Luke 23:26

Κυρηναῖον. There was a large colony of Jews in the powerful African city of Cyrene, and the Cyrenians had a synagogue at Jerusalem (Acts 2:10; Acts 6:9; Acts 11:20). Simon may have come to keep the feast. St Mark calls him “the father of Alexander and Rufus,” possibly the Christians mentioned in Acts 19:33; Romans 16:13.

ἀπ' ἀγροῦ. Not necessarily from labouring in the fields: still the notice accords with the many other incidental signs that this was not the Feast-Day, but the day preceding it. See Excursus V. The Apocryphal ‘Acts of Pilate’ says that the soldiers met Simon at the city gate (John 19:17). There is no historical authority for the identification of the Via Dolorosa or for the ‘Stations’ of the Via Crucis. The latter are said to have originated among the Franciscans.

ἐπέθηκαν αὐτῷ τὸν σταυρόν. Probably because our Lord, enfeebled by the terrible scourging and by the long hours of sleepless agitation, was too feeble to bear it. This seems to be specially implied by Mark 15:21. It is not certain whether they made Simon carry the entire cross or merely part of the burden. (Comp. Genesis 22:6; Isaiah 9:6.) The Cross was not carried in the manner with which pictures have made us familiar, but either in two separate pieces—the body of the cross (staticulum) and its transom (antenna); or by tying these two pieces together in the shape of a V (furca). The Cross was certainly not the crux decussata (X) or St Andrew’s Cross; nor the crux commissa (T St Anthony’s Cross); but the ordinary Roman Cross († crux immissa. See Matthew 27:37). The Hebrew word for Cross is the letter Thau (Ezekiel 9:4), which gave abundant opportunities for the allegorising tendency of the Fathers. On the body of the Cross was certainly a projecting piece of wood (πῆγμα, sedile) to support the sufferer, but there was no suppedaneum or rest for the feet; and from Luke 24:39 it seems certain that one nail (if not two) was driven through the feet. Nothing could exceed the agony caused by this “most cruel and horrible punishment” as even the ancients unanimously call it.

φέρειν ὄπισθεν τοῦ Ἰησοῦ. Plutarch (De Ser. Num. Vind. 9) mentions the custom of making a criminal carry his own cross. Various Gnostic sects (e.g. the Basilidians) devised the fable that Simon was executed by mistake for Jesus, a fable which, through Apocryphal legends, has found its way into the Koran (Koran, Suras 3, 4). St Matthew (Matthew 27:32) and St Mark use the technical word ἠγγάρευσαν, impressed for service.’ Perhaps the Jews had received a hint that Simon was a disciple.