Origen:
…But some want to explain this “Simon of Cyrene” in a moral way because Cyrene in Libya belongs to the Pentapolis. They take their point of departure from the five senses so that they may say that the five senses, as it were, carried the cross of that dispensation. But the name Simon is interpreted to mean “Obedience,” and what might more appropriately bear the cross of Christ than obedience, or Simeon (as Lia’s second son was named). For both the patriarch and Peter have a double name with the Greeks (in accordance with the peculiarity of the Hebrew word), so that it is appropriate for him who is thus named to be called both Simon and Simeon, since the Hebrews write both the name Simeon and Simon with the very same letters. But the “place of Calvary” is said not to have any expansive meaning whatever, so that he who was to die for humanity died there. For some such tradition has reached me that the body of Adam, the first man, was buried there where Christ was crucified so that “just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive”; so that at that place, “which is called the place of Calvary, that is the place of the head,” the head of the human race found resurrection with all people through the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, who suffered there and arose. For it was not proper that when the many who had been born from him received the remission of sins and obtained the benefit of the resurrection, the father of all humanity himself should not even more obtain grace of this kind. — The Commentary of Origen on the Gospel of Matthew, Volume 2, Series 126
- Since this commentary is in Latin (translated from Greek), Origen in a Greek fragment of one sentence says: “It has come to me concerning the place of the skull that the Hebrews hand down that the body of Adam has been buried there, so that, since we all die in Adam, Adam, on the one hand might arise, but on the other we may all be made alive in Christ.”
Jerome:
Likewise, we must discuss how it is said to one and the same person, as if he were living, ‘Awake, you who sleep’, and as if he were dead, ‘Arise from the dead.’ Because, therefore, a human being has a spirit which, we recall, is always referred to the good part, and a soul of whose sicknesses and deaths from sins we read, the present words, ‘Awake you who sleep’, are referred to the spirit and those which follow, ‘Arise from the dead’, are applied to the soul. For ‘the soul which sins shall die’ (Ezek. 18: 20), but nowhere at all have we read of the death of the spirit. ‘Christ’, therefore, the true ‘light’ will ‘rise like the sun’ on him who has awakened from sleep and arisen from the dead. I know that I have heard someone preaching about this passage in church. As a theatrical marvel he presented a model never before seen by the people so that it was pleasing. He said of this testimony, that it is said that Adam was buried at Calvary where the Lord was crucified. The place was called Calvary [i.e. skull], therefore, because the head of the ancient man was buried there. At the time when the Lord was crucified, therefore, he was hanging over Adam’s grave and this prophecy was fulfilled which says, ‘Awake’, Adam, ‘who are asleep and arise from the dead’, and not as we read, πιφα σει σοι Xριστ ς, that is, ‘Christ will rise like the sun on you’, but πιψα σει, that is, ‘Christ will touch you’. That was because, of course, by the touch of his blood and hanging body Adam would be made alive and would arise. That type was also truly fulfilled at the time the dead Elisha awakened the dead (4 Kgs. 4: 32-5). Whether these things are true or not I leave to the reader’s decision. They were certainly pleasing at the time they were spoken among the people who received them with applause and by stamping their feet. I mention one thing which I know: that understanding does not fit with the interpretation and coherence of this passage. — Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians 5:14
“And they came to the place that is called Golgotha, which is the place of the skull.” Matthew 27.33 I have heard that someone has explained that “place of the skull” is the place where Adam is buried and that the reason it is so named is because the head of that ancient man is laid there. They relate this to what the apostle says: “Awake, you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten you.” This interpretation is attractive and soothing to the ear of the people, but it is not true. — Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 27.33
Chromatius of Aquileia:
Then when they came to Golgotha, it says, “They gave him vinegar mixed with gall. And when he tasted it, he was unwilling to drink it” [Matt 27:34]. This is what he himself had predicted through David as coming in the future, when he said, “They gave [me] gall for my food and they gave me vinegar for my thirst” [Ps 69:21]. Consider the mystery. Long ago Adam tasted sweet fruit and obtained the bitterness of death for the human race. The Lord, on the other hand, accepted the bitterness of gall, in order to call us back from bitter death to sweet life. He accepted therefore the bitterness of the gall to extinguish in us the bitterness of sin; he accepted the sourness of the vinegar, but poured out the precious wine of his blood for us. And so, he endured evils, but paid back good things; he received death, but freely gave life. Not without reason was he crucified in this location, where it is claimed that the body of Adam was buried. The reason Christ is crucified where Adam had been buried was so that life would work from that place where death had previously worked, so that life would rise out of death. Death through Adam, life through Christ, who thought it fitting even to be crucified for us, and to die, for this reason, to blot out the sin of the tree by the tree of the cross, and to absolve the penalty of death by the mystery of death. — Chromatius of Aquileia, Sermon 19.7 on Matthew
Epiphanius:
5,1 And so we must be surprised at someone (like Tatian) who knows— as I too have found in the literature—that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified on Golgotha, nowhere else than where Adam’s body lay buried. (2) For after leaving Paradise, living opposite it for a long time and growing old, Adam later came and died in this place, I mean Jerusalem, and was buried there, on the site of Golgotha. (3) This is probably the way the place, which means “Place of a Skull,” got its name, since the contour of the site bears no resemblance to a skull. (4) Neither is it on some peak so that this can be interpreted as a skull, as we say of <the> head’s position on a body. Nor is it on a height. (5) And indeed, it is no higher than the other “places” either. Opposite it is the Mount of Olives, which is higher; and Gibeon, eight milestones off, is the highest (of the three). Even the height which was once in Zion but has now been leveled was itself taller than Golgotha. 5,6 Why the name “Of the Skull” then, unless because the skull of the first-formed man had there and his remains were laid to rest there, and so it had been named “Of the Skull”? (7) By being crucified above them our Lord Jesus Christ mystically showed our salvation, through the water and blood that flowed from him through his pierced side—at the beginning of the lump beginning to sprinkle our forefather’s remains, (8) to show us too the sprinkling of his blood for the cleansing of our defilement and that of any repentant soul; and to show, as an example of the leavening and cleansing of the filth our sins have left, the water which was poured out on the one who lay buried beneath him, for his hope and the hope of us his descendants. — Epiphanius of Salamis, The Panarion 46.5.1, 6
Cyril of Alexandria:
Concerning the place of the skull, it has come down to us that the Hebrews hand down the tradition that the body of Adam was buried there; and since “in Adam all die,” Adam also rose again, and “in Christ shall all be made alive.” — Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Matthew 27.33 (in catena)
Caesarius of Arles:
Listen to another mystery. Blessed Jerome, a priest, wrote that he knew most certainly from the ancient Jews and elders that Christ our Lord was afterwards crucified in the place where Isaac was offered. Lastly, from the place whence blessed Abraham was commanded to depart, he arrived on the third day at the place where Christ our Lord was crucified. This, too, is mentioned in the account of the ancients, that in the very place where the cross was fastened the first Adam once was buried. Moreover, it was called the place of Calvary for the very reason that the first head of the human race is said to have been buried there. Truly, brethren, not unfittingly is it believed that the physician was raised up where the sick man lay. It was right that divine mercy should bend down in the place where human pride had fallen. The precious Blood may be believed to have corporally redeemed the ashes of the sinner of old by deigning to touch it with its drops. — Caesarius of Arles, Sermon 84, On Abraham and His Son Isaac