THE LANCE OF LONGINUS
here are five artefacts known
as the Holy Lance or Lance of Longinus.
That claiming the greatest antiquity in a single location is in Armenia, not far from Yerevan.
The monastery keeping this treasure was founded in the 4th century; they
are said to believe that the Holy Lance was brought to their country by
Barnabas and Thaddeus—early disciples of Paul's mission. The relic still exists.
By the far the most famous
Holy Lance rests in the Vatican. It was taken from Constantinople
by the Turks in 1453 and passed to Pope Innocent in 1492 as a gift from Sultan Bajazet. The relic
is displayed on the fifth Sunday of Lent.
The tip of that same lance was
sold to Louis IX, St. Louis,
in 1241—three years before the fall of Montségur—along with the Crown of
Thorns. It was venerated in the Sainte Chapelle of Paris until it was removed to the National
library during the French Revolution (1789) and subsequently disappeared.
The Lance of St. Maurice
belonged to the Imperial Regalia of the house of Hapsburg in Vienna and was very likely in the possession of several European kings for
over a thousand years. It may be seen in
Vienna.
The Holy Lance of Armenia
The fourth Holy Lance is in
the treasury of the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, Poland. It was presented to King Boleslaw
the Brave (c.966–1025) by the German Emperor Otto III (980-1002) in 1000
AD. It appears to be a replica of the
spear in Vienna,
which is thought to be from the Carolingian period (800 A. D.)
The fifth Lance, as I have suggested in The Blood
Lance, was found at Antioch under suspicious
circumstances and lost five years later in Constantinople.
The Holy Lance of Vienna
The first mention of the Lance of Longinus appears in
the Gospel of Nicodemus (AKA The Acts of Pilate),
which is still in existence. In the
Gospel of John, it is simply said that Jesus was pierced by a Roman lance. Pilgrims described seeing the Spear of
Longinus in 570, when it was displayed in the basilica of Mount
Sion in Jerusalem. It is generally believed that this relic was
presented to the Vatican
in 1492, though it is by no means a certainty.