Longinus --- Mr. Longspear Writes the Jesus Story

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A new day

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Caesar's Messiah points out the name game played by the Xian creators, perhaps, the name Longinus is another clue. I'm not saying the same author who wrote "On the Sublime" wrote the gospel probably more of a tip of the hat to "On the Sublime".

Could the Jesus story, as told in the Gospels , be a sublime comedy?

Longinus, (the actual name is controversial), is considered the author of "On the Sublime", and was written in the First Century, CE.

Wikipedia on Longinus, author of "On the Sublime"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Sublime


Of course, Longinus is name of the soldier that pierces the side of Jesus on the cross in the Gospel narrative. (John 19:34). While not named in John, the name comes from apocryphal text, Acts of Pilate.

Wikipedia on the Xian mythology of Longinus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longinus


I'm not sure if the Postflavian crew has already commented on Longinus and I cannot recall if Joseph Atwill has in his books.

Any suggestions where I can find a more developed theory?
 
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Richard Stanley

Administrator
Interesting question. I have recently pondered on one of my threads that the name Longinus might have a relation to time. And I should have added -- long periods of time, like an 'Age'. This from that in my thesis that the Cruci-fiction and subsequent Resurrection represent the Omega of the prior Age and the Alpha of the next, which makes Longinus's piercing of (the solar) Christ the official datum point, or time marker, for the transition. Here, longaevus means 'aged'. I speculated that maybe the name Longines (watches) was a remembrance of this time aspect.

Other than that, I haven't looked into this topic very much, but looking at the very name 'Longinus' and his relationship to the spear, it's interesting to note that the Latin word longurius means 'long pole'. Therefore, I suspect that the author of the apocryphal Acts of Pilate (aka the Gospel of Nicodemus) may just have been having fun with this, but who knows, maybe there was a real person that he was referring to? The Gospel of Nicodemus was supposedly originally written in Hebrew which muddies the waters even more.

But, back in the day, it was not considered possible that such as a mere centurion as Longinus had the chops to write sufficiently, which is apparently one thing that the actual author of On the Sublime wrote about in agreement.

Cassius Longinus, of the 3rd century is too late, under our CM early dating to have played a role in the Gospel team.
 
Jerry Russell

Jerry Russell

Administrator
Staff member
Francesco Carotta suggested that this Longinus legend might date back to Senator Gaius Cassius Longinus, an instigator of the plot to kill Julius Caesar.

http://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte/articula/Escorial_en.pdf

Of course there are also differences: e.g. Cassius Longinus pierced Caesar with a dagger, the centurion Longinus instead used a lance. But as philologists have already noted, there is a relationship between the name of Longinus and lance, which in Greek is called lonchê, Longinusbeing interpreted as “the one of the lance”.

(By the way, a test in passing: Caesar was stabbed by the dagger of Cassius Longinus on the Ides of March, i.e. the 15th. The other Longinus, the one who pierced the side of the Lord with the lance, was canonized and sainted (sic!). Question: When could be his feast day? Yes, exactly on the 15th of March: Saint Longinus, martyr ... another coincidence!)​
 
R

Richard Stanley

Administrator
I had forgotten this.

And it would seem that the study of the various early saints can be quite revealing, as with J. Rendell Harris and his analysis of the Dioscuri Twins.
 
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