The Testament of Loginus

The theology of The Lancea Sanctum begins with the writings attributed to Longinus and the Monachus. There are a total of five books, collectively known as The Testament of Longinus, attributed to the two vampires. The individual books are: The Malediction of Loginus, The Torments of Longinus, The Rule of Golgotha, The Sanguinaria, and The Book of Eschaton. The books are relatively short, and the Testament of Longinus as a whole is probably near the length of a modern novella. While all of the Testament is considered to be the word of Longinus, the perspective of the books changes frequently. Some sections are written by Longinus in either the first person or third person, others are dictated to the Monachus by Longinus, and still others do not clearly identify the author or narrator.
One: That though you are Damned, your Damnation has purpose. It is the will of God that you are what you are, and the will of God is that the Damned exist to show the evils of turning from Him. The evil become Damned; God has taken those worthy of His love to His own side.
Two: That what you once were is not what you now are. As a mortal is a sheep, so are the Damned wolves among them. That role is defined by nature — wolves feed on their prey, but they are not cruel to them. The role of predator is natural, even if the predator himself is not.
Three: That an ordained hierarchy exists. As man is above beasts, so are the Damned above men. Our numbers are fewer so that our purpose is better effected.
Four: That with the power of Damnation comes limitation. The Damned hide among those who still enjoy God’s love, making themselves known only to exemplify fear. The Damned shall make none of their own, for such is a judgment of soul that is the purview only of God. The Damned shall suffer yet more should they slay a fellow to take his soul from him.
Five: That our bodies are not our own. Our purpose is to serve, and when we stray from that purpose, we are to be chastened. The light of the sun excoriates; the flames of a fire purify fleshly evil. The taste of all sustenance other than Vitae is as ash upon the tongue.

Read the Document

The Testament of Loginus

v Preface to the Revised Edition

1 THE TESTAMENT OF LONGINUS,

with notes and alternate readings

1 The Malediction

13 The Torments of Longinus

21 The Rule of Golgotha

39 The First Book of Sanguinaria

45 The Second Book of Sanguinaria

53 The Book of the Eschaton

65 APPENDICES

65 Appendix I:

Textual History of the Testament of Longinus

69 Appendix II:

F ragments from the Longinian Apocrypha

75 Appendix III:

The Search for the Historical Longinus

Preface to the
Revised Edition

It seems something of an oversight that the central text on which the religion of Longinus rests should not have been given a translation that reflects modern innovations in scholarship and recent manuscript discoveries (not least the vitally important fragments uncovered at the Oxyrhynchus site and in the Nag Hammadi codices).
The original Authorized Version of the Testament of Longinus was a tremendous achievement for the scholars translating it and for the faithful adherents of the Longinian Rule who had long sought a vernacular translation. We exist in its shadow; we cannot hope to duplicate the dignity and power of its prose, much of which has passed from the page into common usage. It transformed our language. It transformed the way we think of ourselves.
But the language of the old version, for all its force and grace, is now as archaic and inaccessible to the new reader or listener as the Vulgate Testament was four hundred years ago. It is time for a version of the Testament that reflects the times we inhabit.
In early 2004, a committee of Archbishops and other significant figures met in London at the instigation of the Rt. Rev. Francis Rose to discuss the possibility of a new edition of the Testament. Although some controversy inevitably resulted, Archbishop Rose’s party held the day, and a committee of three scholars was invited to begin the project: myself, Caroline Petronius of Chicago and Victor Ballsden of London.
The result of these deliberations is the present volume.
This edition of the Testament of Longinus of course includes the five books of the generally accepted Longinian canon. We can assume that little introduction need be made of these books to the devotee, but since we intend this work to be accessible to a wider scholarly audience, it serves our purposes to offer some explanation.
The Malediction of Longinus concerns the life of Longinus, largely before the epochal events on Calvary, and presents Longinus the man as a barely repentant sinner. The Torments of Longinus begins where the Malediction leaves off. Torments (sometimes The Book of Torments) was once generally considered a second part of the same document as the Malediction, but stylistic and linguistic differences, as well as differing MS traditions, lead us to at least entertain the possibility that they are by two different authors. We do not comment on the possible truth of this theory; we shall offer the evidence to the reader and arguments from both single-author and multiple-author positions.
If this is indeed true, then the Rule of Golgotha is by the latter of the two Longinian Authors. The Rule has traditionally been a short text, but a longer version has recently been unearthed – that version has been provided in this edition. Regardless, the Rule has been the most influential book on our political development, it being a collection of teachings and laws. The Sanguinaria (here divided into two sections, as per the Authorized Version) concerns the acts and fates of Longinus’ disciples. It is largely thought to comprise two texts, but these texts are not divided equally among the two halves of the book. Finally, the Book of the Eschaton falls firmly into the genre of the apocalyptic.
Some more detailed notes on the transmission and theories as to multiple authorship of these texts (along with speculation on the possible identities of the putative Deutero-Longinus and Trito-Longinus) can be found in Appendix I.
We follow the main body of the Testament with a summary and selection of texts from the Longinian apocrypha, which, while not generally accepted as doctrine by most orthodox divines, are nonetheless well known and often commonly referenced (although some are given more credence than others). The apocryphal books are: the anonymous Testimony of the Plague Angel, the Teachings of Longinus, the Byzantine Tradition of Blood and the Acts of Daniel. We have also included a few surviving fragments from the heretical Euagaematikon of Vitericus Minor, for the sake of interest. We include these texts with no comment as to their value, historical or doctrinal; only the hope that they may illuminate the context of the canonical Testament for the casual reader and the devotee, and to offer a starting point for the more scholarly reader. These can be found in Appendix II.
We should add a word or two on Longinus himself. In our history, no one figure (with the possible exception of a late-medieval Eastern European, of whom this is not the place to speak) has caused so much controversy, or has directed political and social change so drastically and so many times as Longinus. We recognize that any pronouncement made on a figure who forms the basis of religious faith should be made with care or controversy will result, and hence we step lightly. Longinus is by tradition and consensus the protagonist, narrator and author of the short collection of books that bear his name, and the Testament is the most complete source for Longinus’ life and career. However, we would be remiss not to mention that the earliest textual mention of Longinus occurs not in the Testament itself, but outside of the Longinian Tradition, in the Gospel of Nicodemus (also known as the Acts of Pilate). His mention amounts wholly to the following:
But Jesus spake before Pilate, and we know that we saw him receive buffets and spittings upon his face, and that the soldiers put on him a crown of thorns and that he was scourged and received condemnation from Pilate, and that he was crucified at the place of a skull and two thieves with him, and that they gave him vinegar to drink with gall, and that Longinus the soldier pierced his side with a spear...

(Gospel of Nicodemus XVI. 7, trans. MR James)

This text dates to the early fourth century CE, only shortly before the Testament’s accepted date of writing. He is from the very beginning the bearer of the Lance that pierced the side of Christ. In fact, some commentators point out the similarity between the name “Longinus” and the Greek λογχη (longche, “spear”), suggesting that the name ascribed to him is nothing more than a corruption of “the spearman.”
Tradition would later hold that he converted to Christianity and was martyred. Longinus’ story flourished through the Middle Ages, although transmission outside of the ranks of the Longinian faithful proved garbled. A version of Longinus’ story was accepted by the living Catholic Church for centuries; the most commonly referenced retelling appears in Jacob de Voragine’s Golden Legend:
Longinus, who was a powerful knight, was by the side of the cross of our Lord with other knights, by the command of Pilate. He pierced the side of our Lord with a spear. When he saw the miracles, how the sun lost his light, and the earthquake when our Lord suffered death and passion on the tree of the cross, he believed in Jesus Christ. Some say that when he struck our Lord with the spear in the side, the precious blood ran down the shaft of the spear and onto his hands, and by chance, he touched his eyes with his hands. And before he was blind, and now he could see. He gave up arms, and went to stay with the apostles...

(de Voragine, Life of Saint Longinus, translation my own)

The Golden Legend goes on to tell us that Longinus lives as a monk until the Emperor Octavian calls him to account and has Longinus beheaded. The Emperor converts to Christianity over Longinus’ headless body. One need not be much of an historian to understand this to be a fiction, but it deserves mention because it demonstrates that the tale of Longinus had passed—although in admittedly garbled form—outside of our own circles and into wider living society. Had the story been overheard? (We address the history of the tale of Longinus and talk of theories surrounding the person behind the religion in Appendix III.)
Whatever we might conclude from the tale of the Curse of Longinus, we cannot deny that the story of Longinus is not a secret story, although some would hide it. But neither is it an open story. It requires study. It requires respect. It has resonance for us all, and even if we do not believe in its literal truth—or in some cases, in any truth it might hold at all—we must accept that it is one of the most powerful collections of texts ever written. In its pages have been found the pretexts for the greatest advancements and innovations of our society, and the worst injustices. To some it is the final source of wisdom, freedom, survival. To others it is an evil book, the source of all oppression. No matter what viewpoint you hold, the fact remains that the Testament of Longinus cannot be ignored.
It is our history.
Henry Matthews, Director of Translations, SPLD New York,
Editor of the Revised Edition

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See the relevant book articles below for the contents of those works.

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Appendix I:
Textual History of the
Testament of Longinus

By Prof. Henry Matthews, PhD, Harvard

The title of this section is perhaps a misnomer; the best we can hope to do in a section this short is to give the briefest of overviews concerning the textual reception of the Testament of Longinus. The book did not come to us fully formed. Although we can be certain that the five books of the Testament were written before 525 CE, and fairly sure that the Malediction, Torments and Rule of Golgotha predate 361 CE, the textual history of the Longinian Scriptures are by no means clear to us.
Unlike many of the religious (especially Christian and quasi-Christian) texts of the first few centuries CE, the Testament was written in Latin, although it was largely translated into Greek, Syriac and Coptic by the end of the fifth century CE.
We can narrow the textual history of the Testament down to five main manuscript traditions. These are based upon the earliest known full MSS. They are all codices, and are named after their provenance.
The Milan Codex (M) contains the Malediction, the Torments, the Rule and the Sanguinaria, not including 1 Sang. 8 and 2 Sang. 2 and 4. It omits the Eschaton.
The seventh century Utrecht Codex (U) contains full MSS of the Malediction, Torments, Rule, and Sanguinaria. It also contains Eschaton 1:1-6, 11:1 to 13:52 and 14:2-12.
The fourth century Ipswich Codex (I), is the earliest independently attested MS tradition. It contains the Malediction, omitting Mal. 1 and 9, and moving the line “And so I committed the sin of gluttony” from the usual 10:27 to 10:9. Also included are the Torments and Rule, 1 and 2 Sanginaria complete, and the same text of the Eschaton as U.
The Paris Codex (P) contains the full texts of the Malediction, Torments, Rule and Eschaton as we know them, but omits the Sanguinaria entirely.
The eighth century Cairo Codex (C), which dates to the seventh century CE, is the earliest text to contain all five books of the Testament in the form we tonight recognize as complete.
Fragmentary finds at Oxyrhynchus and Nag Hamadi proved to us that our commonly accepted terminus post quem for the books is too late (we had assumed them all to have been written after 312 CE). The Oxyrhynchus papyri brought us the four chapters from the second half of the Eschaton, pretty much as received, chapters 4 and 7 of the Torments, and about nineteen separate verses of the Malediction, in which significantly Pilate’s wife is given the name Procla, agreeing with the Christian tradition. At Nag Hamadi, a copy of the Malediction more or less identical with I, only with the name of Pilate’s wife given as Procla, was found.
The books of the Testament (barring Sanguinaria) have been proven now, thanks to context, of having been written around or shortly after 180 CE. The Sanguinaria appears to have been written after 312 CE.

The theory of multiple authorship

Since the 19th century, debate among textual critics has centered around the authenticity of Longinus’ voice. A number of textual oddities and problems present themselves to us, and for reasons of space, we can only present these in summary:^a

• The preface to the Malediction: Malediction chapter 1 constitutes a preface, but essentially reproduces the story of the text in one page. One theory is that it was originally an epitome of the text (collections of epitomes — “digested” books — were vastly popular in the late Roman era) that somehow got amalgamated into the main body of the text. I does not contain the text of the preface.
• The account of the Spear: The breaking of voice in Malediction chapter 9 for the sake of exposition from the viewpoint of a scholarly omnipotent narrator suggests to the critic a side-note that again was incorporated into the text. Once again, I omits this section.
• The problem of multiple authorship: Traditionally, the Testament of Longinus was, with the exception of 1 and 2 Sanguinaria, considered to be the work of Longinus himself. Although conservatives still hold to that belief, many commentators have noticed inconsistencies in narrative structure, language, sentence structure and vocabulary. Even taking into account the oddities of chapters 1 and 9, the fact remains that around chapter 11, the language in the Malediction becomes more powerful, more direct and more poetic. This leads many commentators (Dr. Petronius included) to conclude that the Malediction was written by two main authors; the second of which, the so-called Deutero-Longinus, may or may not have written the Torments and Rule.

The only certain thing is that the Torments and Rule, which are not abundant with alternative readings, are written by the same author as each other. Whether this is Deutero-Longinus or a further separated and putative Trito- Longinus is open to debate. It is further complicated by our relative certainty that two writers produced the Eschaton. The second half of the apocalyptic narrative, called the “Vision of Vahishtael” has the markers of our Deutero-Longinus; while the first half has different linguistic characteristics again.

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a But see my own Manuscript History of Longinus, VT 1952, for a detailed discussion.

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What can we say, then? We believe that the most likely primary authors of the Testament of Longinus were:

1. The writer of Malediction chapters 2-8 and 10.
2. The writer of Malediction chapters 11-14, and Eschaton 1:1-6, 11:1 through to 13:52, and 14:2-12.
   2a. The writer of the Torments and the Rule, who may or may not be the same individual as 2.
3. The writer of 1 and 2 Sanguinaria, apart from 1 Sang. chapter 8 and 2 Sang. chapters 2 and 4.
4. The writer of 1 Sang. chapter 8 and 2 Sang. chapters 2 and 4.
5. The writer of Eschaton 1:7 through to the end of chapter 10.

Conservative interpretations make much of the mental stress of Longinus, and seek to confirm the consistency of the text. If Longinus was under stress, they argue, his writing style would have changed; likewise, if he was in a state of prophetic ecstasy. These arguments should not be discounted out of hand.

Appendix II:
Fragments from the
Longinian Apocrypha

By Rev. Dr. Victor Ballsden, DPhil, DD, Oxon

Before any presentation of the Longinian apocrypha, we must first define the term “apocrypha,” in that Longinian scholarship, such as it is, considers apocryphal books to be those outside of the canon. We divide those further into pseudepigraphia (those books that have no recognition as canon, nor were ever considered canonical) and deutero-canonical works (those which were at one time recognized by some part of the Sanctified faithful as valuable texts, or which still have a vast following).
The most important of the deutero-canonical works is the collection of letters applied to the Monachus. We have not included them here. They are valuable enough and complete enough to be worthy of a companion volume of their own, which is currently in preparation.
The selections presented here come from the Byzantine Greek Teachings of Longinus, and the Tradition of Blood of Timotheus, both of which fall into the category of deutero-canonical texts; the Testimony of the Plague Angel and the Acts of Daniel, which are pseudepigraphical; and the wholly heretical but nonetheless interesting Euagetaematikon of Vitericus Minor.

The Teachings of Loginus

What remains of the Teachings of Longinus survives in other books: a Byzantine bibliotheca and a miscellany on theology are the primary sources. It reputedly gained much currency in the Eastern assemblies of the Sanctified, and was in some versions of the Longinian canon. As far as we can make out from epitomes and writers talking of it in both positive and negative terms, it amounted to a sayings text: a sustained and lengthy passage of direct speech placed in the mouth of Longinus and directed at the reader.
The largest surviving fragment is so:
One: We are creatures born of sin. It is the will of God that we still walk, even after we have died, for we are His messengers to Kindred and to men. We are Heaven’s wolves, and in our presence only the faithful do not tremble. We are holy lightning, and when we strike, only the faithful do not burn. In the places where we walk, evil is destroyed. In the places where we walk, God takes those worthy of His love to His own side.
Two: What we once were is not what we are now. A mortal is a sheep, and are the Kindred are wolves among the sheep. God has ordained that role — wolves feed on their prey, but are not cruel. Accept your role, but do not taint it with your desires.
Three: Our bodies are the irreconcilable enemies of our souls. The hunger and fury of the body must not be allowed to overwhelm the holy purpose of the soul. We endeavor to maintain control of our impious urges.
Four: With the power of Damnation comes limitation. We hide among those who yet live, and we make ourselves known only to show fear and cull the unrepentant. We make our progeny only to do God’s work. We must not slay a fellow, except to preserve the word of God. Woe unto the Kindred who takes the soul of a fallen enemy.
Five: Our purpose is to serve the Word. When we stray from our purpose, we are to be chastened. The light of the sun and the heat of the fires are the scourges of God, purifying and punishing us when we stand as we should not.
Fragment quoted in the Necropolitan of Michael the Arab (III.17):
In punishing the unbeliever and the stiff-necked, have no qualm in taking whatever action most suits the crime. Do not be afraid to kill a wife or child, for the innocent shall be taken to the bosom of God, and flaming coals shall be heaped upon the head of the malefactor.
Fragment found in the Res Mortualio Divino of Elisabeta of Rome (I.22):
Malefactor! Malefactor! Why should you care if you are crucified and left out to see the sun? You are Damned, and no pain can match the pain you already have.
Fragment also found in the Res Mortualio Divino (II.11):
The Spear is your hope and the sure sign of your Damnation. Protect it, for it is your birthright. Follow it, listen to its voice, touch its blade. Impale your hearts upon it, because it is the hope you have, not of salvation, for there is no salvation for us, but of purpose now and on the final night.

The Testimony of the Plague Angel

The most interesting aspect of this strange autobiography of dubious theological value is that it is attributed to one “Thascius Hostilinus, called the Numidian, called the Pestilential One,” who is presumably the same “Hostilinus the Numidian” mentioned in II Sang 5: 6. The few documents that survive from Rome’s government of the Damned suggest that the real “Pestilential One” was a prominent Sanctified, a thorn in the side of the pagan Camarilla and a major factor in the survival of the Chapel and the Spear in Rome. We owe a lot to him.
He cannot surely be the writer of this text, which survives only in abridged form, for the so-called “Plague Angel” with whom Hostilinus is identified as a plague-ridden heretic. One can only assume that the writer sought to damage the venerable divine’s reputation.
1. In the Consulship of Nummius Faustinianus and the fifth Consulship of Gallienus Augustus,^a I, Thascius Egnatianus Hostilinus, called the Numidian, called the Pestilential One,^b in life a freedman of Thebes, in death a tool of God’s will, came to Rome from Thebes, hidden in a cargo of Egyptian grain.
[A lacuna follows.]
The effluvia of a million people ran free on streets with gutters inadequate to the task. The glorious martyrs, whom I had come to test, were no longer in plain view, for since I had begun my journey, the Emperor had ended the proscription. Beneath the ground, the City of the Dead was unworthy of the greatest of the world’s cities, and there was no welcome for me. The pagan dead told me that I was but a guest, and an unexpected one, and that my privileges were few. It having been impressed upon me that I was not one of them, that I was not their “Kindred,” whatever that might mean, the body of elders told me that I must hunt in the plebeian regions of Rome, in the regions afflicted by the pestilence.
2. The cries of the dying and the wailing of their few mourners were the song that awoke me each night, in my vault beneath this district, and soon I grew to love them, for was I not sent by God to be a plague upon the living? Was I not just a tool in the order of the pestilence? I grew also to love the blood of the dying, to feel the taint as the blood entered my body and sat heavy in my stomach. After a time, God transfigured me, and I became as the disease all the more. I saw that those on whom I had fed and whom I had not killed grew sick, although they had been healthy, or had survived the plague, for a man cannot contract the plague, having been once afflicted. And I found that I could see within my mind’s eye which of the living would soon grow sick, and I could make a man sick unto death with but a touch. Plague-tainted blood was my food, and soon I saw that I could consume no other.
[Another lacuna, presumably a large one.]
3. On the night that the Labarum marched into Rome^c and the Heathen Usurper died, I saw that God’s Plan was indeed good and effective, and that the LORD saw that the proud were cast down and the sinful punished.
Hence, I saw to it that I should take to myself childer. First, I took Georgius, a Christian deacon who had died of the plague. I had watched him, and I had seen how his faith had faltered in the last days of his life, and I had tormented him further, by giving afflictions to him like the afflictions of Job. On the day before he died, I came to him and told him my role in the LORD’s great purpose, and how I had tested him, and how he had been found wanting; he wept and repented. I told him that he would remain after death now, his purpose to test others as he himself had been tested. He coughed blood and died then, and made no other sound.
I let them take him to the plague-pit and throw him in, and on the very next night I arrived at the pit and found his body beneath the corpses of a pagan priest, a pimp and a murderer, and I gave his remains some of the blood, “For the blood is the life” (Deuteronomy 12:23).

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a 262 CE.
b Also, possibly, “the Pestilence.”
c Sometime between October 28 and 30, 312 CE.

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And he came to be mine, and in time he became an angel of the plague, as I, and I set him to testing the faithful with true pain.
4. Then came a nun, Elisabeta by name, who had compassion on the sick and whipped herself out of penance. She had recovered from the plague and it vexed her no more, though it had worked its way within her flesh. I conversed with her for three nights, and saw that she had been sinful in her heart, and that she had lusted with her eyes and hands. Mindful of that, I thrust my fingers into her eyes and gouged them out, for if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out (Matthew 18:9). And she died with my fingers reaching into her brains. I left her to rot where she lay alone, for three nights, and each night I visited. When the worms came to eat the juices of her eyes, then I came and gave her the Dark Gift. Although he worms remained where her eyes had been, her eyes yet behold afar off; “Her young ones also suck up blood” (Job 29:30). She bore the mark of the plague from the beginning.
5. Third came Oedenatha, a whore. She had the common ailment of whores, that brings pox and madness, and the pox and the madness had not touched her. I saw that the LORD had used her as a means of judgment. I bought her services, which I was not to use. Instead I instructed her, and she agreed without fear or restraint, for she hated the Romans who had enslaved her into prostitution, and saw that it was only right for her to vengeance on them. I made her like me, in one night, without suffering or pain.
Oedenatha is my childe: she has been made perfect as an accusation upon mankind in her licentiousness. Georgius is my childe: he preaches destruction upon the impure, and visits it upon those who will not repent. Elisabeta is my childe: she is a snare for the faithless and leads the weak and sickly kine to their end, “as an ox goes to the slaughter” (Proverbs 7:22). She whips herself, and surrounds herself with fire to remind her of her weakness, and with the bodies of the kine to remind her of her hunger.
Each is an exemplar for the faithful.

The Tradition of Blood,
by the Bishop Timotheus

This brief text barely survives at all, inasmuch as all that remains are the three traditions Timotheus ordained, and some explanation.
The First Principle: Surrender to God, not to the beast.
[The Tradition has the secondary meaning of traditio, “surrender.” Surrendering to God for damned means surrendering one’ self to Longinus and to the Church of the Sanctified.]
The first tradition: Reveal yourself only to your Kindred
[This is the most practical application of the First Principle. The Damned must pretend to walk among people, wear their clothes, and make them believe in other things than vampires.]
The second tradition: Spill only the blood of the living
[Here, the Damned are expected not to war among themselves. The Byzantines outlaw the murder of other Damned before their time; they also outlawed the Vinculum.]
The third tradition: Do not worship alongside the living
[The mission of the Sanctified is to guide the living towards worship of the Christian God, and so it is forbidden to hunt on holy ground, or to take part in a Christian act of worship, for fear that the living might discover the Damned and recoil in fear, both from the Damned and from the Church.]

Acts of Daniel

This has very little to do with the tale of the Theban Legion in 2 Sang., and does not fit in the chronology. The tale concerns the assault of Daniel on the gates of Hell, to deny Satan the right to the souls of the Damned, for God has damned them, not Satan.
1. ...And Daniel said, “Since death has no hold upon us, neither shall you, for we shall not die and be taken by the likes of you.”
2. And Satan said, “You speak too soon, for even you shall be destroyed one night, and your soul must traverse into the lands of the dead, as God ordains it.”
3. Daniel replied: “But even if I descend to Hell, I shall have not be under your command.”
4. And he said, “I have come here to strike you down.”
5. He prayed, and Satan could not move.
6. And he struck Satan, and the Adversary fell to the ground. And Daniel bound him in chains and hung him from a hook for the devils and those suffering torment to see.

The Euagetaematikon of Vitericus

Hardly anything survives of this text, but it is interesting inasmuch as it shows that even the Damned were afflicted by heresies. The Cainites appeared to be a living heresy masterminded by a vampire. This fragment came into my hands only recently, thanks to a colleague:
For the mark of Cain is the burning of the sun and the thirst for blood above all.
A longer fragment surfaced last year in Italy:
For Cain killed Abel, and it was the perfect will of God that he did so. For he placed a mark upon Cain, and Cain did not die, and no one permitted to kill him. And Cain got up and walked through to and fro in the world and preached God’s word all the time he traveled, for God granted to Cain visions and miracles, so that he might be known and that he could prove what he had to say.
This is Cain’s secret: it was Cain who led Lot out of Sodom, and it was Cain who worked God’s perfect wrath on the cities of sin. And it was Cain who took the name Isaiah, and it was Cain who took the name Jeremiah, and it was Cain who spoke from the dark to the prophets.
And Cain spoke through Jesus, and Cain who showed the will of God, because he preyed upon the meek, for they are blessed, for they are God’s prey, granted as bounty to us.
The word of Jesus was designed to make the living fit to feed the blessed dead, the Children of Cain, who feed not on gross matter — on air and meat and the fruits of the Earth — but on the life and the spirit of the pure and the humble. And when Jesus was betrayed and he lay on the Cross, Cain stayed beside him and gave the blood of Jesus to Longinus the Roman. And he spoke to Longinus, for Jesus was Cain’s Vicar to the living, and in the same way Longinus was Cain’s Vicar to Damned.

Appendix III:
The search for the historical Longinus

By Dr. Caroline Petronius, PhD, Hampden

The question of who Longinus actually was vexes historians of the Sanctified. But at the same time, it frightens the serious scholar of history away, because to investigate this troubling, contradictory figure is to invite upon yourself the threat of a painful death.
The myths about Longinus extend beyond the scope of the Testament, of course, and they are picturesque: Longinus sails across the sea and defeats the man-eaters by showing them that blood has more power than crude flesh; Longinus sees a rapist at work and makes him tremble before Embracing him; Longinus hides beneath the sand and drags the centurion of the Romans under the ground with him, and does not release them from the prison of the earth until they are Damned and forced to be his thralls; Longinus finds a nun who will not look upon him, and he corrupts her and shows her the pleasures of the flesh, making her an insatiable sinner once more, and kills her slowly and painfully and with regret, for he was testing her resolve. Longinus appears as a ghost: sightings of Longinus in dreams and in the night sky must be at least as common as the Virgin Mary; only we don’t tell the press about these things.
None of these things tell us who he was.
No archeological records survive of Longinus. In an era where every new living dig proves a threat to the secrecy of the Kindred, every new excavation in Europe finds another trace of the Julii or the Camarilla, but nothing of Longinus. His Spear and his Chapel (or Chapels — the Testament mentions several) have not been found, outside of tales of the Crusades and wild stories of Heinrich Himmler seeking to win the war with its occult power. But these are the stuff of conspiracy theories, hastily constructed fanzines, Internet “facts.”
Can we find a context for Longinus by finding it in his own “writings”? Hardly — the Eschaton is a bag of hallucinations. The Malediction contradicts itself. The Rule may be relatively calm, but even so, nothing about it (or anything else ascribed to Longinus) suggests a near-illiterate centurion turned Bloody Saint.
Where did Longinus go? In terms of the story and the movement, the vanishing of Longinus is as convenient as the ascension of Jesus: no body can be found, and hence we only have the word of the faithful that the Messiah — living or Damned — was there at all. No records of the era, no documents (aside from the Testament itself, and the Gospel of Nicodemus, which is hardly an authoritative text) give any idea of the names of any soldier, let alone the guards of Pilate or the attendant soldiers of the crucifixion. All we can rely upon — and although this is a difficult and painful fact for a Sanctified to accept, it must be accepted — is that the existence of an historical Longinus depends utterly on the existence of an historical Jesus.
There. It is said. And if we cannot prove that Christ was on that cross, we have lost Longinus.
And this is doubly disturbing, for both living Christian and Sanctified: because the historical Jesus on whom Longinus depends is a) able to damn to hell those who through no choice of their own ended up “Damned;” b) condemned to die “for the sins of humanity,” which, in terms of soteriology is problematic, because it makes of God a perpetrator of cosmic child abuse, a being who would give up the being that he considers (so we are told) his most beloved companion, and punish him, an innocent, for the evils done by others.
And this is a God who damns all to Hell by default, especially women and homosexuals and gender-deviants, a patriarchal rapist-abuser; Jesus, meanwhile, who could be said to be gender-queer by modern standards (why was the “Disciple Whom Jesus Loved” the disciple whom he loved, with no name? Why did He not react in a male fashion when approached by single women and unclean women?) was the perfect sacrifice. He was a deviant, and God made Him a deviant, so God could punish Him for being a deviant.
The same circular logic applies to Longinus. Longinus describes himself as irredeemably evil, but he does not ask to be Damned. His choice of Heaven and Hell is taken away from him.
Can we say anything about an historical Longinus? The evidence is not there, only a body of texts supposedly written by him which are actually written by as many as four people or groups of people, and some second-hand sources, a few dreams, some visions. Like Jesus, accepting his existence is a fundamentally irrational act (if faith were rational, it would not be faith, by definition).
I can only say this, then: I hope as one of the Sanctified that Longinus did not exist. I really do. I do not want to see him. I do not want to hear his voice. Because if he existed or yet exists, he proves that God is a monster, and that the universe is not friendly to any thinking being, or even indifferent. Prove Longinus and you prove that the Almighty is malevolent to all thinking creatures.
God hates us. God hates us all.

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Type

Text, Religious

Medium

Papyrus

Signatories (Organizations)

• The Lancea Sanctum