Saint Simon and Saint Jude

Let us now pass to what is known of the apostolic journeys of our Apostles. After having been witnesses to the resurrection of their master and participants in his blessing; after having received the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost; after having been scourged in the synagogue of the Jews; after having preached throughout Judea and Samaria, like the other Apostles; after having filled all of Syria with the reputation of their holiness and their miracles; finally, after having contributed to the composition of the Symbol of faith, or, according to Saint Augustine, Saint Simon made the article on the communion of Saints and the remission of sins, and Saint Jude that of the resurrection of the flesh, they abandoned their country and their brethren to go and carry the Gospel into the kingdoms that had fallen to them by lot. The Martyrology and the Breviary of Rome assign Egypt to Saint Simon, and Mesopotamia to Saint Jude; but Dorotheus and Nicephorus say that the former traveled through the vast provinces of Africa and that he even pushed as far as Great Britain, and that the latter also went into Idumea and Arabia. Finally, both went to Persia, to subdue th is pe Perse The primary location of their final mission and martyrdom. ople who had once subdued a part of the world and held the Jews in captivity. They made a multitude of conversions there, they begot an infinity of spiritual children to Jesus Christ there, and were finally crowned there with a glorious martyrdom.

This is what we know for certain of their labors and triumphs; but, to know them in more detail, albeit through less certain accounts, let us consult the History of the Apostles, attributed to Abdias, Bishop of Babylon, which, after having been declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius, does not fail, according to Baronius, to contain several truths: it says that upon their arrival in Persia, having found Baradach, g eneral o Baradach General of the armies of the King of Persia, converted by the Apostles. f the king's armies, who was leading great troops against the Indians, they entered his camp, and that at that very hour the demons, who gave false oracles through the mouths of diviners and magicians, became mute and could no longer give any answer. They consulted a nearby idol about this silence: it replied that the presence of the blessed Apostles of Jesus Christ, Simon and Jude, was the cause, and that their power was so formidable that no demon could appear before them. This greatly incited the whole troop of these fanatics against them. They asked Baradach that they be put to death, so that they might have the freedom to speak; but this captain, a man of good sense and moderation, did not want to rush anything in this matter. He had the Apostles brought to him, questioned them, and, seeing them full of wisdom and modesty, he even grew fond of them. Our Saints clearly showed him the malice and imposture of the enchanters; for, having promised to declare what the demon suggested to them regarding the outcome of the war that was about to be undertaken, they said it would be long, doubtful, and bloody. "It is a pure lie," the Apostles replied; "on the contrary, tomorrow, at the same hour we are speaking, the Indian ambassadors will arrive in this camp to make their submission and ask for peace on very advantageous terms." Indeed, the thing happened as they had predicted, and this great event was the cause not only of the conversion of the captain, but also of that of the king, who was in Babylon, of the entire royal family, and of a large part of the people who followed the example of the princes.

Two famous magicians, Zaroes and Arphaxad, whom Saint Matthew had already driven from India by hi s mira Zaroës Magician who opposed the Apostles in Persia. cles , employ Arphaxad Magician who opposed the Apostles in Persia. ed all sorts of enchantments to hinder the progress of the Gospel; but it was to their great detriment, for the Apostles turned their prestidigitations against them, and filled them with so much confusion that they were forced to flee. Furthermore, if these blessed disciples of the Son of God gave such striking marks of the power they had received from heaven, they showed no less their immense charity and their detachment from all things of the earth; for they never wanted to suffer that the sacrilegious who had attempted their lives be punished with death, and they constantly refused the great goods that were offered to them from the spoils of the priests of the idols. It is reported of them that they made a one-day-old infant speak to justify the innocence of a deacon who was accused of being its father, and as they were pressed to draw from the child's mouth the name of the one who had abused its mother, they replied with admirable prudence: "It is for us to deliver the innocent, and not to seek out the guilty."

After having borne so much fruit in Babylon, they traveled through the cities of Persia to extend the kingdom of Jesus Christ there: but when they arrived in the city that the History of Abdias calls Su anyr, Suanyr City in Persia where the Apostles suffered martyrdom. those magicians, who had preceded them, so incited the priests of the false gods against them that they took them prisoner. Simon was led before the simulacrum of the sun, and Jude before that of the moon, which these pagans worshipped, to offer incense themselves; but since, far from obeying this impious command, they shattered the idols by the power of their prayers, they were cruelly put to death. The manner of their torture is not stated. What is better known is that God did not leave their death unpunished; for, at that very hour, although the weather was very serene, such a horrible storm arose that the temples of the false gods were overturned, their images struck down, and several pagans crushed and reduced to ashes, among others, the two magicians who had been the authors of their massacre.

One of the most widespread characteristics of the Apostles is the attribution of a particular article of the Creed to each of them. The article attributed to Saint Simon is this one: "I believe in the holy Church"; the one attributed to Saint Jude Thaddeus: "I believe in the forgiveness of sins through holy baptism."

The apostles Saint Simon and Saint Jude can also be recognized by the cross and the lance that are sometimes given to them as attributes, although there is no unanimity among artists regarding the instruments of their martyrdom. One should therefore not be surprised if, elsewhere, one were to encounter a saw, a halberd, or a club.

Saint Simon is the patron saint of tanners and curriers. These workers chose him, no doubt, in memory of the hospitable currier who received Saint Peter into his house, and who bore the same name as the apostle of Jesus Christ.

## CULT AND RELICS. — EPISTLE OF SAINT JUDE. The king of Babylon, who had become a Christian, had the bodies of Saint Simon and Saint Jude transported to that city and placed them in a beautiful church he had built in their honor. It is said that they were later transferred to Rome, to that of Saint Peter. Emperor Charlemagne subsequently had them brought to Toulouse , where Toulouse Episcopal see of Erembert. the verification of their heads took place on June 17, 1807, and the verification of their bodies on July 6 of the same year. The heads of the two Apostles are enclosed in two gilded wooden busts and placed, with other reliquaries, in a large cabinet at the entrance of the apse. Their bodies are found in a holy wooden shrine, covered with strips of gilded copper. This shrine rests on an altar, in a Romanesque chapel in the lower crypts, dedicated to these Apostles. Before the restoration of the crypts, there was in this same chapel a gilded wooden altarpiece, where Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows was represented. One of the arms of Saint Simon was in the church of Saint Andrew in Cologne, and the Carthusians of the same city claimed to possess one of his jaws with three teeth. But during the French invasion, at the end of the 18th century, the relics having been stripped of their rich reliquaries, it is today impossible to verify their identity in an authentic manner. Saint Bernard had some relics of Saint Jude that he always carried on him and with which he wished to be buried. The penitent religious of Piepus, in Paris, had a rib of his in a rich reliquary. Their feast was very famous in that city, in the church of the Temple, which was a large priory of Malta. The year of the death of these glorious Apostles is not known; but all the Martyrologies mention them on this day, October 28.

We have from Saint Jude an Ep istle Épître Canonical letter addressed to the churches of the East. addressed to all the churches of the East, and particularly to the converted Jews, who had been the principal object of his labors. In depicting the Simonians, the Nicolaitans, and the Gnostics, he uses very strong epithets and very expressive similes. He calls them wandering meteors which, after dazzling for an instant, go to be lost in eternal night. Their fall, according to him, comes from the fact that they are murmurers, that they follow the perversion of their inclinations, that they abandon themselves to the senses, to envy, to the love of sensual pleasures, etc., and that they neglect to crucify the desires of the flesh. The Apostle exhorts the faithful to treat with great compassion those who have fallen, to distinguish the faults that come from malice from those that come from weakness, to try to bring back the guilty through a salutary fear, to snatch them from the fire of vice and horror. He wants us to have constantly before our eyes the obligation we are under to raise the spiritual edifice of charity, by praying through the Holy Spirit, by growing in the love of God, and by imploring His mercy through Jesus Christ.

Tillemont; Godesward; Jos. Ammann; Dom Cellier. — Cf. Annales de la ceinture au XVIIIe siècle.