ST. SIMON is surnamed the Cananaean or Canaanite, and the 
	Zealot, to distinguish him from St. Peter, and from St. 
	Simeon, the brother of St. James the Less, and his 
	successor in the see of Jerusalem. From the first of these
	surnames some have thought that St. Simon was bom at Cana,
	in Galilee. Certain modern Greeks pretend that it was at 
	his marriage that our Lord turned the water into wine. It 
	is not to be doubted but he was a Galilaean: Theodoret 
	says, of the tribe either of Zabulon or Nepthali But as 
	for the surname of Cananaean, it has in Syro- Chaldaic the
	same signification which the word Zelotes bears in Greek.
	St. Luke translated it, the other evangelists retained the
	original name; for Canath in Syro-Chaldaic, or modern 
	Hebrew, signifies Zeal, as St. Jerome observes. Nicephorus
	Calixti, a modern Greek historian, tells us this name was 
	given to St. Simon only from the time of his apostleship, 
	wherein he expressed an ardent zeal and affection for his 
	Master, was an exact observer of all the rules of his 
	religion, and opposed with a pious warmth all those who 
	swerved from it. As the evangelists take no notice of 
	such a circumstance, 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 professed for the honor of God, and the purity of 
	religion. A party called Zealots were famous in the war 
	of the Jews against the Romans. They were main instruments
	in instigating the people to shake off the yoke of 
	subjection; they assassinated many of the nobility and 
	others, in the streets, filled the temple itself with 
	bloodshed and other horrible profanations, and were the 
	chief cause of the ruin of their country. But no proof is 
	offered by which it is made to appear that any such party 
	existed in our Savior's time, though some then maintained 
	that it was not lawful for a Jew to pay taxes to the 
	Romans. At least if any then took the name of Zealots, 
	they certainly neither followed the impious conduct, nor 
	adopted the false and inhuman maxims of those mentioned by
	Josephus in his history of the Jewish war against the 
	Romans.
	
	St. Simon, after his conversion, was zealous for the honor
	of his Master, and exact in all the duties of the Christian
	religion; and showed a pious indignation towards those who
	professed this holy faith with their mouths, but dishonored
	it by the irregularity of their fires. No further mention 
	appears of him in the gospels, than that he was adopted by
	Christ into the college of the apostles. With the rest he 
	received the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost, which he 
	afterwards exercised with great zeal and fidelity. 
	Nicephorus Calixti, and some other modern Greeks, pretend,
	that after preaching in Mauritania, and other parts of 
	Africa, he sailed into Britain, and having enlightened 
	the minds of many with the doctrine of the gospel, was 
	crucified by the infidels. But of this there appears no 
	shadow of probability, and the vouchers, by many 
	inconsistencies, destroy the credit of their own assertion.
	If this apostle preached in Egypt, Cyrene, and Mauritania, 
	he returned into the East; for the Martyrologies of 
	St. Jerome, Bede, Ado, and Usuard place his martyrdom in 
	Persia, at a city called Suanir, possibly in the country 
	of the Suani, a people in Colchis, or a little higher in 
	Sarmatia, then allied with the Parthians in Persia, which 
	may agree with a passage in the Acts of St. Andrew, that 
	in the Cimmerian Bosphorus there was a tomb in a grot, 
	with an inscription, importing that Simon the Zealot was 
	interred there. His death is said in these Martyrologies 
	to have been procured by the idolatrous priests. Those 
	who mention the manner of his death say he was crucified. 
	St. Peter's church on the Vatican a Rome, and the 
	cathedral of Toulouse are said to possess the chief 
	portions of the relics of SS. Simon and Jude.