Simon of Cyrene

There is in the Gospels, a mysterious character who appears only once in the whole Bible, and of whom we hear no more. It is about Simon of Cyrene who was forced to take the cross of Jesus on his way to Golgotha. “They forced to carry the cross of Jesus Christ a passerby who was returning from the fields, Simon of Cyrene, father of Alexander and Rufus”.

This verse, supplemented by those of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, leads us to ask ourselves many questions with the aim of trying to identify this character who had the immense honor of bearing the cross of the Lord.

Discover Simon and his legacy.

Too little has been said about Simon of Cyrene. Yet the Biblical text contains enough clues to allow us to describe him more accurately. With all these elements and more, I wanted to tell the story of this mysterious character who has been so unfairly ignored in Christian literature, and to whom I wanted to do justice by telling his life and his legacy. His story deserves to be uncovered.

“Simon,” was worn by many Jews, including Apostle Peter. Simon was therefore probably Jewish. Its origin is from Cyrene, in present-day Libya, near the modern city of Benghazi, in the east of the country. This African city was founded by Greek refugees in the 7th century BC, fleeing the drought and famine that plagued their country. The native Berbers welcomed them and showed them a place where they could settle, a place where “The sky is perforated,” that is to say i.e., a rainy region.

Why were Simon the Berber and his family in Jerusalem on that day, at the precise moment when the King of the Jews was brought to the place of his execution? It was the day of Passover, a feast of pilgrimage among the Jews. And Simon, living south of the Mediterranean, went to Judea, in obedience to the prescriptions of Moses.

Mark tells us in his gospel that Simon was returning from the fields when he was forced to carry the cross of Jesus. It must have been about eight o’clock in the morning, since Jesus was crucified at nine o’clock. This day of 14 Nissan (or Aviv) was the 14th day of the Biblical new year. And that’s the only season the ewes lamb. They had to be guarded and watched to make sure that everything would go well, as did the Shepherds of the Nativity, who had received the visit of an angel who had read announcing the birth of the Son of David, Jesus. Simon was, therefore, a shepherd. He had watched over the sheep all night, and was coming back from the fields to go home and prepare to celebrate the Passover feast.

In that adventure, Simon was also accompanied by his wife, who is mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans where Paul, sending his greetings to the brothers and sisters in Rome, cites Rufus and his mother, who, he says, “is also mine.” Proof of her gratitude for all that she has been able to bring to him, especially in difficult times.

Alexandre and Rufus, curiously, do not have Jewish names, more Greek for the first and Latin for the second. This sends us back to the cultural reality of Cyrenaica, where, according to Herodotus, a community formed of Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Berbers had developed. Tradition tells us that these two sons were among the 120 who first received the Holy Spirit fifty days later at Pentecost.

After the first Paul's arrest, then his release in Rome, the two brothers accompanied him to Spain and Catalonia to evangelize this part of the world called “Extremities of the Earth”. Alexander therefore evangelized Spain before dying as a martyr in Carthage. Rufus evangelized Catalonia, before settling in Avignon in the south of France, a city that would become “The City of the Popes” a few centuries later.

The Book of Acts gives us a lot of information about other North-Africans who have greatly contributed to the expansion of the Gospel in the world. He tells us many stories that many commentators have passed over in silence, or at least too quickly. Among the other characters of North African origin mentioned, we can name Mark, Epenetus, Lucius, and all the anonymous people who accompanied and surrounded them. The first is the author of the first Gospel, while the second became Bishop of Carthage that became the first capital of Christianity, even before Rome, thus contributing to the development of Christianity throughout North Africa. The third one was the Bishop of Antioch, cited among the Prophets and Doctors, who had organized the first mission led by Barnabas and Saul of Tarsus.