The A-Z of Believing: Z is for Zealotry

Ed Kessler, head of the Woolf Institute, presents the final part in a series on belief and scepticism

The meaning of the word has changed drastically in the past 400 years (Shutterstock/agsandrew)

For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; his can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.
– Alexander Pope

The words “zealot” and “zealotry” have had bad press. This is partly because of the fanaticism of an ancient group of Jewish nationalists, the “Zealots”, who, 2,000 years ago, fought violently against Roman rule. Such was their belief that Jews should not pay tribute to Rome, nor acknowledge the Roman emperor as their master, that they undertook guerrilla warfare against the Romans and terrorised fellow Jews who opposed them. The first centuries BCE and CE were a period of strife in the Holy Land and the Zealots wreaked havoc.

One of Jesus’s apostles, Simon, was a Zealot, and Jesus was crucified between two lestai, Greek for zealots. The Romans viewed Jesus as a threat, perhaps also as a zealot. After his death, Jewish Zealots expanded their violent insurrection but the Romans crushed them and destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE. Shortly afterwards, they made a last stand at Masada, near the Dead Sea, holding off the Roman army for over a year before carrying out mass suicide.