St. Simon the Zealot
He was called the Zealot for the fierceness of his attachment to the Law, and he spent his life alongside Matthew, who had collected taxes for the occupying power. Whatever he had been before, he stayed in a group that contained the man he had every reason to despise.
Canonized
NO DATES ARE RECORDED FOR HIM HERE — not a birth year, not a death year, not a manner of death, not a place of burial. That is the sources speaking and not a gap in the reading. Benedict XVI says of him and Jude together that “there is very little information about them”. The encyclopedia is more explicit still, and about his end it says: “Where he actually preached the Gospel is uncertain”, and “His place of burial is unknown.” It then sets out four incompatible traditions about where he worked and died and adjudicates none of them. Those are in the sources at the foot of this page. Widely told accounts that pick one of them are not repeated here.
Simon was one of the twelve apostles, and he is the one about whom least is known. He appears in all four lists of the Twelve in the New Testament and nowhere else. There is no scene he takes part in, no question he asks, no saying of his that anyone wrote down.
What he does have is a surname, and it exists to keep him apart from somebody else. There were two Simons among the Twelve, and the other one was Peter. So Matthew and Mark call this one the Cananaean and Luke calls him the Zealot — two words for the same thing, both from a Hebrew root meaning to be jealous or ardent. The Catholic Encyclopedia is blunt about why the surname is there at all: it is used, it says, to distinguish him from St Peter.
What the surname meant is less settled. The encyclopedia says it does not mean he belonged to the Zealot party, the nationalist movement of the time, but that he was zealous for the Jewish law. Pope Benedict XVI was more cautious: he said it was quite possible that Simon, even if he did not properly belong to that movement, was at least marked by a burning attachment to his Jewish identity, to God, to his people and to the Law.
Benedict XVI's interest was in who Simon had to live with. A man of that temper was, he said, worlds apart from Matthew, who had made his living collecting taxes for Rome and was regarded as unclean because of it. The two of them were in the same group of twelve. What that shows, he said, is that Jesus called people from the most varied backgrounds and was interested in persons rather than in labels.
Where Simon went afterwards, and how he died, cannot be established. He is kept with Jude on 28 October.
Patron of
- tannerstraditional
State of life
apostle
Themes
ordinary work · friendship · hidden work
Benedict XVI, General Audience on Simon and Jude (2006)
- TWO DOCUMENTS CARRY THIS LIFE AND ONE OF THEM IS SHARED WITH HIS FEAST-DAY COMPANION. The Catholic Encyclopedia article “St. Simon the Apostle” is short — a page — and is mostly a catalogue of what is not known about him. Benedict XVI’s General Audience of 11 October 2006 treats him and Jude Thaddaeus together and gives him rather more thought than the encyclopedia does, though not more facts. The encyclopedia’s article on the Brethren of the Lord bears on him too and is held under the jude slug. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13796b.htm
- THE SURNAME EXISTS TO KEEP HIM APART FROM SIMON PETER, AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA SAYS SO IN ITS SECOND SENTENCE: “The name of Simon occurs in all the passages of the Gospel and Acts, in which a list of the Apostles is given. To distinguish him from St. Peter he is called (Matthew 10:4; Mark 3:18) Kananaios, or Kananites, and Zelotes (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13).” That is not a gloss added later by an editor tidying up; it is the reason the Gospels give him a surname at all. THE OTHER SOURCE DOES NOTHING TO HELP. Benedict XVI’s audience never mentions Peter — the word occurs once in the English and once in the Italian and both times it is the name of the square the audience was held in. So the whole of the distinction, in this record, rests on one sentence of the encyclopedia. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13796b.htm
- WHAT THE SURNAME MEANT, AND THE TWO SOURCES DO NOT AGREE ABOUT HOW MUCH IT MEANT. Both agree on the word. The encyclopedia: “Both surnames have the same signification and are a translation of the Hebrew qana (the Zealous).” Benedict XVI: “in Hebrew the verb qanà’ means “to be jealous, ardent”” and can be said of God, “since he is jealous with regard to his Chosen People”, and of men “who burn with zeal in serving the one God with unreserved devotion, such as Elijah”. THEY PART ON WHETHER HE WAS A ZEALOT IN THE POLITICAL SENSE. The encyclopedia denies it flatly: “The name does not signify that he belonged to the party of Zealots, but that he had zeal for the Jewish law, which he practised before his call.” Benedict XVI will not go that far, and in the Italian he says only that it is quite possible that this Simon, if he did not properly belong to the nationalist movement of the Zealots, was at least marked by an ardent zeal for his Jewish identity. The record follows the pope’s caution and says the question is not settled. The encyclopedia also clears away a mistake: “Jerome and others wrongly assumed that Kana was his native place; were this so, he should have been called Kanaios.” https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061011.html
- WHY BENEDICT XVI FINDS HIM WORTH A CATECHESIS AT ALL, WHICH IS THE ONE PIECE OF REAL CONTENT ABOUT HIM. It is not the surname but who the surname puts him next to. A man of that temper, he says, “was worlds apart from Matthew, who, on the contrary, had an activity behind him as a tax collector that was frowned upon as entirely impure”. And then the conclusion he draws: “This shows that Jesus called his disciples and collaborators, without exception, from the most varied social and religious backgrounds. It was people who interested him, not social classes or labels!” He adds that what held such a group together was “Jesus himself, in whom they all found themselves united with one another”, and calls it “a lesson for us who are often inclined to accentuate differences and even contrasts”. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20061011.html
- WHERE HE PREACHED AND HOW HE DIED CANNOT BE ESTABLISHED, AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIA IS THE ONE THAT DEMONSTRATES IT. It opens the question by conceding it: “Where he actually preached the Gospel is uncertain. Almost all the lands of the then known world, even as far as Britain, have been mentioned”. Then it lists traditions that cannot all be true. The Abyssinians “relate that he suffered crucifixion as the Bishop of Jerusalem, after he had preached the Gospel in Samaria”. According to the Greeks “he preached on the Black Sea, in Egypt, Northern Africa, and Britain”. According to a Latin account “Simon laboured in Persia, and was there martyred at Suanir”, which the article immediately qualifies: “However, Suanir is probably to be sought in Colchis.” According to Moses of Chorene “Simon met his death in Weriosphora in Iberia”; according to the Georgians “he preached in Colchis”. And then: “His place of burial is unknown.” FIVE ACCOUNTS, FOUR CONTINENTS, AND THE ARTICLE CHOOSES NONE. Neither does this record. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13796b.htm
- HE IS CALLED THE PATRON OF TANNERS AND ONE DOCUMENT SAYS SO. The Catholic Encyclopedia reports the devotion rather than establishing it — “He is regarded as the patron of tanners” — and that is the whole of the evidence. It names no act, no pope and no date, and it does not say why tanners. No other document held here mentions a patronage of his at all, and the Holy See’s own search returns nothing for the title under any phrasing tried. The patronage is recorded here as long-standing rather than declared, which is what the wording of the only source supports. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13796b.htm
- THE FEAST IS 28 OCTOBER AND IT IS THE SAME JOINT LINE AS JUDE’S. The universal calendar held here, published by the Liturgy Office of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, prints “Ss Simon and Jude, Apostles” against 28 in October and grades it “feast” — the highest of the three grades. The United States bishops’ calendars for both 2026 and 2027 print “Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles”, Feast. The encyclopedia gives the same day and adds what the calendars do not: “In the Western Church he is venerated together with Jude (Thaddaeus); in the East separately. The Western Church keeps his feast on 28 October; the Greeks and Copts on 10 May.” https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/OctUC.shtml
- IDENTIFICATIONS WITH OTHER MEN HAVE BEEN PROPOSED AND NONE OF THEM IS ADOPTED HERE. The encyclopedia lists them without endorsing any: “The Greeks, Copts, and Ethiopians identify him with Nathanael of Cana; the first-mentioned also identify him with the bridegroom of the marriage of Cana, while in the “Chronicon paschale” and elsewhere he is identified with Simon Clopas.” Its article on the Brethren of the Lord approaches the same question from the other end and is just as careful: “About Simon nothing certain can be stated”, and of the Simon named among the brethren, “Some identify him with the Apostle Simon the Cananean (Matthew 10:4; Mark 3:18) or the Zealot (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13).” This record says he was one of the Twelve, which every source holds, and identifies him with nobody else. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13796b.htm
- THE HOLY SEE’S OWN SEARCH WAS RUN FOR HIM AND IT RETURNS ALMOST NOTHING. SCOPE, when this was run on 2 September 2026, in ASCII throughout: the phrasings “Simon the Zealot”, “Simon the Cananaean”, “Simon the Apostle”, “Simone il Cananeo”, “Simone lo Zelota” and “Simone Zelota” were put to vatican.va in English and Italian. The only document about him that came back is the 2006 audience already held here. Nothing else on the site treats him as a subject.
- TWO FIELDS ON THIS CARD ARE EMPTY AND BOTH ARE THE SOURCES’ DOING. NO PLACE IS RECORDED FOR HIM. Not a birthplace, not a home town, not a mission field, not a grave. The one place-name ever attached to him personally is refused by the only source that raises it — “Jerome and others wrongly assumed that Kana was his native place” — and everything else is in the list of traditions that contradict one another. NO HARDSHIP IS RECORDED EITHER. Every document held for this record was searched, when this was checked on 2 September 2026, and there is nothing: no persecution he suffered, no opposition, no doubt, no poverty. The New Testament gives him a name and a surname and no scene at all.