Encyclopedia
- This article is about legends surrounding the artifact known as "the Spear of Destiny" . The history of the relic of the Holy Lance itself is separately treated. For other uses see Spear of Destiny .
According to Christian texts, the
Spear of Destiny is the spear that is reported in the Gospel of John as having pierced the side of
Jesus during his crucifixion.
In the oldest known references to the legend, in the Gospel of Nicodemus , the soldier who pierced Christ's side is identified with a centurion and called Longinus .
Later Christian tradition, harking back to the novel
The Spear by Louis de Wohl , further identifies him as Gaius Cassius.
There are many prototypes and analogues of the spear in other legends, it can be compared to the ancient Irish weapon, the
Spear Luin, and is similar to the Bleeding Lance of Grail mythology, which was eventually claimed to
be the Spear of Destiny.
Locations
There are several objects that are reputed to be the Spear of Destiny or Holy Lance .
One such "Holy Lance" was allegedly unearthed by a
Crusader named
Peter Bartholomew in
Antioch in 1098 while the Crusaders were under siege from the
Seljuk Turks under Kerbogha. Peter Bartholomew reported that he had had a vision in which
St. Andrew told him that the Holy Lance was buried in St. Peter's Cathedral in Antioch. At the time some were skeptical, but others were convinced. In any case, after much digging in the cathedral, Peter Bartholomew took a hand and, in a few moments, discovered the lance. For some of the Crusaders this was a marvelous discovery. At the same time, dissension had begun in the ranks of the
Muslim army besieging the city. This combination of factors resulted in the Christian army being able to rout the Muslims a few days later when they joined battle, allowing the Crusaders to decisively capture Antioch. That object is now at
Etschmiadzin in
Armenia. Scholars believe that it is not actually a Roman lance but the head of a Roman standard.
Another of the many Spears of Destiny is the one in The Vatican. The earliest reports of that Spear were circa A.D.
570, described as having been on display in the
basilica of Mount
Zion in
Jerusalem adjacent to the
Crown of Thorns. The point of the spearhead was alleged to have been snapped following the
Persian conquest of Jerusalem in A.D. 615. The point was set into an
icon, and found its way to the church of
Hagia Sophia in
Constantinople. It was later transported to
France, where it remained in the
Sainte Chapelle until the
18th century. The icon was briefly moved to the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris during the
French Revolution, but it subsequently disappeared. The lower section of the spearhead was allegedly conveyed from Jerusalem to Constantinople sometime in the
8th century. It was sent by Sultan Beyazid II as a gift to
Pope Innocent VIII in 1492; Innocent had the relic placed in
St. Peter's Basilica in
Rome. It still resides there. The
Catholic Church makes no claim as to its authenticity.
The holy spear that was used by the Holy Roman Emperors as a part of their imperial insignia found its way to
Vienna, Austria, where it is kept in the Imperial Treasury of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum.
Dr. Robert Feather, of England, a metallurgist and technical engineering writer, tested that Holy Lance in January of 2003. He was given unprecedented permission not only to examine the Spear in a laboratory environment, but was also allowed to remove the delicate bands of gold and silver that hold it together. The silver band bears the inscription "Nail of Our Lord". It was added to the Holy Lance by order of
Henry IV, the third German Holy Roman Emperor, in 1084. Around 1350
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia had a golden sleeve put over the silver one, inscribed "Lance and Nail of the Lord."
In 1411
Sigismund was made Holy Roman Emperor. In 1424 he announced: "It is the Will of God that the Imperial Crown, Orb, Scepter, Crosses, Sword and Lance of the Holy Roman Empire must never leave the soil of the Fatherland." This collection of relics, known collectively as the
Reichkleinodien or
Imperial Regalia, were moved from his capitol in
Prague to his birth place,
Nuremberg.
When the army of
Napoleon approached Nuremberg in the spring of 1796, many were terrified that Napoleon would seize the Spear and rule the world with it. The city councilors decided to remove the Reichkleinodie to
Vienna for safe keeping. The collection of relics was entrusted to one
Baron von Hügel, who promised to return the objects as soon as peace had been restored and the safety of the collection assured.
The
Holy Roman Empire was officially dissolved in 1806. Baron von Hugel took advantage of the confusion over who was the legal owner of the Reichkleinodie and sold the entire collection, including the Spear, to the
Habsburgs. Baron von Hugel's perfidy did not come to light until after Napoleon's defeat at
Waterloo. When the city councilors of Nuremberg asked for their treasures back the Austrian authorities' response was a curt rejection. And there they stayed until the
Anschluss, when
Adolf Hitler claimed the Spear of Destiny as his own.
Another purported Holy Lance has been in
Krakow since at least the 1200s, though German records indicate that the lance was a copy made from the German lance under
Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, with a small sliver of the original embedded. Another copy was given to the Hungarian king at the same time.
The legend of the spear
Several popular
new age and conspiracy theory books have popularised the legend of the spear.
Ravenscroft's The Spear of Destiny
Trevor Ravenscroft’s 1973 bestseller
The Spear of Destiny has fixed his version of the legend in the minds of many today. He claims that
Adolf Hitler started
World War II to capture the spear, hypothesizing that Hitler's interest in the relic probably originated with his interest in the 1882
opera Parsifal is an opera [i] in three acts by Richard Wagner [i]. ...
— by Hitler’s favorite composer,
Richard Wagner — which concerns a group of
knights and their guardianship of the Holy Grail, as well as the recovery of the Spear. Though a number of historians cast doubt on Hitler's obsession with the Spear as it was reported by Trevor Ravenscroft et al, recent work by researcher and author Alec MacLellan has unearthed material from Ravenscroft's original source that seems to validate some of the stranger assertions.
Ravenscroft maintained that the spear came into the possession of the
United States of America on April 30, 1945; specifically, under the control of the
3rd Army led by General
George Patton. Later that day, supposedly in fulfillment of the legend that to lose the Spear meant death, Hitler committed suicide. Patton became fascinated by the ancient weapon and had its authenticity verified. Patton did not go on to use the spear, as orders came down from General
Dwight Eisenhower that the complete
Habsburg regalia including the Spear of Longinus were to be returned to the
Hofburg Palace, where it remains today. It is interesting to note that George Patton, in his poem
Through a Glass Darkly, curiously posits himself as Longinus in a previous lifetime.
Ravenscroft repeatedly attempted to define the mysterious “powers” that the legend says the Spear serves. He found it to be a hostile and evil spirit, which he variously referred to as the
Antichrist and the Spirit of the Age. Smith and Piccard similarly attempt to identify what they too perceive as a malignant spirit reaching through the Spear. In a mishmash of
quantum physics,
Christianity, and the
New Age they offer a handful of ideas, from the Spear channeling the “angry God of the Old Testament” to it somehow transferring a part of The
Crucifixion to the Spear, with the Spear becoming a Doppelgänger for the
Holy Spirit, becoming, as they put it, an Unholy Spirit.
Buechner's books
Dr. Howard A. Buechner, M.D., professor of medicine at
Tulane and then
L.S.U., added a strange chapter to the tale in his two books on the Spear. He claims he was contacted by a former
U-boat submariner who in turn claimed to have helped take the Spear of Destiny to
Antarctica in 1945 and to have helped to recover it in 1979. Buechner was a retired Colonel with the U.S. Army who served in World War II, and had written a book on the
Dachau massacre as a witness to the event. He was presented by the pseudonymous “Capt. Wilhelm Bernhart” with the log of the 1979 Hartmann Expedition and photos of some of the objects recovered.
According to Buechner, the Spear currently on display in the Schatzkammer in
Vienna is a fake. He claims that he had evidence that
Heinrich Himmler, head of the
Occult Bureau of the SS, had formed a circle of Knights dedicated to the Holy Lance and further, had
Japan's greatest swordsmaker create an exact duplicate of the lance. Buechner claimed that the duplicate went on display in Nuremberg while the real one was used in arcane black magic ceremonies in a specially appointed castle in
Wewelsburg, Germany. Even wilder, he wrote that Hitler personally had selected Col. Maximilian Hartmann to send several of his most prized possessions, including the Spear of Destiny, and Hitler and Eva Braun's ashes to
Antarctica. According to him Col. Hartmann recovered the Spear of Destiny from the ice in 1979 and it is now in hiding somewhere in Europe, in the possession of the Knights of the Holy Lance.
After contacting most of the members of the alleged expedition and others involved, including senior Nazi officials and close associates of Adolf Hitler, like
Hitler Youth Leader
Artur Axmann, Col. Buechner became convinced the claims were true and that he was either the victim of an elaborate hoax, or the Spear of Destiny really did reside for a while in Antarctica and may well be in the hands of one or more individuals who believe, as Col Hartmann may have said “the Holy Lance points ever towards our eternal Deutschland.”
Smith and Piccard's version
Col. Buechner's story is examined and partially corroborated by both Alec Maclellan and the research/writing team of Jerry E. Smith and George Piccard. These writers focus on the mysterious surrenders of two U-boats to Argentine authorities months after the war’s end and how they may have been part of the “Fuehrer Convoy” taking high ranking Nazis and maybe treasure, to
Argentina and/or Antarctica.
Spear legend meets Urban legend in the writings of the two conspiracy theory authors, Smith and Piccard. Their retelling of the Spear myth stretches from its purported creation in 3061
B.C. by Tubal-Cain, seventh generation grandson of Adam , to
Admiral Byrd’s battle in the Antarctic against Nazis in their underground fortress in
Neuschwabenland. Their version is replete with Nazi
UFOs and the search for
Atlantis. They connect
Nazi secret societies to the
Yale Skull and Bones fraternity and the events of September 11, 2001.
The Spear of Destiny in popular culture
- Main article: Spear of Destiny in popular culture.
The broad-based recognition factor enjoyed by the Spear of Destiny has helped to make it a prominent feature in contemporary culture, from movies and TV to video games. A long list of such appearances may be found at Spear of Destiny in popular culture.
Non-fictional References
Television
- Spear Of Christ, TV special for BBC/Discovery Channel, narrated by Cherie Lunghi, written and directed by Shaun Trevisick. Atlantic Productions, aired 31 March 2002. Their says about it: "In the Hofburg Museum in Vienna, Austria, lies a metal spearhead said to have been used to pierce the side of Christ during his crucifixion. For the first time, scientific testing will establish if this ancient relic really is the Spear of Christ." The scientific points made in this article about the work of Dr. Robert Feather are also made in this documentary.
- The Japanese Anime series and movies of Evangellion makes mention of and gives the name "Lance of Longinus" to a fork-like weapon that was imbeded in the Angel figure of what was believed to be Adam from the Second Impact. It turns out that the suspected Adam was really Lilith. This "Lance of Longinus" was weilded and used by the series' character Rei Ayanami to destroy the the fifteenth Angel, Arael, that was orbiting Earth and causing serious psycological damage to the character Asuka Langley Soryu. The original Lance was believed to be lost in orbit from that moment on, however, it makes an appearence in the Evangellion movies as trans-mutational weapons weilded by the new Mass Production Evangellions called the "Eva Series".
- In the comics and film Constantine Many religious references and relics are used as weapons for the character John Constantine against the demons of Hell who wish to invade the world of man. In the Movie, the "Spear of Destiny" was the tool that both Gabriel and Mammon were to use to assist in bringing the Son of Satan to Earth so that create his own Hell and begin Armageddon.
Books in English
- Brown, Arthur Charles Lewis. Bleeding Lance. Modern Language Association of America, 1910
- Buechner, Howard A. Col. and Bernhart, Wilhelm Capt. Adolf Hitler And The Secrets Of The Holy Lance. Thunderbird Press, 1988.
- Buechner, Howard A. Col. and Bernhart, Wilhelm Capt. Hitler's Ashes - Seeds Of A New Reich. Thunderbird Press, 1989.
- Childress, David Hatcher. Pirates and the Lost Templar Fleet: The Secret Naval War Between the Knights Templar and the Vatican. Adventures Unlimited Press, 2003.
- Crowley, Cornelius Joseph. The Legend Of The Wanderings Of The Spear Of Longinus. Heartland Book, 1972.
- Hone, William. The Lost Books of the Bible. Bell Publishing Co., 1979.
- Macllellan, Alec. The Secret of the Spear: The Mystery of The Spear of Longinus. Souvenir Press, 2004
- Prioli, Carmine A. The Poems of General George S. Patton, Jr.: Lines of Fire, by George S. Patton, Jr. Edwin Mellen Press, 1991.
- Ravenscroft, Trevor. The Spear of Destiny, the Occult Power Behind the Spear Which Pierced the Side of Christ. Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1973
- Ravenscroft, Trevor and Wallace-Murphy, Tim. The Mark of the Beast: The Continuing Story of the Spear of Destiny. Weiser Books; Reprint edition, 1997.
- Rutman, Leo. Spear Of Destiny A Novel. Pinnacle Books, 1989.
- Sheffy, Lester Fields. Use Of The Holy Lance In The First Crusade. L.F. Sheffy, 1915.
- Smith, Jerry E., and Piccard, George. Secrets Of The Holy Lance: The Spear of Destiny in History & Legend. Adventures Unlimited Press, 2005.
Notes
External links
- A page from a site "Hitler the occult Messiah"
- is a page from a site devoted to the authentication of a previously unknown work by Picasso. This page has an article by Mark Harris on Dr. Stein's revelations about Hitler and the Spear.
- Solving the mystery of a Christian relic by Maryann Bird is an article in the European Edition of TIME Magazine on British metallurgist Robert Feather’s scientific examination of the Spear in Vienna.
- has a detailed history of the Spear's legend taken from Ravenscroft. Begins with a quote from Raiders of the Lost Ark and includes the statement made by Hitler to newspaper reporters of his first viewing of the Holy Lance and how he felt he'd possessed it before in a previous life. Good image of Hitler before the Eiffel Tower and a painting of the Crucifixion showing a centurion and the spear in the foreground.
- is a website devoted to the book Secrets of the Holy Lance: The Spear Of Destiny In History & Legend by Jerry E. Smith and George Piccard. Includes extensive excerpts from the book and a gallery of Spear related images.
- by J. R. Church. Very detailed history of the Spear, with interesting material on Mauritius , the Merovingians, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm, Archduke Ferdinand, and Hitler.
- has a good article on the several different Spears and the many differing legends around Longinus.
- is a page from the online Catholic Encyclopedia and was the basis for the other Wikipedia page on this subject.
- has a long and scholarly treatise on all the reputed Spears of Destiny and their various legends, with several good illustrations including: the Crucifixion, the Holy Lance on display at St Peters in Antioch, and El Greco's painting The Martyrdom of Maurice and the Theban Legion.
- a short but concise article by Randy Van Dyke stating the main elements of Ravencroft's version of the legend.
