A Crowd, Not Soldiers
That brings us to the question of who actually led him away and who had him crucified. Rereading the accounts, I was struck by how consistently the Gospels speak of a crowd. It was a crowd that came out to meet him in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was a crowd at Pilate's court that chose the criminal Barabbas over him, and a crowd that called on the Roman governor to have him killed. Strangely, that crowd was not present at the crucifixion itself according to the Gospels. So it was not a group of Roman soldiers who quietly took him away. No, in the drama of a treacherous kiss, it was the Temple guard that came to arrest him. The question is whether those Temple guards were actually Roman, as films and series about Jesus tend to suggest.
Were They Really Romans?
By Roman I mean soldiers who were originally Roman citizens, working and living in the Jewish land on behalf of Rome or the Roman Empire as Latin-speaking outsiders. According to Christopher Zeichmann, these soldiers almost certainly were not that. This Next Quest researcher has spent years studying armies and soldiers in early Palestine (ancient Israel, for convenience). He has even created an online database of military inscriptions in the Holy Land. In doing so, he discovered that before the great Jewish War, from around 70 CE, there were hardly any Roman soldiers present in the strict sense of the word. The soldiers who were there had been recruited primarily from the local population.
A Police Force, Not an Occupation Army
This was connected to how Rome assessed the region: not as an acute flashpoint, but as a territory that could be managed with a lighter military presence. Before the Jewish War, fought by the Romans with an iron fist, the situation in the land was not one of acute threat. There were occasional uprisings and disturbances, but nothing on a large scale. The Roman military presence was therefore more like a police force than an oppressive occupying army. There were no legions, just military units of tens and hundreds. This also casts an interesting light on the story of Jesus and the Gerasene man possessed by a legion, a detail that presupposes his audience knew what a legion was. Did Jesus know of the existence of legions?
In daily life, Jesus and his companions could certainly have come into contact with soldiers. The question is whether those soldiers were more likely to be fellow countrymen than Roman outsiders. The latter, I think, would have felt very different. Having police watching your every move is unpleasant, but the presence of foreign powers has a different kind of impact. Think of the American military presence in Iraq or Afghanistan, or any foreign power in one's own country. You feel like a stranger in your own land.
The Legend of Longinus
Now to the story of Longinus himself, the Roman Centurion and his confession at the cross. Who exactly is he? First, he is often associated with the soldier who pierced Jesus' side with a spear to check whether he was still alive. Blood and water from Jesus' body are said to have fallen across his face and healed him, an event that gave him a reputation as a healer. A woman is said to have experienced healing upon the exhumation of his head. This story was further amplified by the controversial book by Trevor Ravenscroft published in 1973: The Spear of Destiny.
That brings us to the second point: that Longinus, because of his experience at the cross, supposedly rose up against Roman rule and died a martyr's death. He is said to have become a follower of Jesus and gone on to proclaim the good news in Cappadocia. I would love for this to be the historical record, and how wonderful it would be, but unfortunately it is highly unlikely. His name does not appear until the Gospel of Nicodemus and specifically in the Acts of Pilate (Acts was also a literary form, just as the book of Acts in the Bible). We are then talking about the fifth century CE, even if the respected historian Jona Lendering suggests there may have been an earlier core version dating to the second century CE.
Who Was He Really?
I am therefore not fully convinced that Longinus actually existed, at least not as a single person. Yes, there may well have been a centurion and a soldier, but as two separate individuals rather than the same person. The Gospels use two clearly distinct words for them. The more plausible reading is that he was an auxiliarius, a reservist or support soldier. Pilate would have had his own military unit in Judea, just as Herod Antipas had in Galilee. The centurion at the cross may have belonged to Pilate's forces, just as the centurion in Capernaum who wanted his servant healed (Matt. 8:5–13) may have been part of Antipas' army. Every kingdom, and that is how they understood themselves, had its own royal military. And those forces were recruited first and foremost from the local population.
What is decisive is that the Bible gives this centurion no name at all. The only clue pointing toward the name Longinus is the Greek word for spear, longhe, from the Gospel of John (λόγχῃ in John 19:34). Longhe and Longinus. The words are not so far apart.
The Testimony Remains
Either way, the legend of Longinus deserves to live on. The testimony of a soldier, whether Roman or Judean, remains inspiring. It is still remarkable that a Roman governor like Pilate had to involve himself with this extraordinary man Jesus. He was clearly being watched. There was something about him. To some, a threat, a troublemaker. To others, truly the Son of God, a righteous human being.
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