Aristobulus

ON ST. ARISTOBULUS, APOSTLE, BISHOP IN BRITAIN.

FIRST CENTURY.

Historical synopsis.

Aristobulus, Apostle, Bishop in Britain (S.)

§ I. The deeds of St. Aristobulus as set forth by the Greeks: fragments of others examined.

[1] Most Greeks assign to the veneration of St. Aristobulus the day of March 15, some the following day. In the very ancient Synaxarion which exists in Greek manuscript in the Collège de Clermont of the Society of Jesus, the following encomium is read at the said March 15, thus rendered into Latin: The commemoration of the holy Apostle Aristobulus, St. Aristobulus, brother of St. Barnabas, one of the 70 disciples, one of the Seventy, brother of the holy Apostle Barnabas. He, after the glorious and saving ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, followed the holy Apostle Paul as he preached the Gospel throughout the whole world, and ministered to him: by whom he was also ordained ordained Bishop by St. Paul, Bishop for the region of the Britons, a fierce and cruel people: by whom he was sometimes beaten with blows, sometimes dragged through the forum, yet he persuaded many to come to Christ. Whence he also established a Church, and in it ordained Priests and Deacons, and so completed his life. These things are in the said Synaxarion, which, with a few words about the ascension of Christ omitted, are contained in the printed and manuscript Menaea of the Greeks, as also in the Lives of the Saints which Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, published in the modern Greek idiom. In the Alexandrian Chronicle, SS. Barnabas and Aristobulus are reckoned among the seventy disciples of Christ.

[2] But on the following day, March 16, St. Aristobulus is related in the Greek Menologion which was collected by command of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus: in which his deeds are narrated somewhat more at length, to be subjoined here, since that part of this Menologion has hitherto been unpublished: and they are as follows: The divine Aristobulus, Apostle of Christ, was one of the seventy disciples. After the glorious and saving ascension of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, he followed the holy Apostle Paul, the great Teacher of the world, into every city and region, ministering and serving him as his genuine and faithful disciple. having suffered dire things in Britain, When, moreover, he ordained Bishops and sent them into all regions to teach the true faith and to preach Christ, he ordained Aristobulus and sent him into the region of the Britons, who were then men unfaithful, fierce and cruel. To whom as soon as he came and preached Christ, he was beaten with blows, sometimes dragged through the streets, and repeatedly exposed to mockery. Meanwhile he persuaded many to join themselves to Christ and to receive baptism. he established a Church: Whence he also established a Church, and in it ordained Priests and Deacons, and so completed his life.

[3] These are the more certain records which we have hitherto found concerning St. Aristobulus. A certain other Menologion of the Greeks was translated by Cardinal Sirletus and published by Henry Canisius, in which these days of March have been moved from their place, and perhaps supplied from the Menaea. Certainly the Saints pertaining to this March 15 are related in the same order and number both in the said Menaea and in this Menologion; but the narrative concerning St. Aristobulus is quite mutilated, in these words: On the same day, of St. Aristobulus, Bishop of Britain, brother of the blessed Apostle Barnabas; did he die a Martyr? by whom, since he had been ordained Bishop, having been sent to the Britons, he, preaching the faith of Christ and establishing a Church, attained martyrdom. Behold, all mention of St. Paul is omitted, by whom, not by his brother St. Barnabas, he was ordained Bishop according to the others. Furthermore, the beatings, draggings, and mockeries which he once suffered are passed over in silence, and he is said to have attained martyrdom, as if he had perished by a violent death. In all the above-cited sources the Greek is ἐτελειώθη, "he completed his life." Meanwhile Baronius, in his usual manner, citing this last Menologion, inserted the following encomium in the Roman Martyrology: On the same day, the birthday of St. Aristobulus, a disciple of the Apostles, who, having completed the course of his preaching, fulfilled his martyrdom. Hence he is called Bishop and Martyr in the recently compiled English Martyrology, of which more below.

[4] Baronius, in the same notes, citing Dorotheus in his Synopsis, judges that St. Paul mentioned this Aristobulus. The words of Dorotheus are these: Aristobulus himself also is commemorated by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans: he was made Bishop of Britain. But St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, which he sent from Corinth around the year of Christ 55, commands at the end that greetings be sent to those who are of the household of Aristobulus, or, as it reads in Greek, τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ἀριστοβούλου. Hence in the cited English Martyrology it is wrongly inferred that St. Aristobulus was of Roman origin, is he mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans? sprung from a noble lineage, and among the first who embraced the faith in that city. And to make these things more probable, not a word is said about his being one of the seventy disciples of Christ, and brother of St. Barnabas, whom from Acts of the Apostles, chapter 4, it is established was a Cypriot by birth. But since the aforementioned Synopsis, under the name of Dorotheus, has long since been transfixed with the obelus as stuffed with fables and of no authority among the learned, whether the Aristobulus who was a disciple and minister of St. Paul, ordained Bishop by him, is the same as that Aristobulus whose household members are greeted in the Epistle to the Romans, is plainly uncertain in such great silence of the Greeks, from whom alone we have learned that Aristobulus was given as Bishop to the Britons. If, however, it seems to others that he is the same, we do not resist; especially if it be said that Aristobulus was with St. Paul at Corinth when he wrote to the Romans, and that some of his household and of his brother Barnabas were then living at Rome, whom he therefore commanded to be greeted with greater solicitude.

[5] What exists under the name of Braulio, Bishop of Zaragoza, a recently devised fragment published by Bivarius, has among other things these words about St. Aristobulus: was he sent by St. Peter, and in what year? The memory of many Martyrs is celebrated among the Britons, especially of St. Aristobulus, one of the seventy-two disciples... Who went to Rome with Peter. Thence, having left his household, he was sent as Bishop to England and died a Martyr in the second year of the most cruel Emperor Nero. St. Peter came to Rome in the year of Christ 42, Claudius then being Emperor, whom Nero succeeded in the year 54, whose second year of reign in the month of March corresponds to the year 56. Braulio lived in the seventh century, when the Anglo-Saxons were dwelling in the Britain occupied by them, whose name at that time was more commonly used than that of England, especially in ancient matters which occurred several centuries before their arrival. Others cite this testimony under the name of Heleca, also Bishop of Zaragoza, and among them Alford, following Ussher, in the Annals of the British Church at the year 60, number 9, where it is said that Aristobulus perhaps accompanied the Apostle Peter to Britain, and perhaps in the second year of Nero rather sailed to Britain than died. In the English Martyrology it is also reported that he was ordained Bishop by the holy Apostle Peter and sent to Britain to announce the faith of Christ, and it is added that he completed his life either around the year 70, as the earlier edition has it, or in the year 98, as corrected in the later edition: which Alford thinks is more suitably placed at the year 99, led by Arnold Mermann in his Theatre of the Conversion of the Nations, asserting that Britain obtained Aristobulus as its first Apostle in the year 99 and beyond, under Clement as Supreme Pontiff and Domitian as Emperor Augustus. But how much trust this author merits, we have shown on February 3 in the Life of St. Anschar, § XI, who in the year 829 first introduced the faith of Christ into the kingdom of Sweden, which meanwhile Mermann writes was done around the year 265, not distinguishing the kingdom of Sweden from the Suevi who dwelt among the Vindelici and Alemanni. But here he also forgot that he had previously said that St. Paul under Nero visited Britain, the Orkneys, and all the other outermost islands of the Ocean. Even with this not admitted, if St. Aristobulus was sent to Britain by St. Paul or by St. Peter, certainly Britain obtained an Apostle under Nero. But how long he lived, in the silence of the ancients it is great temerity to wish to determine.

[6] Finally Alford inquires of what place in Britain he is to be called Bishop, and adds that some, to honor the dignity of the city of London, have established him as Bishop or Archbishop of London: but Alford prefers that he was created Bishop of Britain without having fixed a permanent See anywhere, and in favor of this opinion is the fact that he is said to have died at Glastonbury Of what place was he Bishop? in Somerset. For so it is read in the English Martyrology. But on what foundation? Perhaps the author conjectured that he should be numbered among the companions of St. Joseph of Arimathea, concerning whom in the Antiquities of Glastonbury, published in the Monasticon Anglicanum, under the title of Saints resting in the church of Glastonbury, the following is read: There rest twelve disciples of the Apostle Philip, directed by him to Britain, the first inhabitants of this place, of whom the first was that noble decurion Joseph of Arimathea, who buried the Lord Christ, together with his son Josephes. So far the text, without mention of St. Aristobulus. Of St. Joseph we shall treat on March 17.

§ II. The new assertion of Tamayo Salazar concerning the bishopric of Britonia of St. Aristobulus in Spain, and of others in Palestine, rejected.

[7] Juan Tamayo Salazar boasts that he is restoring to Spain the memory of this holy Bishop and Martyr, concerning whom he presents the following to be recited for the Martyrology: At Britonia in Hither Spain, of St. Aristobulus, Whether St. Aristobulus was the father of the holy Apostles James and John, parent of the holy Apostles James the Greater and John the Evangelist, who, while sowing the seeds of the evangelical truth throughout the Spains, of which his firstborn son had been the Apostle and Master, putting on the episcopal insignia of Britonia, he died crowned for the faith at the end. He assumes three things to be investigated in order to assert this truth: of which the first is how St. Aristobulus can be called the parent of the holy Apostles James and John, when it is certain from the holy Gospels that they were sons of Zebedee, who, leaving their father Zebedee, followed Christ. Tamayo acknowledges that this is drawn from the passages of twelve Evangelists (he seems to have meant to say four), nor is that read among the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church: yet he has two testimonies in his favor, those of Julian Peter, Archdeacon of Toledo, and of Heleca, Bishop of Zaragoza, or certainly what have recently been obtruded under their names, called "Dreams" on page 744 by James Ussher, a learned but heterodox man. Rodericus Carus, after the Chronicle of Dexter and Maximus, published the additions of Braulio and Heleca, Bishops of Zaragoza, and on page 224, what Bivarius attributes to Braulio is given under the name of Heleca: The memory of many Martyrs is celebrated among the Britons, surnamed Zebedee, especially of St. Aristobulus, one of the 72 disciples, who was also called Zebedee, father of James and John, husband of Mary Salome, who went to Rome with Peter, and thence, leaving his household, was sent as Bishop to England: he died a Martyr in the second year of the most cruel Emperor Nero. And on the following page: Moreover Aristobulus, surnamed Zebedee, was the brother of Barnabas, Apostle of the Lord. So he. Julian has similar things at number 33 of his Chronicle: The memory of St. Aristobulus, surnamed Zebedee, father of James and John, is held to be celebrated. And at number 60 of his Adversaria: Aristobulus, who is also Zebedee, father of the Apostles John and James, was consecrated the first Bishop of Britain... In the year 60, having set out with Joseph of Arimathea, his kinsman, and others for Britain, leaving behind his brother Barnabas in Cyprus, nobly preaching the Gospel of Christ first with his son in Ireland, he adorned the pontifical insignia with the glory of martyrdom. So Julian and Heleca or Braulio: whose assertions Tamayo says he rejects, because they establish St. Aristobulus as the brother of St. Barnabas; but why not rather because they make him Zebedee, the father of SS. John and James?

[8] The second thing to be investigated by Tamayo was whether Zebedee, whom he already believes to be proven to be Aristobulus, was he baptized by St. James? was a Christian and a Bishop. And first it is proved from the Adversaria of Julian,

in almost all copies of Usuard, both handwritten and printed, in many of which, and in Bellinus after

"pierced," is added "as is read in his Acts."

[3] as also the Acts to be given from MSS. We give these Acts from two of our very ancient MSS. referring the passion of St. Longinus to the twenty-second day of November, and collated with four other MSS. of the best quality: the Utrecht MS. of St. Saviour, the Saint-Omer MS. of the Cathedral church, and those of the monasteries of Anchin and of St. Mary of Bonnefont. All of these agree in this closing clause: "These things were done in Caesarea of Cappadocia." Nor do I think the remaining MSS. in which we have found the same Acts disagree: namely the Münster MS. of Bernard Rottendorff, the Würzburg MS. of the Irish, and the Douai, Gembloux, Cistercian, Vallicellian, and Florentine MS. of Carlo Strozzi. Concerning the Florentine and Vallicellian ones at least, upon inquiry we learned that they say precisely the same things. The Évora Breviary of the year 1548, condensing the same Acts into nine Lessons, has twenty-eight years of the solitary life led in Caesarea of Cappadocia, so that in this the records discovered throughout the whole Christian West — in the Germanies, the Spains, the Gauls, and Italy — all conspire. Nor does the most ancient author Rabanus, published by Henry Canisius in his Ancient Readings from a MS. of St. Gall, appear to have read any other Acts than ours, and from these Rabanus when he made this compendium of them: "In Cappadocia, the passion of St. Longinus the Martyr, concerning whom it is narrated in the booklet of his martyrdom that he, once serving as a soldier under a Roman Centurion, during the Lord's passion, opened His side with a lance on the cross, and seeing the earthquake and the signs that were happening, believed in Christ, doing penance for his former deeds: afterwards, having become a monk, he served Christ for thirty-four years (two others, cited below, give thirty-eight), converting many to the faith: but at last he was martyred in Cappadocia under the Governor Octavius, whom, struck by divine judgment with bodily blindness on account of his infidelity, he illuminated after his own martyrdom." Notker, a hundred years younger than Rabanus, wrote the same things word for word in his Martyrology, published by the same editor from MSS. of the same monastery. The same things were transcribed by him who interpolated Bede as published by Molanus: for the genuine Bede is silent on this; and Florus, who first supplied the gaps left by him, mentions only St. Matrona on this day.

[4] Another encomium from the same Acts was composed by Ado, Archbishop of Vienne, published by Surius and Rosweyde, and Ado in these words: "Likewise at Caesarea of Cappadocia, of Blessed Longinus the Soldier and Martyr, who is reported to be the one who opened the side of the Lord Jesus Christ hanging on the cross with a lance. He, afterwards baptized by the Apostles, when he was living in Cappadocia with outstanding holiness, was at length seized by the Governor Octavius, and after confessing the faith, his tongue having been cut out and his teeth knocked out, he was beheaded." These words Ado wrote for the Kalends of September, as also did the author of the Martyrology compiled mostly from the Ecclesiastical History of Rufinus, which Rosweyde believed to be the old Roman Martyrology and published together with Ado. The aforesaid encomium from Ado was further condensed by Maurolycus, who recalled it from the common usage of almost all the Churches to the Ides of March. Galesin did the same, borrowing from Notker or the supplement to Bede the thirty-eight years of penance. The more recent Mantuans nevertheless wish him to have suffered among them.

[5] Although the authority of the Roman Martyrology, in which the passion of St. Longinus the Soldier, who is said to have pierced the Lord's side with a lance, is ascribed to Caesarea in Cappadocia, could be supported and defended by so great a consensus both of ancient and more recent MSS. and printed works, the Mantuans nevertheless rise against it, on behalf of what they claim to be the ancient tradition of their homeland, from which they hold for certain that their ancestors were the first in Italy to receive the Christian faith in the second year after the death of Christ, this very Longinus of whom we treat preaching it, and sealing it with his blood in that city which he had previously enriched by burying there the blood of Christ which he had brought.

[6] Indeed, I strongly doubt whether that opinion is even a hundred years old the older writers are silent on this matter, Baptista Mantuanus which is thrust upon us as a tradition received from immemorial time: for Giovanni Battista Mantuanus, a distinguished ornament of the Carmelite Order and of the homeland from which he drew his surname, who died in the year 1516, in his excellent poem on St. Longinus, Book 3 of the Fasti, records that his body was conveyed thither across the seas; that he had preached the faith there while alive, he would never have concealed, if he had even heard any such rumor: for he laboriously amasses even those things which will be shown from other sources to pertain entirely to the Centurion, under whom this Soldier served. We also have the commentaries on Mantuan affairs by Marius Equicola of Alveto, and Marius Equicola written in the vernacular language of that time and printed without indication of the place of printing in the year 1521: nor in these, although he traces the origin of his homeland from the fables of Mantus and Tiresias after Virgil, is there anywhere any word about the founding of the Christian faith among the Mantuans by Longinus; nor even about the body then discovered, since he says the sacred blood was first discovered in the times of Charlemagne: but at the later discovery under the Counts Boniface and Beatrice, he makes the first mention of it then found.

[7] Since these authors, most zealous for Mantuan antiquity and glory, are entirely silent about such a tradition, the opinion seems to have been born only in the preceding century we are compelled to believe that the fabrication was forged after their deaths, and that around the middle of the preceding century the column was erected, whose inscription we shall give below from Possevino, and those Lessons were composed which we found among the papers of Giovanni Pietro Ferreti, who died at Ravenna after relinquishing the Bishopric of Lavello in Apulia in the year 1557, and which we copied from Codex 5184 of the Vatican Library. These are taken word for word from the Acts cited here, and to be presented from the consensus of so many ancient manuscripts, distributed into nine parts, of which the last three were missing there, with this precaution: that Lesson 2 is given this beginning: "When he was in the parts of the lake of Mantua, which was called Cappadocia, there he taught all who came to him, and turning many from iniquity, he enlightened them by the word and example of truth." For which all the other MSS. have thus: "When he was in Caesarea of Cappadocia, he lived there leading a quiet life for twenty-seven years (others read twenty-eight, still others twenty-nine), and turning many from iniquity, he enlightened them by the word of truth."

[8] badly stitched together from every part I believe that the most recent historian of the city of Mantua, Hippolytus Donesmundi of the Order of Observants, who came to light in the year 1613, having only these Lessons in place of all the, as he claims to relate, local histories, found it too crude if it were stated so plainly that Mantua, a city most well known in those times on account of the extraordinary fame of Virgil, the prince of poets, born there a little before Christ, had been called Cappadocia in the age of Augustus or Tiberius, and that without the support of any ancient author. Therefore he somewhat softened that harshness, saying that the Saint chose for himself a place to dwell on an island near the city, which shortly afterwards was given the name of Cappadocia, while they wish Mantua to have been called Cappadocia which others, however, prefer to place not on an island but on the very bank itself; then, when speaking of the Martyrdom, having said that the Saint was beheaded in the same place where he had lived, or certainly a neighboring one, destined for the punishment of criminals, he speaks thus: "His disciples, after the Saint's death, obtained from the converted Governor that no criminal should henceforth undergo the death sentence in that place which the Saint had watered with his blood, and that the ground which had drunk it should be covered with an iron grate, whence the surrounding places afterwards received the name gradari (surely not before a grate began to be called grata by the Italians) and also the name Cappadocia from the frequency of executions there, demanded both from guilty criminals and from innocent Christians."

[9] and there under Galba Anthony Possevino led the way for these fictions in the appendix added to the Apparatus in the year 1608, in favor of Girolamo Magagnati, who three years before had written the martyrdom of St. Longinus in verse and published it with Venetian printers, inserting Longinus among the Knights of Mantua, where he says thus: "In the square which is called Cappadocia, near the temple of the most blessed Virgin, surnamed Gradari, there stands a column erected in ancient times with these words carved upon it: Longinus, who opened the side of Christ with a lance and brought His blood in the year III, was beheaded in this place called Cappadocia, under the Governor Octavius, on the Ides of March, 71, Galba being Emperor": from the reckoning, that is, of those Acts in which Longinus is reported to have lived thirty-eight years after the death of Christ. or that the Saint was slain under Tiberius Against this Hippolytus holds, establishing that Longinus was killed in the year III after the death of Christ, the twenty-first of Tiberius Caesar, on the twenty-second day of December. But that any disciples of Christ suffered anything from the Gentiles while Tiberius was Emperor, or were harassed for the sake of their faith by any other than the Jews, we have nowhere yet found. The seven-month reign of Galba succeeded the Neronian persecution, which, since it was not prohibited by any contrary edicts, it is not surprising if the Governors of places, each according to his own cruelty or greed, continued even after the death of Nero.

[10] Meanwhile, although falsely, it is nevertheless more tolerably said that some part of that island on which Mantua now stands was called by the name of Cappadocia, than that the Mantua itself which existed under the Roman Emperors, whose ruins still remain on the southern side of the lake, in a place so called from the executions of criminals enclosed by a wide circuit of walls: yet Possevino rightly questions how from the frequency of executions that place, or the island near Mantua, could be called Cappadocia. For although in the book on the interpretation of biblical names commonly attributed to the Venerable Bede, Cappadocia is rendered as "Hand of the torturer," it is nevertheless strange that it should have occurred to anyone to seek the meaning of a word that is by no means Hebrew from Hebrew roots: and it would be far more wonderful if under that meaning such a name had passed to the Mantuans. Wherefore I think that they first thought of placing the name of Cappadocia upon a part of the new city by means of that column, when, persuaded by some wiseacre, they came to believe that the body of the Martyr Longinus which they venerate was his who had opened the side of the Lord, and induced by that persuasion they believed the published Acts of the same should be accommodated to their city, lest the place of the tomb be said to be distant from the place of martyrdom by as great a stretch of land as separates Mantua from Caesarea.

§ II. On the Blood of Christ found at Mantua together with the body of St. Longinus, and on the latter's illumination under the Cross.

[11] Around the year 804, in the time of Charlemagne and Pope Leo III, the body of St. Longinus dug up together with the Sacred Blood near the hospital of the aforesaid city, the earth having been dug up revealed a leaden casket which contained a vessel bearing the inscription: "The blood of Jesus Christ." Not long afterwards a body was dug up, by what indication the Mantuans recognized it as that of Longinus, and indeed of the soldier of whom we treat, Hippolytus, who narrates these things, nowhere reveals.

Since, therefore, we have seen confirmed by so great a number of witnesses that this man suffered martyrdom at Caesarea in Cappadocia, or of one distinct from the Centurion, who suffered at an uncertain time if it is established that that body is that of a Longinus, it entirely follows that some Longinus from the Roman military suffered martyrdom for the faith of Christ at Mantua, under whichever persecutor it may have been, within the first four periods of the Christian Era: whose body was buried by his Christian companions on the island, and then dug up, and in the preceding century — when, the monuments of ancient letters not yet having been so thoroughly examined, the Western Churches knew the name of no other Longinus than the Soldier who struck the blow — began to be taken for that one. Or else it must be said that before the Lombard invasion, by the efforts of the faithful of Mantua, a translation was arranged of the bones that had long been venerated at Caesarea, or brought to Mantua from time immemorial as also of the miraculous Blood. Giovanni Battista Mantuanus was of this opinion (from which very fact we have concluded that he was entirely ignorant of the tradition ascribed to the Mantuan people, of Longinus first preaching the Gospel at Mantua), when he sang thus:

After some ages, your body was conveyed through the waves To Italy, together with the sacred blood of Christ, Gathered at the foot of the lofty cross, And in a small vessel buried with you after death. Mantua was your last abode by divine will, And your resting place... Here you rest still...

[12] The tradition of the Greeks concerning the blood from the side As for the sacred blood of Christ, which flowed together with water from the pierced side, a faithful man named James received it in a small gourd, and it was long kept in secret; then by an angelic revelation it was recognized by two anchorites who had succeeded James, and finally came into the hands of a certain pious solitary named Basipsabas — such is the tradition of the Eastern Churches, who venerate Basipsabas himself as a Saint on September 10. Whether and to what extent this tradition is credible, I do not here inquire. This much is clear: that its truth cannot stand together with the present-day persuasion of the Mantuans, contrary to the Mantuan opinion by which they wish it to be believed that the same soldier who pierced the side of Christ soon collected the sacred liquid flowing from it, and secretly conveyed it to Mantua and buried it there with no one knowing. But if no one knew, whence do they know it was done? They followed a conjecture based on this: that when that most precious treasure was found, a body of some St. Longinus was also found, whom they assumed had suffered there, and they did not consider that he was different from the one whose memory was famous under that name among the Latins.

[13] Nor does such a judgment derogate at all from the solid piety of the faithful in venerating such sacred objects. For even if we acknowledge, both remain uncertain in their circumstances as must sometimes be acknowledged, that the common people, inclined to such conjectures, wishing to learn and accustomed to say something beyond what is known and can be known, have clothed the substance of sacred antiquities with some rather implausible circumstances, it nevertheless remains undoubted that it pertains to Divine providence and truthfulness to ensure that falsity does not creep in regarding the substance of the matter, which would render vain the devotion of the faithful and make the miracles themselves lies: which when they are frequent and long-lasting, cannot be said to be granted by God solely to the sentiment of pious credulity; or there is nothing that God can declare by miracles to be truly and in itself worthy of veneration.

[14] Let the Greeks therefore have what was contained solely in the angelic revelation: that what the gourd entrusted to St. Baripsabas contained, under oil poured over it for its preservation and the healing of the sick, had flowed from the sacred side of Christ. with these set aside, the Greeks have their own, Whether it was collected and preserved by angelic ministry, or by the human ministry of those who attended to the burial, let them not inquire. For that James or Longinus himself caught the liquid gushing forth the very moment the lance was driven in does not appear credible. Let the Mantuans have what the inscription added to the flask alone says, and the revelation made concerning it and the miracles that followed by divine power confirmed: and for the Mantuans the matter stands intact that the blood of Christ is among them. Of what kind, and whence, or when received, let them patiently bear to remain ignorant until it shall have pleased God to reveal, to whom, rather than the hesitation of curious investigation, the simplicity of obedient faith is pleasing.

[15] We know from Session IV of the Second Council of Nicaea, and from the Roman Martyrology which followed its authority, that on November 9 at Berytus in Syria a commemoration is held of the image of the Savior which, crucified by the Jews, poured forth so copious a quantity of blood since it could be from the Berytean Crucifix that the Eastern and Western Churches received abundantly from it. This miracle occurred under Constantine and Irene, and is reported by Sigebert in his Chronicle at the year 765, and thus preceded the discovery of the Mantuan Blood by forty years. We also know that a portion of the Sacred Blood is preserved both in England and elsewhere, and particularly at Bruges in the church of St. Basil, sent there through the hands of Leo, Abbot of Saint-Bertin, by Count Theodoric, son-in-law of Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, in the year 1148: or from the washing of Christ's body before burial which, enclosed in crystal, appears congealed throughout the whole week, except that by a weekly miracle, continued until the year 1309 on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of May, it used to liquefy every Friday around the sixth hour and flow drop by drop through the crystal. This blood was received in a sponge from the wiping of the Lord's body taken down from the Cross, and then expressed from it: an opinion that is most plausible indeed, since nothing was more reasonable than that the pious attendants of the Lord's funeral should first wash the body to be embalmed with spices, and carefully preserve so precious a washing, as we shall show below on the seventeenth day in the Life of St. Joseph of Arimathea. By similar reasoning we may also believe that the blood which had flowed from the cross onto the ground was collected: so that the devotion of those who venerate such sacred pledges, whether at Bruges or in other churches, according to the pious tradition of their ancestors, is sufficiently secure.

[16] or from some miracle concerning the Eucharistic species Finally, we know that God has worked very many miracles concerning the Eucharistic species of bread and wine, to confirm the faith of believers. Thus at Brussels from the year 1370 three sacred Hosts, tinged with blood which flowed copiously after wounds were inflicted on them by impious Jews, endure incorrupt. Thus from the year 1230 there is preserved and venerated at Florence the miraculous blood of Christ, a single drop of which, left in the chalice after the sacrifice by a pious but careless Priest, assumed the form of blood, and floating like oil on the wine poured in the next day for repeating the sacrifice, and received into a glass ampulla, sustained itself suspended in air, touching no side of the vessel; and finally, having received a divinely given increase, it appeared to fill half the ampulla, and for many years thereafter exhibited Christ Himself in human appearance, in various forms according to the disposition of those beholding — the narrative of which miracle was published in the year 1664 in an elegant Italian style by Augustino Coltellini, and inscribed to us after Duke Ferdinand and the Consuls of the city of Florence with a particular Latin address, as a monument of his affection toward us and our studies. The preserved blood is rightly and properly venerated. We have thought it well to set forth these things more fully, lest the Mantuans think that by not entirely admitting their opinion about Longinus, the veneration of the sacred blood is altogether undermined: for from wherever or by whomever it was brought and buried at Mantua, provided by one of these three ways it is the blood of Christ, as the inscription declares, it remains most worthy of all honor and reverence.

[17] I return to the Soldier who pierced the Lord's side, concerning whom in the tragedy of Christ Suffering (judged by the common verdict of Catholic Critics not to be the work of St. Gregory of Nazianzus), the one who pierced the Lord's side either Apollinaris of Laodicea or another author of the same fourth century thus sang, according to the Latin version of Claude Roillet of Beaune, introducing the mother of the Crucified as speaking:

I saw, O maidens, from among the guards, A certain one, who broke the legs of the thieves Hanging there, attempt with drawn lance to probe My son's heart... A stream of blood Burst forth, and water; nay, even now A twin fountain boiling thence surges up: And he himself who pierced the sacred side, trembling blood flowing from it And shuddering at I know not what fate, Cried out with a loud voice that this man truly Was the Son of God, dead: and now see how He himself hastens his step, and falls before the wood, And presses the earth, overcome by this spectacle, And beats his breast, and embraces the very ground Where he had fixed his spear, stained With the liquid of flowing blood. And behold, how from both hands He draws it up, and anoints his eyes with it, as if To wipe away the eye, the blind night that had befallen him.

[18] It is poetically written that he washed his eyes "The blind night that had befallen him" — the translator would have written this with clearer sense; he who, with even greater license of amplification, amplifies what the author had amplified by poetic license. For in the Greek it simply reads:

Ἀρύεταί τε χερσὶ κρούνου, καὶ κόρας Ἔχρισεν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ὡς ἅγνισμ᾽ ἔχῃ

which two verses he could have expressed more plainly according to the author's meaning and almost word for word:

He draws up the liquid with his hands and anoints his eyes, In the rite, as it were, of sacred lustration.

For ἅγνισμα is a verbal noun from ἅγνιζω: I lustrate, consecrate, sanctify, expiate.

[19] and that he received spiritual sight The poet was alluding to that metaphorical manner of speaking by which it seems to have been customary among Christians to say that when Christ's side was opened, the eyes of him who had thrust in the lance were also opened or healed: which, said of the eyes of the mind and to be understood of the virtue and merit of Christ's blood, the ignorance of the common people gradually distorted to mean the bodily eyes and the sensible sprinkling of the Divine blood. Wherefore Cardinal Baronius rightly judged that those who from certain apocryphal writings report that the soldier who opened the side of the Lord with the lance was blind deserve to be reproved. Among these the aforesaid Baptista Mantuanus thus wrote in verse:

You, blind no less in mind than in body, struck the Holy which some wrongly understood of bodily blindness Breast with your lance and the point applied: Thence blood mixed with water, around the hostile Fingers having slipped, when it touched the eyes, removed The disease: God sent these eye-salves, that the dark Cloud, fleeing from mind and eyes, aorasia, Might drive itself away and grant you to see the fount of life.

[20] Others have imagined him bleary-eyed or one-eyed. So he writes, who, lest he seem so mad as to have entrusted a lance to a completely blind man, had previously said that he led his cohort to the death of Christ with bleary eyes and a dim light. Others, lest they be compelled to say even this, which is itself absurd enough to hear, disfigure him with the blindness or defect of only one eye, and cite Isidore of Seville in their support: but our Sebastian Barradius, who carefully scrutinized Isidore, denies that he was able to find the alleged words in Isidore. Certainly in the book where he explains the series of the Lord's Life and Passion, where this matter would have had its proper place, you will find not the slightest word about Longinus.

[21] Concerning the lance with which the Savior's side was pierced, whoever wishes to know everything accurately the sacred lance should read James Bosius, Book 1, On the Triumph of the Cross, chapter 17, where he explains at length how

it, together with the wood of the most holy Cross and the other instruments of the Lord's Passion, was buried underground by the Jews, and together with them was found by Helena, the most august mother of the great Constantine. That it was afterwards customarily preserved in the portico of the temple of the most holy Sepulchre is shown by the author of the booklet on the holy places, believed to have been reduced to an epitome by the Venerable Bede. There also in Bosius one may read how the same sacred Lance, miraculously found at Antioch in the year 1098, found at Antioch in 1098 more wonderfully liberated that city from a most severe siege. Likewise how the same was conveyed into the hands of the Emperor of Constantinople, who first pledged the tip, filed off by a rasp, to the Venetians, conveyed to Constantinople and then sent it as a gift to St. Louis, King of France: the remaining iron remaining in the royal city, with which it came into the power of the Turkish Emperor Mehmed II in the year of human salvation 1453, and in 1492 given to the Knights of Jerusalem and remained until his son Bayezid, in order to gratify the Grand Master of the Knights of Jerusalem and to ensure that he neither released nor undertook to restore the brother driven out by arms, sent the same most sacred iron to Pope Innocent VIII in the year 1492; which, received with most solemn ceremony, is most religiously preserved in the Vatican basilica. Now preserved at Rome. All these things, I say, can be read, treated at length and accurately, in Bosius.

§ III. The body of St. Longinus found at Mantua. Relics at Prague and Lisbon: other relics of the same name at Rome and in Sardinia.

[22] Concerning the body of St. Longinus, which was found at Mantua, as we have said, at Mantua in 1304 in the year 804 together with the aforesaid Sacred Blood, Marius Equicola briefly writes. Hippolytus Donesmundi narrates these things more fully, from a manuscript history, as he says, of an eyewitness present at all the events as they occurred, in approximately these words: "When in the year 1044 Beatrice, the wife of Count Boniface, had given birth to Matilda in a most fortunate delivery — that Countess afterwards most famous for her deeds on behalf of the liberty and enlargement of the Church — the mother, wishing to show herself grateful to God, began to build a church to be dedicated to St. Andrew the Apostle, Bishop Martial laying the first stone. Adjacent to this church was the ancient Hospital of the city, near which the sacred relics had once been found; and again buried in the garden of the same hospital, they had lain unknown for many years, since those who had hidden them and could have indicated the place had died and passed away."

[23] The body of St. Longinus is revealed to Adalbert. "While therefore a pious old man named Adalbert, a German by nationality, a veteran servant in the household of the Counts, on the night preceding the twelfth day of March in the year 1049, was devoutly engaged in prayer in the aforesaid church of St. Andrew, St. Andrew appeared to him, commanding him to announce to the Countess Beatrice that the time had come when God wished to reveal to mankind the treasure of the precious blood: let her therefore order the earth to be dug near the Hospital. Beatrice paid no great attention to the vision narrated to her: and so again on the very Kalends of April, the holy Apostle showed himself to Adalbert, commanding the same thing. He at length with difficulty persuaded his Lady to order the digging to begin: but because nothing was accomplished by it, he was henceforth forbidden to press this matter. Finally, to the servant of God, afflicted by the rebuff and the vain attempt, on the thirteenth day of May the Saint appeared more gloriously than before, and consoling him, indicated the place where what he promised would be found."

[24] "He also added such efficacy to Adalbert's words that Beatrice and her husband Boniface, persuaded that the admonition must be obeyed as divine, and the earth having been dug near the hospital of St. Andrew summoned Bishop Martial, who with a distinguished retinue of Bishops — by chance then present at court on business — and of the entire Clergy, proceeded in the manner of supplicants to the garden of the Hospital of St. Andrew: where hymns and canticles were followed by the devout prayer of the people kneeling. During this prayer, the earth was seen to move in a certain place contrary to the order of nature, and when excavated, it first exhaled a fragrant vapor, together with the Sacred Blood is found perceived by all who were watching, in the manner of smoke; then it revealed two brick vaults, which having been broken open by the force of hammers, there was first found a marble casket containing relics of the most holy blood and a sponge. As soon as the Bishop reverently opened it, the sky shone with a wondrous splendor, and maintained that appearance for the space of one hour, all rejoicing and hastening in rivalry to venerate the sacred relic; whose devotion was followed by many graces of healing."

[25] "Similarly found beneath the other vault was the body of St. Longinus the Martyr, recognized from the same revelation of St. Andrew made to Adalbert, and together with the most holy blood it was carried on the shoulders of the Bishops to the Cathedral church, and there within the Confession beneath the choir, in its proper place designated for housing relics, it was fittingly deposited: until a suitable place should be prepared with due magnificence in the church of St. Andrew." So far Brother Hippolytus Donesmundi. And by Leo IX it is transferred. He then continues and proceeds to narrate when, how, and with what great concourse of peoples the sacred blood was publicly exhibited for viewing; that Leo IX came to Mantua in the year 1053 to adore it in person, and having tried in vain to obtain permission to carry it off to Rome, he commended the zeal of the people who had risen in sedition to retain it, and dedicated the new church of St. Andrew, although not yet fully completed, and having reverently received a small particle of the precious treasure (which is now preserved in the church of St. John Lateran), he deposited the remainder together with the body of St. Longinus in the place prepared for that purpose. Then, lest it should happen to be carried off by some barbarian incursion, Bishop Conon in the year 1055 again had it hidden underground, and in 1055 it is again concealed within vaults and a marble altar prepared for this end.

[26] He then narrates both other things and the pious death of Adalbert, which occurred around the year 1060: and in 1055 it is again concealed whose body was reverently placed in a conspicuous location in the church of St. Andrew; the bones were then transferred to the sacristy on account of new construction, and finally perished in a most devastating fire in the year 1370. Since these things have little or nothing to do with St. Longinus, it suffices to have touched on them here in passing. Meanwhile, in the year 1354, Charles, King of Bohemia, came to Italy at the urging of Pope Innocent VI to receive the imperial crown, and intent on settling Italian affairs, remained at Mantua, as Equicola writes, from the Vigil of St. Martin to the end of December. During this time the most religious Prince, Charles IV in 1354 orders the earth to be dug up stimulated by a vehement desire to adore the sacred blood, went to the church of St. Andrew by night, lest he provoke any disturbance, accompanied by few: namely, Ludwig and Francesco, sons of Guido Gonzaga, Laurence, Abbot of the monastery itself, Andrea de Goito, Apostolic Protonotary and intimate Counselor of the said Lords, together with the Sacristan and the workmen necessary for the intended purpose. By these men, in the presence of the future Emperor, the pavement was broken open on the right side of the main altar, and the sacred ampullae were raised containing the precious relics of the sponge and the Lord's Blood. After these were inspected and duly venerated, they were returned and resealed in their former place, so that nothing appeared to have been disturbed there. Then Charles turned to the ark in which the venerable bones of St. Longinus were preserved, from which, having duly venerated them, he took the right arm and part of the shoulder, to be carried to Bohemia; and having carefully closed the ark again, he retired to his lodging, abounding in spiritual joy.

[27] So far the same Brother Hippolytus as above: which is remarkably confirmed by the MS. Martyrology of the Church of Prague, and carries part of the relics off to Prague written not long after those times, about three centuries ago, which is in our possession. In this, at this March 15, after the above-cited encomium of St. Longinus from Ado, you have the following: "The head of this St. Longinus, together with the arm, Caesar Charles obtained in the city of Mantua, in the monastery of St. Andrew, where his body rests, and donated it to the Church of Prague." In the discrepancy, however, about the head or the shoulder, we think the older authority should be followed, and indeed one consigned, as is fitting, by eyewitnesses: although among the Prague relics, no head is now found that could be believed to be St. Longinus's, except the head of a certain unnamed Saint, as the inscription has it, after time's voracity consumed the old slip indicating the true name, as has happened with many others. Certainly, no part of the shoulder blade is there either, thence removed to Karlstein by which the Mantuan writer's testimony could be verified: but only a bone of the arm, which in the listing of relics made on September 24, 1664, an unskilled Sacristan called a shin-bone, and ordered to be noted as enclosed in casket XXXV: one, that is, of those which the most pious Emperor Ferdinand III had ordered to be newly made of precious workmanship for adorning and preserving those sacred relics. These, first placed in Karlstein castle not by Charles IV (as the title of a German document recently sent to us has it), but carried there in the preceding century, when Bohemia was ablaze with the fires of heresies and wars, with solemn pomp they are returned in 1644 for the sake of safety, were by command of the aforesaid Ferdinand first brought in the year 1645 into the Lesser Town, to the royal chapel, and from there translated into the Cathedral church itself with great solemnity on August 20, as Father Arnold Angel, a great supporter and admirer of our studies in that province, wrote to us.

[28] From these, a part was translated to Lisbon in 1587. From these Prague relics was received the particle which is listed as enclosed in shrine X, among very many other most precious relics of the Saints donated by Emperor Rudolf II to John Borgia and brought to Lisbon in the year 1587. This John and his most pious wife consigned them to the Professed House of the Society of Jesus in the aforesaid city, as was said among those passed over on January 25, on which day a solemn translation of all was made in the presence of Archduke Albert of Austria, administering Lusitania on behalf of King Philip II. The Church of Prague even today, on account of the said relics of St. Longinus, performs the Office under the rite of a double on this day, March 15, with this prayer: "O God, to whom alone is known the number of the elect, grant, we beseech Thee, that by the intercession of Blessed Longinus, Thy chosen soldier, the book of holy predestination may retain us as inscribed therein, that we may rejoice in this happy joy and be aided by the merits of this same Saint."

[29] At Rome in the church of St. Augustine With the same solemnity of ecclesiastical Office, and for a similar reason, this feast is celebrated at Rome, both in the Vatican Basilica and in the churches of St. Marcellus and St. Augustine. And in this last church, "I have learned that the venerable body of St. Longinus is preserved," says Baronius in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology. Moved by this testimony, in the year 1661 we investigated by questioning certain Fathers there: and at that time we could find no one who said there was even the slightest knowledge or memory of such a thing there; they only said that some relics of St. Longinus were preserved in a silver reliquary in the shape of an arm, which they reverently showed us to kiss in the sacristy. But

the Reverend Father Giovanni de Giudici, Assistant General of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, the body of some Longinus the Martyr whom we asked to institute a more thorough investigation into the matter, responded in this manner: "For the certainty of the body of St. Longinus the Martyr I diligently inquired, and from the senior members of this Roman convent I learned that indeed, according to the testimony of Baronius, the greater part of the said Saint is preserved, kept beneath a consecrated altar in the sacristy. It was once entire: but with the permission of Superiors, certain parts were distributed and shared with the general chapters of our Order of St. Augustine at Naples and of St. James at Bologna; a part was also given to the Vatican church of St. Peter. Whence those Fathers, ill-informed in your presence, doubted whether the body of St. Longinus was there. I, in order to render you more certain testimony, wished to have it shown to me, and indeed found it to be as I had been told: so that Your Reverences may without scruple or any doubt insert this truth in your commentaries on that Saint, relying on the truth and fidelity of my eyewitness testimony." Octavius Pancirollus, moreover, in his Hidden Treasures of the City of Rome, Region 6, churches 1 and 2, teaches that the Augustinian Hermits were admitted to Rome around the year 1285 by Honorius IV, brought there from the old church of St. Tryphon and were placed in the small church of St. Tryphon and its adjoined little convent, where they dwelt humbly and in cramped quarters, until Cardinal Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen and Protector of the Order, magnificently erected a new church under the title of St. Augustine from the foundations in the year 1470. To this church (because the former church of St. Tryphon, stripped of its cardinalatial title and judged to be altogether deserted by the people, had to be closed), in the year 1601 the relics of Saints that had been hidden beneath the altars there were transferred.

[30] Among these I would scarcely doubt that the very body of St. Longinus was included, and that on this occasion the various parts we mentioned above were distributed: not, however, the one that is in the Vatican; for before the said translation was made, indeed before there was any discussion of building the church of St. Augustine, in a most ancient inventory of Vatican relics written on parchment, there is noted "the arm of St. Longinus with one ring." Another arm in the Vatican basilica Concerning the same, Nicolaus Signorilis under Martin V, in his book on the antiquities of the city, which is Vatican Library codex 3536, has these words: "Likewise one arm of silver, partly gilded, with a hand, in which is enclosed the arm of St. Longinus." The inventory of the year 1466 adds mention of one ring on the ring finger. When the sacred relic had been stripped of these ornaments in the year 1527, in the sack of Rome intercepted by the Duke of Bourbon, yet by divine power and the help of the pious the venerable arm was preserved: as is said in the Catalogue of relics of the noble Vatican Basilica written around the year 1617, under the care of Paolo Bisono and Marco Aurelio Maraldo, canons and senior sacristans of that basilica. From this we have, number 23: "A bare silver arm holding a lance in its hand, with a similar base, and in it the venerable arm of St. Longinus, soldier and Martyr, who opened the side of Christ on the cross with a cruel point," with this inscription on the silver base: "Hieronymus Maphaeus, Canon and Vicar, devoutly offered this in the year 1594." from that body which is in the church of St. Marcellus That these relics were brought from Mantua to Rome by Leo IX when, as we said above, he deposited the body of St. Longinus in the new basilica of St. Andrew — the body of him whom the Mantuans venerate — we would consider entirely most probable, were it not that the aforesaid Pancirollus, treating of the church of St. Marcellus in his cited work, which is the seventh church of Region III, counts the body of St. Longinus the Martyr in fourth place among the sacred bodies with which that church is distinguished, and says that from it was received the part which is in the Vatican basilica, and indeed also the one in the church of St. Augustine. But nothing prevents supposing that in both this and that church of St. Marcellus there was at some time the entire body of some St. Longinus the Martyr, What if both belong to a Martyr who suffered at Rome? since that was a name frequent among the Roman nobility and military — which Pancirollus could not admit, since he holds it as beyond doubt that all those relics belong to one and the same person who pierced the side of the Lord on the cross. But even if they are different and suffered at Rome just like other innumerable saints whose Acts and dates are hidden, we think that, beyond the ancient and certain veneration, no more is known among the Servite Fathers, who have possessed the church of St. Marcellus since the year 1369, than the Augustinians know about their Longinus: who (as usually happens in such cases), on account of the homonymy of a more famous personage from the Gospel, was taken for someone other than he truly was, and also gave occasion to other churches possessing a part of the said body to attribute it to Longinus the Soldier.

[31] And from this it appears what we should finally think about the Sardinians, whether another, recently dug up in Sardinia who, according to Dionysius Bonfant in his Triumphs of the Saints of the Kingdom of Sardinia, published in Spanish in 1635, boast that Longinus the Soldier who pierced the Lord's side was born among them, suffered under the Neronian persecution among them, and finally in the twenty-sixth year of the present century was first dug up and brought forth from his hitherto inviolate tomb. For it suffices to set before them the inscription of the tomb, on the occasion of which they began to believe these things, previously entirely unknown and unheard of throughout Sardinia, and wished them to be believed by others. The inscription, found in the aforesaid author at folio 72, is as follows: is the body that of St. Longinus the Soldier? "B. M. LONGINUS, WHO LIVED 50 YEARS, RESTED IN PEACE ON THE 13TH DAY BEFORE THE KALENDS OF DECEMBER." Let fair-minded readers judge whether anyone of sound mind could carve from these letters a homeland of Cagliari, Roman military service in Judaea, the persecution of Nero, and a death undergone for the faith of Christ — all of which is built upon this one stone. The most we have from it is that he was a Christian, whose good memory and rest in peace are declared. Meanwhile the people of Cagliari transferred the body thus found to the treasury of the Cathedral church, and established the feast of the discovery to be celebrated on April 19, and that of the Martyrdom on November 19. Wherefore no one seeing these things will rightly wonder that, admonished by the leading churchmen, we give no credence, or only slight, to the recent revelation of so many Martyrs, as they strive to persuade us, and often do not even mention them among those passed over. The Syrians have a certain Martyr Longinus on April 18 in their Calendar, which was printed at Rome together with their Ecclesiastical Office in the year 1624. We can only say by conjecture who he may be.

§ IV. On St. Longinus the Centurion: his veneration among the Greeks, and various Acts.

[32] Those who more persistently wish to assert that the apostolate and martyrdom of St. Longinus the Soldier, snatched from Caesarea, belongs to Mantua, St. Longinus the Centurion say that among the Latin authors of Acts and Martyrologies the Centurion was confused with the Soldier — the Centurion whom the Greeks venerate on October 16 with a solemn Office, and whose Acts are read under the name of Metaphrastes in Lipomanus and Surius. For they concede that this one died at Caesarea; but the Greeks do not say this about the Centurion, nor is it found in the Acts: who suffered at a different place and time it is only said that he withdrew into his homeland of Cappadocia (not the first Cappadocia, whose capital is Caesarea, but the second, near its metropolis Tyana) and there lived a quiet life in his paternal fields, until discovered there by the emissaries of Pilate, he and his two companions were beheaded, with no form of trial or judicial proceeding, but by a clandestine slaughter far from the populous area. Therefore Caesarea in First Cappadocia still retains its own Martyr under the Neronian persecution, distinct from the Centurion: even if some have confused the Acts of both the Centurion and the Soldier, about which more shortly.

[33] As for the more ancient Martyrologies, the Greek Menaea celebrate the memory of the Centurion alone, encomium from the Menaea and write this encomium for him, drawn from the fuller Acts: "He was, under Tiberius Caesar, a Centurion from the region of Cappadocia, assigned to Pilate, the Governor of Judaea; by his command he performed his duty at the venerable Passion and Crucifixion of the Lord, and together with the Guard (this was a military cohort) and his hundred soldiers, he was ordered to watch the tomb. His faith When he had seen the miracles that were wrought on account of Christ — the earth shaken, the sun darkened, tombs opened and the dead coming forth from them, and rocks split — he cried out with a loud voice, saying: 'Truly this was the Son of God.' Wherefore he and his two companions refused to accept the silver offered to them by the Jews to suppress the evidence of the Resurrection, whom he also had as companions in martyrdom. His martyrdom For, deserting the military service committed to him and withdrawing to his own region, he began to preach Christ as God with apostolic zeal: and therefore Pilate, persuaded, or to speak more plainly, bribed by the Jews, accused Longinus to Tiberius by letter, saying that he had deserted the army and returned to his homeland, and there preached Christ as God. He was then beheaded together with his two fellow soldiers, Tiberius so commanding: and his head was brought from Cappadocia to Jerusalem (so that Pilate and the Jews might have certain proof of his death, and that the former might receive from them the money agreed upon) and thrown on a dung heap outside the city and buried in filth, where it long lay hidden."

[34] "After many courses of years, his head found at Jerusalem a certain woman from Cappadocia, deprived of the faculty of sight, came to Jerusalem with her only son, seeking a remedy for her infirmity in those holy places. But when to her former calamity the bereavement of her son's death was added, and she lamented her doubled misfortune, Longinus appeared to her in a dream and revealed who he was, and made known in what place his sacred head was hidden; commanding her to dig it up and she would receive the health of her eyes and would merit to see her son in glory. The woman did as she was bidden, and digging through the dung heap with her hands, she brought forth the head she sought, and at once her blindness was removed and she received the faculty of sight. She also merited to see her son through sleep, joined to the Saint, enjoying the greatest glory with him and through him. In one sarcophagus, therefore, she placed both the remains of her son and the venerable head of the Saint (for so she had been commanded), and returned to Cappadocia, it is carried back to Cappadocia having experienced something similar to what happened to Saul, who, seeking his father's donkeys, found a kingdom: for, desiring to be freed from the infirmity of her eyes, she not only obtained her own wish, but also found in the Saint an advocate most zealous for her welfare. Wherefore, erecting a splendid temple to the Martyr and placing his glorious relic therein, she acquired for herself and all the faithful a perennial fountain of every kind of healing."

[35] So the Menaea or synaxaria, both printed and

handwritten, his memory elsewhere as many as we have seen — some, however, more briefly, such as our Parisian one and another of Cardinal Mazarin. The same things Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, translated into the modern Greek language ἐν βίοις ἁγίων: the same things, in the same words, are read in the Anthologion. In the Menologion, however, which Henry Canisius published from the translation of Cardinal Sirletus, these things are stated more briefly: "Birthday of the holy Martyr Longinus the Centurion, who for confessing Christ was beheaded in Cappadocia together with two soldiers." Nowhere is mention made of Caesarea: Homeland and place of martyrdom only in the Acts is it said that he there removed his military belt, and departed thence to the place from which he had come, and where his body rests, a village called Sandralis. Other Acts, however, more expressly state: ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν πατρίδα ἐν τῇ Καππαδοκίᾳ τῇ δευτέρᾳ ἐγγὺς Τυάνων εἰς χωρίον καλούμενον Ἀδραλές, τὸ ἐπιλεγόμενον ἑβραϊστὶ Γαυραλὲς καὶ ἤλλαξεν τὰ περιβόλαια αὐτοῦ καὶ ἦν ποιμένων τὰ πρόβατα — "He came to his own homeland, which was in Second Cappadocia near Tyana, to a small district called Adrales, which in Hebrew is surnamed or rather interpreted Gaurales or Gabales." In the Synaxarion of the College of the Society of Jesus at Paris, his feast is said to be celebrated πλησίον τοῦ δευτέρου, Discovery of the head, November 1 near the second region of the city of Constantinople. The Syrians celebrate the same feast on the same day, as is clear from the Calendar printed before their ecclesiastical books at Rome. But the Copts, in their Menologion which is kept among the Maronites there, on the fifth day of the month Hathur, or November 1, recall the discovery of the head in a rather prolix narrative, which we have not yet been able to obtain translated into Latin: although we have often been solicitous about this, because there too the one who pierced the Lord's side is confused with the Centurion — unless perhaps it is a different discovery, of a different head, from that hitherto mentioned.

[36] There exists in the great printed Menaea a complete Office for St. Longinus the Centurion for the day of October 16, Office among the Greeks, October 16 and in it a hymn divided into six parts by St. Joseph, venerated on April 3 and commonly called the Hymnographer, bearing his name as author. The initial letters of each stanza of this hymn form this acrostic:

Τὸ Λογγίνου μέγιστον ὑμνήσω κλέος. "In hymns I shall sing the greatest glory of Longinus."

To the two companions of St. Longinus the same Menaea append this distich:

Φθάρτην στρατείαν ἐκλελιπῇα, ξίφει Δύας συνάθλων ἐστρατεύθη κηρίῳ. "The comrades, when they leave the mortal army both, The sword enlists them in the army of God."

[37] The Acts, moreover, from which the encomia of the Menaea are drawn, we found in Greek in Codex 1190 of the Vatican Library, Acts from a Vatican MS. which, very large in size and described on paper about three hundred years ago, Alexander Turrianus, Bishop of Sitia and Hierapetna, had given as a gift to Pope Paul V, who was intent on enriching the same library, as is noted at the beginning. On folio 117 of this codex the following title is read: "The Martyrdom of the holy and glorious Martyr of Christ, Longinus the Centurion, he who ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ presided at the Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of his two soldier companions. Bless, Father." by Hesychius as author These were read during the divine Offices (for this is indicated by that formula of seeking a blessing), and they were read just as they had been composed at Jerusalem for the use of that Church, by an author who expressed his name in this manner and indicated whence he had received what he wrote: "I, Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem, after much and careful searching, at length and not without great labor, was scarcely able to find anything concerning St. Longinus the Centurion, who at the Cross of Christ said: 'Truly this was the Son of God.' I found his Martyrdom ἐν χεδαρίᾳ, in a booklet in the Library of the Holy Resurrection, and composed his Confession together with encomia." We have demonstrated that this Hesychius, a distinguished man, lived in the year 429, in the Life of St. Euthymius on January 20, number 42, letter q.

[38] The same Acts, with the beginning changed and the words here and there and the style altered in those places which have more rhetorical amplification than historical simplicity, similar ones elsewhere in different phraseology the same codex had near the end, folio 1356, beginning thus: Ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς υἱὸς καὶ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ὑψίστου ἠθέλησεν κλίναι τοὺς οὐρανοὺς καὶ ἄνθρωπος γένεσθαι δι᾽ ἡμᾶς — "Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son and Word of God Most High, willed to bow the heavens and become man for our sake." The same, under the name of Metaphrastes, published by Aloysius Lipomanus from the translation of Gentianus, exist with similar stylistic variety in the codices of Queen Christina of Sweden, the Venetian library, and the Royal Library of France. We have the version of Gentianus collated with the last of these by a man most skilled in Greek letters, and corrected in many places. But what the most illustrious Leo Allatius, chief custodian of the Vatican Library, in his treatise on the writings of the Simeons, says was written by an author who was present and saw, as these words seem to indicate: likewise certain fabulous ones "And we saw the tomb opened, and light shone all around in the dwelling" — these we found in Codex 797 of the same library, beginning thus: οἱ τῆς ἀθλήσεως νικηταί, οὐράνιοι δὲ πολῖται — "the victors of the contest, heavenly citizens" — but we neglected to copy them, offended by the fables which the author recklessly patched together in the first and greater part.

[39] For he invents that Longinus was a believer from the time of Herod, having recognized the nativity of Christ, and that because he refused to obey when sent to seek Him and kill the infants, he was stripped of the insignia of his dignity and military rank, and stood unconquered amid torments, and was surrounded by a wondrous light: concerning whom the other Herod, son of the former and named in the Passion of Christ, found it written in the archives that under his father he had been the author of sedition, persuading all to become Christians. Wherefore, more fully informed about the whole matter by the Prefect Lucius, Herod moved a persecution against the Christians, and sending three princes to investigate Longinus, he commanded them to bring back his head, unless they themselves wished to be held guilty of a capital offense against their King. The same fabricator then adds wrongly attributed to an eyewitness that the aforesaid three Princes traveled from Antioch all the way to Rome and into Illyricum, and finally in the ninth month arrived at the village of the Adralesians, and there, recognized by Longinus though they did not recognize him, were received as his guests — and the rest as related above. The head, brought to Jerusalem, remained in the hands of the Prefect Lucius until the widow woman mentioned above came there and redeemed it from him for two hundred denarii, and brought it back to her homeland. All of which things persuade us that these things were written not merely not by those who saw them, but not even by a fabricator so shameless as to join his own times and those of the translation with the times of Herod himself: and therefore it should rather be attributed to a copyist's error that in the said place, where the joining of the head with the body is discussed, one reads καὶ ἴδομεν — "and we saw," instead of καὶ ἴδον — "and they saw," which coheres much better with what precedes and follows.

[40] Because, however, the history of the translated head was related somewhat differently in these Acts than in the Jerusalem Acts, and that with circumstances equally or more plausible than those, from these, however, the discovery of the head is given we judged that this part could not uselessly be copied and rendered into Latin here: because the fabricator, although he was one, could nevertheless have followed the more faithful tradition or history of the Cappadocians themselves concerning it. The time of the head being brought to Cappadocia seems to point to the full peace of the Church, and to the reign of the great Constantine or his sons: certainly in those first years after the death of Christ, of which those spurious Acts treat, one should not conceive of that freedom of religion which is presupposed by the temple erected by the faithful over the body of St. Longinus, and the public burial of a deceased Christian in it procured by Paphnutius, Bishop of Tyana. The same Acts call the holy Centurion by the proper name Primianus — ὁ καὶ Λογγίνος, "who is also Longinus"; Was Longinus also named Primianus? presumably his family name, or even a name commonly used in later times — which it suffices to have indicated here on account of the slight credibility of this author.

§ V. Whether the Latin Acts confused the persons of the Soldier and the Centurion? The fabrications of Pseudo-Dexter concerning the Centurion.

[41] This Longinus could have been treated by us in the month of October, in which the Greek Church venerates him: but since Cardinal Baronius, treating of both Acts in his Notes on the Roman Martyrology — The Greeks venerate the Centurion on October 16 namely the Latin ones, which are of the Soldier, and the Greek ones, which are of the Centurion — judged them to belong to one and the same Saint, and Giovanni Battista Mantuanus confused both in his poem, and there were not wanting those who thought that the Lord's side was opened with a lance by the very same Centurion who had led the others in confessing the divinity of the dying Christ, since the Latins also assigned no definite day to the Centurion, different from the Soldier in homeland and manner of martyrdom we believed that the Acts of both should be presented together on this day, so that it might more clearly appear how different from each other are this Soldier (Isaurian by nationality, who survived the Lord's Passion by many years and was at length crowned with an illustrious martyrdom at Caesarea under the Governor Octavius during the tyranny of Nero, or under one of the three Emperors succeeding each other within a year and a half by mutual slaughter — Galba, Otho, or Vitellius) and this Centurion, slain indeed in Cappadocia, but the Second, and that his homeland, and clandestinely and in his paternal fields by the emissaries of Pilate, under the reign of Tiberius — induced to this not so much because he preached Christ as God to his people (for as such Tiberius himself venerated Him in his own Lararium, and had wished Him to be numbered among the other gods by the Senate) as because he was accused of having deserted the army: the love of which seems to have drawn his fellow soldier to Cappadocia, just as his example could have been the occasion of instituting the solitary life.

[42] Were it not for these considerations, we ourselves would also doubt which of them the Latin Acts belonged to: for four of our MSS., namely our two very ancient copies, together with the Anchin and Bonnefont ones, begin thus: Was this man confused with the other by the Latins? "In the days of Our Lord Jesus Christ, there was a certain soldier, a Centurion, named Longinus, who at that time, standing by the cross, commanded by Pontius Pilate the Governor, struck and opened the side of the Lord with a lance: and seeing the signs that were happening, the sun being darkened and the earth shaking, he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and beating his breast said with a loud voice: 'Truly this is the Son of God,' and after this, withdrawing from the army, he was instructed in the precepts of the Lord, hearing from the holy Apostles the venerable commandments of Christ," etc. But the word "Centurion" at the beginning seems to have been absent, and in those which Rabanus used, it was perhaps read thus: "A Soldier under a Roman Centurion, Longinus." And indeed not the Centurion alone, but also those who were with him guarding Jesus, as Matthew testifies, seeing the earthquake and the things that were happening, were greatly afraid, saying: "Truly this was the Son of God." Matthew 27:54

[43] But if Longinus the Soldier was among these, how did he not shudder to pierce the side of Him whom he had confessed as God a few hours before? For this reason many interpreters deny that the Centurion himself could have been the author of this wound. We respond Whether the piercing of the side conflicts with their confession that, as far as concerns the Centurion, it is rightly denied that he pierced the side of the Lord, not indeed on the strength of this weak reasoning, but because Scripture says that this was done by one of the soldiers — that is, common soldiers, who had crucified the Lord and were then coming to break the legs of Him and of the thieves crucified together with Him, when they saw He was already dead. Although it would have been beneath the Centurion's dignity to put his hands to such services, yet to command that a lance be driven into the breast (so that Pilate might be more certain of Christ's death, whom he reverenced too much to disfigure with the shameful breaking of legs) was neither beyond his duty nor contrary to his former confession, or to that of the soldier who carried out the orders. For, struck by only the imperfect light of their newly begun faith amid so many terrors, when these ceased and the whole crime was already accomplished, they could easily persuade themselves that what they had done as public ministers of justice, at another's judgment and command, did not greatly concern them; and that they would not now be guilty of sin if by a wound not at all dishonorable they either ended the torments of one perhaps still living, or received a sure sign that their duty was fulfilled.

[44] Did it precede that very confession? That in the cited Latin Acts the opening of the side is mentioned before the confession should move no one any more than the fact that in the Menaea the same confession is mentioned after the guarding of the tomb: for it is not credible that the author of the said Acts was so shamefully mistaken as to believe that this lethal wound was inflicted before Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, expired — which was a certain Peter John's error, condemned by Clement V at the Council of Vienne.

[45] The Centurion is here fancied to be the son Those who toward the end of the preceding century devised a chronicle under the name of L. Flavius Dexter, having observed that Baronius attributed the Acts of St. Longinus, published by Lipomanus from the Greek, to the Soldier who pierced the Lord's side, and seeing that nowhere else among the Latins was mention made of the Centurion — who on account of the recognized divinity of Christ hanging on the cross, deservedly merits the honor of the Church — immediately swooped upon his person as upon a vacant possession; of the Centurion of Capernaum and so freely fabricated concerning his family, father, and sons, that they treated no name more shamelessly: both the fabricators of that chronicle themselves, and its defenders Bivarius and Tamayo. For first, concerning the Centurion (whose servant-boy the Lord healed upon entering Capernaum, praising his faith), they invented that he was named Gaius Oppius the Centurion, a Spaniard by nation, from Malaga, who, joining himself to St. James as he set out for Spain, was baptized by the same at Malaga, lived in great holiness, and died on the Ides of September — the very day on which the memory of St. Cornelius the Centurion, baptized by St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, occurs in the Greek Menologion.

[46] baptized in Spain under the name Gaius Then, at the year of Christ 34, Pseudo-Dexter has: "At this time Gaius Oppius the Centurion, son of Cornelius, father of the Centurion, flourishes in Spain" (Bivarius explains, and, to avoid contradicting his own fabrications elsewhere, corrects): "son of Cornelius, likewise a Centurion, who at Jerusalem proclaimed the dying Christ to be the Son of God, amid the crashing of rocks colliding with each other, the day having been covered with darkness. And he was the first of the Gentiles to believe as a Christian Centurion after the death of Christ: who, being a Roman citizen, was baptized by St. Barnabas" (Bivarius changed the punctuation, lest here too the baptism not be in Spain) "and became the third Bishop of Milan: a truly apostolic man, who was the first of all to relate to the Spaniards of his nation the death of Christ and the wondrous eclipse, to the wonder of his hearers."

[47] Again at the year 70, on the occasion of the pious pilgrimages to Spain which he invents, he has: "As was the custom from the very Apostolic times, when Gaius Oppius the Centurion supported pilgrims in Spain. This Gaius, by domicile a Corinthian, by race a Spaniard, also received St. Paul, returning thence, generously in his house and dwelling. He visited John returning from exile to the Spains and there the host of Paul and John (therefore after the death of Domitian, in the year of Christ 96); he accompanies John and all the way to Rome, Hyginus" (Bivarius corrects and bids us read Ignatius: because in his epistles Gaius is named with Philo, who is also Agathopous the Deacon: and we have shown that Ignatius set out for Rome for the purpose of undergoing martyrdom in the year of Christ 108, on February 1). "From there he comes to Milan and, made Bishop there, dies in the Lord." To which Bivarius adds: "After the departure of John (whose death Eusebius, following Irenaeus, records in the second year of Trajan, that is, the year of Christ 99), and finally the companion of St. Ignatius, made Bishop of Milan he joined the beloved disciple of John, Ignatius, Primate of Antioch in Syria, whom, burning with the desire for martyrdom, he accompanied all the way to Rome: but cheated of this, while as a very old man he was attempting to return to Spain his homeland, he was detained at Milan and elected Bishop of that city."

[48] The same Bivarius writes: "That the Milanese records have not hitherto known that their Gaius was that Centurion who believed in Christ dying on the cross, should not harm us; since they do not deny it. But we owe it to Dexter that he remembered both." How little we owe him under this heading will be proved by the most ancient records of the Ambrosian Library, he testifies that St. Gaius was a Roman among which, under the letter P, number 246, there is a MS. codex, the second part of which, in an older character and larger parchment format than the first, after narrating the arrival of St. Barnabas at Milan, thus begins the Lives of the Holy Bishops of Milan: "Now from the very time of Anatelon up to the present age, and died in the 24th year of his episcopate, the year of Christ 86 let me direct the course of this pen, albeit with wavering step; which unless you, most excellent Bishop, extending your right hand, bless and sharpen, will proceed blunted by the roughness of the path through byways." And so, beginning from Anatelon with the thread of history nowhere interrupted, he continues the Acts of SS. Gaius, Castritianus, Calimerus, Monas, and Maternus; and when he had said that the latter's works were seen here, and his merits had passed to heaven, and had noted the day and year of his death, he concludes the writing in the usual manner: "In the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honor and glory for ever and ever, Amen." So that he plainly appears to have written these things around the year of Christ 313, under St. Mirocles, the successor of St. Maternus: for in this year Mirocles flourished and attended the Roman Council under Melchiades. There follows indeed in the same codex the Life of St. Dionysius, Bishop of Milan, written by a contemporary author and therefore dedicated to St. Ambrose; but we gather from the new preface that this is by a different author: for if the same person had been the author both of this Life and of that continuously narrated history, he seems unlikely to have omitted the five intermediate bishops who held the See of Milan for forty years, and most of whom are numbered in the catalog of Saints.

[49] This author, therefore, so ancient and so close to the successors of the Apostles, testifies that St. Gaius was a Roman writes thus about St. Gaius: "Meanwhile the most reverend Bishop of God, Gaius, led, as is reported, by the greatest love of seeing the magnificent Prince of the Apostles, Peter, and the colleague of his former master Barnabas, and the light of the nations, Paul, or also for the sake of conferring the grace of his preaching with the most holy Clement and the other followers of the Apostles, and died in the 24th year of his episcopate, the year of Christ 86 in the fifth year of his episcopate, which was the last year of Nero (and therefore the year of the Christian Era 67), is said to have directed his course to the Romulean city, that is, to his native homeland." Concerning his death he speaks thus: "The oft-to-be-named Bishop of the Lord, Gaius, having completed in the episcopal ministry a course of twenty-four years... at length departed this world... on the day before the Kalends of January... He remained in the episcopate up to the fifth year of the Caesar Domitian, that is, to the year from the birth of Christ 86."

[50] The feast of St. Gaius (whom, with better authorities than Pseudo-Dexter and his followers being transparent, Ughelli in volume 4 of his Italia Sacra calls Gaius Sergius the Roman) is celebrated on September 27, when we shall give his complete Acts from the aforesaid MS., and in them we shall find very many things by which the lies of Pseudo-Dexter could be refuted, who from those fabrications would only have been made Bishop in the year 110 if what has been adduced here did not already abundantly suffice to prove what Ughelli likewise says there: that Bivarius has wasted his oil and his labor on Dexter, since hitherto no old or recent Milanese writer has been found who has reported such things in his commentaries. He had not yet seen, that is, the Zodiac of the Church of Milan before he submitted the fourth volume to the press, printed at Milan only two years before by our friend D. Placido Puccinelli, whom we could wish — though abundantly furnished with domestic resources for writing — had abstained from exotic fables, or at least had entered into some reckoning of years: for he would have seen that it cannot stand with the truth that Gaius was elected to the episcopate after the eleventh year of Trajan, in which Eusebius writes that Ignatius suffered; while he himself wrote, following the opinion of many, that the same Gaius died in the fifth year of Domitian. And of what age would this Gaius have had to be, who from the eleventh year of Trajan had governed the Church for twenty-four years? — surely not less than a hundred and fifty years old.

[51] Was he the father of Gaius and Demetrius? From all this it sufficiently appears that it was fabricated with similar levity that Gaius and Demetrius were the sons of the Centurion of whom we treat — the one to whom is addressed the Third Epistle of St. John, the other receiving in the same epistle a distinguished encomium from the virtue of hospitality. It seemed fair, evidently, that he to whom they had assigned the name of Gaius should without question be considered the father of another to whom Scripture gave this name indubitably; and that the holy Evangelist should praise one brother rather than anyone else to his brother. Of the same stamp, moreover, are the epitaphs found in Tamayo, of what credibility are the epitaphs in Tamayo? written for the grandfather, father, and sons under the name of Aulus Haly; although Tamayo says he possesses his MS. codex and defers much to him, in whom he finds the true essentials, especially in the deeds of the Spanish Saints, which he had readily available in his own time and drew from the archives of the Holy Church of Toledo. For we cannot doubt that this entire poet was fabricated in our century, lest the works which were unfortunately thrust into the light under the falsified names of great authors should seem to have been totally unknown to all ages: a fitting lid for the pot, as they say.

ACTS OF ST. LONGINUS THE SOLDIER

From several very ancient MSS.

St. Longinus the Soldier, Martyr in Cappadocia.

St. Longinus the Centurion, Martyr in Cappadocia.

Two Companions, Martyrs in Cappadocia. BHL Number: 4965

FROM MSS.

[1] In the days of Our Lord Jesus Christ, there was a certain

soldier, named Longinus, who at that time, standing by the cross of the Lord, sent by Pontius Pilate the Governor, struck and opened the side of the Lord with a lance: He who pierced the Lord's side and seeing the signs that were happening on His account, the sun being darkened and the earth shaking, he believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and beating his breast said with a loud voice: "Truly this is the Son of God." And after this, withdrawing from wickedness, he was instructed in the precepts of the Lord, instructed by the Apostles hearing the venerable commandments of the holy Apostles. Having been thus instructed in the way of truth, and receiving the seal of salvation, he offered himself wholly to God; therefore making alms and keeping his body in chastity, he guarded a pure conscience, leading a heavenly life on earth. Adorned with all moderation, through abstinence he had true reverence, a calm countenance, a moderate appearance, a comely aspect, a tranquil mind, humble wisdom, and a joyful spirit.

[2] When he was in Caesarea of Cappadocia, he lived the quiet life of monks for twenty-eight years, many years spent at Caesarea and turning many from impiety, he enlightened them with the word of truth, and prohibiting the sacrifices of idols, he sowed the venerable precepts of the Lord among the people. When these things came to the ears of the Governor Octavius, he ordered him to be brought before him. When he was brought in, he is brought before the Governor Octavius Octavius said: "What is your name?" Blessed Longinus, being perfect in understanding and venerable in the Lord, said: "I am a Christian: for it is fitting first to confess the gift of God's grace." The Governor Octavius said: "Those who were before you gained nothing from that name: he confesses Christ but who are you? State your name." The man of God replied: "I am called Longinus." The judge said: "Of what province are you?" St. Longinus said: "Of Isauria." The Governor Octavius said: "Are you a slave or freeborn?" St. Longinus replied: "I was formerly a slave of sin: but the gracious Lord Jesus Christ, through the mystery of His holy and adorable cross, and through the shedding of His side, freed me with a double grace; first indeed through water and the Holy Spirit, and now through blood, if I persevere in confessing Him."

[3] The judge said: "For what reason did you come here?" St. Longinus said: "I was a public official and served in the world: but now I serve Christ Jesus." The Governor said: "Who then discharged you from the army?" St. Longinus replied: "I asked my brothers to take my property, and I would gain my soul: and they consented. They gave me a hundred solidi per year for expenses, which I spent on the poor of Christ. Now I have prayed to my Lord Jesus Christ to lead me out of carnal service and grant me spiritual service, he refuses to sacrifice to idols and may His name be glorified through me." The Governor said: "Then, as a freeborn man of good birth, obey the Emperors and sacrifice to the gods, or eat of their sacrifices, before you are destroyed by punishments." St. Longinus said: "No one can serve two masters, for each of them desires contrary things. My Lord is the leader of sobriety and gentleness, of chastity and piety, of humility and modesty, who leads man to eternal life: but your gods desire the contrary and are lovers of all malice, avarice, impiety, pride, and filth. Can I practice the works of idols and not think the things that are of my God?"

[4] whose worship is the cause of vices The Governor said: "If, as you say, our gods desire the contrary and your God alone is just, how then does paganism provide defense for Kings and Princes, and is exalted in multiplied glory, while Christianity is humbled and diminished in glory?" St. Longinus said: "Do you see then that paganism is contrary to Christianity? Your gods are impediments to sobriety, the loss of piety, corrupters of virginity, the delight of gluttony, the banishment of poverty, the desire of avarice, the alienation of humility, leaders of pride, the pollution of the soul's purity, the devising of base words: this is the worship of idols and the doctrine of demons. But if you wish, I will also tell the precepts of Christianity." The Governor Octavius said: "You have spoken much and said nothing solid. Come therefore and sacrifice to the gods, or taste of the flesh of their sacrifice; and your God will pardon you for doing this out of royal necessity: for I see you are very thin and pale from abstinence, and unable to endure punishments; lest when the most bitter torments begin upon you, you do this with confusion."

[5] St. Longinus said: "Governor, if you wish to hear the truth from me, you rather become a Christian, and your King will pardon you, when you have recognized the eternal King and great Lord in truth: but if your King wishes to harm you, the punishments will not touch you. For if I am thin and pale, do not worry; only become a Christian: his teeth knocked out and his tongue cut off for the wickedness of Kings does not rule over the piety of Christ." And the Governor, angered, said: "Bring the tooth-extractor and knock out his teeth and cut out his tongue, since he blasphemes the Emperors and speaks wicked things against the gods." The torturers did as they were commanded: they cut out his tongue and knocked out his teeth. But blessed Longinus bore these things manfully on account of the faith in Christ which he had, and said to the Governor in a clear voice: "If you truly believe the gods you worship are gods, he asks permission to destroy the gods permit me to break them; and let them help themselves, if they can." The Governor said: "O wicked head! When you endure such torments, why does your Christ not help you?" St. Longinus said: "Fool, do you not see what great torments you have inflicted on me, and your punishments have not touched me? Give me the power to destroy your gods, and if they harm me in any way, I will believe they are gods: but if they avail nothing, you believe in my God, because He is the living and true God."

[6] from which, when broken The Governor said: "Have power against the gods." And St. Longinus, taking an axe, broke the idols and destroyed their altars and overturned all the stone statues and poured out the libations. And immediately the demons, who dwelt in the idols and on the altars, fled; and one attached himself to the Governor, another to the chief magistrate, another to the keeper of the records, the demons pass into the idolaters and the rest entered into the remaining officials. And they were all together like madmen, barking and seized, and saying: "Why have you brought Longinus, the holy man of God, here, to drive us out of our dwellings before the time?" And falling before the feet of St. Longinus they said: "We know you, that you are Longinus, servant of God Most High." And blessed Longinus began to rebuke them, saying: "Why do you dwell in statues and on these altars?" The demons said: "We found stone statues adorned, where the name of Christ was not invoked, nor His sign imposed — the one you worship: and finding sacrifices and libations being performed in our name, we alike inhabited the place and the people. For where Christ is not named and His sign is not imposed, there is our habitation. For this reason we implore you, O man of God, do not command us to go into the abyss."

[7] St. Longinus said to the people standing by: "Why do you wish to have and worship as gods but Longinus also drives them out those whom I have put to flight in the name of Jesus Christ? For you see your Governor by the power of my God foaming and prostrate at my feet." The people cried out, saying: "Great is the God of the Christians! We ask and beseech you, O holy man of God, do not allow the demons to dwell in our city to the destruction and perdition of men." Hearing these things, blessed Longinus, raising his eyes to heaven, said: "Lord Jesus Christ, be propitious to me, on account of Your great piety and Your ineffable kindness toward me: for I know that You always hear me, and I believe that even before I ask, You will grant the petitions that pertain to salvation. And now, on account of the people standing by, and on account of the humility of Your servant, and on account of the glory of Your Divinity, command the unclean spirits to depart from these bodies, because they are the works of Your hands." And when blessed Longinus had said these things, and converts many the demons cried out in the people and, howling with a loud voice, departed from them, and all were cleansed from that hour; and there was great joy in that city, and many, remaining with St. Longinus, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[8] After a short time, the most wicked devil corrupted the heart of the most shameless Judge, When the Saint is brought before him again who warred against the servant of God, Longinus; whence he ordered him to be brought before him and said to him: "You know that the whole city has withdrawn from the sacrifices of the gods because of your magical arts: and if this becomes known to the King, the city will be in danger, and we shall perish." Aphrodisius the Keeper of Records said to the Governor: "Will you begin to torture again the one who gave us this salvation, and God did us good through him?" The Governor said: "He did this by magical arts and deceived our senses." Aphrodisius replied: "Great is the God of the Christians, and there is no deceit in Him: therefore do not deny Him, nor presume anything against His servant, lest something worse befall you." Then Octavius the Governor said: "I command your tongue to be cut off, even with his tongue cut off, he rebukes the Governor so that you will not speak, wretch." Blessed Longinus said: "I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, that You have shown yet another athlete of Your piety." When therefore the tongue of Aphrodisius the Keeper of Records was being cut out, St. Longinus sighed with a groan to the Lord, and immediately the hand of the Lord came upon the Governor, and he was paralyzed in his limbs and became blind; and Aphrodisius, seeing him blind, cried out saying: "You are just, O Lord, and just is Your judgment."

[9] The Governor, struck with blindness, acknowledges his guilt The Governor said: "Brother Aphrodisius, ask my Lord Longinus to pray for me, because I have acted most wickedly against the servants of God." Aphrodisius said: "Did I not tell you, do not lay your hands on the servant of God? For our God is invincible: as you see even me, unworthy, speaking with my tongue cut out." The Governor said: "Not only have I lost my eyes, but my heart and my bowels are most grievously tormented." The holy man of God, Longinus, said: "If you wish to obtain mercy, punish me more quickly; lest I be cheated of my crown on account of your healing: and after my death I will pray to the Lord that He may heal you; for then I shall be able to have greater confidence in entreating the Lord for you, when I shall have stood before His sight." Immediately, as he completed these words, Octavius ordered his head to be cut off: and St. Longinus stood and prayed for the space of about one hour: and thus he was consummated by the blow of the sword, delivering his spirit to the Lord in peace.

And immediately the Governor went to the body of the most blessed Martyr Longinus, and at the body of the Martyr he receives his sight and cast himself on his face with groaning and tears, saying: "I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned: I acknowledge my iniquity." And immediately he received his sight and was made whole from that hour: and taking the body of blessed Longinus, wrapping it in clean linen cloths, with joy he buried the Martyr: and believing in Christ he remained with the preachers of the faith, glorifying God always.

[10] These things were done in Caesarea of Cappadocia, on the Ides of March, under the Governor Octavius, in the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit is honor and glory, power, dominion, authority, eternity and majesty, now and for immortal ages of ages. Amen.

ACTS

OF ST. LONGINUS THE CENTURION

AND HIS TWO COMPANION MARTYRS

By St. Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem.

From a Greek MS. of the Vatican Library.

St. Longinus the Soldier, Martyr in Cappadocia.

St. Longinus the Centurion, Martyr in Cappadocia.

Two Companions, Martyrs in Cappadocia.

*

BY HESYCHIUS, FROM A GREEK MS.

[1] Among the Acts of other Saints Many and various are the histories of the Martyrs: for just as pictures elaborated by painters, in which the images of cities are sketched and the magnitudes of towers are displayed, and the forms of men and women — some aged or royal, others youthful or plebeian, some sorrowful, others cheerful with serene brow — are represented: so also those who write accounts of the contests of martyrdom must make manifest to their hearers the manly virtue and the strength of soul, displaying itself fearless and confident amid hard and harsh things; and likewise the presence of Christ contending with His athletes, manifesting Himself, now through a multitude of wondrous signs, now through an abundance of grace in words. But the history of Longinus, wise and generous alike, and above all his illustrious testimony concerning Christ, from which he began by confessing God — who could worthily narrate it?

[2] For when the entire chorus of the Apostles, confused by fear, had either denied or abandoned Him; when the lame raised to their feet, the blind endowed with the faculty of sight, the martyrdom of St. Longinus the Centurion deserves to be celebrated lepers cleansed from the defilement of their spotted and peeling skin, and others freed from miseries and delivered from diseases — who assuredly could have known Him better — stupefied at the spectacle of the cross, like sailors driven by a storm upon the rocks, made a sad shipwreck of their faith: then the confession of this venerable and religious Centurion sounded in the ears of the vain and deceitful Synagogue: "Truly this is the Son of God." For he neither feared Pilate, hired against the innocence of Christ, nor did he dread so numerous a multitude, nor was he numbed at the sight of the almost countless myriads. His martyrdom Why then should he not be extolled with praises and his most beautiful contest celebrated in writings? Which those who saw it from the beginning, narrating it, handed down to be remembered for future generations; and from that generation thenceforward to posterity, and so down to us, the discourses of the Longinian confession, like certain immaculate pearls adorning the holy bridal chamber of Christ the Lord, have been preserved.

[3] He was appointed guardian of the Lord's tomb And so when Pilate, requested to provide a Guard to watch over the tomb of the only-begotten Son of God, granted the same to the Jews who sought it, their leader was Longinus: for he himself with his cohort had also guarded the Crucified One. But when He had returned to life by rising again, as the writings of the Gospels record, and the miracles that had occurred were reported by the soldiers to the leaders of the Jews, these, fearing their own confusion before the people and desiring to extinguish the clarity of so great a wonder, promised the soldiers sufficient money to calumniate the mystery of the Resurrection; they also used a great weight of gold with Pilate, so that he might accept the calumny uninvestigated. But Longinus did not prefer their promises to the truth, he scorned the money offered by the Jews nor could he bear to accept money against Christ, or to subordinate God to Mammon: for he judged himself unworthy, by serving avarice, to cast himself headlong into that deadly abyss to perish, and to become a witness of falsehood against Christ, through whom Adam was raised up and death destroyed, and we mortals are transferred to immortal life.

[4] and, dismissing military service Longinus's steadfastness stung Pilate and the leaders of the Jews sharply: and indeed they laid snares for him; but since he was the most illustrious of the entire military cohort, they lacked the opportunity to satisfy the anger they had conceived against the witness of truth. But he, desiring to deliver himself entirely to Christ, laid aside the belt of Caesar's service, and from then on kept himself at home with two soldiers, who had themselves become sharers in the blessed confession, and stood forth as heralds of the terrible signs they had seen and heard. Then, he preached to the Cappadocians leaving Jerusalem, he returned with the same men, and became an excellent preacher to the region of the Cappadocians — as Thomas to the Indians, Peter to the Romans, John to the Asians, Paul from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum, and others to others — announcing Christ and publishing the mysteries wrought on His account and in Him.

[5] But the wicked Jews, inflamed with zeal and goaded by anger, Pilate accuses him to Caesar could not overcome the confession of Longinus, widely published through all parts: wherefore, turning to their former arts, they induced Pilate to accuse Longinus falsely before Caesar by letter — that, with a spirit hostile to the Roman Empire, he had despised the military insignia, and was preaching Christ as King to the nations, and by this persuasion had already filled his entire homeland. With these letters they also send money and demand Longinus's death, and occupying Caesar's ears with their calumnies, they bring back imperial commands to Judaea against Longinus, by whom assassins are sent addressed to Pilate, in which he was commanded to punish with the sword those who had deserted the army. Pilate immediately handed these letters to approved agents of the murders he had planned; and they, departing in haste, arrived in Cappadocia, and there learned that Longinus was devoting himself to philosophy on his paternal estate and, having renounced urban business and cares, was giving himself to the exercise of his soul through quiet contemplation. They therefore approach the same estate and resolve to carry out the orders of Pilate and Caesar in silence, intending to accomplish the murder in silence lest Longinus, turning to flight, should be snatched from their hands; whence it happened that, not daring to entrust what they had in hand to anyone, they themselves came upon Longinus like unexpected strangers, and approaching him without knowing that he was the one they sought, they began to ask where Longinus was.

[6] by the man himself, unknown to them yet divinely forewarned He, however, instructed and forewarned of the whole matter by the divine Spirit, said: "Follow me, and I will show him to you." Without delay he joyfully led them to his house, and from then on carefully prepared himself for the sacrifice of undergoing martyrdom for Christ, saying silently within himself: "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of peace, who bring good news of good things! Now I see the heavens opened, now I behold the glory of the Son at the right hand of the Father, now I gaze upon the ineffable splendor of the Father Himself and of the Holy Spirit; now I shall say: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit — just as Stephen, the first of Martyrs, whose most beautiful words as he departed this life I was privileged to hear. Now I shall enter the heavenly Jerusalem, built with golden towers, the homeland of Angels, the spacious metropolis of all the Saints, with applause, victory songs, and royal trophies. Now, putting off this earthly tunic and laying down the laborious bonds of flesh, I shall be led away from the corruption of mortality, and carried up to the most blessed state of immortality, I shall arrive at the port of eternal life which all the Saints inhabit together. Exult therefore and rejoice, O my soul, about to pass to your Creator and Lord: show a serene face on this so-desired occasion, and receive hospitably and cheerfully the bearers of such great blessings; setting before them a well-prepared table — these who have come to invite you to the royal banquet."

[7] Having spoken these things within himself, Longinus received the assassins sent against him into his house, and treating them splendidly, they are received with hospitality with a joyful face and showing signs of great gladness, he reclined at the same table with them. When supper was over, he began to ask them what they needed. They, however, exacting an oath from him that he would neither divulge their conversation nor expose the secret entrusted to him, tell him that Caesar had written to Pilate that Longinus and two other soldiers should have their heads cut off. To which he replied: "But who are these two companions of Longinus?" Understanding them to be those who had preferred Christ to the Jewish bribe, he wrote to them most earnestly to come to him as quickly as possible, as they would share in the greatest blessings. Then, detaining his guests for one day

and another, on the third day he led them out of the house into the field, there awaiting the companions he had summoned: and when he recognized that they had drawn near, he revealed that he himself was the Longinus whom they sought.

[8] They at first refused to believe his words: then, persuaded that he spoke the truth, they refuse to kill the man who reveals himself they tore their own hair and uttered pitiful cries to him, saying: "Why did you choose to act this way, friend? Why did you invite those coming for your death to your house? Why did you receive at your table and feast those who were plotting your murder — not for one day only, but for a second and a third as well? Did you not see that your wine was to be mingled with your own blood, which we sought? Now what shall we say, or what shall we do? If we can advise anything for your benefit, go in peace, carrying as your reward for hospitality the remission of the death that would otherwise have been inflicted by us: for we dare not raise the sword against you, having respected the salt, being ashamed of the table, fearing God, the arbiter of hospitality. It is better for us to suffer danger from Pilate than to cut off the head of Longinus. For how would our conscience waste away throughout our whole life? How would we seem to ourselves to see, among those sharing our meals, demons hungry for blood? How could we lay hands on you? For not only our hands, but also our feet and our whole body grow numb at the very thought of such a deed, by which we would become the murderers of our benefactor and host."

[9] He himself remains steadfast in the faith of Christ Thus indeed they spoke to blessed Longinus; yet they could not persuade the athlete, ready and eager for the contest, to shrink from the struggle to be undergone for Christ. Rather, with a confident spirit he answered, saying: "Do not wish to look upon me as a traitor to life, so that I might seem to have willingly brought into jeopardy the grace given to me: I shall not be separated from the sheep, having become a wolf, nor shall I deny Him whom I once confessed. I shall not obscure His glory, at which I saw the elements tremble; nor shall the whole creation accuse me of having fallen away from Him, for whose sake heaven hid its face and the sun dissolved its luminous chariot, when day departed from its course, and night was brought on by force, itself scarcely enduring the heavy reproach of the cross, nor passing without notice the sin of the Jews warring against God. Indeed I myself saw all those things with my own eyes, I myself stood by as a spectator: how then shall I destroy the treasure of such great blessings that have come to me, or endure the reproaches of the Angels who would upbraid me for it?"

[10] While he was still speaking, that pair of fellow soldiers arrived, condemned by Caesar to the same death as Longinus: he embraces the two companions summoned to martyrdom whom the Saint, running to meet with joyful face and glad heart, kissed their eyes and blessed necks, and said: "Rejoice, fellow soldiers of Christ, glorious victors of divine contests, and most blessed heirs of the kingdom of heaven! Rejoice, I say: for the gate of paradise is being opened to us, and Angels stand ready to carry our souls to God and to offer them to His only-begotten Son. Now I see the lamps, now I behold the crowns, now I contemplate the prizes with which we shall be led into the bridal chamber of the heavenly Bridegroom." Then, turning to the executioners, he said: "Whatever has been commanded you, carry out at once." and on October 16 he is slain He ordered the steward of his house to bring a clean robe, as if summoned to a festive wedding; and putting it on, and pointing with his hand to the tomb in which he wished his blessed body to be buried, he knelt; and composing himself together with his companions, who had entered the stadium of the same victorious contest with him, he was beheaded on the sixteenth day of the month of October, and all together were enrolled in the choirs of both the Apostles and the Martyrs, because they had imitated both the fortitude of the latter and the glorious zeal of the former.

[11] The head is carried to Jerusalem The executioners then took the head of St. Longinus to be brought to Pilate, who at the instance of the Jews had ordered this murder, induced by the money he had received from them. When they arrived at Jerusalem, Pilate ordered it to be displayed to the Jews, who thirsted for the death of the Saint, selling for much gold the same death to those already accustomed to buying innocent blood with money. After this he commanded the sacred head — terrible to demons, beloved by Angels, admirable to all the elements — to be cast outside the city gate. It lay therefore before the gates like some inviolable treasure, it is cast on a dung heap and lies hidden and although there was much filth there, the most precious pearl was preserved incorrupt, and there it had its burial: indeed the filth itself served as its casket for a time, God acting with long-suffering and providently disposing, so that by revealing it at the opportune time, He might more manifestly declare His love toward mankind.

[12] For a widow woman from the region of Cappadocia, having lost her bodily eyes, To a blind widow overcame her infirmity by faith, and came to Jerusalem with her only son, hoping that by adoring the sacred places she would recover her lost sight. When therefore, led by her son's hand, she gathered the dust of the holy land and began diligently to apply it to her eyes, hoping perhaps to find in it a remedy suitable for restoring sight, a sudden and unexpected illness seized the boy and snatched him from his mother's embrace. Thus her darkness was doubled, and she was brought almost to extremity, succumbing to the calamity of intolerable misfortune: and deprived of her only son at Jerusalem and casting pitiful cries to God, she said: "How long, O Lord, will You forget me utterly? How long will You turn Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart day and night? Look upon me, hear me, have mercy on me, O Lord my God: enlighten my eyes, lest at any time I be swallowed up by death on account of the magnitude of my grief and mourning. Lord, am I the only sinner on earth, that I should be brought into so severe a judgment? Surely I am not worse than the harlot whom You received when she brought You ointments. But me, most wretched, You have deprived of both the light of my eyes and my only son; nor anywhere is any hope of salvation left."

[13] St. Longinus reveals his head to her While she persevered in such inconsolable grief, blessed Longinus appeared to her as she slept and made known to her everything that had been done concerning him, saying: "I am Longinus the Centurion, who beneath the cross confessed the Lord Jesus Christ to be truly the Son of God. Know therefore that Pilate, accusing me of a false crime, appealed to Caesar, by whose command my head was cut off, brought here, and cast outside the city, with the sons of the Jews contributing money for this very purpose. It was therefore buried under the dung heap, that the lot might be preserved for you for the healing of many: for as soon as you shall have revealed the treasure indicated to you, you will receive your eyes; then I will also present your son to you alive and in glory, whence your grief will receive no small consolation."

[14] and upon its discovery Consoled and strengthened by such words, the woman, being faithful no less than generous, asked to be led to the place where, from her guides — who were themselves believers — she learned that the refuse was deposited. When she had arrived there, she immediately began to dig with her hands, and by the providence of God quickly found the venerable head and beheld the rays of the sun. Embracing it and carefully washing it and anointing it with precious ointments, she returned to the city, carrying to her lodging the inestimable pearl. He shows her her own son On the following night, St. Longinus again stood by her, having at his side her son, radiant and smiling and clothed as if in a wedding garment, who said: "Woman, behold him whom you loved: this is your only son, whom you thought had been taken from you, whereas God, having freed him from this momentary and perishable life, has enrolled him in the kingdom of heaven. happy in the same glory with him And now I have him with me: for I received him from the Savior, and he will never depart from my right hand. Therefore, taking my head and placing it in one casket together with the body of your son, weep no longer as for one lost, to whom great glory has been given with me by the most merciful God, so that an altar and mystical sacrifices and festal dances and populous assemblies, and many other things besides, are offered to him together with me — things which he could not have enjoyed on earth. But what God has prepared for us in heaven, declaring His love toward us not merely in word but in deed — this indeed neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man."

[15] She carries it with her son's body back to her homeland When the boy's mother heard these words, as if she had received the commands of some divine Prophet, thus arising at once she returned to her homeland, and with great joy and splendor she deposited the venerable head of St. Longinus, as the Saint had commanded, in the village which is called Sandralis: for St. Longinus was originally from there. And she said within herself in her heart, and with her tongue proclaimed to others: "Now I know truly that for those who love God, all things work together for good. I was seeking the eyes of the flesh, and with them I also received spiritual sight in my soul. The calamity of my son afflicted me, and behold I have an heir standing before God with royal glory: I see the young man clothed in purple and adorned with much beauty. giving thanks to God The boy with his starry countenance — see how he smiles at his mother, and beside Longinus shines like the morning star in the sun's rays. For often by night, often by day — and not in dreams but in a manifest vision — he shows himself to me in the manner of Martyrs: but his lot is among the Prophets, even though he did not live the life of the Prophets: and bearing the cross with Longinus, he raises the trophy to be adored in the kingdom of heaven, and in the midst of Angels he proclaims, among the assemblies of Archangels he cries out, as a true disciple of Longinus: 'Truly this is the Son of God.' And as much as the Seraphim permit Longinus to glorify God (for neither Cherubim nor Seraphim interrupt those who sing divine praises), so much is he himself also heard, raising his holy, melodious, triumphal voice: 'Truly this is the Son of God.' He is indeed and will be the Son of God: for what He had before the ages, He will also have in all the ages to come: He Himself makes the ages old, and endures unfailing without aging: for His kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and His power shall not be diminished forever."

[16] "I, Hesychius, Presbyter of Jerusalem, after much and careful searching, at length and not without great labor, was scarcely able to find anything concerning St. Longinus the Centurion, the author of the encomium is Hesychius who at the Cross of Christ said: 'Truly this was the Son of God.' I found his martyrdom written in a booklet in the Library of the Holy Resurrection, and composed his Confession together with an encomium. Finally, let all who fear the Lord believe that this is truly St. Longinus the Centurion, who confessed Christ beneath the Cross: whose intercession and patronage may it guard all, whether reading or hearing, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom is glory, power, and kingdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always

and for ever and ever. Amen.

* Venerated March 28

THE DISCOVERY OF THE HEAD OF ST. LONGINUS THE CENTURION

From another Greek MS. of the same Library.

St. Longinus the Soldier, Martyr in Cappadocia.

St. Longinus the Centurion, Martyr in Cappadocia.

Two Companions, Martyrs in Cappadocia.

FROM A GREEK VATICAN MS.

[1] Christina, a widow, tormented by a demon After these things, a certain widow woman named Christina, one of the more noble ladies of the place, was invaded by a fierce spirit cruelly tormenting her. She therefore resolved on the following day to set out for the East, for she had heard of those healed by Jesus. On the very night when she had decided within herself to begin the journey, St. Longinus appeared to her without his head, and when she asked who was there, St. Longinus said: at the admonition of St. Longinus "Do you wish to be healed?" She replied: "Yes, Lord; that is what I request." The Saint said to her: "Go to Jerusalem, and inquiring where the house of the Prefect Lucius is, seek there the head of Longinus the Centurion, and bring it back to my body: thus you will be healed. For I am Longinus, who used to pasture sheep by the road, and I have not rested in the tomb in which I was placed until now. But do as I have said, and you will be healed in the name of Jesus Christ; nor will you alone be healed, but I will also enroll your son in the army: for I am the one speaking to you without a head."

[2] When the woman had heard these things, she arose and, bidding farewell to her friends, she goes to Jerusalem set out on her way, and coming to the tomb of the Saint, she cried out with a loud voice, saying: "Lord who are in this place, just as you said to me in the vision, behold I am going: do you help me." And immediately the place trembled, and a voice reached her, saying: "Go, Christ is your helper." Having heard these words, she went and, with joy having traveled the whole way, entered Jerusalem, and having learned from the inhabitants the house of the Prefect Lucius, and bringing back the purchased head of the Saint she requested from him the head of blessed Longinus: which he gave her, having demanded a price of silver to the number of two hundred denarii. The woman, therefore taking the head, worshiped God and gave glory to Him who had deemed her worthy of so distinguished a grace of His goodness.

[3] When she was preparing to set out on her journey toward evening, carrying the head and having her son Christion as a companion on the way, accompanied by Angels behold, three Angels appeared to her, whose glory she could not endure to look upon; they were carrying white candles in their hands and walking before them, singing hymns to God and praising Him all night long. In the morning, they rested in the place they had reached to take food. Through her son she restores it to the body On the third day, returning with her son Christion to her village, she brought the head of St. Longinus and went to the place where he was buried, about the sixth hour of the night. The faithful Christians had built a shrine worthy of the Martyr, and when the woman with her son approached it, the door suddenly opened of its own accord, and the tomb was opened * — we saw — and light shone all around in the dwelling. The young man, entering the tomb with ointments and spices, placed the head upon the body, which was joined to it just as it had been before the severing. When he came out of the tomb, the place was closed again by itself, and they returned to their home, rejoicing and glorifying God.

[4] St. Longinus appears to the mother On the following night, St. Longinus appeared again to Christina, saying: "Now I have received rest, because you have returned my head to me; wherefore know that you are healed from this day. But I ask about your son: shall I enroll him in the earthly or the heavenly army?" She replied, trembling and fearful: "I beseech you, Lord, enroll him in the heavenly army." And upon hearing this, the Saint disappeared. When day came, the young man went out to the vineyard to attend to it; and to her son, who is to be enrolled in the heavenly army and there, as he labored until the seventh hour, St. Longinus offered himself to be seen, and said: "Young man Christion, do you wish, according to your name, to be enlisted in the army of Christ?" He, looking up, saw him shining like lightning, and said to him: "Who are you, Lord, who wish to enlist me in the army?" "I am," said Longinus, "the one to whom your mother gave a head: and just as she brought my head to me, so I also wish to bring you to God." To this Christion replied: "If it is so, let it be to me according to your word." And immediately the young man gave up his spirit.

[5] She mourns her dead son His mother, however, as the day advanced, taking food at the usual hour for the midday meal, went to her son in the vineyard, and entering, found him dead. When she saw this, she fell on the ground on her face, her spirit leaving her, and with her garment torn she lay as if dead, until an Angel approached her and strengthened her, saying: "Why do you weep?" She said: "Because I have lost the only son I had, Angels console her and the fruit of my womb has withered at an untimely age." The Angel replied: "Do not err, woman, nor weep over this: for he has neither perished nor withered, since he is in the bosom of Jesus Christ. Go therefore into the city and summon devout and holy men, who may come and take up the body of your son and bury it in the tomb where the most faithful Longinus rests: and after three days you shall see your son in the ranks of his army."

[6] They report the matter to the Bishop of Tyana Having spoken these things, the Angel departed from her. She, rising, returned to the village, where Angels immediately came to her, consoling her and as if wishing to learn what had happened to her. She told them everything. They, having heard her, went to the Bishop of Tyana in the guise of honorable men, and announced to him what had occurred. The Bishop, Paphnutius by name, forthwith taking with him devout and pious men, set out for the place where the young man lay dead, and turning, ordered his mother to be summoned. When she came, he said to her: "Do not grieve over him, for he possesses the kingdom of heaven and prays much for us: he places the dead youth beside St. Longinus let us rather exult and not be sorrowful." Saying this, he ordered the body of the young man to be taken up and placed with St. Longinus; and they offered to God reigning in heaven an acceptable sacrifice. The pious woman was made a deaconess and minister of the glorious faith; and when she had been greatly commended and admonished, the Bishop returned to the city.

[7] When evening came and night succeeded, at the fourth hour thereof, the mother merits to see her son the Saint appeared again, saying: "Why do you blaspheme me?" Terrified and trembling, she said: "Who are you, my Lord?" And he replied: "I am the one who enrolled your son in the army." Christina, remembering her son, cried out and said: "Lord, if you had enrolled him in the army, you would not have killed him." Again the most faithful Longinus said to her: "Behold, even now you speak blasphemies. Do not do so; but arise and go out of your house, and you will see that your son is serving in the army." Taking her by the hand, he led her out, and she saw the heavens open and a great light in the very night: and looking up, rapt in ecstasy, she saw the heavenly King and her son walking before Him. Then St. Longinus said to her: "Have you now seen your son, and do you believe that he has been enrolled in the army?" She replied: "It is enough for me, as I have spoken to you, Lord." And he immediately disappeared from her.

[8] From this time she remained in the holy house, after having lived a holy life devoting herself day and night to prayers and supplications, and making alms, and also effecting cures of diseases through the invocation of Christ and His holy Martyr; and glorifying God in her life for all the blessings that had befallen her. She died in the days of Bishop Paphnutius, she is buried there and they laid her beside St. Longinus in the same church, in Christ Jesus our Lord: to whom is glory and power, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen.

sanctity, widely spread, had made even the name venerable in Asia Minor.

* Rather, "they saw."