7 others in the registry answer to the name Simon. Every Simon in the Bible
- verses
- 3
- first named
- Matthew 27:32
- last named
- Luke 23:26
- period
- the New Testament
- role
- Man
Description
Who was Simon?
Simon of Cyrene is mentioned in Mat.27.32, Mrk.15.21, and Luk.23.26 as the man who was compelled by Roman soldiers to carry Jesus' cross on the way to his crucifixion at Golgotha. Cyrene was a city in modern-day Libya, North Africa, indicating that Simon may have been a visitor to Jerusalem, possibly for the Passover festival.
The gospels record that as Jesus was being led out of the city to be crucified, he was weakened by the torture and beatings he had endured. The Roman soldiers seized Simon, who was passing by on his way in from the country, and forced him to carry Jesus' cross behind him.
Mark's gospel provides an additional detail, mentioning that Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus (Mrk.15.21). This suggests that Simon's sons were known to the early Christian community, possibly as believers themselves.
Simon's role in carrying Jesus' cross has been seen as a symbolic representation of the Christian call to take up one's cross and follow Christ (Mat.16.24; Luk.9.23). His brief but significant appearance in the gospel narrative has made him a figure of contemplation and veneration in Christian tradition.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Father of
- AlexanderregistryMark 15:21
- RufusregistryMark 15:21
Places
Where this happens
A person is placed by the events they take part in, and an event has to clear three things to place them: it must say where it happened, that place must be one the gazetteer can put a coordinate on, and the verse must report it rather than foretell, command or ask it. Nothing anchored here clears all three. Where the text names a setting no gazetteer surveys — a vineyard, a palace, a plot of ground — it is left off rather than guessed at; where a place is named only in a prophecy, the map does not draw what was said to be coming as though it had happened; and a place reached only through a relation is not inherited, because standing beside somebody is not being somewhere.
No verse Atlas has read as a report puts this person anywhere.
Not read yet
The pattern
Where Simon is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
3 verses across 3 of 66 books; 63 write the name nowhere. Named in Matthew (1), Mark (1) and Luke (1).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 3, across 3 books.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
Chapter by chapter
Atlas's reading of each chapter this person appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
Sources