The Malediction of Loginus
Vampire the Requiem - Covenant - Lancea Sanctum
Malediction details the life of the man who would become Longinus, from his birth to a Roman prostitute named Livia, to the Crucifixion and his damnation. Longinus’ birth name is never revealed, as Longinus viewed his curse as a complete negation of his mortal nature. Instead, he is referred to variously as “the bastard childe,” “he who would become Longinus,” “the soldier,” and “the Devil’s scion,” among many other appellations in the text. The Malediction also implies that Longinus was not merely a Roman soldier in the wrong place at the wrong time, but rather predestined to strike Jesus due to an exceptionally debauched and sinful life. The book asserts that Longinus, prior to his Embrace, violated each of the Seven Deadly Sins in particularly egregious ways. For example, the book claims he drunkenly raped his own mother because he found her “comely” and later murdered a friend who had been promoted above him in the Roman Legions, violations of the sins of Lust and Envy, respectively.
In the climactic event of his mortal life, Longinus was ordered to ascertain whether Jesus Christ was dead or not, and he prodded the Messiah with a Spear because he was too lazy to fetch a ladder, an act of Sloth. Then, when the blood of Christ dripped down from the Spear onto his hands, he went to wipe it off but then became entranced with how pure the blood looked and how sweet it smelled, and to the horror of those standing nearby, he licked it off his hands out of Gluttony. Malediction ends with the archangel Vahishtael confronting Longinus outside Jesus’ tomb and describing to him the nature of the Curse. Curiously, Vahishtael is not found elsewhere in either Jewish or Christian writings, but Zoroastrianism does recognize a being named Asha Vahishta who was one of the Amesha Spentas (angelic beings who served the highest god, Ahura Mazda). The significance of this figure and his possible connection with a pre-Christian religion baffle Sanctified scholars to this very night.
In the climactic event of his mortal life, Longinus was ordered to ascertain whether Jesus Christ was dead or not, and he prodded the Messiah with a Spear because he was too lazy to fetch a ladder, an act of Sloth. Then, when the blood of Christ dripped down from the Spear onto his hands, he went to wipe it off but then became entranced with how pure the blood looked and how sweet it smelled, and to the horror of those standing nearby, he licked it off his hands out of Gluttony. Malediction ends with the archangel Vahishtael confronting Longinus outside Jesus’ tomb and describing to him the nature of the Curse. Curiously, Vahishtael is not found elsewhere in either Jewish or Christian writings, but Zoroastrianism does recognize a being named Asha Vahishta who was one of the Amesha Spentas (angelic beings who served the highest god, Ahura Mazda). The significance of this figure and his possible connection with a pre-Christian religion baffle Sanctified scholars to this very night.
The Malediction of Loginus
The Malediction
of Loginus
1. I am God's holy monster. I drink from humanity.of Loginus
2 I could not see what part I would play for such a long time, because I looked at it with human eyes, with eyes that would die.a
3 So I put forth the truth in this book, for you who seek, just as I have sought.
4. For I am not some Godless beast who hunts beneath the grandeur of sanctity.
5 I am the grandeur; 6I am sanctified.b
7 This is who I am: I am the bearer of the Spear that pierced the side of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Son of David, Begotten Son of God, who died at my hand and descended to Hell and bruised the head of Satan, who rose from the dead on the third day 8that he might save the living. 9But He cannot save the dead.
10 I was born on the same day as Christ, and I died on the same day. Christ was the son of a virgin; I was the son of a whore.
11 Christ taught others to treat others as they would be treated; I only sought to gain what I could, and took what I wanted, and killed whom I wanted. 12Christ was a man of peace who never raised his hand against another manc; I was a man who took pay for the deaths and pains of others. 13Christ lived in righteousness; I lived in sin.
14 In my life, from the age of twelve, when I came into my true nature, I indulged in every sin. I gave in to anger, and beat men to death with my bare hands. 15I placed myself above man and God and would not allow any man to subdue me. 16I slaked my lusts upon women and boys and men and beasts, and sometimes they were willing, and sometimes I paid for unclean pleasures with gold and silver and sometimes I did not, and sometimes they were not willing and I raped them. 17I envied the condition of my fellow men, for I was born poor, and this led me to murder and to steal. 18And I hoarded the gold I stole from the men whose homes I robbed and the gold I took from the people whose taxes I collected. 19I gave in to strong drink, and I made myself sick with the food I ate.
a Lit. “mortal”; alternately, with the eyes of a mortal. VB
b This initial passage (Mal. 1:1-6) was originally written in verse. VB
c The author is mistaken in this respect, if John 2:13-15 is to be believed. CP
20For every good deed that Christ performed, I performed an evil deed. For every miracle and sign that Christ revealed upon the Earth, I made a tragedy come to occur. For each innocent whom Christ healed, I brought pain to an innocent, or I killed, or I maimed. 21It was the perfect will of God that my life be in every way the mirror of Christ; it was God’s perfect and pleasing will that I be present at Christ’s death, and that my hand should wield my spear, and that I should deal the blow that slew him. 22And that I should be cursed. For God predestined me to be cursed. And this is my fate.d
2. My name is Longinus; I have no other. 2I am a Roman, and I was born in the city of Rome to a whore; and her name was Livia. I do not know who my father was; my mother saw no wrong that in her sin — sin that led many men to ruin and debaucherye — she conceived me; and that she did know the name of the man that conceived me.
3But in a dream one night, a dark man came to her and told her that he had made her pregnant with me and had paid her one denarius for the pleasure. I had the mark of God upon me, said the man, and I would be a curse upon the Earth and a vessel of God’s wrath upon the guilty and a test to the innocent, and yet she was not to harm me when I was born, for God had marked me out to bring wrath upon the Earth and bring judgment upon it. 4The dark man told me that I should be called Longinus; she disobeyed him and gave me another name, that I shall not name.f
5My mother’s home city was Nola. Her parents were still living, and she was eleven years old when she rejected their love and care and traveled to Rome. 6There, she lost her virginity as soon as she could, in whatever way she could; she threw herself into the slavery of lust. 7She taught me the things she knew, and encouraged me in her undying passion for her sin and her love of debauchery. 8From the age of fourteen, she sold herself to the public, and she sold herself cheaply, for she took pleasure in the evils she performed.g 9At times, she was so enamored of the carnal evils she performed that she asked no price, and thought not of the consequences of her sin. 10I was made by her to beg and pick pockets as soon as I could walk, so that we might not starve.
d Much like how Genesis lays out the creation story in the first chapter and then begins again in the second and third chapters with slightly different specifics, so the text here tells the whole of Longinus’ story almost in précis, and then begins again in more detail in the second chapter. There is reason to assume that this first chapter is in fact either a later addition or an entirely separate document — part of the original catechism, perhaps — that somehow got included in the tradition and eventually incorporated into the text. CP
e Biblical criticism has for several years engaged with feminist thinking (see for example Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror, Minneapolis 1984 feminist expositions of the Testament, however, are perhaps unsurprisingly few and far between. A feminist critique of Longinus’ interactions and relationship with his prostitute mother is sorely needed. CP
f Debate among orthodox Monachal circles concerning the identity of the Dark Man has been fierce. Conservatives generally conclude that it was a visitation from Satan, their (convincing) logic depending upon the parallelism of Livia with Mary: Mary was a virgin, Livia was anything but; Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, Livia’s impregnation was wholly carnal; Gabriel visited Mary, and Satan — who is, remember, an archangel, and hence equal with Gabriel — visited Livia. And of course, Mary obeys Gabriel with regard to her child’s name, while Livia does not. VB
g Engaging in pleasure in the carnal act was seen by both pagans and Christians as a fundamentally sinful characteristic in a woman. CP
11I became known to the men and women and dogs of the streets of Rome as the Bastard, for even then, knowing that I would be more, I refused to use the name that had been given to me, and on the day that I reached the age of twelve, my mother too ceased to use the name she had given, and she too would only call me the Bastard. 12It was when I was twelve years of age, too, that I chose to steal my mother’s meager earnings and place a wager on the result of a chariot race in the Circus. It happened that the chariot on which I placed my mother’s money lost its wheel, and the charioteer was thrown to the earth and trampled to death under the horses of another driver. 13I lost the money, and when I returned home, my mother scolded me and took out a whip and meant to beat me; 14but even though I was a boy I was stronger than her, for she was slight, and I had strangled dogs with my bare hands and taken them home for meat. 15And I snatched the whip from my mother’s hand and stripped her dress from her and whipped her into the street naked, and as I pursued her into the street and whipped her bloody and seized her hair and dragged her into the forum, 16I cried out loud to the assembled scum of Rome: “She is a dog, fit only for mounting!” 17And I offered her body to the men who would take her, and took the money for my own earnings as the men of the city took their pleasure upon her, for my words were powerful and persuaded men to follow their desires.
18And from that day on, I was master of my house, and I held the purse, and I beat my mother if she did not hand the gold to me to use as I would, and I bought her fine dresses and oils for her hair, and paint for her face, and I fed her as I would, but she was my slave, and she would not speak out against me.
19And I grew to manhood, and became fond of wine. I drew companions to me, and they numbered twelve, 20and they were Veranius the seller of knives, and Gellius the butcher; Malchio the usurer, Ascyltus and Giton the catamites, Gaius Clodius and Lucius Clodius the sons of Sextus; Philebus and Florens; Encolpia the whore; Plotius the lover of wine; and Ganymede, whom I betrayed.
21And the Twelve stood beside me in all the crimes that I would commit. When I stole, they stole with me, and when I killed, they joined in the slaughter. And when I took a woman, they would hold her and silence her, and throw her corpse into the river. 22A night came when I became soaked with wine, and came into my home, and seized my mother by the hair, and took my pleasure upon her.
23And I returned to the Twelve and boasted to them of what I had done, and said, “Am I not a more fortunate man than any of you? For who among you has had pleasure with a whore so beautiful as my ripe mother?”
24And so I committed the sin of lust.
3. And I was known as a violent man. 2I would have no truck with any man who disagreed with me, or thwarted me in my lust or greed or gluttony, 3and I killed whom I saw fit, and I fought with abandon. 4A seller of vegetables claimed that I had taken his wares and that I had cheated him of his due, and I told Ganymede and the sons of Sextus Clodius to hold him down, and I broke both of his arms, so that he could not dig his precious vegetables. 5And the son of Livia’s sister, who cheated me in a wager, his hand I cut off so that he could not cheat me again, nor anyone else.
6And so I committed the sin of anger. And my neighbors feared me, and they hated me. And I was content.
7It so happened that a certain centurion called Pandirah had entered into a wager with me concerning the outcome of a dog fight and had won, for his dog had torn out the throat of mine, and the blood had run across the stones of the forum. 8Now Pandira was a corrupt man and had cheated me, but he had the swords of eighty men at his command and I had only twelve. 9But he claimed generosity and offered me a post as a soldier in his garrison, and I knew that I must become a soldier, and Ganymede and the sons of Sextus Clodius joined me in the arms and armor of the soldier.
10And so it was that I and the Three traveled to the land of Judea, there to serve as soldiers of the Emperor of Rome.
4. And in Judea, I saw that in my armor I was feared, and that I could take the goods that I wanted, and that I could take any woman that I wanted, and that while collecting the taxes I could add sums of my own, and I saw that it was good. And I saw that I could be rich. 2And so I committed the sin of greed.
3But I saw that I was not a good soldier. 4For a centurion is a man set under authority, with soldiers under him. He says to a man “Come,” and the man comes, and he says to another, “Go,” and the man goes, and to another “Do this,” and the man does it.i 5But when the centurion told me to come, I did not come, and when he told me to go, I did not go. And when he told me to do a thing, I did not do it. And so I came to know the lash and the rod, and the scars grew long and red on my back, and the blood ran freely on the barracks floor. 6And I was made to clean out the buckets of waste, and to scrub the barracks floor. And I was humiliated. But Ganymede and the sons of Sextus Clodius found that they took pleasure in the training and the order of the army, and grew in favor with the decurion and the centurion. And when a stone cast by a Judean killed a centurion, Pandira chose from the men Ganymede and raised him up.
7And I grew envious of Ganymede, and I spoke to a brothel-keeper that we both knew, and I caused the brothel-keeper to give to Ganymede a woman who hated the Romans, and arranged for her to be given a knife, and when Ganymede went into the woman’s room to take his pleasure with her, she thrust the dagger into Ganymede’s eye and Ganymede was dead. And I had done this for no other reason that Ganymede had been raised up and I had not.
8I killed the woman myself, and I paid the brothel-keeper for his silence, and I told Pandira that Ganymede had been avenged. 9But the brothel-keeper was greedy and sought to gain more, and went to Pandira and told him that
h Also the name of the reputed true father of Christ — also a soldier — in early anti-Christian texts. This surely cannot be a coincidence. CP
i Cf. Luke 7:8, Matthew 8:9. CP
I had arranged for my friend’s death. Pandira hated me, and went to Pilate the governor. And Pilate called me to account, and they stripped me of my arms and brought me to trial. And I was threatened with the sword. 10The brothel-keeper stood and accused me. But God made it so that Pilate did not believe the man and I escaped death, for He had set apart for me a fate that was beyond the fate of a common soldier under sentence of death.
5. This is what had happened. One night several months previously I had left the barracks and sought to rob a beautiful young man I had seen many times before, and enjoy his tender rump, and kill him. And I saw the youth, and followed him to the place where I had decided to draw my sword and take him. 2But I lost sight of the boy, until I heard a cry, and ran to the sound of the cry, and saw that another man had seen the boy and had wanted him for his own, and had stripped him and was sodomizing him.j 3I flew into a rage and grabbed the boy’s assailant by the throat and threw him to the ground and ground my heel upon his manhood and kicked him in the face and the gut until the blood flowed on the dirt and he begged and screamed no more. 4I turned upon the boy, but before I could take him myself, the boy thanked me and told me that he was the servant of Proclak, the wife of Pilate the governor, and asked me to take the ring that he pressed into my hand, on which was the seal of Pilate’s wife.l
5And so I did not take my pleasure on the boy that night, but returned to the barracks.
6And I remembered this, and sent the seal-ring from the barracks where I had been confined with Lucius the son of Sextus Clodius, 7and so when the day of the trial came and the brothel-keeper came to speak, Pilate refused to believe him, for Procla had come to him and had told him how I had saved her favored servant, although she did not know that I had intended to rob and to sodomize the youth myself. 8And I was set free and the brothel-keeper was flogged for his presumption, and the night after I was set free, I went to the brothel-keeper’s brothel and found the man, and made sure he could see my face, and strangled him.
6. And my lot became better after the trial, for Procla sent for me and thanked me for saving her favored servant, and said that she had asked Pilate that I be placed in the guard of her household as a reward. And I thanked her, and I lusted after her in my heart, but I knew that I should not slake my lusts on her, for she was the maker of my freedom.
2And I thought it good to be a member of the governor’s guard. And one night, I stole into the quarters of Pandira the centurion and took a silver
j Latin irrumpo. Most English translations of this word are mildly obscene; I thought it inconsistent with the dignity of the text to use a more vulgar translation. VB
k Earlier translations of Mal. refer to Pilate’s wife as “Claudia,” as per the London MSS. However, with the unearthing of the Oxyrhynchus fragments, the name of Pilate’s wife in the earliest available MS is revealed as Procla; besides, this fits with living Christian tradition, where Pilate’s wife has always been Procla, and hence this should be the preferred reading. HM
l Is the use of a seal-ring a medieval anachronism? Scholarship differs on this point. See Petronius, Time out of Place: Anachronism in the Longinian Corpus, pp. 21-4 for a survey. CP
neck-chain that he had often worn and had been seen to wear. And I covered my face and went into the room of Procla and spilled my seed upon her bed, and saw her awaken, and held her mouth so that she could not scream and left the room, and left Pandira’s silver neck-chain behind.
3And I was the one who came to Procla’s room first when she screamed, and I made show of finding the neck-chain, and pretended not to know whose it was, but one of the other soldiers recognized it and accused Pandira, and we arrested him, and he was put to trial. 4And although he vowed he was innocent, he could not say where he was, for he was away from the barracks, stealing from another man’s house. And so Pandira was put to death, 5and I was the one who stood with Pandira at sunset and held the sword that took off his head, and I pretended friendship with Pandira and shed tears while in my heart I was laughing. 6And the blood ran freely over the courtyard, and pooled into the cracks between the stones, and shone in the torchlight, and filled the air with its stench.
7And I rejoiced.
7. And I was still known as the Bastard to some, and others called me the Soldier, and to the Jews I was the Son of Satan, and I was pleased, for it meant that they feared me. 2I saw that my rise within the service of Pilate and Procla was not fate, and began to believe that the God of the Jews, who they said saw all things and knew all things and governed all things, had raised me for a purpose, although I did not know what it was. 3And I knew that my sin, for which the sin of no other man was a match, had set me apart for a place in history, although I did not know what it was.
4But as I was sent to lead men to defeat the rebellious Jews, I saw that I loved to make the blood flow freely, and that the sight of blood was more intoxicating than the taste of wine, and that the smell of blood was more pleasurable than the smell of a woman’s crotchm. 5And sometimes, when no one except the sons of Sextus Clodius saw, I put my hand in the blood I had spilled and raised the hand to my mouth, and tasted it, and commanded the sons of Sextus Clodius to do likewise. And it was good.
6But I did not know that this was not the blasphemy that I was ordained to do, and I lived content in my bloodshed and my sin. 7The time was not yet right for the Son of the Damned to be revealed in all his glory, nor was it right that I should yet lead the Damned to true salvation.
8. In two years, I had become the captain of Pilate's guard, and I was made centurion. 2It happened that a merchant named Phaecus came to Jerusalem. Now Phaecus was a dishonest man, and Pilate had him brought before him, for he had not paid his taxes. 3Phaecus begged and wheedled, and offered the governor a bribe, and gave Pilate treasures from his ship: some gold plate, some gemstones and pearls, some small amount of Tyrian purple, and the tip of a spear made of some black metal, that Phaecus told Pilate had been the weapon of a king, although Pilate did not believe him. 4But Pilate set the man free.
m Latin cunna; the obvious, vulgar translation again avoided. VB
5Now the festival of the Passover that the Jews celebrate came near, and Pilate saw fit to give out the things the merchant had given him to his friends to mark the festival. But the Spearhead he gave to me. And he told me that it had been the weapon of a king. 6And I took it and affixed it to a good new shaft out of pride, for it meant that I was the favored man of the governor and of the governor’s wife.
7And so I committed the sin of pride.
9. The Spearhead was the weapon that God had destined to strike Christ in the side.n It had been made long ago in the days before the Deluge by Tubal-Cain the Smith, the son of Zillah, the second wife of Lamech, the son of Enoch.o 2Tubal-Cain’s son had struck his grandfather Lamech’s face, and Lamech had slain him. Tubal-Cain sought revenge, and prayed to God that his son be avenged. 3On the night that Tubal-Cain prayed, a stone fell from the sky, and it was hard, and it was black, and Tubal-Cain saw that God had answered his prayer, and from the metal in the stone he fashioned a Spearhead, that he might kill Lamech.
4But Tubal-Cain failed, for Lamech was a mighty warrior, and Lamech laid his foot on Tubal-Cain’s neck and seized the Spear, and impaled Tubal-Cain through the heart, and Tubal-Cain died. 5And Lamech took the Spear for his own, and it became a sign for all who would see that Lamech was a mighty warrior before the LORD, and he slew all of his enemies and was made king, 6and went forth on a war of conquest, and was victorious against every man he faced, until the LORD saw fit to strike down humanity in the Flood, and Lamech was drowned, and the Spear was lost.
7But the Spear was not marred by time, and its head did not rust or decay, and it remained as sharp and as hard as the day it was forged, when a ship captain from Tyre found it lying on a beach in the sand, and traded it to the merchant Phaecus, who gave it to Pontius Pilate that he might not be imprisoned or killed, 8who gave it to Longinus, that he might strike Christ in the side and incur the curse of God, and become a sign to the Damned of God’s perfect will for them.
10. I had heard of Jesus of Nazareth, but I had never seen Him. I was afraid. For he was a good man, and He had healed the servant of a centurion I had known who had become a follower of this man and had abandoned his arms. 2And Procla had begun to dream of Him, and she had told her husband Pilate of her dreams in my hearing. And I did not care to know more about this Jesus, because he was one of many Jewish rebels, and because I needed no healing, and I did not need to repent, for I was content. 3And I had heard of his message that people could be saved by his words, and
n This whole chapter, although its source is unknown, is an obvious interpolation into the narrative. The author breaks voice, and expresses things that Longinus could not possibly know (outside of divine intervention, of course). Linguistic changes — particularly the use of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton in the middle of the Latin text to refer to God (here translated “LORD” as per convention), as opposed to the simple use of deus (“God”) and dominus (“Lord”) in the rest of the text — only strengthen this impression. CP
o See Genesis 4:17-24, particularly vv. 23-4: “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then truly Lamech is avenged seventy-sevenfold.” VB
I thought that absurd, for no man can be saved by anything other than a blade. 4And I heard of his healings, and thought that I did not need to be healed. 5And I had heard his curses upon the men of violence, and the men of authority and on the rich, and I laughed, for the proud do not need to inherit the earth, for it is theirs now, and the rich and the doers of violence have the power of the lives of all, and no preaching can change that. 6And I considered a message of reconciliation and forgiveness to be a woman’s message, for I had never forgiven man or woman in my life, and had never been forgiven anything, nor did I expect forgiveness.
7And it happened that on that day when Christ was betrayed by one of his own followers, and brought before the Sanhedrin and then before Pilate, I was not present, 8because God had caused my eye to swell up and fill with blood, and my sight was blurred and weak. 9And so while Jesus Christ was on trial before Pilate, I slept, and while he was beaten on the road to Calvary, I ate grapes with the sons of Sextus Clodius and enjoyed the white flesh of a slave girl, and drank wine from Pilate’s cellars. And so I committed the sin of gluttony.
10But at the fifth hour of that day, a messenger from Pilate came and said, 11“Look, it is the twelfth hour of the day, and you and your companions must rise, and go to the three crucified men on Calvary and make sure that they are dead. 12And you must take them down and hand them over to be buried, for the Jews will not allow corpses to hang on the cross on the day of their Sabbath.”
13And I and the sons of Sextus Clodius rose and strapped on our breastplates and our swords and our cloaks, and rode to Calvary, and arrived at the turn of the sixth hour, and there were the three men on the three crosses: 14the thief Gestas on the left hand, and the thief Dysmas on the right, and Jesus Christ between them.p 15And many people standing before Jesus Christ, weeping and rending their clothes, among them a youth and a woman,q and Jesus Christ still spoke to them, and closed his eyes, although I did not hear what he said. And I ordered the sons of Sextus Clodius to drive them away, and they did, 16and they seized from the woman and the youth a shirt that had belonged to Jesus Christ, and they saw that it had no seam, and they began to quarrel over which of them should receive it, and I told them to play dice for it, but that they should hurry, for they had not yet killed the criminals.r And at this time the sky turned black, as if it were night.s
p Tradition as to which thief was on the right and which thief was on the left differs (see the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus 10:2, in which the names of the two thieves alternate depending on the text used the thief on Jesus’ right-hand side (which would be Longinus’ left) is always the penitent, however, and so in this version, Gestas is the penitent, and Dysmas the one who issues the curses. VB
q Presumably St. John the Divine, the “disciple whom Jesus loved” (who by tradition was the youngest of the Apostles) and Mary, Jesus’ mother (John 19:26-7). VB
r The story of the men gambling for the clothes, presented in a slightly different order to the Christian narrative; e.g. John 19:24. The seamless robe of Christ was by tradition possessed of miraculous powers. In one spurious but nonetheless popular tradition, Pilate himself gains possession of the robe of Christ and uses its powers for his own ends, clouding the mind of the Emperor Tiberius by the simple act of wearing it, until the Emperor orders he remove it and has him killed (told e.g. in The Death of Pilate). VB
s Also Matthew 27:45. VB
17I commanded another soldier, who was already present, to break the legs of the men, and he took up a cudgel and broke the legs of the thief Gestas and the thief Dysmas, but he would not break the legs of Jesus Christ, for he said that the man was already dead.
18I rode my horse towards the man Jesus Christ and brought my face to his chest, and I could hear that he was breathing, and I cursed the soldier for a fool, and would have told the man to assault Jesus Christ with the cudgel, when the man Jesus opened his eyes and looked at me, and looked to Heaven, 19and I cowered before the eyes of Jesus Christ, for I saw that should I ask, he would forgive me, and a woman among those weeping nearby raised her voice and begged that I show mercy to the man Jesus Christ and take him down. 20And the earth shook. 21And I doubted myself and said, “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”t And I wanted to flee, but I would not show cowardice to the weaklings who wept for this man. 22And I thought I might take the man down and show mercy to him, for I knew that Pilate had not wished to execute him,u but I did not wish to explain myself, nor did I wish to find a carpenter, nor did I wish to find men to bring down the cross. 23And so I committed the sin of sloth.
24And I raised my Spear and thrust it into the man Jesus Christ’s side, and the blood flowed freely, mixed with waterv, and ran down the shaft of the blade and onto my hand.
25And Jesus died and let out a cry, and the earth shook, and the graves of the dead split open. And the dead lay still within them. And I cried out, too, for I realized that all of this was God’s will, and the dead rose, and began to walk, and hungered.w
26I raised my hand and wiped my forehead and a drop of blood fell in my eye, and my eye was healed.x And I licked the blood from my hand, and it tasted sweet.y 27And I knew that I was damned.
11. Seeing that Christ was dead, the soldiers did not break his legs.
2But instead one of the soldiers pierced His side with a Spear, and blood and water flowed out.
3A drop of blood fell upon the soldier’s lips, and he wiped it away with his hand.
4Yet the next day, he slept past the sunrise, and only awoke from his sleep at nightfall.
t Also Matthew 27:54; Mark 15:39. VB
u How? The narrative is unclear on this point. CP
v Also John 19:31-4. VB
w Compare Matthew 27:52: “The tombs were also opened, and many of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.” The Evangelist attributes the walking dead to Jesus; the Testament, on the other hand, considers the raising of the dead — hungry dead — to Longinus, his first true miracle as the bearer of the Spear. VB
x Repeated in The Golden Legend. VB
y The earliest MSS omit the phrase, repeated here from Mal. 10:9, “And so I committed the sin of gluttony,” which, although oft-quoted, makes little theological sense anyway, since Longinus’ seven sins must have preceded the killing of Christ in order for him to have truly entered into his destiny. VB
5And after tasting Christ’s blood, he thirsted for more.
6I know these things, and I know because I am the soldier.z aa
7My sight was restored; and it was beyond the clarity of mortals, and made better than it had ever been; I was blind, and now I see, for God wished me to see all things as they truly are. 8For clarity of sight was necessary for the ministry that God had entrusted to me. 9I saw that I had by my own free will removed myself from the light of God, and that no salvation would exist for me, and I understood what it meant to be Damned as I had not understood it before, 10and at the moment Jesus died, I died, too, and my heart ceased to beat, and I ceased to draw breath. And I declared that this man was the Son of God, for it was the truth.ab ac
11And I was Longinus, the bearer of the Spear, and would be, and will be forever, world without end until such time as Christ returns in glory and wrath and ends the world, and I shepherd the Damned into the arms of Hell and Death, and I shall rejoice, and they shall rejoice with me, for that is their lot.ad 12And I rode from that place and found a dark place where I could hide from the sun, for I was afraid, and I slept, and did not awaken until the sun had risen and set once more.
12. I awoke and left the city, and went into the wilderness, wandered, hungry and yet unable to eat, and numb and like a man in fever. And for forty nights I starved in the wilderness, and for forty days I slept, and on the forty-first night, Satan came to me in the likeness of my mother, and I was tempted. ae 2And my mother said to me, “If you are truly the first of the Damned, you can feed from the living without remorse,” and she took me to a place where a shepherd-boy slept by a fire, and she invited me to feed from the child, 3and I took the boy by the throat and drank deeply of his blood, and the boy died, and I was strengthened, and I rejoiced.
z The versified phrases found in Mal. 11:1-6 not only re-iterate the preceding text, but contradict it (e.g. compare v. 10:26 with 11:3). Although this is surely the most-quoted tract of the whole of Mal. one cannot but think that this is yet another interpolation, beginning what amounts to an epilogue, which overlaps with the beginning of Tor. Note also the complete disappearance of the sons of Sextus Clodius from the narrative at this point on. Proponents of the multiple authorship theory (myself included) consider Mal. 11:1 to be the beginning of the Deutero-Longinus text, which may or may not be by the same author as Tor. but which is likely not by the same author as Mal. 1:7 - 8:7 and 10:1-27 (Mal. 9 appears to be by another author again — see note n above). It does have similarities with Mal. 1:1-6, suggesting perhaps that the original text might have begun with 1:1-6 and continued with 11:1, the part considered the body of the text being the actual interpolation. Certainly, Deutero-Longinus presents his writing with more force, more poetry and more powerful imagery. CP
aa Longinus pauses his tale at the most vital point to re-iterate, using verse to re-tell his story, emphasizing the spiritual force of what had happened and what would happen next, in what is justly the most well-known text in the whole of the Testament, bar Mal. 1:1-6. VB
ab Another repetition, this time of Mal. 10:21. CP
ac A confirmation and emphasis of Mal. 10:21. VB
ad It surely does not need to be said that theological discussion with regard to what Mal. 11:11 means for now and for the future is extremely lively. VB
ae Theologically, the fact that Satan, who some consider to have been Longinus’ father, is now also his mother, only confirms the uniqueness of the person of Longinus in many theologians’ opinions. Note that Satan here is only ever “she,” which is unique in the Judeo-Christian and heretical religious texts of antiquity. VB
4And she took me to the pinnacle of the Temple, and said, “If you are truly the eternal Damned, throw yourself from this Temple, for your injuries shall bind themselves.” And I threw myself from the Temple, and I landed on the courtyard, and was broken. And the Blood healed me, and my bones knitted together, and my body was whole again.
5And then she took me to a high place that oversaw a graveyard, and she said, “If you are truly the prophet of the Damned, command the dead to rise and bow down before you,” and I spoke out loud: “Arise,” and a dozen of the dead — the unrighteous dead — rolled back the stones of their tombs, and bowed down before me.af And they were hungry, and I commanded that they go out into the city and sate their hunger. 6And Satan kissed me, and left me, and I left that place, and I understood 7my mandate and my mission, which is in the Blood.
8I saw the proof of my power over the mortal sheep; I kept the hungry wolves in the boiling cauldronag of my heart.
9And the mixture is a miracle, and has raised the Predator over the Prey.
10Blood burns like the fire. Blood thunders like the storm.
11Blood runs freely and stains the earth through eternity, for we only have the appearance of eternity, but the Blood remains.
12I knew that I must become the master of the Blood or forever be its slave.
13And I rejoiced, for I knew I was Damned, and that God willed it so.
13. In the city of Jerusalem, I met others who were Damned as I, but they did not truly understand it, and mocked me, as I had mocked Christ. And they tried to drive me away, for they considered the sheep on whom I had fed to be their herd. And I cursed them:
2”Woe to you, you Elders! For you hoard the Blood to yourselves, and yet you do not understand it.” And for a time, they left me, and considered my words.
3I no longer lusted after women; I no longer desired wine; I no longer hungered after fine foods. I had no wish for wealth, for I did not need treasures on Earth, when I had treasures in Hell. 4But I did not know what I should do, and would have lost my mind, if I had not decided that God wished more of me.
5And I held the others in contempt: for though I could see that they slept and hunted and fed in the streets of the city, they were like the beasts of the wild.
6They were Damned, and they stalked inside the walls, and they snarled, and they behaved like wolves or lions, but they did not have the thoughts of men.
af Compare the temptations of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13), to which Christ of course does not succumb, another example of parallelism (see note f above) and a sign of continuity and consistent single authorship throughout the whole of Mal. VB
ag Earliest MS. In later MSS often “cistern.” VB
7They were thirsty, to no purpose.
8I hoped that I might find my Damned Kindred among them, but how could I know what to tell them, until I had heard myself the things I should tell?
14. Now one night I happened upon a woman, on whom I decided to feed. But I could not feed from her, nor could I lay a hand on her. 2And instead I spoke to her and asked her who she was, and she told me: “I am no one, but I follow one greater than I, and His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died and was buried, who rose again on the third day, and who ascended to Heaven.” And I was dumbfounded, and I let her go. 3And I found that I could not feed on those who followed Christ.
4And I feared to go to the tomb of Christ and see for myself for thirty-three years. But when those years had passed, I dreamed of owls,ah and I saw that I must travel to the sepulcher and see for myself.
5I waited until the night was dark, and clouds obscured the moon, and I found that the tomb was still empty, and I knew that the tales of the resurrection and ascension of the man Jesus Christ were true.
6And there appeared to me a blinding light, and I cowered in the tomb, thinking the sun had risen, but there stood before me archangel Vahishtael,ai with black wings and the heads of a calf, a serpent and a wolf, and holding a spear like the Spear I still held, and he spoke to me, and said:
7“Fear me, Longinus. For I am the messenger of your purpose.
8“The Damned are many, and they are denied salvation.
9“But the Damned serve as the sign to humanity of the price of sin, and to make mortals fear and to understand that their lives are brief and full of pain, and they can only see the most pitiful reflection of the glories of Heaven, for they do not see clearly, but see as if through a blurred mirror, 10and the Damned do not see through the mirror at all.
11“And it is the lot of the Damned to take the blood of mortals, that mortals might know that they will die, and that their only salvation is in the next life.
12 “And it is your lot to go and give this message to all of the Damned, that they might know God’s purpose for them and rejoice.
13“Now go, Longinus, and spread the Word to all the Damned.”
14And the angel left me, and I rejoiced, for I knew that I was once lost, and now I was found, and that I had found my purpose.
15And I left that place.
ah Every single MS agrees on the dream being of exactly that — owls, the birds — but there is no clear reason why this should lead Longinus to the tomb of Christ. Although my two colleagues were invited to comment, neither would (though VB did suggest a possible connection to Esch. 4:1-15). At any rate, some of the more recent arguments dealing with the supernatural in this respect can safely be discounted as the ravings of fundamentalists and conspiracy theorists. HM
ai Not attested to in any other text before this point, and in no living Christian or Jewish source. Comparisons with the Zoroastrian “Vahishta” are in my opinion forced. Vahishtael appears of course in Esch. and in a fragment of the Testimony of the Plague Angel. CP
Type
Record, Historical
St. Loginus the Centurion
The mortal Catholic Church also acknowledges the existence of a man referred to as Longinus. According to Christian folklore and the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, Longinus was a Centurion who oversaw the Crucifixion, exclaimed at the moment of Jesus’ death that He was truly the Son of God, and thereafter converted to Christianity. Mortal accounts differ as to whether this Longinus is the same man who struck Jesus, but the Centurion, like the vampire, apparently took the name Longinus due to his connection with the spear. The mortal Longinus is believed to have taken the shaft of the spear with him when he left Jerusalem, and he was eventually martyred in Cappodocia and later canonized as the patron saint of soldiers. A famous statue of St. Longinus stands in St. Peter’s Basilica, and according to legend, the shaft of the spear is contained within it. Most members of the Lancea Sanctum consider this mortal saint to be distinct from (and irrelevant to) the vampire Longinus, but not all do, creating a bit of a canonical schism that Storytellers or Sanctified characters may wish to explore.
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