Zealot
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(2ealous one) (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13) — a surname given to one of the twelve apostles, Simon, to distinguish him from the other apostle, Simon Peter. In the Evangelists Matthew (10:4) and Mark (3:18) he is called the Cananaean, which in Hebrew has the same meaning as the Greek word “Zealot.” The surname “Zealots” in its origin was probably not the name of a sect that later became notorious for its fanaticism, and could be applied to anyone distinguished by especially pious and reasonable zeal for God and the faith, and in its pure sense contained nothing reprehensible.
The Lord God Himself calls Himself jealous [zealous] (Exod. 20:5; Ps. 69:9 [68:10]; John 2:17). But in more recent times, from the time of the census under Quirinius, there appeared among the Jews such zealots as carried their zeal far beyond the bounds of true zeal. “They have a zeal for God,” the Apostle Paul testifies of them, “but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10:2). Whereas true zealots, such as, for example, in the early days of the Maccabees, were especially concerned only with preserving the true faith and purifying themselves from pagan defilements (1 Macc. ch. 2, and elsewhere), these latter — self-styled and extreme zealots and fanatics — were jealous for outward freedom, preached that the people ought not to pay tribute to Caesar, acknowledged the dominion of God alone over themselves, and thus stirred up riots and rebellions among the people, and even persecuted and killed those who taught differently from them and opposed them (Acts ch. 6, 7).
The Zealots were, one may say, chiefly responsible for all the subsequent rebellions and uprisings of the Jews against the Romans, and for all the calamities that ultimately overwhelmed the political life of that people. Those Galileans mentioned by the holy Evangelist Luke (13:1), whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices, are thought to have belonged to the sect of the Zealots. To these same zealots, it seems, must be assigned the murderers of the holy protomartyr Stephen as well (Acts ch. 6, 7).