Simon the Zealot

Simon the Zealot, probably given this moniker in order to distinguish him from Simon Peter, may be the most obscure of all the twelve apostles -- and that's saying something, given how little some of them have to do in the gospels. Simon the Zealot appears in all the lists of twelve apostles in the synoptic gospels and in Acts (1:13), but that's it. No dialogue or acts are attributed to him anywhere in the gospels, in Acts, or in any of the epistles of the New Testament. The gospels also don't say anything about his background before becoming an apostle or the circumstances under which Jesus called him. It's as if he simply dropped off the face of the Earth.

Sometimes Simon the Zealot is referred to as Simon the Canaanite because the Hebrew root for zealot is qana and church father Jerome thought this mean Cana or Canaan. Thus he described Simon as coming from the town of Cana (the site of Jesus first miracle, when he transformed water into wine) or just more generally from the Canaan region.

Some Christian legends have Simon the Zealot travelling to Egypt to proselytize to the people there. Another has him making a missionary trip to Glastonbury and eventually being martyred in Lincolnshire with a saw.