In the first of these passages Irenaeus mentions that some Christians believed that Simon of Cyrene was executed instead of Jesus, owing to the power of Jesus to metamorphose himself and others having been exercised with that object in view.[31] This power is referred to more than once in our Gospels, for instance in the account of the so-called "Transfiguration" upon the Mount; the Greek word rendered in our Bibles as "transfigured" being the word which in translations of the older Greek classics is rendered "metamorphosed." Even if we pass by this belief of certain of the early Christians that Jesus was never executed, a question here arises which should at least be stated, and that is the question how, if Jesus was metamorphosed upon the Mount, as the Gospels tell us, he can be said to have died as a man at Calvary? For if upon the Mount of Transfiguration, or at any other time previous to the scene at Calvary, Jesus was metamorphosed, the form which was the result of the process of re-metamorphosis necessary to make him recognisable again cannot be said to have been born of the Virgin Mary, and can have been human only in appearance. The other passage in the writings of Irenaeus which deserves our notice, is neither more nor less than an emphatic declaration, by Irenaeus himself, that Jesus was not executed when a little over thirty years of age, but lived to be an old man. Explain it away how we will, the fact remains; and it certainly ought not to be ignored. At first sight this statement of Irenaeus would decidedly seem to support the theory advanced by some, that, as the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate admittedly did not want to carry out the extreme penalty in the case of Jesus, though he reluctantly consented to do so in order to pacify the Jews and allowed Jesus to be fixed to a stauros and suspended in public view, he took care to manage things so that Jesus should only appear to die. The idea of course is that if Pilate wished to preserve the life of Jesus he could easily have had him taken down while in a drugged condition, have had the farce of burial carried out at the earliest possible moment, and then have had him resuscitated and removed to some region where he could dwell in safety. What Irenaeus says concerning Jesus is that