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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Mark 15:22 - 15:22
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22. φέρουσιν αὐτόν. This may mean that He was so exhausted that the soldiers had to carry Him for the remainder of the way (Mar 1:32, Mar 2:3); but it probably means “bring, conduct” (Mar 7:32, Mar 8:22, Mar 9:17; Mar 9:19, Mar 11:2; Mar 11:7). Latin versions have perducunt, adducunt, duxerunt; k has ferunt illam, “bring the cross.”
Κρανίου τόπος. Mk, Mt., and Jn give this as the meaning of Golgotha, while Lk. has simply Κρανίον, which favours the view that it was so called from the shape of the rock. That Jews allowed the skulls of criminals to lie there unburied is incredible, though Jerome seems to accept it: in that case it would have been called the “place of skulls.” The legend that Adam’s skull lay there, thus bringing the fatal death of the first Adam into connexion with the lifegiving death of the second Adam, appears to be believed by Ambrose. But Chrysostom gives it as a mere report, and Jerome rejects it as an attractive interpretation of the name and mulcens aurem populi, nec tamen vera. The Ethiopic Melchisedek legend makes Golgotha itself to be Adam’s skull. Golgotha is not a pure transliteration, but is a Greek modification, for the sake of euphony, of Goulgoltha, Gougaltha, and Gogoltha. The familiar “Calvary” comes from Vulg. Calvariae locus, Lk. Calvariae. We have not sufficient evidence to decide either the site or the origin of the name. The literature is large. Sanday, Sacred Sites, pp. 54, 68–77; D.C.G. art. “Golgotha.” Nor is the route through the city to it known. What is called the Via Dolorosa is a mediaeval conjecture.