Consider the lesser of Apostles, Simon.
It feels wrong to consider any Apostle of Christ “lesser” - such would imply that His will and choice of who to share his largest loves with was flawed. But the lesser measure considered isn’t the acts during the time of his teacher, but that so long after. Many of these men lived a great many years past His time - how did Simon end that life?
This isn’t about Simon Peter - his life and death is illustrated on rich parchment. That lesser of Apostles is none other than Simon the Zealot, erroneously Simon the Canaanite, even more erroneously Simon - who exists in a great absence. He is mentioned four times, precisely, among the records of the Apostolate:
Matthew 10:2-4
Mark 3:16-19
Luke 6:13-16
Acts 1:13
Thrice does Simon find his name at the end of each list - undercut only by Judas the traitor. Luke places another Judas in between the two places, though it can be argued that the derivative nature of that text led to a simple association of men by name; something that makes identifying men like Simon quite difficult.
There was nothing about Simon during the time of these events that gave him any significance. That much is readily apparent, given the original authors’ inclinations to depict great drama and fine details. He accomplished nothing of note as a living man. He is assumed - not said to, not written to have, assumed - to be sent out after His resurrection to spread His word, performing the same task all the other men did. But where he went, what he said, who he convinced? There’s nothing out there.
The Eastern Orthodox believe he died at Edessa, having preached in Egypt with his oft-associated Thaddeus. The Golden Legend depicts a martyrdom in Persia, and Ethiopeans believe he was crucified a mere fifty kilometers from where his mentor met the same fate. Justus Lipsius wrote that he was sawn in two, which is an easy assumption to draw after sixteen centuries of the man being depicted in every painting and sculpture with a saw in his hands.
With the death of Christ, Simon disappeared. People don’t like that conclusion - the idea of people disappearing. Nobody wants to hear that a man - a close associate of the most important Man - vanished without a trace. It doesn’t make for a good story.
Frankly, it’s a rather ordinary thing to happen to a person. It happens, sometimes; not to everyone, and not to the people you expect. But it happens. The problem arises when people spend a period of their life tracking the shadow of the person in question; when that shadow disappears, they find themselves asking not where the caster might’ve gone, but what the shadow itself did to vanish.
To them, it’s not about what Simon was attributed to; it's abouit what he did. Those actions - preaching in Egypt, being hammered to a cross like his peers - people want to see those things, and know they happened. It’s not about who Simon, the human, is, but what he endured - should endure - in their eyes.
So that’s all he is: the sum of his depictions. Not really a person, but the tribulations of a person. But he's so much more than that: the patron saint of sawyers and tanners - the craftsman before the craftsman, whose work goes unnoticed in the wake of better, more fleshed-out men. Hewn planks and soaked hide, still reeking of their treatments, piled neatly against the back wall - that’s Simon. There is no man to attribute to its creation; he never existed. Yet, he’s there among the Apostles, saw in hand - ready to prepare Him the materials He needs. His lived experiences are irrelevant to the divine picture - but they never cared about the real Simon.
They don’t like to hear you say that. It voids their work - implies they were flawed to carve the shadow of a man named Simon on all their reliefs of the men who surrounded him, rather than something closer to reality. But if they weren’t, shouldn’t they know who he was? What he chose to do with his life, who he became? The guesswork and vague answers only serve to prove that no one really saw Simon for who he was, nor bothered to understand who he became. So they’ll make up a story - one where he dies doing what they’d always seen his shadow do, forty-odd years down the line. A simple, appropriate life and death; one that challenges nothing about who they thought Simon was.
But he didn’t die, did he? Simon faded; the real, living man stepped to the wayside for those who find themselves more conducive to history to write their name in the clay. His closest associate was that Jude Thaddeus, of lost causes and desperation, because he knew the only one who might understand what he represented was a man who clung to things that can’t exist forever. Simon is gone, just gone, not dead, but gone; from him, anyone else may emerge: someone who’s happy to cast their shadow.
But that’s grim. I find it much more exciting to imagine he was just cut in half with a big ol' saw.