Simon the Zealot

Life and Ministry

Simon appears in all four apostolic lists, distinguished from Simon Peter by the epithet Zealot (Luke, Acts) or Cananaean (Matthew, Mark), the second being an Aramaic transliteration of qan'ana, meaning the same as Zealot. Whether the title indicates a former membership in the political Zealot party — the radical revolutionaries against Rome — or, more probably for a pre-AD 66 disciple, simply zealous for the law, the title sets him among the apostles drawn from the more nationalist current of Galilean Judaism. He says nothing in the Gospels and is mentioned only at Pentecost in Acts. After that point his trail belongs to tradition. Eastern sources send him to Egypt and from there to Persia; Western sources extend his mission as far as Britain, but this is late and improbable. The most stable witness is that he died in Persia, working with Jude Thaddaeus in the eastern mission.

Circumstances of Death

The Western martyrology, preserved in the Passion of Simon and Jude (sixth century, from older sources), places his martyrdom together with Jude at Suanir in Persia, where the two had preached and overcome the local magi. The mode given is sawing in two, an execution consistent with the Persian punishment for sacrilege, though Eastern sources prefer crucifixion. As with the other apostles whose deaths fall outside the New Testament, the precise mode is unrecoverable; the consistent tradition is that Simon was killed for his preaching in Persia or in the neighboring Caucasus, paired with Jude.

Legacy

Simon's calling as a Zealot turned outward by Christ — from killing Romans to dying for Romans, Persians, and any who would hear — is the witness of the apostle whose whole biography is in the change of his title. He has been called Zealot at his first naming, and Zealot of the new kingdom is the last word the Church has for him. He stands for the redirection of every fierce loyalty that Christ takes up and uses for His own ends.