that his life as a Christian must have begun at Antioch. He it is who records the first arrival of the preachers of the Truth in that city, the first adoption of the new Name, the prophecy of Agabus there, and the exertions of the Antiochene disciples to relieve the poverty of their brethren at Jerusalem,* the names of the prophets and teachers who were conspicuous there, but were little known, most of them, elsewhere. When the writer of the Acts unites himself with St. Paul, as at Troas,† it is clearly as one who had known and worked with him before. But, if so, then he must have known Manaen too. Among those whom he met with at Antioch, there must have been one, at least, of the "eye-witnesses" of much that he relates, from whose reports he professes to compile his Gospel. From him he may have learnt many of the facts of the history of the Baptist, some of those, the most characteristic of his Gospel, in the Galilæan and Peræan ministry of our Lord. Certain it is that of the features of his Gospel one of the most striking is the knowledge which he shows of the details of Herodian history, the fulness with which he narrates many things in that history which the other Gospels omit. He tells us, as we have seen, of the soldiers on their march, of the conversion of the wife of Herod's steward, of the tetrarch's desire to see Jesus, of the massacre of his subjects by Pilate, of the consequent enmity and later reconciliation of the two rulers, of the righteous scorn with which our Lord repelled the affected sympathy or fear of the Pharisees, "Go ye, and tell that fox." He it is, again, who records the fact that the brother of Antipas, Philip, was tetrarch of

Acts xi. 20, 26, 27.

Acts xvi. 10.

Luke xiii. 32.

Ituræa and Trachonitis,* who gives us in full the history of Agrippa's death, † and knows the name of the chamberlain of his court. Of all explanations that can be given of these facts, the most probable is that the Evangelist came into contact with some one who, being a Christian like himself, had at one time lived much in the circle of Herod's followers, and for whom, therefore, all facts connected with that family had an importance which they had not for others. Whatever interest may attach, as I said at the outset, to the juxtaposition of the two names of Manaen and Antipas, whatever thoughts of awe, fear, wonder, for ourselves or others, it may suggest to us, are deepened and strengthened by this fuller study. The danger of the weak will-untrue to its own convictions, and therefore losing them altogether, or keeping them only to its own condemnation-the power of earnestness and faith to triumph over the temptations of outward circumstances and perilous companionship, are seen more clearly. Our inquiries, over and above this result, will, I believe, have added something to the conviction as we read the Gospels that we are dealing, not with "cunningly devised fables," but with true histories, dropping hints, after the manner of all true histories, naturally and incidentally, suggesting more than they tell, and rewarding those who seek diligently with new insight into the facts which they record.

*Luke iii. 1.

Acts xii. 20-23.

IV.

SIMON OF CYRENE.

T is one of the characteristics of the history of our Lord's passion, that it brings lives and acts that would otherwise have passed

away unknown and unremembered within the circle of its own surpassing glory. Every circumstance, every person connected with that divine event is, as it were, transfigured and immortalised. They can never be forgotten. The soldiers casting lots upon the vesture of the Crucified; the chief priests mocking; the two robbers, one persistent in his hardness to the last, the other repentant and forgiven; the centurion confessing that this was a "righteous man," the "Son of God;" the by-stander offering the sponge dipped in vinegar to quench the thirst of the sufferer; the soldier piercing the side of the already lifeless corpse-all these stand before the eyes of men for ever. We know nothing of their previous nothing of their subsequent history. There is a moment of intense light in which the good or the evil which was in them is brought out as with marvellous clearness; but on either side there is a thick gloom which we seek in vain to penetrate. The name which stands at the head of this paper may seem to come within the same group. The only

fact which we connect with it is that it was borne by one on whom the Jewish priests and people laid hold, as he was "coming out of the country," and on whom they "laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus." It is inferred from this, inasmuch as the common practice in such cases was that the condemned prisoner should carry his own cross (either the whole structure or the horizontal beam) to the place of execution, that the long night of agony in Gethsemane, and the cruel mockings and scourgings that had followed, had so exhausted the bodily strength of the Sufferer, that those who were leading him to the "Place of a Skull," "outside the city," saw that in this case it was physically impossible to act on the usual rule, and therefore seized on a substitute. In the popular pictorial representations of the history of the Passion, which the "Stations" of Roman Catholic churches have for centuries impressed on the mind of Europe, this inference has been, as it were, dramatised. Our Lord is seen fainting, fallen to the ground beneath the burden of the cross. Then, and not till then, is it removed from the back that could no longer bear it, and placed upon another.

As we read these facts in the narratives of St. Matthew and St. Luke, they present some questions which it is not, at first, easy to answer. Why, out of all those who are brought into this momentary contact with the great Sufferer, do the three Evangelists name Simon of Cyrene, and him only? Why, instead of taking one of the multitude that stood round, does the mingled crowd of priests, and priests' attendants, and Roman soldiers seize on this stranger? What made them fix on him for a task which must

have seemed so ignominious and degrading? What effect was produced on the mind of him who was thus made, as by a constraint which he could not resist, "a witness of the sufferings of Christ," by all that he saw of the patience, holiness, meekness, love of the Son of Man? Here was one of whom it was literally true, as it never had been before, and never could be afterwards, that he took up his cross-yes, the very cross of Christ, and followed Him! Can we think of one who was thus led to so full a share in the glory and the shame of that day, and not wish to know whether he was the better or the worse for it? To be simply as he had been before, to let the routine of his life go on as it had done, with no fresh spring of awe, reverence, love, on the one hand, and yet with no increased hardness, scorn, hate, on the other, must, we may well believe, have been impossible.

The narrative of St. Mark, here, as in so many other instances, fuller-in spite of its general brevity —than that of the other Gospels, adding significant notices which we do not find in them, gives, in part, an answer to these questions. "They compelled," so he tells the story, "one Simon, a Cyrenian, who passed by, coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross (xv. 21). It is obvious that the two names are mentioned as being well known both to the writer and the readers, as giving the latter a new association with the lessknown name of Simon. Those for whom St. Mark wrote had known, as conspicuous members of the society to which they themselves belonged, two sons of the man who bore the cross of Jesus. There is, one might almost say, an indirect appeal to their