Longinus
This officer arrives in Palestine with his century shortly before the Passion.[1] He is a seasoned soldier, with an ironic composure. Like most Roman occupation soldiers, this centurion despises the Jews as much as they detest them.
During the Passion[edit | edit source]
He is the one who leads Jesus to Calvary via the "Way of Sorrows". He shows as much humanity as he can. Out of compassion, he offers him water and honey before he begins to carry his cross.[2]
His soldiers defend Jesus to their best ability against the attacks of the Jews. Then, out of pity and fear that he might die on the way before his crucifixion, and despite the hateful crowd positioned to force the longer route, he maneuvers the soldiers. Thus, the procession abruptly detours via a path which sharply shortens the route to the place of execution.[3]
Then he requisitions Simon of Cyrene to help when, after his 3rd fall, the exhausted Jesus collapses under the weight of the cross.[4] and [5] He also allows Mary and John to come closer to the foot of the cross.[6]
During the last moments of Jesus' agony, he stands at attention in the Roman manner. He struggles against emotion and "his eyes begin to shine with tears that only his iron discipline can refrain."[7]
Out of humanity and to avoid having his legs broken, he delivers the coup de Grace to Jesus[8] at the heart. But he does this unknown to the Virgin Mary, with a lance "as for a knight", Jesus was already dead.[9]
It is one of his lancers and not him, who at the moment of the earthquake, publicly confesses the divinity of Jesus.[10]
Holy Saturday, with the iron of the lance[edit | edit source]
He goes to the Cenacle to the Virgin Mary. He brings her the iron of the lance, thus fulfilling her wish to keep the relics of the Passion.[11] And he says:
"This morning at dawn I saw Joseph, the citizen, and he mentioned the Mother’s desire to me. I apologise for not thinking of it myself. Here is the lance. I had kept it as a souvenir of a… of the Saint of Saints. Oh! He is indeed! But it is right that the Mother should have it."[12]
He says to Mary:
"Ave, Domina. A Roman greets you: the Mother of mankind. The true Mother. I would have liked it not to have been me… at… at that affair. But it was an order. However, if I serve to give what You wish, I forgive destiny for choosing me for that horrible thing. Here» and he gives Her the lance enveloped in a red cloth. Only the steel head, not the shaft."[13]
Then his regret:
"He was the only Just Man I ever met in the vast empire of Rome. I regret I only knew Him through the words of my companions. Now… it is late!"[13]
As Mary speaks to him about her Son’s Church, currently persecuted but which will reunite anew, he answers:
"I will come. A religion that has as its head such a hero can but be divine. Ave, Domina!"[13]
After the Resurrection[edit | edit source]
On Easter morning, Longinus and this decurion, each separately, feel a call to conversion.[14]
The apostles, who wait at the Cenacle for the appearance of Jesus, as he promised when appearing to Lazarus,[15] report that Longinus wondered: should he ask to heal or to To Believe? He chooses faith. An inner voice then tells him "come to Me". At the same time, he feels compelled to to Believe and notices his healing.[16]
Then he accompanies Claudia Procula to Caesarea on the Sea where she takes refuge with the group of Roman women, all on the path to conversion.[17]
A hero of Christ[edit | edit source]
In a dictation to Maria Valtorta, Jesus comments:
"Pilate is a false good man. Longil:ms is good, because although he was less powerful than the Praetor and less defended, in the middle of the street and surrounded by few soldiers and a hostile multitude, he dares to defend Me, help Me, grant Me a rest, to be consoled by the pious Women, be assisted by the man from Cyrene and finally to have My Mother at the foot of the Cross. He was a hero of justice and so he became a hero of Christ."[18]
Where is he mentioned in the work?[edit | edit source]
GRM 107
GRM 549
GRM 604 GRM 604.36 GRM 608 GRM 609 GRM 614 GRM 626 GRM 627 GRM 628 GRM 630 GRM 631 GRM 641
More about this character[edit | edit source]
Excerpts from the Dictionary of Gospel Characters, According to Maria Valtorta (Msgr. René Laurentin, François-Michel Debroise, Jean-François Lavère, Éditions Salvator, 2012):
Saint Longinus is celebrated on March 15.
Claudia Procula, in her letters to a certain Fulvia Hersila, mentions: "You know I met the centurion who presided over the execution of Jesus, a veteran of the wars against the Parthians and the Germans..."
These letters, published in 1886 in La semaine religieuse de Carcassonne, have however a confused origin.[19]
The name Longinus appears in the Gospel of Nicodemus or Acts of Pilate,[20] a 4th-century apocryphon. In the 6th century, an illumination in the Rabula Gospels[21] names Loginos the soldier who pierced the side of Christ. In the 8th century, Longinus appears on the fresco of Santa Maria Antica (Rome) commissioned by Pope Zachary.
Salton Eginhard, a scholar at Charlemagne's court, brought to Mantua (Lombardy) some earth from Calvary soaked with Christ's blood, as well as the sponge with which Jesus' thirst was quenched. In 804, he recounts in his annals, these facts were miraculously revealed during an apparition of Saint Andrew the Apostle to a monk. This founded the worship practiced in the Basilica of Saint Andrew the Apostle of Mantua. In 1053, Pope Leo IX came to honor the precious relics and confirm their authenticity.
Adon of Vienne (circa 850) mentions in his Martirologe that Longinus, at the foot of the Cross, was healed not only of spiritual blindness but also of poor eyesight. This is reiterated in the 13th century by Jacques de Voragine in his Golden Legend.[22]
He spent twenty-eight years in Caesarea of Cappadocia (Turkey). He died there a martyr. This is the version retained by the Orthodox Church which celebrates Saint Longinus on October 16. According to Salton Caesar Baronius (1538-1607), his body rests in Rome, in the Church of Saint Augustine.[23]
Notes and references[edit | edit source]
- ↑ GRM 549
- ↑ GRM 608.1
- ↑ GRM 608.3-4
- ↑ Matthew 27:32.
- ↑ GRM 608.12
- ↑ GRM 609.8
- ↑ GRM 609.21
- ↑ See John 19:34
- ↑ GRM 609.27
- ↑ See Matthew 27:54.
- ↑ GRM 614.6
- ↑ GRM 614.6.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 GRM 614.7
- ↑ GRM 626.2-4
- ↑ GRM 621.7-9
- ↑ GRM 627.3
- ↑ GRM 630.13
- ↑ GRM 604.42
- ↑ Christian Doumergue, Claudia Procula, wife of Pontius Pilate, Les cahiers de terre de Rhedae, No. 2 May 2008.
- ↑ Gospel of Nicodemus or Acts of Pilate, § 16.7.
- ↑ The Rabula Gospels is a 6th-century Syriac illuminated manuscript. This set of 292 folios is signed by its scribe Rabula (Rabbula), about whom nothing else is known. The work is preserved at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence.
- ↑ The Golden Legend by Jacques de Voragine
- ↑ Jean-Paul Migne, Hagiographic Dictionary, Volume 2, 1850.