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.”
Matthew, Mark AND Luke all mention him by name. How do the gospel writers know this man who was “passing by”? Why are his SONS mentioned? Is this family important somehow? Is it because Simon, the merchant from Libya with a Jewish first name (remember the former Israeli political leader Shimon Peres), is a part of their special group already, along with his family? Is he there BECAUSE Jesus is being executed, and therefore he had a very personal interest in the outcome of that day? Cyrene was an international city with a strong Greek culture, showing a population of about 5,000 at its peak a couple of centuries before Christ. It had a functioning Jewish population along with its other international groups. (Another Cyrenean Jew, Jason, was the author of the original Second Book of Maccabees.)
The number of Jewish Cyrenians from which to choose was probably not much more than a high school graduating class. The chance of two being named Simon, each with two sons named Rufus and Alexander, was pretty much zero. Cyrene’s Jewish community would had a few Simons, but only one like this.
Paul mentions (Simon’s son?) Rufus in his letter to Rome —
Romans 16:13 KJV "Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine." It means “say hello to Rufus, a Christian, and to his mother, who has been like a mother to me”.
Coincidence, that Paul speaks fondly of Rufus, and of his mother, the WIFE of Simon of Cyrene? By the time Paul wrote to the Romans, of course, Simon is probably already dead.
Interesting, then, that an ossuary has been found in a tomb in Jerusalem’s Kidron valley with the engraving in Greek, “Simon of Cyrene” AND “Alexander of Cyrene” on it. Family tomb? Rufus not dead yet at the time of Paul’s letter to the Romans, and not listed on the ossuary.
I can’t think of any reason a stranger, especially a traveling merchant (thus a man with a strong reason to stay on the good side of the Romans), would show up for that awful procession, AND be mentioned by name — and by his SONS’ names, in three of the four gospels — UNLESS he was a known brother in the new faith in Jesus. Ordinary passers-by would not have gotten close, because of the visible risk of becoming associated with the Man being executed. A bloody, tortured, gasping, staggering victim, with soldiers all around him shouting, whipping him, bullying the crowd out of the way? Nobody goes anywhere NEAR that procession without some personal REASON to take the risk of Romans looking at him suspiciously. One sympathetic glance at the victim, seen by the Romans, could have spelled lifelong trouble… and in fact, such a glance could be what caused the soldier to choose HIM to carry the cross in the first place. Maybe the soldier, having seen him and seen on his face the sympathy for the convicted, had already begun to PUNISH Simon for being a follower of Christ. Simon did as he was told; to refuse would have probably meant joining Jesus on a cross. And after that, he would have been fortunate if the Romans had let him be. Perhaps they persecuted him afterwards as well. We’ll never know.
The gospels aren’t written by neutral historians. They are the story of Christ, told by His followers… AND they are decades after the facts, so there would have been some realities which might not have been manifest on that dreadful day, but which would have been known well by the time the gospels were written. It’s possible the disciples — the teenagers and young men who were His companions — might not have known Simon of Cyrene at the time, but then decades later, as the Christian community grew, those young disciples were the mature church leaders who would have known everyone in the Jerusalem church… including Simon and his sons.
We aren’t talking about one random man from among millions. The peak population of Cyrene was 5,000, and that was a couple of centuries BEFORE these events. Jews were a small minority there, as everywhere. The odds of more than one man from that city, with a Jewish name like Shimon, AND two sons named Alexander and Rufus, are near zero.
The population of Jerusalem at this time as around 6,000. The likelihood of a SECOND man from Cyrene, named Simon, a traveler with two sons named Alexander and Rufus, being in Jerusalem at the time of the sorrowful procession of Christ and the cross are … well, we can guess with great confidence that those men are the ones from Cyrene… that there is only one Simon of Cyrene.
We know his name and the names of his sons. We know St. Paul mentions one of the sons, warmly, in the letter to Romans, a clue that the family was Christian and so they were drawn to that spot in Jerusalem to observe the execution of their rabbi. We know three of the Gospels mention not just Simon but his TWO SONS, a very odd thing indeed for a neutral narrative which is only interested in describing the events… but a very NORMAL thing for a Christian writer trying to offer the true history of Jesus and the faith.
St. Paul also mentions the MOTHER of Rufus warmly… the wife, in life, of Simon of Cyrene. Another family tie to the Christian brotherhood in Jerusalem so soon after His execution? I rather think so.
And we know there is that ossuary, a stone box for the bones, of Alexander of Cyrene and Simon of Cyrene… a box with their names engraved on it.
Again… the odds of a SECOND man from Cyrene, named Simon, WITH a son named Alexander, buried together in Jerusalem, are pretty much zero.
Because of everything I’ve written here… and because of this stone box… I am as sure as history can make me that Simon, a Jewish traveling merchant from Cyrene in modern day Libya, is the Simon of Cyrene the three gospels mention. They call him a traveler, say he was passing by on his way in from the country (the west, Libya), and that he has two sons with international names — Alexander (Greek legendary figure) and Rufus (Latin, which is to say Roman, for “Red”. A ginger.). Cyrene was a Greek city, and naming one’s first son Alexander after “The Great” had to be very common there. Simon’s sons are mentioned by name in the gospels, and the younger brother — and his MOTHER — are mentioned twenty years later in that timeline by Paul writing to the Romans.
Simon and his sons were known by the gospel writers. There is no other reason for them to name him AND his sons as they told the story of carrying the cross. This naming meant the family were followers of Jesus. Their presence on the infamous route was because they heard He was to be executed, and they came to see for themselves. Adding to my certainty that the family were Christians is Paul’s mention of Rufus and his mother in the greetings in the epistle to the Romans.
I believe they were HONORED members of the Jerusalem Christian community, BECAUSE of what their father had done for Jesus on that day.
Finally, the ossuary found in 1941 in the Kidron Valley indicates they were buried in Jerusalem, a thing not easy to explain for a merchant from Cyrene but simple to understand if he was an honored member of the Christian movement — in Jerusalem where Christ died and rose, and throughout all of Judea.
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Your perceptive historical analysis is inspiring to me. God Bless you for all you write for us. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thanks for this!