This person, unnamed in the Gospels, is further identified in some versions of the story as the centurion present at the Crucifixion, who said that Jesus was the son of God,[7] so he is considered as one of the first Christians and Roman converts.

An early tradition, found in a sixth- or seventh-century pseudepigraphal "Letter of Herod to Pilate", claims that Longinus suffered for having pierced Jesus, and that he was condemned to a cave where every night a lion came and mauled him until dawn, after which his body healed back to normal, in a pattern that would repeat until the end of time.

[8] Later traditions turned him into a Christian convert, but as Sabine Baring-Gould observed: "The name of Longinus was not known to the Greeks previous to the patriarch Germanus, in 715.

[11] The touch of Jesus's blood cures his eye problem: Christian legend has it that Longinus was a blind Roman centurion who thrust the spear into Christ's side at the crucifixion.

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, Washington, DC purports to have a holy relic, a fragment of bone, of Saint Longinus.

His feast day is kept on 16 October in the Roman Martyrology, which mentions him, without any indication of martyrdom, in the following terms: "At Jerusalem, commemoration of Saint Longinus, who is venerated as the soldier opening the side of the crucified Lord with a lance".

[18] There is altarpiece St. Longinus and St. Gaudentius by an anonymous author from 17th century in St. Anthony the Great Catholic parish church in Veli Lošinj.

[21] Accounts vary regarding the promised offering of three hops, citing either deference to an alleged limping of the saint or a plea to the Holy Trinity.

[22] Brazilian medium Chico Xavier wrote Brasil, Coração do Mundo, Pátria do Evangelho, a psychographic book of authorship attributed to the spirit of Humberto de Campos.