32. Venerunt ergo milites: et primi quidem fregerunt crura, et alterius, qui crucifixus est cum eo.32. The soldiers therefore came: and they broke the legs of the first, and of the other that was crucified with him.
33. Ad Iesum autem cum venissent, ut viderunt eum iam mortuum, non fregerunt eius crura:33. But after they were come to Jesus, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
34. Sed unus militum lancea latus eius aperuit, et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua.34. But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water.

34. Opened (Vulg., aperuit) his side. It is very much more probable that the verb in the original is ἔνυξεν (pierced) not ἤνοιξεν (opened). A spear; (λόνχη). This was the long lance of a horseman. The lance is now preserved and venerated in Rome, in St. Peter's. It wants the point, which is kept in the holy chapel in Paris.

It is uncertain whether it was Christ's right side or left that was pierced with a lance. According to the Ethiopian Version, and the apocryphal Gospels of Nicodemus and the Infancy, it was the right. Thus a very early tradition points to the right side, and it was on his right side, too, that St. Francis was marked when he received the sacred stigmata.

And immediately there came out blood and water. It is disputed whether this flow of blood and water was natural or miraculous.

(1) Some hold that each flow was miraculous, because in a dead body blood does not flow and water is not found in the region of the heart.

(2) Others, on the contrary, hold that in each case the flow was quite natural, because in a dead body the clot or red corpuscles become separated from the serum or watery substance of the blood, and both would naturally flow out when Christ's side was pierced. This opinion, however, is improbable, as the best modern physiologists say it would require four hours after death to effect this separation,[131] and no such length of time can be admitted between the death of Christ at three o'clock and the piercing of his side, for he had to be buried before sunset, that is to say, at the latest, about 6 p.m.

(3) Hence others hold that Christ's heart had broken, and that the blood which had therefore flowed into the pericardium, or sheath of the heart, had become, when extravasated, rapidly dissolved into its constituent elements. This view is held by some writers of great authority. See Dr. Stroud's Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ. Against it, however, we have the opinion of physiologists, that the heart never breaks except in those in whom the organism has been long diseased; and it is contrary [pg 352] to the common opinion that Christ took or had a diseased body, or any diseased organ.

(4) Hence, with Corluy, we think the most probable view is, that the blood flowed naturally from a body only a short time dead, the water miraculously. Certainly the fathers generally seem to see in this flow of blood and water a mystery, something that was not ordinary or natural, and many think that our Evangelist himself, in the next verse, insists upon the truth of what he says, as if it were something wholly unnatural and difficult to believe. It may, however, be replied to this latter argument that he insists upon the truth of the facts, not because anything miraculous and difficult to believe had taken place, but because there was question of the fulfilment of two important Messianic prophecies.

According to the fathers, the flow of blood typified the Sacrament of the Blessed Eucharist, that of water, the Sacrament of Baptism. Thus St. Cyril of Alex.: “Lancea latus ejus perfodiunt, unde cruor aqua mistus scaturiit, quod Eulogiae mysticae et baptismatis imago quaedam erat atque primitiae.”

35. Et qui vidit, testimonium perhibuit: et verum est testimonium eius. Et ille scit quia vera dicit: ut et vos credatis.35. And he that saw it hath given testimony: and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe.