Simon the Zealot

The apostle called Simon Zelotes, Simon the Zealot, in Luke 6:15 and Acts 1:13; and Simon Kananaios ("Simon" signifying שמעון "hearkening; listening", Standard Hebrew Šimʿon, Tiberian Hebrew Šimʿôn), was one of the most obscure among the apostles of Jesus. Little is recorded of him aside from his name, few pseudepigraphical writings were connected to him (but see below), and Jerome does not include him in De viris illustribus.

The name of Simon occurs in all the passages of the synoptic gospels and Acts that give a list of apostles, without further details.
Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas ["the son" is interpolated] of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. (Luke 6:12-16, RSV)

To distinguish him from Simon Peter, he is called Kananaios, or Kananites (Matthew 10:4; Mark 3:18), and in the list of apostles in Luke 6:15, repeated in Acts 1:13, Zelotes, the "Zealot". Both titles derive from the Hebrew word qana, meaning The Zealous, though Jerome and others mistook the word to signify the apostle was from the town of Cana (in which case his epithet would have been "Kanaios") or even from the region of Canaan. As such, the translation of the word as "the Cananite" or "the Canaanite" is purely traditional and without contemporary extra-canonic parallel.

Simon Zelotes, called the Zealot was one of the twelve disciples. Simon had the words "the Zealot" added to his name. It helped to distinguish him from Simon Peter and showed that he was a member of an organization called the "Zealots". The Zealots were the political, violently anti-Roman, wing of the Pharisees.

Simon may have been 40 years old when he became a disciple. At first he may have thought that Jesus would lead an uprising to get rid of the Romans ruling their land. It turned out that Jesus changed him. He had been a man of violence and he became a man of peace. Jesus knew that the Zealots and Publicans were bitter enemies. One group worked against the Romans, the other for them. Even so, Jesus chose a disciple from both groups. They became friends in His work.

Simon was the co-worker of Jude, or Thaddeus. They traveled together in Mesopotamia which both were martyred. Variously conjectured to have preached and to have been crucified while preaching at Ostrakine in Lower Egypt. He was also said to have preached the gospel in Mauritania, Africa, and even in Britain, in which latter country he was crucified, AD 74.