hough they might not refrain from certain pious frauds, they were
guided by analogies. If they had merely followed a vain caprice, they
might have placed Golgotha in a more conspicuous situation, at the
summit of some of the neighboring hills about Jerusalem, in accordance
with the Christian imagination, which very early thought that the
death of Christ had taken place on a mountain. But the difficulty of
the inclosures is very serious. Let us add, that the erection of a
temple of Venus on Golgotha proves little. Eusebius (_Vita Const._,
iii. 26), Socrates (_H.E._, i. 17), Sozomen (_H.E._, ii. 1), St.
Jerome (_Epist._ xlix., ad Paulin.), say, indeed, that there was a
sanctuary of Venus on the site which they imagined to be that of the
holy tomb; but it is not certain that Adrian had erected it; or that
he had erected it in a place which was in his time called "Golgotha";
or that he had intended to erect it at the place where Jesus had
suffered death.]

He who was condemned to the cross, had himself to carry the instrument
of his execution.[1] But Jesus, physically weaker than his two
companions, could not carry his. The troop met a certain Simon of
Cyrene, who was returning from the country, and the soldiers, with the
off-hand procedure of foreign garrisons, forced him to carry the
fatal tree. Perhaps they made use of a recognized right of forcing
labor, the Romans not being allowed to carry the infamous wood. It
seems that Simon was afterward of the Christian community. His two
sons, Alexander and Rufus,[2] were well known in it. He related
perhaps more than one circumstance of which he had been witness. No
disciple was at this moment near to Jesus.[3]

[Footnote 1: Plutarch, _De Sera Num. Vind._, 19; Artemidorus,
_Onirocrit._, ii. 56.]

[Footnote 2: Mark xv. 21.]

[Footnote 3: The circumstance, Luke xxiii. 27-31, is one of those in
which we are sensible of the work of a pious and loving imagination.
The words which are there attributed to Jesus could only have been
written after the siege of Jerusalem.]

The place of execution was at last reached. According to Jewish
custom, the sufferers were offered a strong aromatic wine, an
intoxicating drink, which, through a sentiment of pity, was given to
the condemned in order to stupefy him.[1] It appears that the ladies
of Jerusalem often brought this kind of wine to the unfortunates who
were led to execution; when none was presented by them, it was
purchased from the