached Jesus, seeing that he had already died, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers, with his spear, pierced his side, and immediately blood and water came out.”
He is one of the characters that are part of the Passion of Christ that, due to the lack of information and detail in the Bible, over the centuries has been completed with what is contained in the apocryphal gospels. These are ancient texts not recognized by the Church, but which refer to the story of Jesus and which fill the void of the passages not recounted in the Gospels, from the number of Wise Men to the name of Longinus. And they have arrived until today confused between what is “official” for the Church and what is not.
“These texts try to explain what canonical evangelicals do not explain,” says Armand Puig, president of the Holy See Agency for the Evaluation and Promotion of the Quality of Universities and Ecclesiastical Faculties (Avepro). “And, therefore, if there is something nice, it is that they explain something to you that you would like to know, but that you don't know,” he adds, before detailing that they are born from “popular piety.”
Longinus's name does not seem to be the real one, but is a definition of his role in the crucifixion of Christ. Lanza is written in Greek “lonjé”, so Longinos could be a derivation of the term. It is the one with the spear, or the one with the spear. However, Francisco Ramírez Fueyo, dean of the Faculty of Theology at the Comillas Pontifical University, clarifies that Longinos was a common name in Rome. “Longinos is a Roman name. He is not a made-up man. In fact, there is a famous one, Gaius Cassius Longinus, who was one of those who conspired against Julius Caesar. And also, curiously, he had been governor in the area of Syria in the 40s BC. C.”
The first time the name Longinus appears is in the Acts of Pilate that ended up integrated into the Gospel of Nicodemus, apocryphal texts dating from the 2nd or 3rd century, or even somewhat later. The thing is that we don't know if the name already appeared in the original text or if it was added in later transcriptions or translations into other languages.
Tradition also leads to the fact that, over the years, the soldier who spears Jesus ends up “merging” with another character that two of the other evangelists (Mark and Matthew) do mention: he is the one who recognizes, after seeing Jesus die, Jesus, that “truly this man was the Son of God.” Ramírez Fueyo points out that, “during the first millennium, the apocryphal testimonies we have, from Church fathers and historians, distinguish one from the other; and, on the other hand, already in the 13th century, in the legends of the Saints, they appear unified.”
In the opinion of Antonio Piñero, professor of Greek Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid, “there is a tremendous imagination with which the gaps of what is not in the canonical tradition are filled. It is surprising the influence that the apocrypha have had, in general, in the formation, even of the construct of the Christian religion in terms of its dogmatic edifice.” In his opinion, there are many doubts about the historical existence of Longinus. “Possibly, not even the launch is historic. There are enormous doubts. In the modern construction of the life of the historical Jesus, the Gospel of John is followed only in certain passages. And, really, the fact that blood and water flow from the side of Jesus has the symbolic meaning that at that moment the Scriptures are being fulfilled.”
On the other hand, Christian theology gives enormous importance to blood and water over the centuries. “A lot of importance is beginning to be given to that symbol of the open side from which blood and water flow that purify and forgive sins. It is a symbol of the sacraments: the water of baptism, the blood of the Eucharist,” reflects Ramírez Fueyo.
That the throwing scene appears only in the Gospel of John, which from a chronological point of view is traditionally placed as the last, is not a coincidence for Piñero. “The Gospel of John takes all the previous stories, he knows all the tradition, and he collects it and rewrites it,” says the emeritus professor, who insists that “rewriting was common at the time.”
The act of spearing also avoids complying with the Roman tradition of breaking the legs of those condemned to crucifixion so that they would die sooner from asphyxiation, as they do not have a support point for their feet. Those condemned to die on the cross did not usually die from their wounds, but from asphyxiation due to not being able to breathe after spending hours or days in that position. With the fracture of the legs the process was accelerated.
And in the case of Jesus, the fact that a spear was chosen instead of the fracture of the tibia and fibula is a way of fulfilling several prophecies. “With what is said in the Gospel of John, on the one hand, the text that says that they will not break any of Jesus' bones is fulfilled. It is a reference to the Passover Lamb, which must be roasted whole. And the passage from Zechariah is also fulfilled.”
He who chooses not to break his legs, Longinus, occupies a prominent place in front of the main altar of Saint Peter in Rome, while his sculpture by Bernini houses a relic of the supposed spear he used. Relics proliferated shortly after when the gospels place the death of Jesus. “We cannot say an exact date, but it is approximately from the 2nd and 3rd centuries,” says Ariadna Guimerà, professor of Ancient History at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Among the prominent figures is Saint Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, with whom several pilgrimage routes to the Holy Land were born and who claims to have found relics such as the True Cross. “Constantine is considered one of the first Christian emperors, above all, sources say, thanks to the influence of his mother, Helena, who traveled to Jerusalem to build different churches and placed relics in these pilgrimage points,” she adds. .
There are fragments of Longinus' spear all over the world, from Nuremberg to the aforementioned St. Peter's Basilica. “All of them are relics whose historical verification is given by faith, not by verification,” Puig clarifies.
Longinus has also jumped into more popular culture, as in the case of Wagner's opera Parsifal, in which the spear that pierced the side appears in the first scene. On the theological level, the soldier has ended up immersed in a hagiographic process that has led to his sanctification, unlike other characters in the Passion such as Simon of Cyrene, who helped Christ carry the cross on the way to Calvary by order of the Roman soldiers.
Although the tradition has been different in the West with respect to the East. “In the West the spear dominates, and in the East, Longinos,” explains Armand Puig, who recalls how in many of the Holy Week processions in Spain the spear appears as one of the elements of the passion along with the crown of thorns, for example. On the other hand, in the East Longinus stands out as a saint.
In the 13th century, a new tradition also emerged with “Jacobo de Vorágine, who is archbishop of Genoa and who wrote a life of the Saints that is known as the Golden Legend, or Golden Legend. And in that legend it is explained that Longinus had vision problems, that he pierced Jesus with a spear and that Jesus' blood reached his eyes and healed him.
Thirteen centuries of evolution end up turning the nameless soldier into a person who is healed thanks to divine intervention.
