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Mat_27:32 Ἐξερχόμενοι ] because the law required that all executions should take place outside the city. Num_15:35 f.; 1Ki_11:13; Act_7:58; Lightfoot and Grotius on our passage.
On the question as to whether this Simon of Cyrene, a place in Libya Pentapolitana, thickly peopled with Jews, resided statedly in Jerusalem (Act_6:9), or was only there on a visit (Act_2:10), see below. It was usual to compel the person who was to be executed to carry his own cross (see on Mat_10:38, and Keim, p. 397 f.);[34] to this the case of Jesus was no exception, Joh_19:17. This statement of John does not exclude what is here said with regard to Simon and the cross, nor does it pretend to deny it (Keim), but it simply passes it over in silence, recording merely the main point in question,—the fact, namely, that Jesus had to carry His own cross (though there is nothing to prevent the supposition that He may have broken down under the burden before reaching the scene of the crucifixion).
That with such a large crowd following (Luk_23:27) they should notwithstanding compel a foreigner who happened to be going toward the city (Mark, Luke) to carry the cross the rest of the way, is a circumstance sufficiently accounted for by the infamy that attached to that odious thing. Possibly Simon was a slave. To suppose that he was one of Jesus’ followers, and that for this reason he had been pressed into the service (Grotius, Kuinoel), is altogether arbitrary, for, according to the text, the determining circumstance lies in the fact that he was ἄνθρωπον Κυρηναῖον . A foreigner coming from Cyrene would not be considered too respectable a person to be employed in such degrading work. That Simon, however, became a Christian, and that perhaps in consequence of his thus carrying the cross and being present at the crucifixion, is a legitimate inference from Mar_15:21 compared with Rom_16:13.
ἠγγάρ .] See on Mat_5:41. ἵνα ] mentions the object for which this was done.
[34] That is to say, the post, the upright beam of the cross, to which the transverse beam was not attached till the scene of the execution was reached, where the instrument of torture was duly put together and then set up with the criminal nailed to it. Hence (because σταυρός originally meant a, post) we find Greek authors making use of such expressions as σταυρὸν φέρειν , ἐκφέρειν , βαστάζειν , λαμβάνειν , αἴρειν , comp. σταυροφορεῖν ; Latin writers, however, with rather more regard for precision, distinguish between the upright beam which the criminal was called upon to carry, and the crux as it appeared when completed and set up at the place of execution. The upright beam which the cruciarius was compelled to drag after him was called patibulum; hence we never meet with the phrase crucem ferre, but always patibulum (the upright post) ferre, which patibulum was placed upon the poor criminal’s back, and with his outstretched hands securely tied to it, he had to balance it the best way he could upon his neck and shoulders. It is this distinction between crux and patibulum that enables us adequately to explain the well-known passages of Plautus: “Patibulum ferat per urbem, deinde affigatur cruci” (ap. Non. Marcell. 221), and “Dispensis manibus quom patibulum habebis” (Mil. glor. ii. 4. 7), and similarly with regard to expressions referring to the cross (as completed and set up): in crucem tollere, in crucem agere (Cicero and others), etc.; the comic expression crucisalus (Plaut. Bacch. ii. 3. 128); as also the passage in Tacit. Ann. xiv. 33, where the different modes of punishing by death are enumerated, beginning with those of a general nature and ending with the more specific: “Caedes, patibula (beams for penal purposes generally), ignes, cruces.” From this it is manifest at once that it would be incorrect to suppose, with Keim, that all that Christ had to carry was the cross-beam. Such a view is at variance both with the language of our text: τὸν σταυρὸν αἴρειν , and with the Latin phrase: patibulum ferre. So much is the patibulum regarded as the main portion of the cross, that in poetry it is sometimes used as equivalent to crux, as in Prudent. Peristeph. ix. 641: “Crux illa nostra est, nos patibulum ascendimus.”