SIMONE il CIRENEO. - Cirene (v.), a city of the Libyan Pentapolis, where a flourishing Jewish colony maintained continuous relations with Jerusalem (Flavio Giuseppe, Antiq. Ind., XIV, 7, 2; XVI, 6, 1).
He relieved Jesus of the weight of the Cross on the way to Calvary: he was returning from his field when he was stopped by the centurion (a personal “requisition”) and compelled to carry the Cross in place of Jesus, exhausted of strength (Mc. 15, 21; Mt. 27, 32; Lc. 23, 26).
The episode is commemorated by the piety of the faithful in the fifth station of the Via Crucis; from the thirteenth century onward its location was assigned to the intersection of the road of Iosaphat with that of the valley of Tyropeon, and later to the exit of the Judicial Gate. From Mc. 15, 21 it is known that S. was the “father of Alessandro and Rufo”: the former is probably the one mentioned in Act. 19, 33, RUFFO (v.) was perhaps that distinguished figure of the Christian community of Rome whose mother—that is, on the hypothesis that she was S.’s wife—is called by St. Paul his own “mother” (Rom. 16, 13).
(phot. Alinari)
SIMONE il CIRENEO - S. C. helps Jesus carry the Cross. Painting by A. Allori (sixteenth century) - Rome, Galleria Doria.
It., III, Torino 1934, p. 442 ff.; G. Ricciotti, Vita di Gesù Cristo, Milano 1940, pp. 139 ff., 734. Gaetano Stano