y19:34 Although unverifiable, church tradition indentifies the soldier to be Longinus, who later converted to Christ. One tradition holds to the belief that he was a Roman centurion suffering from an eye problem or blindness that was instantly healed when a drop of Jesus’ blood fell into his eye. See Christopher Fuhrmann, Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order (Oxford University Press, reprint ed., 2014) 231; Malcolm Godwin, The Holy Grail: Its Origins, Secrets & Meaning Revealed (Viking Penguin, 1994), 51.
