SIMON, APOSTLE, saint. — Called “the Cananaean” (ὁ Καναναῖος, or ο ὁ Καναναῖος in MSS. SΔWΘ 13, etc.) in Mt. 10:4 and Mk. 3:18; “the Zealot” (ὁ Ζηρόντης) in Lk. 6:15 and Acts 1:13. The title “Cananaean” does not mean “a native of Cana,” as St. Jerome and certain Greek, Coptic, and Ethiopian authors thought; Nathanael (v.) of Cana, or with the bridegroom of the wedding celebrated there (Jn. 2:1 ff.), but derives from the Aramaic qan'ând', meaning “zealot” or “zealous.” Perhaps he had belonged to the party of the Zealots (v.), or had shown zeal for the law and Jewish traditions. Nothing else is known of him in the New Testament besides his name.
Several ancient authors identify him with S., the brother (cousin) of Jesus ([v.] cf. Chronicon Pasch.: PG 92, 591, 607, 610; Ps.-Hippolytus, De XII Apostolis: PG 10, 953;
Bede, Super Acta Ap., 1: PL 92, 943). This identification, also upheld by several modern scholars together with J. Freundorfer, may be confirmed by the fact that in Mt. 10:3, instead of Thaddaeus, several manuscripts of the Old Latin (abghq) have Judas zelotes, and by the proximity of this Judas (Thaddaeus) to Simon in Mt. 13:55 and Mk. 6:3 in the list of the “brothers of Jesus” (v.). If this hypothesis is accepted, what Hegesippus and other ancient authors apply to Simeon, the brother of Jesus, successor of James, also the brother of Jesus (and probably an apostle, V. JAMES the LESSER), in the direction of the Church of Jerusalem, could be applied to the apostle S. the Cananaean or Zealot. The name Simeon is the Semitic form of S. He would have governed the community from 62 to 107, in Jerusalem and then at Pella, where, because of the Jewish war, the Christians had moved. S. is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of 120, under the emperor Trajan and the governor Atticus (cf. St. Jerome, Chronicon, ed. R. Helm, Berlin 1913, pp. 192–94). According to an Abyssinian tradition, S. the Zealot, after exercising his apostolate in Samaria and serving as bishop in Jerusalem, was crucified. Several ancient representations depict him on the cross. According to other traditions, more or less legendary, he also evangelized other regions and suffered the martyrdom of the saw. In the Latin liturgy the apostle S. is celebrated together with Judas on 28 October; in some Western martyrologies on 1 July, and among the Greeks and Copts on 10 May. S., bishop of Jerusalem, is instead celebrated by the Latins on 18 February, by the Greeks and Syrians on 27 April or 18 September.