Location:Probably Vaucelles - Date:Shortly before 1250 (incorporated in the first 'Passionaire français') (BHL 4965 ) (Perrot, 1992: 20, 180-189) - Commission: /

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Life of Saint Longinus from Cappadocia (+ 1st century). Longinus was a Roman centurion, an army officer who commanded a legion of about eighty soldiers. According to legend, he pierced the crucified Christ in his side with a lance to check whether he was still alive. The biographer tells how the sun miraculously darkened during this happening and how the blood of Christ flowed down the lance into the eye of Longinus and healed his persistent eye trouble, who had made him almost blind. This event was the reason for his conversion. Longinus rejected his military service and settled down in his native city, Caesarea in Cappadocia, for a life as monk and missionary. There he converted many pagans to great dissatisfaction of Pontius Pilate, who sent some soldiers with the mission to kill Longinus. Longinus eventually died a martyr’s death since he refused to renounce his faith. The storyteller claims that he managed to keep his speech while his tongue was cut off and his teeth knocked out. And so he continued preaching during the tortures. Finally, Longinus was once and for all silenced by decapitation.

MEYER (P.), Légendes hagiographiques en français, in: Histoire littéraire de la France, XXXIII (1906) 401 (fragment)

Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina 4965
HEATH (M.), 'Caecilius, Longinus, and Photius', Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 39 (1998) 271-292
MEYER (P.), Légendes hagiographiques en français, in: Histoire littéraire de la France, XXXIII (1906) 401
PEEBLES (R.J.), The legend of Longinus in ecclesiastical tradition and in English literature, and its connection with the Grail ((Baltimore), 1911)
PERROT (J.P.), Le Passionnaire français au Moyen Age (Genève, 1992) 393-458
VAN DER LINDEN (S.), De Heiligen (Antwerpen, 1999) 527