The Lance of Longinus
What is hidden behind a relic also attested in a passage from the Gospel of John? Why did so many historical figures, including Hitler, do everything to possess it? What if it came from space? And what is Lateral Blood?
The gospel
« [...] It was the day of Preparation and the Jews, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross during the Sabbath - that Sabbath was in fact a solemn day - asked Pilate to have their legs broken and taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other who had been crucified together with him. However, when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers struck his side with the spear and immediately blood and water came out. [...]"(Jn 19, 31-34)
This passage from the Gospel of Saint John testifies to a typical event at the time of the crucifixions. Since for the Jews the cross was a sign of curse (see Galatians 3:12), the burial of the hanging corpses was prescribed before the setting of the sun, so that they would not contaminate the holy land. To ensure the death of the condemned, their legs were broken; only Jesus was spared this (no bone will be broken - Exodus 12.46), but a praetorian guard struck him with a spear in his side, causing a gash from which blood and water flowed.
Beyond the meaning that the church attributes to this event, the consideration remains that - according to the legend that arose around it - from that moment the spear acquired miraculous powers.
Who was the Praetorian Guard?
The man who delivered the spear blow to Jesus' side was, according to a tradition deduced from some apocryphal gospels including that of Nicodemus, the Roman centurion Gaius Cassius Longinus. The name Longinus derives from the Greek longkhé which means spear.
It seems that he was also known as Longinus the Isaurian from the name of the Roman province from which he came (modern Turkey), although according to other traditions he was originally from Italy.
It is also said that after the spear blow given to Jesus and after witnessing the miracle of the water and blood flowing from the wound, Longinus was struck by a religious crisis which led him to convert. The conversion would have occurred - according to another tradition - when, when Jesus' side was slashed, some drops of blood began to run down the shaft of the spear and from there fell on the centurion's sick eyes, healing them.
Once converted he would undertake a work of evangelical diffusion starting from the city of Mantua. And in fact in a work by Ippolito Donesmondi (La Istoria Eclesiastica di Mantua, 1612) it is said that Longinus arrived in Mantua in 36 AD bringing with him an ampoule of the precious blood of Jesus and a piece of the sponge that was used to give him drink vinegar (1).
Around 37 AD Longinus would have been beheaded. The figure of him is however controversial, in fact the same name indicates, even in the same Christian tradition, two characters: the soldier of the spear and the centurion who proclaimed the divinity of Christ after his death on the cross (2).
All this, however, does not affect the historical religious importance of two relics linked to these facts: the Lateral Blood and the Spear of Longinus.
The Lateral Blood
It was so called because it came down from Jesus' side. After its entry into the "history" of religious relics (around 36 AD) it remained hidden until around the year 800, when it was accidentally found. The discovery aroused the interest of two very famous figures of the time: LEO III (3) and CHARLES THE MAGNES (742 - 814). Both went to Mantua (place of discovery) and here Leo III founded the episcopate while Charlemagne took a part of the relic to take it to France.
When around 924 the city of Mantua was besieged by Barbarians from Hungary, the people hid the Lateral Blood by dividing it into two parts. Part of it was buried in the old city, near the cathedral; the other part was buried in the place of the first discovery, the garden of the oratory of Sant'Andrea. Legend has it that after all the people mysteriously lost the memory of the places where these relics were hidden.
In about 1050, the Lateral blood was found: a blind beggar sees Saint Andrew in a dream, who tells him where to dig. A church for Sant'Andrea was built on the site of the discovery, which was destroyed 4 centuries later by Ludovico Gonzaga to build the current basilica designed by Alberti.
The Spear of Longinus
Perhaps much more important is the historical fate that befell the Spear of Longinus. We have already seen how its tradition was born from the few lines that the Gospel of John dedicates to the event. It immediately became a miserable symbol and an object endowed with immense powers, immediately linking itself in tradition to another myth: The Holy Grail (4).
Holy Grail and Spear of Longinus appear together in the Grail Procession described in 1190 by Chretien de Troys.
The Spear of Longinus returns in an Irish epic poem in which Melora, the daughter of the mythical King Arthur, uses it to dissolve a spell that Orlando was the victim of.
The Spear of Longinus in history
According to what can be established, the first historical figures who were interested in the Lance were Constantine the Great (280 - 337) and Frederick Barbarossa (1122 - 1190) who used it as a powerful talisman.
Charles Martel (5) used it to ward off the invasion of the Arabs. But without a doubt the person who established a morbid and visceral relationship with the spear, of almost insane love, was Adolf Hitler.
The Spear of Longinus and Hitler
It was 1909 when a young Adolf Hitler strolled around the rooms of the Hofburg museum in Vienna. Among the numerous objects on display, only one immediately caught his interest: the Heilige Lanze (The Spear of Longinus).
So in 1938, when Hitler annexed Austria to Germany with a rather questionable act called Anschluss, he was free to realize one of his most secret dreams: possessing the Spear of Longinus.
At this point one could fictionalize the scene. Hitler who solemnly approaches the case containing the spear, opens it with fearful respect and poorly concealed audacity. He observes the spear and slowly grabs it and raises it above himself. Well, at that precise moment he must have felt like master of the world.
After the Nazi dictator took the spear, it was transported to Nuremberg, where it was placed as a relic in St. Catherine's Church. History has now shown us that in reality the Spear of Longinus did not produce the miraculous and favorable results for the Nazi dictator that he expected.
After the defeat at Stalingrad, Hitler ordered the spear to be transported to a bombproof shelter - an ancient tunnel under the Nuremberg fortress. After the Allies' final attack on Nazi Germany on 13 October 1944, legends began to spread about the existence of a secret place that contained immense treasures.
In April 1945 Nuremberg was occupied and the city's mayor - the only one who knew where the spear was hidden - died. According to some, in reality, the Burgomaster "committed suicide", in fact after his death his apartment was carefully cleaned, as if someone was trying to hide something.
The allies continued their search, Churchill himself had the search for the Spear as a priority and, finally, at 2.10 pm on 30 April 1945, the same day and perhaps the same moment in which Hitler committed suicide in Berlin, the Spear of Longinus was recovered by the Americans. General Patton, it is said, was on the verge of giving in to the temptation to possess it for himself. But then his exceptional intelligence made his common sense prevail, and the Lancia was returned to Austria, a nation where it can still be admired today in the Wel-tliche Schatzkammer of the Hofburg in Vienna.
Legend within the Legend
In a book published in the state of Illinois (6), edited by Colonel Howard A. Buechner and Captain Wilhelm Bernardt, one can read that, in all probability, Himmler (7) had an exact copy of the spear made by a probably Japanese craftsman and it was precisely this copy that was the protagonist of the vicissitudes just illustrated.
That evening (the evening of the annexation of Austra to Germany), again according to this publication, the Lancia was embarked on a U-Boat 530 submarine and subsequently hidden on the ice of Antarctica. From here, she would later be recovered by a phantom Order of Knights of the Holy Lance, who would guard her with the aim of maintaining justice and peace in the world.
The Spear from Space
According to a tradition dating back to the Celts, some creatures coming from sidereal space, deified by the people with whom they came into contact, reigned in Ireland in very ancient times. Upon leaving, these visitors would have honored their subjects with four magical objects including the so-called LANCE OF LUGH, a portentous weapon from the end of which sparks fly and drips blood. Tradition says that the power of this weapon is so strong that when not in use it must be immersed in a cauldron filled with blood and poison to prevent it from destroying everything around it.
Note
- "...they gave him wine mixed with gall to drink..." - Mt 27,34; "...one ran to soak a sponge in vinegar and, placing it on a reed, gave it to him to drink..." - Mk 21,36; "...even the soldiers mocked him and approached him to offer him vinegar..." - Luke 23.36; "...there was a jar full of vinegar there; so they placed a sponge soaked in vinegar on the top of a reed and held it to his mouth..." - John 19.29
- "...The centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus, having heard the earthquake and seen what was happening, were filled with great fear and said: «Truly this was the son of God!»..." - Mt 27.54; "...Then the centurion who was in front of him, seeing him expire in that way, said: «Truly this man was the son of God»..." - Mk 15,39; "...Seeing what had happened, the centurion glorified God, saying: «Truly this man was righteous»...." - Luke 23.47
- Died in 816, he was Pope from 795. It was the Pope who crowned Charlemagne Emperor on Christmas night in 800
- In the medieval legendary cycle it was the name (also written Gral) of the chalice used by Jesus in the Last Supper, which Joseph of Arimathea would have brought to the West
- (685-741) He was the son of Pepin of Héristal, in 716 he succeeded him in the office of majordomo of Austrasia. He stopped the Arab advance into western Europe in 732 with the famous Battle of Poitiers.
- Near the city of Stars. City entirely built and inhabited by a religious sect whose members are convinced that they will be the only ones to be saved from the Apocalypse .
- Number three of the Third Reich, founder of the SS, died in 1945.
