in favor of the tradition.  The first is, that it would be singular if those, who, under Constantine, sought to determine the topography of the Gospels, had not hesitated in the presence of the objection which results from John xix. 20, and from Heb. xiii. 12.  Why, being free to choose, should they have wantonly exposed themselves to so grave a difficulty?  The second consideration is, that they might have had to guide them, in the time of Constantine, the remains of an edifice, the temple of Venus on Golgotha, erected by Adrian.  We are, then, at times led to believe that the work of the devout topographers of the time of Constantine was earnest and sincere, that they sought for indications, and that, though 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.]