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Mark 15:20-22
New Catholic Bible
Mark 15:20-22
New Catholic Bible
20 And when they had finished mocking him, they stripped him of his purple robe and dressed him in his own clothes. Then they led him out to crucify him.
21 The Way of the Cross.[a] They compelled a passer-by who was returning from the country to carry his cross. The man was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.
22 Jesus Is Crucified. They brought him to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Mark 15:21 Those condemned to death were usually forced to carry the crossbeam of the cross, often 30 to 40 pounds, to the place of crucifixion. Jesus starts out by doing the same (see Jn 19:7), but he is so weak as a result of his scourging and overall ill-treatment that the soldiers decide to have someone else take over that task. The man chosen is Simon, a man from Cyrene, an important city of Libya, North Africa, with a large Jewish population, who is probably in Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. Alexander and Rufus: the sons are named probably because they were known to the early Christians to whom Mark’s Gospel is addressed.
