Rufus

Rufus is named twice in the New Testament — once as a son of Simon of Cyrene, the man pressed into carrying the cross, and once in the closing greetings of the Letter to the Romans. The two notices may speak of the same man, though the identification rests on the name alone.

Son of Simon of Cyrene

When Jesus is led out to be crucified, the soldiers seize a passerby to bear the cross, and Mark identifies him by his sons: "And they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to go [with them], that he might bear his cross" (Mark 15:21). The mention of Alexander and Rufus by name suggests the two were known to Mark's readers — Rufus appears here not for any act of his own, but as the son whose father carried the cross.

A Greeting in Rome

In the closing list of greetings in the Letter to the Romans a Rufus is singled out: "Greet Rufus the chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine" (Rom 16:13). He is described as chosen in the Lord, and Paul speaks of his mother as "his mother and mine" — extending to her a kinship of affection. Whether this is the same Rufus named in Mark cannot be settled from the text itself; the connection is by name and probability rather than by an explicit link.