Saint Longinus

From The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by J-J Tissot (1897)

The question has been raised, which side of the divine Master was pierced by the spear?  It would at first sight appear natural that it should have been the left side, first, because of the position of the heart or rather because the heart is inclined towards the left, and secondly, because the left side was more easily reached by a blow delivered from the right.  We are, in fact, justified in supposing that the centurion held his spear in the right hand.  In spite of all this, however, an opinion has long been pretty generally entertained that the wound was made on the right side.

The Apocryphal Gospels of the Infancy of Christ and of Nicodemus, as well as the Ethiopian translation, also sanctioned this idea, and their view is perhaps not altogether without foundation in fact.

Certain early painters also adopted it, and some authors find justification for it in the words of Ezechiel (chapter 47, verse 2): "and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side"; but it is evident to everyone who examines the quotation referred to that the prophet was speaking of something totally different.

One fact which may have led those authors to adopt this opinion is the testimony of Saint Bonaventura that Saint Francis of Assisi, when he received the stigmata, was pierced in the hands and feet and in the right, not the left side.  With a view to reconciling these various conflicting accounts yet other authors assert, no one knows on what foundation, that the spear really penetrated from the right to the left side, passing through the thorax and coming out of the left.  And saint Cyprian hints, though obscurely, at the same idea.  For all this, however, the various authors alluded to do not, as we should naturally expect, speak of six but of five wounds, thus adopting the Christian tradition as to the number.  The wound inflicted on the left side appears to them of little importance but merely a proof of the violence of the blow on the right.

As we have already remarked, many legends are related about the centurion Longinus.  One of these legends tells that he was blind but that the stream of water and of blood which flowed from the heart of Jesus cured him alike of the blindness of the eyes of his body and of his soul. 
We have, however, seen from the account given by the Evangelist that the conversion of Longinus resulted from totally different causes. Saint Longinus  is especially venerated at Mantua, which city once owned his spear.  It has now been transferred to Rome.

Totus tuus ego sum 

Et omnia mea tua sunt;

Tecum semper tutus sum:
Ad Jesum per Mariam