Cyrene

• Cyrene

130:0.2From Je­ru­sa­lem they went to Cae­sarea by way of Joppa. At Cae­sarea they took a boat for Alexan­dria. From Alexan­dria they sailed for Lasea in Crete. From Crete they sailed for Carthage, touch­ing at Cyrene. At Carthage they took a boat for Naples, stop­ping at Malta, Syra­cuse, and Messina. From Naples they went to Ca­pua, whence they trav­eled by the Ap­pian Way to Rome.

130:6.6The trav­el­ers were truly rested and re­freshed when they made ready about noon one day to sail for Carthage in north­ern Africa, stop­ping for two days at Cyrene. It was here that Je­sus and Ga­nid gave first aid to a lad named Ru­fus, who had been in­jured by the break­down of a loaded ox­cart. They car­ried him home to his mother, and his fa­ther, Si­mon, lit­tle dreamed that the man whose cross he sub­se­quently bore by or­ders of a Ro­man sol­dier was the stranger who once be­friended his son.

187:1.9Shortly af­ter pass­ing through the gate on the way out of the city, as Je­sus stag­gered on bear­ing the cross­beam, his phys­i­cal strength mo­men­tar­ily gave way, and he fell be­neath the weight of his heavy bur­den. The sol­diers shouted at him and kicked him, but he could not arise. When the cap­tain saw this, know­ing what Je­sus had al­ready en­dured, he com­manded the sol­diers to de­sist. Then he or­dered a passerby, one Si­mon from Cyrene, to take the cross­beam from Je­sus’ shoul­ders and com­pelled him to carry it the rest of the way to Gol­go­tha.

187:1.10This man Si­mon had come all the way from Cyrene, in north­ern Africa, to at­tend the Pass­over. He was stop­ping with other Cyre­ni­ans just out­side the city walls and was on his way to the tem­ple ser­vices in the city when the Ro­man cap­tain com­manded him to carry Je­sus’ cross­beam. Si­mon lin­gered all through the hours of the Mas­ter’s death on the cross, talk­ing with many of his friends and with his en­e­mies. Af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion and be­fore leav­ing Je­ru­sa­lem, he be­came a valiant be­liever in the gospel of the king­dom, and when he re­turned home, he led his fam­ily into the heav­enly king­dom. His two sons, Alexan­der and Ru­fus, be­came very ef­fec­tive teach­ers of the new gospel in Africa. But Si­mon never knew that Je­sus, whose bur­den he bore, and the Jew­ish tu­tor who once be­friended his in­jured son, were the same per­son.