Holy Lance
The name of the soldier who pierced Christ's side with a "lonchē" is not given in the Gospel of John, but in the oldest known references to the legend, the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus appended to late manuscripts of the 4th century "Acts of Pilate", the soldier is identified as a centurion and called Longinus (making the spear's Latin name "Lancea Longini").
Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion
Jehovah's Witnesses assert that the device used for Jesus' execution was a simple upright stake, and that the cross was adopted as a Christian symbol only under the 4th-century emperor Constantine the Great. The "New World Translation" of the Bible therefore uses the phrase "torture stake" to translate the Greek word σταυρός ("stauros") at Matthew 27:40, Mark 15:30 and Luke 23:26.