Simon Zealot is Judas Thaddeus' companion in preaching and venerating Christians. He is indicated as the son of Cleophas and therefore "cousin" of the Lord
by Lorenzo Bianchi
The information we have received about Simon attests to a name that the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles report in two different forms: "Canaanite" and "Zealot", both meaning "ardent with zeal". The incorrect interpretation of the term "Canaanite" has meant that the Eastern Church has identified the apostle Simon with Nathanael of Cana, a name which instead refers to the apostle Bartholomew. Furthermore, some have wanted to attribute to the name "zealot" an indicative value of belonging to the anti-Roman political-religious sect of the Zealots, but this is a hypothesis which receives no confirmation from ancient texts, both canonical and apocryphal.
A second tradition, which already appears in antiquity in the Abyssinian Church, instead identifies the apostle Simon with Simeon son of Cleophas, cousin of Jesus and brother of the apostle James the Less, whom he succeeded in 62 in the leadership of the Church of Jerusalem, until his death under the emperor Trajan. This is how the martyrdom is described by Hegesippus, who lived in the 100nd century and cited by Eusebius of Caesarea: «Some of these heretics accused Simeon, son of Cleophas, of being a descendant of David and a Christian; he thus suffered martyrdom, at the age of one hundred and twenty, under Trajan Caesar and the consular Atticus. [...] the son of the Lord's uncle, the aforementioned Simeon son of Cleophas, was denounced by the heretics and also judged for the same reason, under the consular Atticus. Tortured for many days, he testified to his faith in such a way that everyone, including the consular, was amazed at how a man of one hundred and twenty years could resist so much; and he was condemned to crucifixion." The mention of Atticus, i.e. Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herod, legate of Judea from 103 to XNUMX, places the martyrdom of Simeon in the first years of Trajan's reign, in Pella in Palestine.
Instead, according to the tradition of the Western Church, which appears reported in the Roman Breviary and which is confirmed by investigations and studies, the apostle Simon corresponds to another person: he preached in Egypt and, together with the apostle Judas Thaddeus, in Mesopotamia. The two apostles, always closely linked, also appear together in the news of Saint Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers at the end of the 6th century, which takes up the apocryphal Passio Simonis et Iudae and indicates for both the common martyrdom (killed by beatings) around the year 70 by pagans in Persia, in the city of Suanir; they would then be buried in Babylon. A late Eastern tradition (affirmed by the monk Epiphanes, in the XNUMXth century) reports a tomb of Simon at Nicopsis, in the western Caucasus.
As regards the modality of martyrdom, the influence of the medieval Golden legend of Iacopo da Varagine, and Simone is attributed the same martyrdom suffered by the prophet Isaiah, so that he is often represented sawn in two.
In the Middle Ages the relics of Simon, always united with Judas Thaddeus, were venerated in the ancient Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican, in which there was an altar dedicated to them. Since 27 October 1605 they have been placed near the altar in the center of the apse of the left transept of the new basilica (known as the tribune of the holy apostles Simon and Judas), which in 1963 was dedicated to Saint Joseph, patron saint of the universal Church.