Luke 6:12-16
He named twelve
Luke gives the list after a whole night of prayer, and puts Simon called Zelotes near the end, four names after Matthew.
People of the Bible
Simon the Zealot
A man whose politics were in his name, sent out beside a man who collected Rome’s taxes.
Also called Simon the Canaanite
He is named in every list of the twelve and the label never comes off. Zealot in that century meant the party that held armed resistance to Rome to be a religious duty, and whether Simon was a member or merely hot tempered enough to earn the nickname, the word put him at one end of a room. He says nothing in any gospel. What the lists say about him is said by where his name sits.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Simon the Zealot
- 01
- 02
Matthew 10:2-4
Simon the Canaanite
Matthew keeps the label in Aramaic form and also keeps the publican on his own name, so both men carry their old allegiance into the list.
- 03
Mark 3:18
One of the twelve, unqualified
Mark records the appointing without comment. The point is not that the label is explained but that it is not treated as disqualifying.
Why it matters
Matthew the publican and Simon the Zealot are in the same group of twelve, and the gospels never stage a scene about it. A tax collector worked for the occupation; a zealot killed men for working for the occupation. They are sent out two by two on the same mission with the same authority and no note is made. It is the quietest argument in the New Testament about what the calling does to the sides people came in on.
4 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
