The Feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude, October 28, 2020

Luke 6:12–16

Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

“Simon who was called a Zealot”.  The Zealots, as a party, did not exist until the years immediately before the revolt of the Jews against Rome.  Since he as a Christian would not have been welcomed by the Zealots, it seems that this attribution meant “Simon, called The Zealous One, that is, zealous for Christ.  In English translations of Mark 3, 18 he is called “Simon the Canaanite” or, “the Canaanean”, from the Greek kananion, which is actually a Hellenization of the Hebrew qanai, which means “zealous”.  

Saints Simon, Jude, and James, “the brother of the Lord”, are thought by some to be the sons of a woman called Mary of Cleopas who was married to a man named Alphaeus.  This Mary is said to be the “sister” of the Blessed Virgin Mary, making Simon, Jude, and James relatives of the Lord Jesus. That Simon and Jude were brothers may even be implied by the very lists of the Apostles in the Gospels since they are listed together, just as are the brothers Peter and Andrew and James and John.  At the same time, According to Luke, Jude was called “the son of James”,  which might be the Jewish name of the man named Alphaeus, and Simon is not similarly said to be the “son of James”.  Simon is said to have traveled widely in his preaching of the Gospel, even visiting Britain.  The  most widespread opinion of his death has it that he was martyred in Persia.

St. Jude is called “Thaddeus”, an Aramaic word meaning “courageous heart” in Mark 3, 18, perhaps so-named by the Lord, just as were the sons of Zebedee as the Boanerges, the “sons of Thunder”.  The very early Christian historian Hegesippus (d. 180) passes on through Eusebius the tradition that St. Jude was a brother of the Lord “according to the flesh” (as distinct from adoption) and that his two grandsons lived into the time of the Jewish revolt.  He also went abroad in spreading the Gospel, most notably in the Kingdom of Armenia.  It is said that at one point he traveled with Simon, which is why they share the same feast day, even as Saints Peter and Paul, on June 29.  

St. Jude has long been considered the patron of the desperate, and even of lost causes.  This may have arisen as a result of the story Eusebius tells of him curing the king of Edessa of leprosy, from which he had suffered for many years.

St. Jude wrote at least one letter connected with his missionary work, and it is contained in the New Testament.  It is a short letter, in keeping with the usual length of letters of that time.  In it, he describes himself as a servant or slave of Jesus Christ, and a brother of James (the Greater).  The reference to his brother James may indicate an awareness that his brother’s name and reputation were better known to the people to whom he was writing than his own.  He shows a familiarity with apocryphal Jewish texts popular at the time, and speaks of the same problems in the Church as did St. John in his letters and in the Book of Revelation, problems which continue to this day.

Varying local traditions tell us that St. Jude was either clubbed to death or beheaded, either in the city of Beirut in what is now Lebanon, or in Armenia.  According to another tradition, Simon and Jude were martyred together.