October 28 · Catholic · traditional calendar
Simon the Zealot
Simon the Zealot was one of the Twelve Apostles. The Bible names him only in the lists of the Twelve. In Matthew and Mark, the King James Version calls him "Simon the Canaanite", a mistaken rendering of a word meaning "zealous".
- Patronage
- No verified patronage is listed for this record.
- Era
- 1st century
What the Bible says about him
Simon is named four times, each time in a list of the Twelve: Matthew 10:4, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13. With the others, Jesus chose him to be with him and sent him out to preach (Mark 3:14; Matthew 10:5). He is last named in the upper room after the Ascension, praying with the other apostles, the women and Mary (Acts 1:13–14). No words or deeds of his own are recorded. He is not Simon Peter, who heads every list, or Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross (Mark 15:21). Later claims about his family ties to Jesus are not settled by Scripture.
Zealot, Cananaean or Canaanite?
Luke and Acts call him Zelotes, the Greek word for a zealot. Matthew and Mark use a Greek form of a Hebrew and Aramaic word for "zealous", so both names mean the same thing. The King James Version renders that word "the Canaanite". Strong's dictionary marks this as a mistake, as if the word came from Canaan. The Douay–Rheims keeps the older forms Cananæus and Zelotes. The American Standard Version has "the Cananæan" and "the Zealot". The World English Bible and the Berean Standard Bible say "the Zealot" all four times.
Zeal, not proof of a party
The 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia reads the title as zeal for the Jewish law, which Simon practised before his call. The name alone does not make him a member of the nationalist Zealot movement. In his 2006 audience on Simon and Jude, Benedict XVI thought it likely that Simon was at least passionately attached to his Jewish identity. Scripture does not connect him with the "Assassins" of Acts 21:38. Benedict also noted that Jesus called Simon alongside Matthew the tax collector, and that what united such different men was Jesus himself.
Later traditions
Accounts of Simon's later life come from later writers and disagree with one another. A Latin account of the passion of Simon and Jude has Simon preach in Persia and die there as a martyr. Greek tradition sends him to the Black Sea, Egypt, North Africa and Britain; other traditions place his death in Iberia or in Jerusalem. The Western Church keeps his feast with Jude on October 28, and the Greek and Coptic churches on May 10. These accounts are traditions, not historical records.
Sources and references
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