Simon the Zealot

Simon was also called Canaanite, or Cananaean, or Zealot. He received his call to the apostleship along with Andrew and Peter, the sons of Zebedee, Thaddaeus and Judas Iscariot at the Sea of Tiberias (Matt. 4:18-22).
Simon was a Zealot. This movement was the extreme and violent Jewish nationalist party which sought to drive the hated Romans out of Palestine by revolution and guerrilla warfare. He was also certainly an idealistic revolutionary. The fate of this party of the Zealots was bloody indeed. It was mainly responsible for the revolt of A.D. 68-70 which brought down the walls of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Temple by Vespasian and Titus in 70 A.D. The last stand of the Zealots was at Masada in 71 A.D. where their final outpost of defiance saw the suicide of hundreds of Jews, after a long siege conducted by the Roman general Silva. Masada, a remote fortress in the sky overlooks the Dead Sea in one of the most desolate spots in the Holy Land. Herod the Great fortified it as a place of refuge which could not be easily taken. Only by building a huge earthen ramp was the plateau finally assaulted by the Romans who found only three people alive. Masada is a synonym for heroism to the Jewish people somewhat like the Alamo is to Texans and for a similar reason, except that the defense of the Alamo was conducted to gain time for General Sam Houston’s army, whereas the defense of Masada was simply an act of heroic and hopeless defiance, the decision on the part of the Zealots to die rather than to endure Roman slavery.
The Zealots were nationalist fanatics but many were also pure idealist. Simon apparently was more of an idealist than a nationalist and when the supreme idealist of Y’Shua was presented to him he forsook the lesser for the greater.
He is said to have diverted his journey towards Egypt, Cyrene, Africa, Matania, and Lybia. Nor could the coldness of the climate benumb his zeal or hinder him from shipping himself over into the Western Islands, even to Britain itself. He was the next missionary after Joseph to go to Britain in the year A.D. 60 during the first year of the Boadicean war. Then the whole island was convulsed in a deep, burning anger against the Romans, which was never equaled before or after in the long years of conflict between the two nations. Tacitus states that from A.D. 59 to 62 the brutalities of war were at their worst. Atrocities occurred on both sides, but the Romans carried their vicious perpetrations to such an extent that even Rome was shocked. Bearing this in mind we can readily understand that any Christian evangelizing outside the British shield would be fraught with imminent danger. At all times the disciples were oblivious to danger, but when the pressure became too severe invariable they fled the land until matters quiet down. In the year A.D. 44 a Claudian Edict expelled the Christian leaders from Rome. Many of them sought sanctuary in Britain. Among those who fled to Britain from Rome was Peter.
The south of England was sparsely inhabited by the native Britons and consequently more heavily populated by the Romans. It was far beyond the strong protective shield of the Silurian arms in the south and the powerful northern Yorkshire Celts. In this dangerous territory Simon was definitely on his own. Undeterred, with infinite courage, he began preaching the gospel right in the heart of the Roman domain.
Much of the most famed of British metals in the days before the Roman occupation was tin. The vivid accounts of overland pack-horse transport of Cornish tin from the Gallic cost to Narbo (Narbonne) in the first century B.E., and of the island emporium on the British coast, from which merchants obtained it, all speak of a brisk and flourishing early trade.
Prasutagus expired in 61, seven years before Nero committed suicide. Now Nero’s policy was from the first averse to recognition being granted to tribal kings likely to stand between Rome and the subject peoples Rome had conquered. Simon preached for a time in England. Britain was first invaded by Julius Caesar. While this attempt at conquest did not last, it definitely demonstrates a Roman presence eighty years before the permanent takeover of Britain by the Romans under Claudius in A.D. 43.
Simon ministered to people with whom he could converse. This would be the Greek, and Latin speaking Roman troops and their friends and families.
After he had preached the gospel in Egypt he went to Mesopotamia, where he met with Jude and together with him took his journey into Persia, they were both crowned with martyrdom. The Menology of the Greek Church celebrates Simon’s Day on May 10.
Though we do not know of any lasting organization from the effort of Simon, it is possible that a few believers won by him continued to worship and win others.
Simon in leaving Jerusalem and traveled first to Egypt and then through North Africa to Carthage, from there to Spain and north to Britain, then from Glastonbury to London, which was by that time the capital of the new Roman conquest. There he would have preached in Latin to members of the Roman community. There is no historical proof that a Jewish church was founded in London.
Simon fled toward the south of England, then he embarked upon a ship to return to Palestine, because it was obvious that the disruption of the Roman peace made England at that time a doubtful filed for the proclamation of the gospel. In other words, Simon witnessed and preached but because of unsettled conditions, was forced to retire.
The next strong tradition finds Simon in Persia in company with Jude with whom he was martyred. They were thought to have preached together in Syria and Mesopotamia traveling as far as Persia and to have been martyred, Simon being sawn asunder and Jude killed with a halberd.
According to the Roman Catholic tradition the bodies of Jude and Simon are buried together, the bones being intermixed, the major tomb being in Peter’s in Rome, with fragments in the church of Saturninis, Tolosa, Spain, Sernin, Toulouse, France and until World War 11 in the monastery chapel of Norber, Cologne, Germany.