Simon of Cyrene

Mark 15:21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross.

So according to the Markan tradition, it is a vouchsafe historical fact that Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, actually helped Jesus carry the cross to the place of crucifixion.

We have, in the gospel of John, another explicit claim to being an eyewitness account to the crucifixion.

John 19:35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may have faith.

John 19:16-17 So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out of to the Place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).

Let us first look a little closer at the Markan account. That Mark meant Simon to be a Jew we can be sure. Simon (Shimeon) is a Hebrew name. Cyrene, a town on the North African coast about 700 kilometers west of Alexandria, was also known to have a large Jewish population. [2]

The passage however raises many questions which throw grave doubts on its authenticity. As was mentioned in the previous chapter, the synoptic tradition had Jesus crucified on the first day of Passover, a high holy day. No Jew would do any work that day. Yet here, we have Mark telling us that Simon was coming "in from the country", i.e. at work in the fields. This is an impossibility, given the strict ruling of no work on the Passover. [3]

The attempt to connect the names of the sons with that given in the Pauline epistles is extremely precarious for the names Alexander and Rufus were extremely common during that time. [4] The problem is not resolved when we look at Matthew's and Luke's accounts; both do not have the names of Simon's sons:

Matthew 27:32 As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon and they forced him to carry the cross.

Let us now turn our attention to John�s account. We have shown, in chapter six, that despite the claim of its author, the gospel is not an eyewitness account. John�s gospel was written with a very pronounced theological slant. And here too we find the reason why Jesus was made to carry his own cross. During the time of the gospel�s composition, the heretical Christian sect of docetic Gnostics was claiming that it was Simon who, transferred to Jesus' likeness, was nailed to the cross. Jesus, who assumed the appearance of Simon, stood near the cross and mocked his executioners. [6] John gospel, which was clearly hostile to the docetics [b], dealt with this docetist teaching by simply eliminating Simon of Cyrene from the narrative altogether. [7]

Thus, despite claims of historical authentification from both the Markan and Johanine tradition, we do not know if Jesus carried his own cross or whether someone else, like Simon of Cyrene, helped him with it.

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Notes

References

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