Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles: An Anglican Perspective

Feast Day: October 28

The Anglican calendar is ordered by a hierarchy of holy days, each carrying a different weight of observance. At the top stand the seven Principal Feasts, the highest-ranking days of the liturgical year. Below them are the Red-Letter Holy Days appointed in the BCP 2019 with their own Collects and propers. The joint Feast of Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles, observed on October 28, is one of these Red-Letter Holy Days. The BCP appoints the Collect on page 633, directs the Preface of Apostles, whose full Proper Preface heading is Apostles and Ordinations, and appoints Deuteronomy 32:1–4, Psalm 119:89–96, Ephesians 2:13–22, and John 15:17–27 as the readings for the feast.

Simon and Jude are among the least-documented members of the Twelve. Both appear in the New Testament lists of the apostles, though Jude is named differently across those lists, and Scripture tells us very little about their later ministries. That obscurity gives the feast a particular character. The Church does not honor them because history preserved long biographies or famous sermons. She honors them because Jesus Christ chose them, numbered them among the Twelve, taught them, and sent them as witnesses.

Western Christianity has long commemorated Simon and Jude together, reflecting later traditions that associated their missionary work and martyrdom. The details of those traditions vary and cannot carry the same certainty as the biblical record, but the foundation of the feast is secure. These men belonged to the apostolic company established by Christ, and the Collect asks that the same God who made them faithful and zealous would grant his Church ardent devotion in making known the love and mercy of Jesus Christ.

Simon the Zealot

Simon appears in Matthew 10:4, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:15, and Acts 1:13. Matthew and Mark call him Simon the Cananaean, while Luke calls him “Simon who was called the Zealot.” These titles appear to describe the same apostle rather than two different men.

Scripture does not tell us precisely what Simon’s title meant in his own life before Jesus called him. We should therefore resist casually placing him within the later organized revolutionary movement commonly called the Zealots and associated especially with the Jewish revolt against Rome. The title does identify him with zeal, but the precise political or religious form of that zeal before his calling is not preserved for us.

His place among the Twelve nevertheless becomes particularly striking when set beside Matthew. Matthew had been a tax collector, an occupation connected with the Roman revenue system and widely despised by many of his countrymen. Simon’s title suggests a very different background or temperament. We should not construct biographies Scripture does not give us, but it is reasonable to observe that Jesus gathered men whose previous lives and loyalties would not naturally have made them companions.

Their unity therefore did not depend upon prior ideological sameness. It came from the Lord who chose them both. Jesus did not gather the Twelve because they already represented one political faction, social class, or temperament. He called them into a Kingdom whose center was himself.

That remains a useful word for the Church. Christian unity is not created by ideological sameness. It is created by Christ, who calls sinners out of competing ultimate loyalties and gathers them into one people under his lordship. Political convictions do not disappear, but none of them may become a rival confession to Jesus is Lord.

Jude, Also Called Thaddaeus

The apostle Jude presents a more complicated naming pattern. Matthew and Mark list Thaddaeus among the Twelve, while Luke and Acts include “Judas of James,” rendered by the ESV as “Judas the son of James.” John identifies one of the apostles simply as “Judas (not Iscariot).” (John 14:22, ESV) The Church has traditionally understood these references to identify the apostle remembered as Jude or Judas Thaddaeus.

The parenthetical clarification in John is understandable. Judas Iscariot’s betrayal cast a lasting shadow over the name, and John makes clear that the disciple speaking at the Last Supper is not the betrayer.

Jude’s question in John 14 is one of the few places where Scripture allows us to hear his voice. Jesus has promised that he will manifest himself to those who love him, and Jude asks, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” (John 14:22, ESV) Jesus answers by speaking of love, obedience, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the indwelling presence of the Father and the Son.

The answer places Christian revelation within communion with God. Christ does not make himself known merely as a religious curiosity displayed before the world. He calls his people into a life of faith, love, obedience, and fellowship with the Triune God.

Jude and the Epistle That Bears His Name

The New Testament Epistle of Jude opens, “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.” (Jude 1:1, ESV) Christian tradition has often connected this Jude with the family of our Lord, especially because Matthew 13:55 names both James and Judas among Jesus’ brothers. Some Christian traditions have also identified him with the apostle Jude honored on October 28.

The biblical evidence does not require us to collapse those identifications into certainty. The Epistle does not call its author one of the Twelve. Likewise, Luke’s phrase “Judas of James” can be understood in more than one way, although many translations render it “son of James.” We can therefore receive the Epistle confidently as canonical Holy Scripture while distinguishing the certainty of its place in the New Testament from the less certain question of whether its author is precisely the apostle commemorated on this feast.

Its great exhortation nevertheless belongs naturally beside an apostolic feast: “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3, ESV) Simon and Jude were themselves among those entrusted with the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ. The faith is delivered. The Church receives before she proclaims.

Christian doctrine is therefore not recreated from generation to generation according to changing tastes. The Church serves the world not by inventing a more acceptable Gospel, but by faithfully receiving, guarding, teaching, and proclaiming the historic apostolic faith once delivered to the saints.

The Appointed Readings

The BCP 2019 appoints Deuteronomy 32:1–4, Psalm 119:89–96, Ephesians 2:13–22, and John 15:17–27 for Saint Simon and Saint Jude. Together the readings place the apostles beneath the Word of God, within the reconciled household of Christ, and under the promise of the Holy Spirit who empowers their witness.

Deuteronomy 32 opens the Song of Moses with a proclamation of the character of God: “For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.” (Deuteronomy 32:3–4, ESV) The reading gives the feast a fitting foundation for apostolic proclamation. The apostles do not proclaim themselves. They bear witness to the God whose character and saving work are revealed in Jesus Christ.

Psalm 119:89–96 then emphasizes the permanence of God’s Word: “Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations.” (Psalm 119:89–90, ESV) The contrast with Simon and Jude is striking. Their personal biographies are largely hidden from us, but the Word they were commissioned to bear remains.

Their mission was not to originate but to transmit. The apostles were not inventors of a religious system but witnesses entrusted with a Word they had received. Their task was to carry forward the truth of Christ, and the endurance of that truth does not depend upon the fame or longevity of the messenger.

One Household in Christ

Ephesians 2:13–22 gives the feast a profound ecclesial dimension. Paul writes that those who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ and that Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, reconciling Jew and Gentile in one body through the Cross.

He then describes believers as “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.” (Ephesians 2:19–20, ESV) Simon and Jude belong to that apostolic foundation, while Christ himself remains the cornerstone who gives the whole structure its unity and stability.

This reading also helps illuminate Simon’s place beside men such as Matthew. Whatever social, political, or cultural differences existed among the Twelve, the Church is not built upon those differences. Christ makes one new humanity through his Cross.

That does not mean every human distinction simply disappears or that every disagreement becomes unimportant. It means that the deepest identity of the Christian comes from union with Christ and membership in his household. The apostles themselves stand as the foundation of a Church in which former enemies are reconciled through the blood of Jesus.

“I Chose You Out of the World”

John 15:17–27 is the appointed Gospel and gives the feast its strongest grace-first structure. Jesus warns the disciples that the world will hate them because it first hated him, but he also reminds them why they belong to him: “because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:19, ESV)

The order matters. Simon and Jude do not make themselves apostles by possessing extraordinary zeal or spiritual aptitude. Christ chooses them. Their apostolic lives begin not with what they offer him but with what he does for them.

Jesus then promises, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15:26–27, ESV) Again, divine action comes first. The Spirit bears witness to Christ, and the apostles bear witness in the power and presence of the Spirit.

Apostolic courage is therefore not self-generated heroism. Christ chooses, Christ sends the Spirit from the Father, the Spirit bears witness, and the apostles are drawn into that divine work as witnesses to the Lord they have known.

This gives the feast a deeper theology of zeal. Christian zeal is not simply a strong temperament directed toward religion. It is devotion created, governed, and sustained by grace. The Simon whose title preserves the language of zeal is remembered by a Collect that asks God to give the whole Church zeal ordered toward the love and mercy of Christ.

The BCP 2019 Collect

The Collect on page 633 prays, “Grant, O God, that as your apostles Simon and Jude were faithful and zealous in their mission, so we may with ardent devotion make known the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” The BCP then directs the Preface of Apostles.

The Collect names three qualities associated with apostolic mission: faithfulness, zeal, and ardent devotion. Yet it does not merely tell Christians to become more faithful or zealous by force of will. It begins with a petition: “Grant, O God.” The Church needs the grace of God to become what the prayer asks.

Simon and Jude were apostles because Christ chose and sent them, and the Church continues in apostolic mission only through the grace of the same Lord. The Collect therefore follows the same grace-first order as John 15: Christ acts, his servants receive, and then they bear witness.

The content of that witness is also named precisely: “the love and mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” That love and mercy are not vague religious sentiments or alternatives to doctrine. They are made known in the apostolic Gospel of the incarnate, crucified, risen, and reigning Christ.

To proclaim Christ’s love and mercy therefore means telling the truth about who he is and what he has done. His mercy addresses real sin. His love reaches its saving expression at the Cross. His Resurrection declares his victory over death, and his lordship calls human beings to repentance, faith, obedience, and life within his Kingdom.

Faithful and Zealous

The word zealous in the Collect naturally recalls Simon’s title, but Christian zeal must be distinguished from mere intensity. Zeal can be sincere and still be wrong. Paul himself speaks of those who have “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” (Romans 10:2, ESV)

The Collect therefore joins zeal with faithfulness and ardent devotion to Christ. Zeal becomes Christian when it is governed by truth and directed toward the love and mercy of Jesus. Strong feeling does not guarantee faithfulness, and aggressive certainty does not necessarily demonstrate courage.

The Church needs a zeal shaped by Scripture, disciplined by love, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and willing to endure hostility without surrendering truth. Such zeal neither apologizes for the apostolic faith nor weaponizes that faith for self-exaltation. It seeks to make Christ known.

The Proper Preface

The Collect directs the Preface of Apostles. Its full heading in the Proper Prefaces is Apostles and Ordinations, found on page 155. It gives thanks through Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the flock, who after his Resurrection sent forth his apostles to preach the Gospel and teach all nations and promised to remain with them always, even to the end of the ages.

The Preface places Simon and Jude within the mission of the risen Christ. They are sent by him, their message is his Gospel, and their confidence rests upon his continuing presence.

This matters particularly for apostles whose later biographies are largely unknown. Their importance does not depend upon our ability to reconstruct every journey or identify every place where they preached. They belonged to the company commissioned by Christ to bear the apostolic Gospel, and their ministry stood beneath his promise to remain with his Church.

The feast can therefore honor Simon and Jude confidently without inventing what Scripture has not preserved. Christ’s choosing and commission are enough to establish their apostolic importance.

Later Christian Tradition

The New Testament does not tell us where Simon and Jude carried out their later ministries or how they died. Later traditions send them to a variety of regions and sometimes associate their ministries with Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and neighboring territories. Western tradition eventually joined them closely and commonly remembered them as having suffered martyrdom together.

These accounts are not sufficiently uniform or early to reconstruct a secure itinerary. Traditions concerning Simon alone place him in widely differing regions, while ancient material concerning Thaddaeus or Jude sometimes appears to involve more than one early Christian figure bearing similar names. Later Western accounts connect Simon and Jude particularly with Persia, but the precise places and circumstances of their deaths remain uncertain.

Those traditions help explain the long Western practice of commemorating the apostles together, but they should not be treated as though their details possess the certainty of the biblical record. The Church does not need speculative biography in order to honor them. Scripture gives us what matters most: Christ chose them, they belonged to the Twelve, they heard his teaching, and they were commissioned as witnesses.

Their obscurity is therefore not an embarrassment that legend must repair. It is itself a reminder that Christian faithfulness is not measured by how much history remembers about us.

Simon and Jude in Anglican Worship

Saint Simon and Saint Jude have long been commemorated together in the Western and Anglican calendars, and the BCP 2019 observes October 28 as a Red-Letter Holy Day. The feast always falls within the Season after Pentecost and stands only a few days before All Saints’ Day.

Red is customarily used for Saint Simon and Saint Jude in Anglican worship, fitting apostles traditionally remembered as martyrs and witnesses whose lives were given to the mission of Christ. The color does not require us to treat every later martyrdom detail as certain history. It fittingly reflects the costly character of apostolic witness.

The proximity to All Saints’ Day gives their feast a particularly fitting resonance. The calendar moves from two apostles about whom Scripture tells us comparatively little to the innumerable company of saints known fully only to God. Simon and Jude are named in Scripture, but most of what they later did has disappeared from the historical record. All Saints’ Day then gathers countless faithful Christians whose names were never widely known at all.

Christian faithfulness does not depend upon being remembered by history. It depends upon belonging to Christ and faithfully carrying out the vocation he gives.

Obscurity and Faithfulness

There is a temptation in every age to measure Christian importance by visibility. Churches naturally notice prominent teachers, celebrated missionaries, public leaders, and people whose work leaves an obvious historical record. Yet the Kingdom of God has always advanced through innumerable acts of faithfulness that history never records.

Simon and Jude represent that hidden majority remarkably well. They were members of the Twelve, yet Scripture preserves almost no individual ministry from either man. Their obscurity does not mean their work was unimportant. It means importance and visibility are not the same thing.

This truth is particularly encouraging for ordinary Christian vocation. Most believers will never become historically notable, nor is that the calling God has given them. Faithfulness may look like raising children in the faith, caring for an aging parent, serving quietly within a parish, speaking truth when it costs something, praying faithfully for neighbors, remaining steadfast within difficult circumstances, or carrying out ordinary work with integrity before God.

The Collect does not ask the Church to become famous. It asks God to make us faithful, zealous, and ardent in devotion to the mission he has given. The Christian life is lived before the Lord who sees what history overlooks.

Observing the Feast

Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles, are observed on October 28. The Collect is found on page 633, the appointed readings are Deuteronomy 32:1–4, Psalm 119:89–96, Ephesians 2:13–22, and John 15:17–27, and the BCP directs the Preface of Apostles, whose full Proper Preface heading is Apostles and Ordinations. Red is customarily used in Anglican worship.

Begin with John 15 and notice the order of Jesus’ words. Christ chooses his apostles before they bear witness, and the Spirit of truth bears witness alongside them. Apostolic mission begins in divine initiative. Then read Psalm 119 and remember that the apostolic Word outlives its messengers because it is God’s Word rather than theirs.

Read Ephesians 2 and notice where the apostles stand. They belong to the foundation, but Christ is the cornerstone. Even the honored apostles serve within a Church whose unity and stability come from Jesus himself. The blood of Christ creates one household out of those who were once separated.

Then pray the Collect as both examination and petition. Ask whether your Christian witness is faithful, whether your zeal is governed by truth, and whether your devotion is actually directed toward making known the love and mercy of Jesus Christ. Remember at the same time that the very qualities for which you pray are gifts God himself must supply.

Finally, let the comparative obscurity of Simon and Jude encourage rather than disappoint you. Most Christian faithfulness will never be recorded in history. The Lord nevertheless knows every act of obedience performed in faith, and the Word he entrusts to his Church remains when the names of its servants have largely passed from human memory.

Conclusion

The Feast of Saint Simon and Saint Jude honors two apostles whose names are secure in Scripture even though most of their later work is hidden from us. That obscurity does not diminish their place in the Church. Christ chose them, placed them among the Twelve, taught them, and commissioned them to bear witness to him.

Their feast therefore directs attention away from fame and toward faithfulness. Psalm 119 reminds us that God’s Word is more enduring than the messengers who carry it, while Ephesians places Simon and Jude within the apostolic foundation of a Church whose true cornerstone is Jesus Christ. John’s Gospel goes deeper still by showing that apostolic witness begins in grace: Christ chooses, the Spirit bears witness, and the apostles respond.

The Collect brings that apostolic pattern into the life of the Church today. We do not ask merely to admire Simon and Jude but to receive from God the faithfulness, zeal, and ardent devotion necessary to make known the love and mercy of Jesus Christ. That love and mercy are the heart of the apostolic Gospel, received from Christ and entrusted to his Church.

Simon and Jude remind us that much of the Kingdom’s work is carried out by people whose names history will scarcely remember. The significance of that work does not depend upon public recognition. What matters is that Christ knows those whom he has called, the Spirit sustains their witness, and the Word they proclaim remains firmly fixed even when the messenger passes from view.