An ancient prophecy says: "He who owns this Spear and understands what forces it serves, holds the fate of the world in his hands - good or bad." Tabloid publications and comics tirelessly write about him, films and television programs are shot about him, popular songs and computer games are dedicated to him. It takes your breath away from just listing the names of those who owned or wanted to own it: Julius Caesar, Joseph of Arimathea, Emperor Constantine the Great, Visigoth King Alaric, the Hun leader Attila, Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, Napoleon, Hitler and Churchill.
In 1995, the comic "Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny" spoke about him, and two years later the TV movie of the same name was shot. Previously, he was not ignored by world classics - the famous opera by Richard Wagner "Parsifal", the painting by Pablo Picasso "Guernica", in which some art critics find both the outline of a spear and a hidden image of the face of Adolf Hitler.
It is about the famous Spear of Destiny, the Spear of Longinus or the Spear of the Lord. In the apocryphal "Gospel of Nicodemus" written in the 6th century, this Roman legionary was mentioned under the name of Caius Cassius. His name is also found in the writings of the Greek patriarch Herman (715). In both sources he is incorrectly called Longinus - the Latinized form of the Greek word logche - "spear". Later, this word was added to the original name and got Gaius Cassius Longinus.
By order of the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, he followed Jesus Christ for two years. A hereditary soldier, who was forced to become a spy, inherited his spear. According to the Gospel of Nicodemus, his grandfather received weapons from the hands of Julius Caesar for his bravery during the Gallic War.
Alec MacLellan, author of The Secret of Longinus's Spear, writes: “It was a Roman spear, a hasta, with an iron tip on a strong wooden shaft, the length of which was twice the height of a warrior. The spear passed to the father of Guy, who served in the army of Germanicus, and then to Guy. Even then, the spear was a miracle, since for many years it did not become dull or rusted, and its owner was never wounded in numerous cuts. However, it was just a family heirloom.
Only after the centurion Caius Cassius thrust his spear between the fourth and fifth ribs of the Savior, piercing the heart of the Messiah, did this weapon acquire universal significance. After the death of Jesus, according to one legend, Gai asked to resign, joined the followers of Christ, and ended his days as a hermit in the ancient city of Mazaka in Cappadocia - now the Turkish city of Kayseri (distorted name "Caesarea").
Another version: Guy incurred the disfavor of the authorities by preaching, despite the torment, he did not renounce the teachings of Jesus, for which they pulled out all his teeth and cut off his tongue. But the martyr retained the ability to speak and crushed the pagan idols with his spear in front of the astonished Roman governor. The Anglican priest Sabine Bering Gould, in the preface to his 16-volume "Lives of the Saints", told about all the numerous versions of where the relics of the saint rest, from which it follows that we will never know the exact place of his burial. The situation is different with the spear.
Historians have traced the path of the Spear of Destiny in sufficient detail. Here we will focus only on the most striking episodes. Nicknamed the "Scourge of God", Attila (c. 406-453) approached the gates of Rome, but Pope Leo I managed to buy off the formidable enemy. Before leaving the besieged city, Attila rode up to a group of Roman soldiers and threw a pike at their feet. Having besieged the horse, the leader of the Huns allegedly exclaimed: "Take your sacred spear - it will not help me, for I do not know the One who consecrated it."
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The king of the Franks, Charlemagne, seemed to many of his contemporaries a superman. People believed that it was in his hands that there was a spear that pierced the heart of Christ. In the Chronicles of the Franks, the historian Eingard says that the emperor "built his empire with the power of the Sacred Spear, which endowed him with the ability to control fate." Charlemagne won 47 battles, in each of which he took a spear. The weapon enhanced his gift of clairvoyance, which helped Charles find the burial place of St. James in Spain and endowed its owner with the ability to predict the future. When the emperor was returning from Saxony, a comet swept across the sky, his horse fearfully rushed to the side and threw the rider away. The spear that Karl was holding in his left hand fell into the mud. The king died soon after.
Subsequently, the kings of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation owned the spear. Otto I specially built a magnificent cathedral in Magdeburg for this symbol of supreme power in 968. Henry IV, in honor of his coronation, commanded an Italian jeweler to insert into the blade a "holy nail" from the cross, on which, according to the emperor, Jesus was crucified. By his order, the spear was wrapped in a silver sheath with the inscription “Nail of our Lord”.
Subsequently, the relic passes to the Hohenstaufen dynasty. One British historian who wrote a monograph on Bohemian King Charles IV said that in a Cistercian monastery in the Tyrol mountains, his retinue discovered the tip of a spear that pierced the body of the Savior. Unfortunately, this sir did not explain how the spear ended up in the walls of the monastery.
It was Charles IV who was the first to call the find “The Lord's Spear”. He ordered to cover the tarnished silver with gold and replace the old inscription with a more accurate one - "The Spear and the Nail of Christ." The relic was put on public display at the Prague Castle. Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg (1368-1437), under whom the Czech reformer Jan Hus was dealt with, transported a spear from Prague to Nuremberg. The movement of valuables was carried out in a rather original way - they were hidden under a pile of fish, loaded onto a simple cart, which was accompanied by 4 people. In addition to the spear, there was a tooth of John the Baptist, the relics of St. Anna and a piece of a wooden manger, where, according to legend, Mary put the baby Christ.
To prevent Bonaparte from getting the relic, the Nuremberg city council decided to temporarily hide the imperial treasures in Vienna. The mission was carried out by the Regensberg baron von Gugel, who, after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, sold the imperial treasures to the Austrian imperial house of the Habsburgs.
In early November 1960, a series of sensational articles appeared in the London newspaper "Sunday Dispatch": "The Spear of Destiny - How the Weapon that Pierced the Body of Christ Affected Hitler." The author of the articles Max Caulfield first published "the incredible truth about how Hitler worshiped the devil" and "thought that this talisman would make all the forces of evil serve him." Referring to documents from the archives of the Austrian historian and teacher Dr. Walter Stein, which the widow provided to the journalist, the article claimed that the Fuhrer was convinced that by capturing a spear, he would become the ruler of the world.
A few days before the Anschluss in Vienna, under the guise of a traveling salesman, SS Standartenführer Konrad Buch appeared, whose purpose was to instruct Hitler to prevent the Austrians from hiding imperial treasures from the Museum of Art History. There, in room 11, behind a glass showcase at number 155, an exhibit was kept, a plate under which had the inscription: “Sacred spear, Carolingian era, VIII century. With the later additions of steel, iron, brass, silver, gold and leather. By the way, an examination carried out by the British Robert Feather in January 2003, which included X-ray spectral and fluorescence analysis, showed that the spearhead was made in the 7th century.
Thus, Dr. Feather “aged” the spear for a whole century, but confirmed that it could not have been created in the time of Jesus Christ. “Moreover, a skilled blacksmith worked here,” writes Alec McLellan, “which means it was forged, not smelted.” The size of the arrowhead was slightly larger than those used by the Roman legionaries. But Dr. Feather was surprised by the nail in the blade.
- It has long been considered that the iron pin is the nail for the crucifixion; it not only fits snugly in the blade and is inlaid with tiny copper crosses, but also matches the length and shape of the nails used by the Romans in the 1st century. And even though we cannot accurately date the iron fragments around it … Perhaps all this is speculation, but we cannot take and just discard them, - said Feather in an interview.
The adventures of this spear in the Third Reich are described in detail in Alec McLellan's book The Secret of Longinus's Spear. In whose hands is the fate of the world? Is it possible that the Spear of Destiny was hidden in the ice of Antarctica? Or was it taken over by the Americans striving for world domination? The answer to these difficult questions can be found on this side of the globe, or more precisely, on the territory of the former USSR. This is the name of the country that crushed the Nazi regime. What if Longinus's spear was ALWAYS kept with us?
Here are the facts. The first Catholicos of Armenia, Saint Gregory the Illuminator (Grigor Lusavorich), from the clan of the Parthian kings of the Arsakids, who was related to the ruling dynasty in Armenia, received a Christian upbringing. In a gorge on the banks of the Azat River, 40 kilometers east of Yerevan, he built the Geghard Church (another name is Hayravank, "rock church") and founded a monastery, where he deposited Longinus's spear. Note that "geghard" means "spear". Since the 13th century, the large monastic community and the complex of buildings where it is located is called Geghardavank.
Now the complex consists of the Church of St. Astvatsatsin (Mother of God), a four-pillar gavit (or zhamatun - a narthex, a place for prayers and meetings), a tomb and two rock-cut churches with narthex. Most of the buildings date from the 13th century. Recently, several ancient inscriptions were found inside one of the churches, the oldest of which dates back to 1164.
In the monastery of the Holy Spear, a shrine was kept for several centuries, which was diligently preserved and hid from enemies. The great Armenian scholar and theologian of the 12th century, Archbishop Nerses Lambronatsi, often mentions the spear in his numerous works and describes the honors that were given to it. “He said that the spear was brought to the first council of the Armenian Church, which gathered in 365 in Ashtishat. Elsewhere, he mentions the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, a participant in the Third Crusade of 1189, and reports that there were several Armenian knights in the army. Unfortunately, Nerses says nothing about whether Emperor Frederick knew that the Armenians were the keepers of the spear,”says Alec MacLellan, a researcher of ancient secrets.
In the city of Echmiadzin, which in Armenian means “the Only Begotten descended,” that is, Christ, the Spear of Destiny is kept to this day. To get acquainted with it, you need a special permission from the church authorities. The last time the Spear was seen not only by its keepers back in 1805. Of course, the question of its authenticity has not been finally resolved. There is only indirect confirmation of the Power of the relic. While the Germans indulged themselves in the possession of a dummy, the real Spear of Destiny was kept on the territory of Armenia, friendly to Russia. Together we have proved invincible in the face of aggressors from the West and the East.
IGOR BOKKER