Longinus (Christian mythology)
| Saint Longinus | |
|---|---|
Longinus pierces the side of Jesus with the Holy Lance. Fresco by Fra Angelico (1395–1455), San Marco, Florence
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| Born | 1st century |
| Died | 1st century |
| Venerated in |
Anglican Communion Coptic Orthodox Church Eastern Orthodox Church Oriental Orthodoxy Roman Catholic Church |
| Major shrine | Inside the St. Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican. |
| Feast |
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| Attributes | Military attire, lance |
Longinus /ˌlɒnˈdʒaɪnəs/ is a legendary name of Christian history given in medieval and some modern Christian traditions to the Roman soldier who pierced Jesus in his side with a lance, the "Holy Lance" (lancea, as related in the Latin Vulgate Bible) during the Crucifixion. This act created the last of the Five Holy Wounds of Christ.
This individual, unnamed in the Gospels, is further identified in legend as the centurion present at the Crucifixion, who testified "This man certainly was the Son of God." Longinus' legend grew over the years to the point that he was said to have converted to Christianity after the Crucifixion, and he is traditionally venerated as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and several other Christian communions.
No name for this soldier is given in the Gospels; the name Longinus is instead found in the pseudepigraphal Gospel of Nicodemus that was appended to the apocryphal Acts of Pilate. Longinus did not start out as a saint. An early tradition, found in the 4th-century pseudepigraphal "Letter of Herod to Pilate", claims that Longinus suffered for having pierced Jesus, and that he was condemned to a cave where every night a lion came and mauled him until dawn, after which his body healed back to normal, in a pattern that would repeat till the end of time. Later traditions turned him into a Christian convert, but as Sabine Baring-Gould observed: "The name of Longinus was not known to the Greeks previous to the patriarch Germanus, in 715. It was introduced amongst the Westerns from the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. There is no reliable authority for the Acts and martyrdom of this saint." However, an old tradition does link the birthplace of Longinus with the village of Anxanum (Lanciano), Samnite territory, in today's Abruzzo region of central Italy.
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