Of Lost Causes and Zealots

The feast day of St. Jude and St. Simon, apostles, is October 28 (celebrated on the 29^th when the 28^th falls on a Sunday as happens this year).  In the various lists of the Apostles found in the New Testament, Simon and Jude fill the 10^th and 11^th seats.  Although, there is even speculation about that!  Some Biblical scholars believe the “twelve” was simply an arbitrary number assigned and that apostles were replaced in the event of death or apostasy (renunciation of the faith).

Simon and Jude were common names in Jesus’ time and among Jesus’ disciples.  In fact half of the apostles shared names: Jude and Judas, Simon Peter and Simon Cananean (the zealot), James the greater and James the less.  It is easy to confuse identities and lose individual stories.  This is the case with both Simon and Jude.  So little is known about either apostle that only speculation remains.  Here are your options; choose the one that brings you best comfort!

Both Jude and Simon are mentioned as being Jesus’ younger brothers, along with James.  In fact, it seems their brother Joseph was the only one to stay home.  But the gospel also mentions the second Simon to be chosen as one of the Holy Twelve was Simon Cananean.  Cananean derives from the Greek word meaning “zealot” and does not refer to the place.  Would one of Mary’s sons have become enthralled by the violent zealot party, bound to raise an army against Rome?  And yet, historians do consider that the Cananean reference was indeed a reference to Simon’s hailing from Cana.  Many place him as the son of Clopas and the bridegroom at the wedding where Jesus performed his first miracle.  So with Simon, you have three choices (or some combination of the three):

1.   Jesus’ baby brother who followed him around through some notion of sibling hero-worship;
2.   a zealot whose ulterior motive was to convince Jesus to gather his over 50,000 devoted followers into an army to fight against the Roman Occupation;
3.   the son of Clopas and bridegroom at the famous wedding (and who, one would presume left his new bride—or dragged her along with him— to follow Jesus around the countryside to what end one can only speculate).

Jude is no easier to identify than Simon!  Jude is commonly interchanged with Thaddeus.  This also is due to some interesting linguistic twists.  The name Judah, with an –ah ending is the same as Judas with an –as ending (hence names like Elijah=Elias, Jonah=Jonas, etc.) and anglicanizing the –ah spelling often transposed to –e endings (which were at one time pronounced).  Now, the name Judas is a variant on the Greek word for “godlike,” theudas, which alternate spelling of “Thaddeus” came to be an equivalent name to Jude.  (Think equivalencies as Peggy is to Margaret or Dick is to Richard.)  Thus, the common connection of Jude Thaddeus is to differentiate this apostle from Judas Iscariot.  Like Simon, Jude is also identified as being a younger brother of Jesus or the son of Clopas and the bridegroom at the wedding.  Thaddeus (and tradition connects this Thaddeus to Jude) was also considered to be one of the Seventy (thus not one of the original twelve) who was sent to Edessa.  However, there is a charming story about Jude, the Apostle that is perpetuated in art wherein Jude carries a portrait of Jesus.  The story goes something like this: 

King Abgar of Edessa, in what is now part of southern Turkey, was gravely ill.  He had been visited my man, many renowned and gifted physicians to no avail.  He’d heard of the miracles of one Jesus of Nazareth and as a last resort, he wrote to the man asking him to come to Edessa to heal him. (Agbar was not a true believer, but in desperation would grasp at any opportunity for relief.)  Amongst the party with the messenger, Agbar had sent and artist to render a likeness of Jesus that Agbar and his guards might recognize Jesus when he came.  Alas for Agbar, Jesus thanked him kindly for the invitation but declined.  He did, however, promise to send one of his chosen in his stead.  This was shortly before Jesus was crucified, and indeed, by the time Agbar received Jesus’ reply, the Passion and Resurrection would have already occurred.  Poor King Agbar’s condition deteriorated and he’d all but given up hope.  But then, Jude Thaddeus arrived bearing the portrait of Jesus.  King Agbar placed the portrait in a place of great honor in his palace.  Upon hearing the words of Jesus from the Apostle, King Agbar’s infirmities were miraculously healed.  This made him a believer and he converted to Christianity.  The portrait, in the meantime, became the first icon and was attributed a number of other miracles, including miraculously mirroring itself on a tile when it was hidden behind a wall (for safe-keeping during a war with the Persians) and oozing an oil that was used to fuel fire that eventually routed the Persians.

Jude and Simon were said to have been martyred together and are most likely the pairing that Jesus established when sending them out on their evangelizing missions.  With so little known about these most obscure of Apostles, we are left to speculate and romanticize their stories.  Perhaps King Agbar’s story of desperation is the reason St. Jude is considered the patron saint of lost causes.  Regardless of their historical obscurity, Simon and Jude are evidence that with God, there is no lost cause.  For surely, if brothers (I choose to believe the “brothers of Jesus” angle) can not only grow up together, but spend the rest of their lives on the road together preaching the gospel, then nothing is out of the realm of possibility!