Road to Calvary

Christ's last journey from the house of Pilate—where he had been scourged and then mocked by the soldiers who placed a crown of thorns on his head—to the hill of Golgotha where he was crucified. The account in the synoptic gospels is in one important respect at variance with John, though commentators do not regard the two as irreconcilable. John says simply, 'Jesus was now taken in charge and, carrying his own cross, went out to the Place of the Skull'. The synoptics on the other hand describe how Simon, a man from Cyrene in Africa, was made to carry the cross, Luke adding that a great throng followed, among them many women who lamented, and also the two thieves. Artists have depicted both versions. The Eastern Church customarily showed Simon; the Byzantine painter's guide stated, 'Christ exhausted, falls to the earth... Simon the Cyrenian may be seen, gray-haired and with a round beard, wearing a short dress. He takes the cross upon his own shoulders'. This version was sometimes adopted by the early Italian Renaissance but in due course died out in the West, Simon latterly being shown giving merely token help to the Savior. Western tradition overwhelmingly preferred the alternative image of Christ bearing his cross alone, a symbol of the burden the Christian carries through life. In the 14th and 15th cents. he is upright and walks without difficulty but in later art the cross grows larger and heavier and the character of the theme changes from one of triumph to pathos, with the emphasis laid on the Savior's suffering. He falls beneath the weight of the cross; a Roman soldier goads him on. This common type of the fallen Christ, though without scriptural foundation, was naturally inferred from the part played by Simon. Though it was a historical fact that under the Romans a condemned man carried his own cross, he bore only the horizontal piece to the place of execution where the upright post was already fixed in the ground - an aspect of which artists were unaware. For the journey to Calvary Christ no longer wears the clothes put on him at the mocking; his own have been restored to him, generally a blue cloak and a red under-garment. He still wears the crown of thorns. He may be drawn along by a rope held by a soldier. Representations of the procession include soldiers, perhaps holding standards bearing the Roman motto 'S.P.Q.R.'—'Senatus Populusque Romanus'; sometimes the chief disciples, Peter, James the Greater and John the Evangelist; the two thieves (not carrying crosses); and the women mentioned by Luke whom tradition identifies with the Virgin and the Three Maries. According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (in a much amplified rendering dating from the 15th cent.) John took the news to Mary who then came with Mary Magdalene, Martha and Salome (the mother of James and John) to the place of execution where, at the sight, the Virgin swooned. This incident is often transferred to the scene of the Road to Calvary, and is generally shown occurring at the moment of Christ's failing under the cross. She is seen collapsing into the arms of the other women or of John. Its Italian title is 'Lo Spasimo', the swooning. Another figure who makes her appearance at the beginning of the 15th cent., probably through the influence of contemporary religious drama, is Veronica. Legend tells that she came from her house as the Savior passed by, and gave him a cloth to wipe the sweat from his face. The image of his features became miraculously imprinted on it. She is shown kneeling by the wayside holding the sudarium, or cloth, on which the features of Christ are portrayed. She may also be seen in the act of wiping his face. For the episodes from the Old Testament which were said by medieval theologians to prefigure the bearing of the cross, see the following: Abraham; The binding of Isaac; Elijah; Elijah and the widow of Zarephath; Joseph, son of Jacob: Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh; Moses: The Passover and the death of the firstborn. See also Stations of the Cross. The image of Christ with the cross, appearing in a vision to a saint kneeling at the altar, is a popular theme in Counter-Reformation painting: cf. Gregory the Great; Mass of St Gregory.