The saints

Saint Simon the Zealot

Apostle · Feast day October 28 (with Saint Jude) · First century · Galilee · Also known as Simon the Cananaean

Saint Simon, called the Zealot, was one of the twelve apostles, a man once burning with zeal for the freedom of his nation, whom Jesus called and transformed into a zealot for the kingdom of God.

And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.John 2:17 (KJV)

The zealot

Simon is named the Zealot, or the Cananaean, in the lists of the twelve. The name suggests he had belonged to, or shared the fire of, the Zealots, the movement that longed to throw off Roman rule by force. That such a man stood among the twelve, beside Matthew who had collected Rome's taxes, is a quiet wonder of the gospel: in Christ the tax collector and the revolutionary became brothers.

Zeal made new

The Gospels record no words of Simon, only his presence and his name. But the name tells the story: the zeal that once burned for an earthly kingdom was turned by Jesus toward a greater one. He followed the King who conquered not by the sword but by the cross.

Mission and martyrdom

By tradition Simon preached the gospel in Egypt, Persia, and beyond, and was martyred, in most accounts alongside Jude Thaddeus, for the faith. The two apostles share a feast day, remembered together on October 28.

Why Simon still matters

Simon shows that Christ takes our fiercest passions and does not destroy them but redirects them. The zeal that would have taken up arms for a nation became zeal to carry the good news to the ends of the earth. Whatever fire is in you, Christ can turn it toward his kingdom.

A note for all traditions: the saints are honored across the church as examples of faith and, in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, as friends who pray with us, never worshiped, for worship belongs to God alone. What Scripture records and what later tradition holds are distinguished above. In every tradition there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, and every believer, not only the saints, is called to follow him.

Related: Saint Jude · Saint Matthew · Saints for October 28 · Saint of the day