Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

What is striking about Simon of Cyrene is that he is the only person, among the people who appear in the Passion stories, who is forced to enter ''into'' the story.

Compare him with:

the young disciple fleeing naked: he exits out the story and is a free man.

the servant of the high priest: he is healed by Jesus and as such he is a free man.

Jesus Barabbas: he is freed by Pilate and therefore he is a free man.

the Golgotha as ''Place of the Skull'': the ''skull'', in my view, is the allegory of the earthly prison of the Primal Man. The crucifixion provokes, as immediate effect, the liberation of the Primal Man.

the Spirit abandons Jesus: as such, the Spirit is free.


Now, against all these cases, the Cyrenaic episode is the only episode where the slavery is imposed brutally on a man coming from the country.


So I think that the point behind Simon is proto-catholic and anti-marcionite: the interpolator didn't like the excessive ''freedom'' of so many episodes in the Passion. Simon breaks the chain of these episodes with the same leit motiv of liberation.

But since Basilides says that Jesus and Simon switched places it has to be very early - earlier than orthodoxy because Basilides is a very early heresy.

Again as I have been saying a lot lately I think you'd be better off familiarizing yourself with the oldest 'variant' opinions - i.e. the things the orthodox tell us what said, was interpreted - and then limit yourself to attested POV. I would counter that when you say Simon is the only person compelled to enter a narrative this isn't exactly true. Jesus is compelled to carry the Cross - exactly like Simon. The notion of 'compelling' someone to do something implies slavery which is an important concept among the heresies. And here is a second lesson - familiarize and limit yourself to Greek terminology. Redemption in Greek apolytrosis (ἀπολύτρωσις) is rooted in slave redemption. So there is something pregnant with significance having two characters who interchange with one another bound in an act under compulsion (carrying the cross-piece) intimately connected with apolytrosis.

Secret Alias wrote: ↑Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:39 am But since Basilides says that Jesus and Simon switched places it has to be very early - earlier than orthodoxy because Basilides is a very early heresy.

You are maybe ignoring a third possibility: that Basilides was a late heresy and the proto-catholic interpolated Simon of Cyrene as a parody of the Basilides's Simon.

Or a fourth possibility. There never was a Basilides. Isn't that what you do with problematic evidence?

The Cyrenaic is a prisoner lead against the his will in a kind of Roman triumph where Jesus is the victorious emperor. So this is already a parody of the Roman triumph.

My point is that the Cyrenaic represents the enemy par excellence defeated by the proto-catholic Christ: precisely the father of all the heresies, Simon Magus. And with him, Satan himself is lead prisoner in triumph.

Giuseppe wrote: ↑Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:17 am
Now, against all these cases, the Cyrenaic episode is the only episode where the slavery is imposed brutally on a man coming from the country.

Your comment raised in my mind another possibility:

Simon of Cyrene is coming in from the country and is compelled to take up the cross;

Jesus himself was driven (cast out) by the spirit into the wilderness at the beginning of Mark's narrative.

One might also see these events as possible bookends (along with other 'bookends'). Jesus is driven/compelled/cast out by the spirit into the wilderness; Simon is dragooned by the Romans as he is entering Jerusalem from the country.

fwiw -

From Irenaeus we learn (Adv. Haer. I. vii. 2; III. xviii. 6) that Basilides denied that Jesus really suffered on the cross. On the Via Dolorosa Jesus handed the cross over to Simon of Cyrene, to whom he lent his own form and who was crucified as if he were Jesus, while the true Jesus Christ, standing unseen nearby in the form of Simon, laughed at his enemies, and then ascended to the Father. According to Clement of Alexandria (Strom. vii. 17), the followers of Basilides boasted that their master had received special information from a certain Glaucias, who, so it was said, had been an interpreter of the Apostle Peter. (Canon of the NT, Bruce Metzger)

The point is the apolytrosis must have had a scriptural basis

The verse as it stands in Mark (15:21) is weird indeed. The text could well go from verse 20 to verse 22 without any problems. It could be an interpolation. But I don't recall reading of any manuscript or Church Father attestation that the verse was ever missing (please someone correct me if I'm wrong). The seeming irrelevance of mentioning Simon being the father of Alexander and Rufus has always made me wonder if there is some historical memory being preserved here (the idea being that Alexander and Rufus were known members of the Markan community). Can't say I buy that though. It could well be that they were prominent patrons, and as such, were rewarded with being written into the story. No idea. In any case, I don't think the reasoning for seeing it as an interpolation because Simon is drawn into the proceedings, rather than being freed like many other characters, is a very compelling one.