October: Day 16: Holy Martyr Longinus the Centurion

October: Day 16:
Holy Martyr Longinus the Centurion

(About Honesty)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Today the memory of Saint Longinus the Centurion is celebrated. Longinus, a pagan, was appointed as a centurion by order of Pilate, with the soldiers under him, to serve during the sufferings of Jesus Christ. And he was so struck by the extraordinary event that took place before his eyes, that although he had no idea until then of either the Holy Scriptures or the prophecies about Christ, he suddenly understood the truth, and with all his soul believed in the Divinity of the Savior (as the evangelists Matthew 27:54, Mark 15:39 and Luke 23:47 testify about him):

“The centurion and those who were with him guarding Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and all that happened, were greatly afraid, saying, ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’”

“The centurion, seeing what had happened, glorified God and said: 'Truly, this was a righteous man.'”

Church tradition adds to this testimony that Longinus was also among the guards assigned to the tomb of the Savior, and having witnessed the miraculous resurrection of Christ, he finally believed in Jesus Christ together with two other soldiers, came to Pilate and the high priests and told them everything. When they offered him gold so that he would conceal the resurrection of Christ that he and the soldiers had seen and tell everyone that the disciples of Christ stole His body while those guarding Him fell asleep, Longinus rejected their offer and, on the contrary, as an eyewitness, testified to the people about the resurrection of Christ and called Him the true God. For this he was subjected to hatred and persecution by the enemies of Christ, who began to look for a reason to destroy him, but, finding no guilt in him, they did not dare to do so, because Longinus was the oldest of the soldiers, an honest man and known to Caesar himself. Then Longinus, escaping the malice of his persecutors, left his military rank and, having accepted baptism from the apostles, withdrew to his homeland, Cappadocia, and there everywhere testified to the truth of the resurrection of Christ. Rumors of this reached the Jewish leaders, and the high priests with the elders begged Pilate to slander Longinus before the emperor Tiberius in the indignation of the people. In this way they achieved that the death sentence was signed for the preacher of Christ. The soldiers sent to Cappadocia beheaded Longinus and two soldiers, his friends; his head, as proof of his death, was brought to Jerusalem, where Pilate and the Jews ordered it to be thrown outside the city, in a place where all kinds of filth were dumped. After some time, however, it was miraculously extracted from there to glorify the saint of God.

II. The Holy Martyr Longinus the Centurion can serve as a model of honesty for all of us, i.e. truthfulness, incorruptibility and, in general, strict love for the truth. We will now talk about honesty.

a) What is honesty?

We speak very briefly when we say about someone: "He is an honest man," but with this brevity we express all that we can say about a person worthy of respect, trust and love. Honesty is a noble firmness with which a person, without any extraneous views and without philosophizing, follows his heart's conviction - his pure conscience. This firmness constitutes, as it were, his soul, which is revealed in his entire way of thinking and acting, in all his words and deeds, in all his feelings and movements, in all his work and rest, in all his private and public life. An honest man never says or shows anything other than what is on his mind and heart. Honesty is the enemy of all lies, all pretense, all cunning, all deceit, deception, negligence and treachery. Honesty hates every crooked path, all secret passages of lies, everything ambiguous, crafty, cunning and treacherous. Honesty never, as they say, strikes with both hands, does not flatter, calls everything by its name, especially does not praise what it despises in its heart. Without falling into the vice of reckless blasphemy, which condemns all who think and act differently from itself, honesty reveals its opinion only when asked for its opinion, but reveals it frankly, in spite of everything and no one. Honesty is truthful, faithfully keeps its given word, although it receives great disadvantages from it; it is silent, and especially honors and keeps a trusted secret.

Honesty is never selfish or suspicious, never thinks evil or tolerates evil, but directs everything to good. Briefly, true honesty is the same as “truth,” as the wise man described it (Prov. 11:30, 12:28), and the same as “love,” as the Apostle Paul described it (1 Cor. 13:1–8). Therefore, “in the ways of righteousness is life,” says the Spirit of God (Prov. 12:28).

b) Our nature also encourages us to be honest.

Everyone loves to be called and calls himself an honest man, even if he is completely unworthy of this name. Even the most dishonest person, the obvious hypocrite and the most shameless deceiver, love to call themselves honest people, wear the mask of an honest man, and outside their circle do not want to appear anywhere as idlers, hypocrites and deceivers. And this clearly shows that our very nature prompts us to be honest, that is, to always act according to our inner conviction, to show ourselves everywhere as we really are, and to behave in all situations and relationships of life as we should behave before God and before our conscience.

c) One's own prudence also encourages one to be honest.

A dishonest person will never have inner peace. He constantly feels remorse, is constantly in anxiety and fear, lest his cunning and dishonesty be exposed, lest he be subjected to dishonor from people and punishment by law. Such fears are mostly realized. Cunning and dishonesty are soon exposed. Then the dishonest person loses all respect and trust from his neighbors. Everyone disdains him and no one will do business with him. A dishonest person, if he does not fall under the judgment, remains alone among people, helpless. The evil he has acquired, evilly perishes. Unrighteous acquisitions brought into the house become fire, consuming even what was acquired in it before. But human judgment is not as terrible as the judgment of God, which punishes every violation of truth and honesty. A dishonest person, offending his neighbors with his theft and deceit, thereby offends God Himself. As the good done to Christians the Lord imputes to Himself, according to what is said: "Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to Me" (Matt. 25:46), so the offense done to Christians the Lord imputes to Himself. Therefore, whoever does an offense to a person, does it to the Lord, whoever irritates a person, irritates the Lord,” says Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk. No one and nothing can be hidden from the all-seeing eye of the Lord. God is present everywhere and sees everything, and writes it down in His book, and on the last day He will reprove a person in front of the whole world for all this, as He Himself said: “I will reprove you and present your sins before your face” (Psalm 49:21). A dishonest person who deceives and offends his neighbor directly shows that he does not have the fear of God in his heart, does not fear the judgment of the Lord and hell, and whoever does not have the fear of God is a lost person, he does not have a saving bridle that can restrain the violent impulses of passions.

d) The word of God also encourages honesty. All societies that live in peace, quiet, tranquility, contentment and joy, living as a great family of God, are such only because the majority of their members are honest people. “In the goodness of the righteous the city shall be established” (Prov. 11:10). “The fountain of life is in the hand of the righteous” (Prov. 10:11). “Joyfulness abides with the righteous” (Prov. 10:28). “The blessing of the Lord is on the head of the righteous” (Prov. 10:22). “Righteousness exalts the tongue” (Prov. 14:34). “Better is one righteous man than a thousand sinners” (Sir. 16:3). This is what the Spirit of God says!

III. So, brethren, not only the word of God but also our very nature and our own benefit inspire us to honesty. To be honest is very noble and praiseworthy. Honesty gains us God's love from God, and respect and trust from people. Let us earnestly pray to the Lord God that He may be pleased to support honesty in strength where it exists, to increase it where it is little, and to plant it where it does not exist.

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.