The Real Simon of Cyrene

We all know who Simon of Cyrene is, don’t we?  The man who helped Jesus Christ carry the cross.  What people don’t know is that he is the one who actually died on the cross while Allah rescued Jesus and raised him to himself as the Quran says in Surah 4:157.  Actually that’s not what happened, but the New Testament tells more than we think about Simon of Cyrene.

Mark was written in Rome and Peter was used as the primary source for his gospel.  In Mark and the other two synoptic gospels we read about Simon of Cyrene.  However, in Mark we get a detail that isn’t present in Luke or Matthew.

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.

– Mark 15:21

This little fact that he’s the father of Alexander and Rufus isn’t in Matthew and Luke.  Why not?  Obviously Mark thought that this would mean something to his audience.  We know that Peter was in Rome as testified to by tradition, specifically in 1 Clement written in about 100 AD to the Church in Rome.  In chapter 5 he gives them two example of martyrdom that they’re obviously familiar with, specifically Peter and Paul.  There is other evidence as well but I won’t get to it here.

Mark is obviously written to the Roman Church for many reasons.  It has the most Latin words despite being the shortest Gospel.  It also has a lot of other terminology familiar to Rome.  Obviously this would make Peter the prime source for Mark since he was an eyewitness to the life of Christ.

Now, we all know that St. Paul writes to the Roman Church as witnessed by his letter to the Romans.  At this point St. Paul had not been to Rome.  At the end of his epistle he greets a bunch of people.  He writes:

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.

– Romans 16:13

So St. Paul hasn’t been to Rome but he knows Rufus, specifically his mother.  It’s just apparent by this that Rufus and his mother are early missionaries to Rome.  It seems like St. Paul knew the mother well.  He obviously met her in the Church in Jerusalem.

We can gather from this data that both Simon of Cyrene and his children were both part of the Church from the earliest days in Jerusalem.  Simon obviously knew the disciples and eventually met Mark and Paul.  When he helped carry the cross of Christ he was probably older because we don’t hear from him again.  We know that his children were part of the Church though as witnessed through the Church in Rome, in the Gospel of Mark with Peter as the prime source.