Lance of Longinus
Appears in Episode: 12, 14, 15, 22
The Lance of Longinus is a giant red spiral spear with two piercing tips. It is believed to have been found at the South Pole, and is used inside Terminal Dogma to impale the crucified form of Lilith, the Second Angel.
The Lance of Longinus has many mysterious properties, including the ability to change shape as needed (such as converging into a single-tipped spear when thrust at a target). It also has the unique ability to penetrate AT Fields, making it particularly effective against the Angels and the Evangelion Units.
The PlayStation 2 video game Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 describes the Lance of Longinus as a type of life form with a will of its own, and capable of independent movement. It is extremely powerful, able to pierce all AT Fields and place a Seed of Life (the progenitor entity who holds the power of eternal life), into suspended animation. The lance is the reason why a progenitor entity does not reach god-status, and possibly the reason why Shinji Ikari is able to control and reject the Instrumentality process as seen in The End of Evangelion.
The First Ancestor Civilization prepared the Lance of Longinus as a counter-measure or fail-safe in the event that a progenitor entity did not follow its goals. Each Seed of Life would therefore contain such a device. Lilith's counterpart however was lost during the First Impact, and Adam's Lance of Longinus is eventually recovered from Antarctica to control her.
The Lance of Longinus is of critical importance to SEELE and their version of the Human Instrumentality Project, and is therefore not used as a weapon until the desperate battle against Arael, the Fifteenth Angel. As a result the lance is lost in lunar orbit and becomes irretrievable. It eventually returns during the Third Impact as seen in The End of Evangelion, merging with Evangelion Unit-01 to form the Tree of Life.
SEELE's Evangelion Units
Based on Neon Genesis Evangelion Platinum: 06 DVD Booklet
Based partially on Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 for PlayStation 2
Analysis
- Mythology of the Lance of Longinus
The Lance of Longinus (also referred to as the Spear of Longinus, Spear of Destiny, Holy Lance, or Holy Spear) was named after Gaius Cassius Longinus, the Roman soldier who impaled the crucified Jesus Christ with his spear in the New Testament of the Bible (John 19:31-37). This was typically done following crucifixion to confirm the victim's death. For centuries legends about the spear have circulated, giving it a mythological status. Most such legends state that the spear's contact with the blood of Jesus Christ had turned it into a weapon capable of slaying any opponent. Other legends also claim the spear to bestow long life and super-natural powers on the wielder. Over the centuries many objects at locations around the world that have been claimed to be the original remains of the Lance of Longinus. Currently there is no consensus on which, if any, of those objects are genuine.