Richard Carrier and Simon of Cyrene

In "On the Historicity of Jesus", Richard Carrier goes through Mark trying to show that all the stories within it are either "... more likely a fiction than a historical tradition, or just as likely either way.  As an example of the later, he gives Mark 15:21, the story of Simon of Cyrene being forced to carry Jesus' cross.  To justify this claim, Carrier interprets Mark 15:21 as an extended allegory.  Personally, I always have problems with allegorical interpretations.  The fact is that humans are creative, and consequently any story can be given an allegorical interpretation by an intelligent author.  Because the topic of the allegory is not previously constrained (unless explicitly stated in the original story), some other story or belief can always be found to match the structure of the text that is being allegorized - particularly if you are prepared fudge on the details.  Ergo the fact that you can find an allegory has no bearing on the original intentions of the author of the story being allegorized, unless you can find independent evidence that it was intended as an allegory and the fit is perfect.  In this post I intend to show the fit of Carrier's allegory is far from perfect.

Historicity

Before fleshing out his allegorical interpretation, Carrier attempts to dispose of the straight forward, historical interpretation, writing: "A prominent example of a case in this latter category (of undecided historicity) is a curious detail Mark provides: naming the sons of Simon of Cyrene.  This is most bizarre, since Mark states no reason at all for doing so.  Why do we need this information?  Why does Mark think it's important?  And why is this the only instance in his whole Gospel where Mark names the sons of anyone Jesus encounters? ...Mark does not even say these sons became Christians (and one would expect him to if it was the point) or were his sources for the account (as again, one would expect him to say so).  So as history, this detail is inexplicably weird.  For these and other reasons (such as the historical implausibility of Romans pressing into service random bystanders like this) many scholars conclude the appearance of Simon of Cyrene is fictional." (OHJ location 24738)

The first thing to note is that we would not expect Mark to explicitly state that named individuals in his Gospel became Christians because he does not do so in any other passage.  Similarly there is no example of his explicitly saying a named individual is a source of his account.  Therefore his doing so here would be as unusual, and require as much further explanation as simply mentioning the names of the sons of Simon of Cyrene.  This makes Carrier's argument entirely invalid.  Indeed it is an invalid use of the argument from silence by his own criteria.

What is more, both of the possible explanations Carrier dismisses on the assumption of historicity are plausible.  If Alexander or Rufus (or both) were well known members of the Christian community in which Mark wrote, then that would give Mark a significant reason to mention their names (and to not mention the names of sons who were not members of the community).  This is especially the case if one or either of them were among the Christians that tradition from the early church says encouraged (or paid in one version) Mark to write the gospel.  Given this possibility it is noteworthy that early church tradition indicates Mark wrote his gospel in Rome, and Paul greets a Rufus in Rome (Romans 16:13), who may have been the son of Simon of Cyrene.  (Rufus was a rare name among Palestinian Jews of the first century with only 0.08% of Palestinian Jews using the name, though its frequency in the diaspora is not known.  Also, it is not known that the Rufus Paul greets was a Jew; or indeed that Simon of Cyrene was.  However, the rarity of the name among Palestinian Jews does slightly increase the probability that the two Rufus's were the same person relative to that probability just based on the two names being the same; as also does the fact that Paul knows Rufus' mother - as noted by Baukham in footnote 49 of Chapter 3.  Against that is Bauckham's comment in a footnote that, "Rufus was a popular name among Jews, who used it as a kind of Latin equivalent of Reuben" but that is contradicted, with respect to Palestinian Jews, both by low frequency in the Ilan data as quoted by Bauckham, and the fact that Reuben itself is used as a name by only 0.3% of Palestinian Jews in the first century.) 

Further, Richard Bauckham argues plausibly in "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses" that the pattern of inclusion or exclusion of names by all for evangelists follows a pattern of inclusion when the person was a direct source of the story (he says "eye witness"), and exclusion when they were not.  Thus the names of people healed by Jesus are only given by Mark (on this hypothesis) if they are sources of the story directly accessed by Mark, and the names of Simon of Cyrene's sons was given because they were the direct source of the story of their father carrying Jesus' cross.  I am not convinced by his argument, but it is certainly far more plausible than Carrier's allegorical explanations.

Finally, the idea that Romans would not press a stranger to carry the cross of one who could not carry it himself is laughable.  The alternative, that they would carry it themselves is the true absurdity.  That Jesus was unable to carry the cross is not mentioned in Mark, and hence is a conjecture.  It is, however, a reasonable conjecture given that (according to Mark) Jesus had just been scourged.  The probability that some stranger was pressed to carry the cross, on the assumption of historicity, therefore becomes the probability that Jesus, having been scourged, was unable to do so himself.  In fact, this suggestion by Carrier is like both his arguments against the probability of the names being included on the assumption of historicity smacks more of misdirection than scholarship.

Simon and Simon

Carrier motivates his own, allegorical interpretation by pointing out that Simon Peter and Simon of Cyrene carry the same name.  That is not, in itself, surprising.  Simon is the most common Jewish male name in first century Palestine (9.26% according to Baukham), and though it is likely less frequent in the diaspora (and certainly was less frequent in Egypt), that a random stranger selected from a crowd in first century Jerusalem should be called Simon needs little explanation.  Carrier attempts to further motivate the allegory by drawing a contrast between Simon Peter who is told to "take up your cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34) and Simon of Cyrene, a stranger who in fact takes up Jesus' cross.

Of course, it is not Peter solely who is told to take up his cross, but the disciples and the crowds in general.  There is, perhaps, a further rebuke to Peter in that saying following on from that immediately preceding (Mark 8: 31-33), but the instruction is to all so the contrasting element that Carrier invokes is rather weak.

An obscure philosophy

In fact, the contrast would be non-existent if Simon of Cyrene were just a random stranger.  Carrier, therefore, turns to the fact that Simon is "of Cyrene" and the names of his sons to further motivate his analogical interpretation.  He says, "There was a large Jewish presence in Cyrene, and to come from beyond Egypt (the realm of slavery and death) had symbolic overtones.  But I suspect the more likely reason was that, according to Strabo, in those days 'the most famous Cyrenaeans' were the Cyrenaics, a sect of hedonistic philosophers known as avowed atheists and the one sect most wholly attacted the the physical world and its pleasures (rejecting all spiritual doctrines)."(OHJ location 24772)

The first thing to note is that Carrier's translation is likely tendentious.  Hamilton and Falconer translate the passage, "Remarkable persons of Cyrene were Aristippus, the Socratic philosopher, who established the Cyrenaic philosophy, and his daughter named Arete, who succeeded to his school; she again was succeeded by her son Aristippus, who was called Metrodidactos, (mother-taught,) and Anniceris, who is supposed to have reformed the Cyrenaic sect, and to have introduced in its stead the Anniceric sect. Callimachus and Eratosthenes were also of Cyrene, both of whom were held in honour by the kings of Egypt; the former was both a poet and a zealous grammarian; the latter followed not only these pursuits, but also philosophy, and was distinguished above all others for his knowledge of mathematics. Carneades thence, who by common consent was the first of the Academic philosophers, and Apollonius Cronos, the master of Diodorus the Dialectician, who was also called Cronos, for the epithet of the master was by some transferred to the scholar."
https://textcritical.net/work/geography-hamilton/17/3/22

Thus translated, there is no indication that the Cyrenaics were more famous than Callimachus (called the chief of the elegiac poets by Mark's contemporary, Quintillius), or Eratosthenes who is "distinguished above all others for his knowledge of mathematics", or Carneades "by common consent the first of the Academic philosophers".  And even if they were, the Cyrenaics were "one of the minor scholastic schools" who "died out around the middle of the 3rd century BC" (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callimachus
https://www.iep.utm.edu/cyren/

To make things worse for Carrier's argument, Strabo precedes that discussion with a paragraph describing a fruit juice produced from the province, and named after it - something apparently more famous than the province's noteworthy citizens.

In short, on the evidence presented by Carrier is not sufficient to think the Cyrenaics would be the natural association drawn by indicating Simon was from Cyrene as described in Mark.  Given that, by his own admission, Jews were numerous in Cyrene, there was no particular reason for Mark's audience to assume a reference to "Simon of Cyrene" was a reference to that centuries dead philosophy rather than to a Jew named Simon from Cyrene. 

A matter of time  

 The obscure philosophy is not the only association Carrier finds with Cyrene.  Specifically, he argues that, "Moreover, as Mark would have known, the Cyrenaean Jews had recently attempted a violent rebellion (shortly after the War in Judea).  Cyrene was thus the perfect allegory for the two things Mark rejected: it had famously given birth to both the basest worldly philosophy and the doomed path of war." (OHJ, location 24783)

The problem is that the revolt of the Jews of Cyrene did not happen "shortly after the War in Judea", but in 115 AD, 42 years after the War in Judea ended.  Worse, for Mark to have been aware of that war, he would have had to have written his Gospel around 120 AD or later, an implausibly late date.  Indeed, Carrier himself says, "I think Mark was written in the 70s and 80s [of the first century AD]" (OHJ location 13077).  Therefore on his own dating of the gospel, Mark could not have had in mind the Kittos War, nor associated Cyrene with war or armed rebellion.  That is unfortunate for Carrier, much of whose analysis of the Mark 15:21 depends on this association.

Simon's Sons

Carrier then goes on to write, "The sons of Simon corroborate this analysis: as then these are the sons of worldly wisdom and the way of military conquest.  Thus, what they represent are what the idea of 'Cyrene' gave birth to.  The names are thus significant.  I suspect they are meant to refer to the most famous men of all time who held those names:  Alexander the Great and Musonius Rufus.  Alexander the Great was the world's most famous deified conqueror, the paragon of military victory and of the use of violence to effect power, the ideal any militaristic messiah would want to emulate.  Musonius Rufus was the world's most famous pacifist, a philosopher of greatest renown, second only to Socrates - according to the Christian scholar Origen, for example, popular sentiment held that the very best men in history were two in number:  Socrates and Rufus." (OHJ, location 24794-5)

It should be noted that an allegorical significance of the names of Simon's Sons is not a side matter for Carrier's overall interpretation.  If he does not have such an interpretation, the names remain unexplained in his allegorical interpretation.  As such he would need to introduce some ad hoc explanation of the names; and the probability of the passage on his allegorical interpretation would then equal the probability of his explanation of Simon of Cyrene's name plus his explanation of Simon's sons names - which would necessarily be much smaller than his explanation of Simon of Cyrene's name alone.

Of course, his explanation is not ad hoc; but because of that, his explanation of Alexander's name immediately fails because Cyrene was not associated with armed revolt at the time Mark wrote.  Worse, is explanation of the name of Rufus weakens his overall explanation.  Rufus was a Stoic, whose philosophy ran counter to the hedonism of the Cyrenaics.  Choosing his name as the representative of worldly philosophy muddies the analogy rather than reinforces it.

Taking up the cross

Missing from this account so far is the significance of Simon carrying Jesus's cross.  In fact, Carrier tackles that issue in a passage I have passed over (until now).  He writes, "What Mark may have symbolically intended, then, is that by extended contact with Simon the Cyrenean, the cross of Jesus symbolically absorbed these things (which this Simon represents) and were then crucified with Jesus." (OHJ, location 24794)

Again it is necessary to emphasize the importance of this element to Carrier's overall interpretation of the passage.  Without an interpretation of the relation between Simon of Cyrene and Jesus, no matter how convincing the interpretation of the significance of Simon of Cyrene's name, it would be irrelevant to the overall passion narrative, and remain unexplained within that context.  Admittedly, Carrier has already had a stab at explaining that as a rebuff to Peter, with a stranger being first to take up the cross - but that explanation is at odds with his interpretation of Simon of Cyrene's name.  With the name interpreted, that would make the way of conquest and of worldly philosophy lead to being the first to take up the cross and follow Jesus.

Carrier's second attempt, however, is even worse.  First, if the carrying of the cross by a representative of conquest and worldly philosophy is necessary for them to be "crucified with Jesus", that implies that all other sins not also symbolically transferred to the cross are not crucified with Jesus.  Further, this interpretation implies that Simon of Cyrene's carrying the cross increases the burden of Jesus (by the cross symbolically absorbing the burdens of worldly philosophy and the way of violence), but in fact the carrying of the cross makes the burden lighter for Jesus if only in a small way.  Therefore the symbolic interpretation argued for by Carrier is directly opposite in effect to the purported act which is the symbol.

Conclusion

Any passage is capable of literally infinite allegorical interpretations.  The ability of a modern scholar to dream up such an interpretation is, therefore, of no evidentiary value at all with regard to the authors original intentions.  For a given allegory to be considered significant, it must match the passage to a degree that makes ignoring the parallels irrational.  That is not a standard met by an anachronistic interpretation that treats actions described as having he precise opposite significance to that literally described.  Yet my analysis has shown Carrier to be guilty on both points.  His interpretation is  anachronistic with regard to the Kittos War, which in turn leaves references to a son of Simon named Alexander entirely unexplained in his interpretation.  Further, there are several inconsistencies in the interpretation, notably regarding the significance of Simon carrying the cross.  In particular, Carrier's allegorical interpretation forces an act which reduced the burden on Jesus as being symbolically an act which increased his burden.   A more expanded analysis would have shown still more square symbolisms hammered into round holes.  The appropriate conclusion is that the probability that Carrier's interpretation was an intended allegorical interpretation by the author is vanishingly small, and hence also that the a priori probability that the passage is an allegorical fiction is also very small.  At the same time, it has been shown that the probability of the passage on the assumption of historicity is much higher than assumed by Carrier, and sufficiently high a to make it the preferred interpretation.