In the fifth century, Moses of Chorene recorded that Simon the Zealot was martyred in the Kingdom of Iberia. One day Simon saw Jesus walking on water toward him; he thought Jesus must be an angel so he asked him to do what Simon had asked God to do for him earlier that dayto rescue him from drowningand Jesus obliged by telling Simon to get into his boat (Matthew 14:28-30). They assumed he was from Canaa town within Galileeor possibly Canaan, an ancient region in the near east which was frequently mentioned in the Bible. The cause of his death in unclear because of the existence of two versions: (1) He was crucified in Edessa, Turkey; (2) He was clubbed-to-death and his body was either sawed or axed in pieces after (together with Simon the Zealot). His remains are buried in a crypt in Rome. And yet something we know is that Simon by his radical background would All rights reserved worldwide. Since a zealot was a fanatic and eventually resorted to violence, Simon would have left this cause when he gave up all to follow Jesus. We know little about him other than his name. Here the term Canaanite is synonymous with the word Zealot. And I was delivered from the lions mouth. A second-century apocryphal text called Acts of Peter claimed that Peter was crucified upside down, at his request for he didnt feel worthy to die as Jesus did. The lack of verses mentioning Simon the zealot probably indicates that Jesus had little if any problems with him. As expressed in the First Commandment, God is a jealous/zealous God who requires the allegiance of the people. In 39 CE, the Roman Emperor Caligula declared himself divine and ordered his troops in Jerusalem to place his name on the Temple . At the onset of the war, John of Gischala, Eleazar's future ally, disobeyed Josephus' orders not to attack a Roman granary, thus sparking a bitter hatred between the two leaders. With complete control over the city, Eleazar and John exploited their power and slaughtered the remnants of Ananus' moderate party in Jerusalem in a misguided attempt to unite the city. His relics reside at Saint Peter's in Rome, at Rheims, and at Toulouse, France. Simon the Zealot - aka Simeon or Kananaios, or Kananite s or even Simon - another brother of Jesus?. While even a stable independent Jewish state would probably not withstand the Roman forces, it could have lessened the devastation and provided a viable paradigm for the future revolts. His books are include: Teaching Children The Gospel/How to Raise Godly Children, Do Babies Go To Heaven?/Why Does God Allow Suffering?, "The Great Omission; Reaching the Lost for Christ," and Blind Chance or Intelligent Design?, Empirical Methodologies & the Bible.". Apostle Simon [1] He was impaled by iron hooks in his ankles and hung upside down to die. Ancient. There were many Magi in Persia and so the chances that it would be the same ones who sought Jesus were the same ones who crucified Jude is highly unlikely. Simon, a Zealot, to be one of his disciples. Amen. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. During this period, John had distanced himself from Eleazar and the Zealots in order to avoid association with their tyrannical behavior and claim sole leadership. I pray not. Although Titus Flavius, the son of Emperor Vespasian, and his army were nearing Jerusalem, Eleazar and the other two leaders did not unite to prepare for the attack and were severely weakened by 70 CE. Simon the Zealot's death is disputed amongst scholars. He suggests that the Zealots were a fourth which sprung up as a result of Judas influence and caused the problems which led to the First Jewish-Roman War: For Judas and Sadducus, who excited a fourth philosophick sect among us, and had a great many followers therein, filled our civil government with tumults at present, and laid the foundations of our future miseries, by this system of philosophy, which we before were unacquainted withal., Your email address will not be published. As a Zealot, Eleazar ben Simon's radical anti-Roman beliefs prevented him from pursuing any peaceful coalition with Rome. Either "Zealot" is about the apostle's passionate faith, or his membership in a New Testament group called the "Zealots," or both. His political campaign to eradicate moderate Jews from Jerusalem in 67-70 CE eliminated the possibility to surrender to Titus and avoid his relentless massacre of the city. For many Jews, the Messiah was no longer a spiritual Savior but an earthly Conqueror. Tradition sends him to Syria with Andrew and to death by burning. Hammond and Grotius think that St. Simon was called the Zealot, before his coming to Christ, because he was one of that particular sect or party among the Jews called Zealots, from a singular zeal they possessed for the honour of God and the purity of religion. Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. Matthias He was the apostle chosen to replace Judas. Both Peter and Andrew were fisher partners of the sons of Zebedee. Following the defeat of Eleazar's Zealots and subsequent destruction of the Temple, the lack of centralized worship created a spiritual vacuum within the Jewish community that was filled with the spread of synagogue as the center of Jewish life. . Despite the common misconception, Eleazar ben Simon the Zealot is not the same person as Eleazar ben Ya'ir, the Sicarii leader at Masada. Simon the Zealot was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. The Golden Legend says he was martyred in Persia in 65 AD. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886.) St. Simon (Commonly Called the Zealot) John Kitto. Eleazar ben Simon's radical anti-Roman ideology derived from a lifetime of oppression in Israel under Roman rule. Most scholars today believekananaioscomes from the Aramaic wordqanan, meaning zealous one, which effectively makes Simons moniker the same in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts. Although not vindicated from misguided leadership, Eleazar (and for that matter most of the Zealots) are no longer seen as violent tyrants who destroyed the city before the Romans got to Jerusalem. We read about his death in the book of Acts: It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. If thats what the Zealot refers to, then likeMatthew the Tax Collector, the Apostle Simons presence among the Twelve represents a powerful picture of the gospel. He is usually identified with the Apostle Simon the Zealot, with whom he shares a surname, or with the Apostle Jude. We know almost nothing about Simon the Zealot. But heres what we know. . All the remorse in the world could not undo the damage he had causedhe had condemned the Savior of the world, the King of kings, to a cruel, shameful, painful death by crucifixion! so Simon includes an identifying name: the Zealot. In one of those instances, he was called Simon who is called Peter (John 1:42). I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Eleazar ben Simon was a Zealot leader during the First Jewish-Roman War who fought against the armies of Cestius Gallus, Vespasian, and Titus Flavius. When Jesus cleanses the temple in the Gospel of John, his disciples recallPsalm 69:10, implying that Jesus was motivated by zeal: His disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house will consume me.. 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Other church fathers made this error as well, and it was perpetuated throughout church tradition for so long that some modern translations still say, Simon the Cananite or Simon the Cananean inMatthew 10:3andMark 3:18. Others believe that he was crucified in Pella, Jordan. Simon the Zealot Also Known as: Simon the Cananaean; Simon the Canaanite; Simon Zelotes. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that dayand not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. You can hear the passion and love of Paul in his last words to Timothy. Even so, I thought he should be mentioned. Historical evidence of Eleazar arises in 66 CE, when he participated in crushing Cestius Gallus' Legio XII Fulminata at Beit-Horon. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. Judas is often identified as a Zealot, an attribute held by only one other disciple, Simon the Zealot. Antonyms for Zealot. There are several explanations for why he is called "less." Simon was called by Jesus and was completely changed. With this knowledge of Josephus' conflict of interest, contemporary historians view Eleazar with less reproach and bitterness. Many think that St. Simon was called the Zealot, before his coming to Christ, because he was one of that particular sect or party among the Jews called Zealots, from a singular zeal they possessed for the honor of God and the purity of religion. He was present when Jesus performed miracles, such as walking on water (Matthew 14:22), healing lepers (Luke 5:12), feeding thousands with five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 15:32), raising people from the dead (Luke 7:11), and raising Lazarus from death after four days (John 11:1-44). As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, called Peter and his brother Andrew. John Shelby Spong (Jesus for the NonReligious) points out that Mark's Gospel did not actually call Simon "the Zealot" - it called him . James the Less was martyred in a fashion similar to James, the half-brother of Jesus, who was thrown from the pinnacle of the temple and then beaten to death. The other James, James the Less, is named in Scripture only in each list of the apostles ( Matthew 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14-16, and Acts 1:13) and as a secondary figure in Mark 15:40. Yet prior to this encounter, little is known about his early life and rise to power. [1] J.H. If you step out of this life without Christ, then you have sealed your own fate and eternally separated yourself from God. They feared that appointing a Zealot to power would provoke Rome to attack and would diminish their own power. during the Roman-Judean War that one of the revolutionary factions came to identify itself formally as the Zealots. In this history of the Jewish revolt, Josephus portrays Eleazar ben Simon as a murderous and impulsive Zealot who regarded his own personal ambitions above the well-being of the Jewish people. Although his early victory at the battle of Beit-Horon invigorated the Jewish revolt, Eleazar's rejection of moderate politics during an era of precarious Jewish-Roman relations and his inability to establish a united and stable Jewish resistance led to the violent collapse of Jerusalem in 70 CE and another six centuries of Roman rule, until conquest of the region during the Islamic conquests. As an apostle of Jesus Christ, Simon the Zealot would have been sentsomewhereto spread the gospel, just as the other apostles were. Tradition also claims he died peacefully at Edessa. Bible Study, Therefore, it is anachronistic to view people acting with zeal before 68 C.E. Since 63 BCE, Roman garrisons stationed throughout Israel had exploited Jews with punitive taxation, exceeding the quota set by the Roman Empire and keeping the surplus revenues for themselves . Apostolic Identity. However, Josephus attempted to trace the groups origins back to a small uprising by a man named Judas of Galilee, who stirred up a rebellion due to a Roman census in 6 ADthe very same Roman census which Luke says led Mary and Joseph to Nazareth, where Jesus was born. Saint Simon the Apostle, also called Simon the Zealot, (flourished 1st century ad died, Persia or Edessa, Greece? He wrote from prison, knowing that his execution was near. org/fathers/0524.htm>. We will now examine the historical evidence of how these men died. He was from Cana and was called Simon the Canaanite or Simon the Zealot (the Zealots were Jewish revolutionaries who opposed Rome); the son of Clopas, died and was buried in Jerusalem. Amen. How heartbreaking. All that is known about his death is that he was also was crucified. The Zealots were a faction, headed by Judas of Galilee, who "in the days of the enrollment" (compare Acts 5:37; Luke 2:1,2) bitterly opposed the threatened increase of taxation at the census of Quirinius, and would have hastened by the sword the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. He was one of the 12 main disciples of Jesus Christ, but he plays no particular role in the gospels and is only mentioned by name in lists of the apostles (Matthew 10:2-4,Mark 3:16-19,Luke 6:14-16,Acts 1:1-13). How Did Simon The Zealot Die by Ibrahim Smile June 16, 2022 Simon the Zealot was a Jewish priest and a member of the early Christian community. There are two St. James among the original twelve apostles: St. James the Greater whose feast is on July 25, and St. James the Less, the Lesser, or the Minor, whose feast is on May 3 and shared with St. Philip. Like many of the Zealots, it is probable Simon had initially followed Jesus for political reasons . Thursday Night Thunder Boise Idaho, Blue Hole Louisiana, Alton School District Salary Schedule, How To Install Imblearn In Jupyter Notebook, North Woods Law Rabid Bobcat, Articles S