Part I. The Old World: 27 CE to 1492
(27–410)
And so he [Jesus] appointed the Twelve, Simon to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Boanerges or ‘Sons of Thunder’…—Mark 3:171
Frequently overlooked by the vast commentary on Saint James the Greater is the stark biblical fact, which no one has ever questioned, that he was first among the original 12 apostles to die for his Christian faith. More typically, James’ manner of death is perfunctorily recounted in the strict chronological sense, but then immediately forgotten. Little if any connection is made between his martyrdom and the inspirational cult attaching to his name over the subsequent millennia. Nevertheless, any serious study examining the process must begin with the life and death of this obscure historical personage, or at least what very little we know about him as gathered from accepted scripture or reliable ancient sources. Only then can we hope to fathom how and why such a transformation took place, the “extravagance” of which apparently so annoyed the eminent British historian and proto–Enlightenment critic Edward Gibbon (see Introduction). Human religious faith, for worse and for better, often tends to strengthen itself around basic, incontrovertible data, then embellishing and glossing over this data according to personal needs for both interpretation and understanding. The singular example of James the Greater thus offers excellent opportunity to explore this phenomenon, not to demean, discount or dismiss, but rather to closely examine its strengths and weaknesses, as well as to imbue our own consciousness with a healthy dose of intellectual humility and restraint, qualities desperately needed in today’s overly presumptuous and dangerously self-righteous world.
A convenient though perhaps less obvious place to summarize more certain knowledge of James the Greater is with the New Testament. Matthew (4:21–22), Mark (1:19–20), and Luke (5:10) all affirm that James and John, the sibling fisherman sons of Zebedee, were the third and fourth individuals (after Peter and Andrew) called by Jesus to Christian discipleship. Tradition holds that James was the elder brother, although scripture is silent on this point. Matthew and Mark, with possibly unintentional humor, elaborate that the two were in a boat with their father mending nets when Jesus called them, and at once left to follow him. Mark (3:17) adds the valuable detail that Jesus nicknamed the brothers “Sons of Thunder” (see header quote), likely denoting their fiery temperaments, as demonstrated several times throughout the narrative, beginning with them impulsively walking away from their father’s business.2 Later, they suggest to Jesus that a Samaritan village should be consumed by fire after it refuses to receive them, a sentiment for which they are sternly rebuked (Luke 9:54). Later still, they are among the apostles showing keen interest in Jesus’ prediction that the city of Jerusalem will be leveled (Mark 13:3–4). These reported incidents stand in marked contrast to Gibbon’s somewhat condescending characterization of James as a “peaceful fisherman” later transformed by medieval romancers into a supernatural man-of-arms. Even doubters of the later embellishments usually concede that the sons of Zebedee were probably hot tempered, well in keeping with the apocalyptic and often exasperated tone of Johannine scripture, although (rather interestingly) the biblical writings attributed to John and his circle make no mention of John’s brother James, unlike the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all of which provide somewhat more information.3
Further perusal of the gospels reveals additional evidence of James’ prominent place within the apostolic hierarchy, in tandem with his brother, the Evangelist John. Both James and John are present when Jesus heals the mother of Peter and Andrew (Mark 1:29–31); more dramatically, both (along with Peter) accompany Jesus when he raises the daughter of Jairus from the dead (Mark 5:37). In Matthew (17:1), both witness (again, along with Peter) the Transfiguration, and are overwhelmed by it. Peter and the Sons of Thunder attend Jesus during his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but cannot stay awake (Mark 14:33). Perhaps the most unlikely incident in the New Testament involving James and John, recounted by Matthew (20:20) and Mark (10:35), occurs when Jesus is approached by their mother, requesting that her two sons be allowed to sit at the respective right and left hands of Jesus after coming into his glory. The subtle exchanges and not-so-subtle reactions which follow between Jesus and his disciples are telling. Included is a prediction of James’ future martyrdom for his faith, which is not comprehended as such until long after the fact. More on this later (see Summary). As for The Letter of James, this great masterpiece of the New Testament is nowadays generally associated by biblical scholars with James the Just, kinsman of Jesus and first Bishop of Jerusalem, rather than James the Greater. Nevertheless, the fiery, indignant tone of James is still well in keeping with what little we know about James the Greater. Given that much of the bible is today generally viewed as having a long and complex compositional process, we see no reason why James cannot be doubly affiliated with the elder son of Zebedee as well as the first Bishop of Jerusalem.
The most memorable event in the New Testament with respect to James, however, is unquestionably his martyrdom in Jerusalem, personally ordered by King Agrippa I (of Judea and Samaria), as perfunctorily recounted by the Evangelist Luke in Acts of the Apostles (12:2).4 The incident is presented by Luke as prelude to the miraculous escape of Simon Peter from a similar fate soon afterwards. No other details are provided regarding James’ death. Given that Agrippa himself is described by Luke as dying a painful, lingering death from divine punishment shortly thereafter during the Passover feast, historians normally assign dating to James’ martyrdom as circa 44 CE (before Passover), approximately 14 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, 17 years after James had been called to discipleship, and sometime shortly before the first missionary journey of Saint Paul, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Claudius.5 That is pretty much it for biblical information. Otherwise, for purposes of scripture, James is simply another one of the 12 apostles. Nevertheless, on the biblical authority of the Luke, James holds special place among the twelve as being the very first to publicly die for his faith, a martyrdom perhaps second only in overall importance to the earlier death of proto-martyr Saint Stephen not long after the crucifixion (circa 30 CE?), as recorded at length by Luke (Acts 7:55–60).6 Moreover, James’ apostolic martyrdom is the only one of its kind specifically mentioned in the New Testament.
While one searches hard, long, and ultimately in vain for ancient references to the Santiago tradition in Spain, glaring and troubling omissions are easy to find, beginning with scripture itself. By some scholarly estimates, Luke’s Acts were written at least 16 years after James’ martyrdom, but makes no mention of James having traveled anywhere, let alone to Iberia. In fairness, Luke was a writer of Hellenist background and Hellenist emphasis, mainly concerned with highlighting the missionary activities of Paul, and does not mention any other missionaries besides Paul and his attendants venturing beyond Judea and Samaria.7 For Luke, Paul was the true apostle of the gentiles to the west, although Paul was not one of the 12 apostles himself. The only hint provided by Luke that Jewish Christians were well capable of evangelizing beyond their native land comes during the Pentecost (of which James was a part), in which the Holy Spirit descends on the fledgling Christian community, thus allowing them to converse in foreign languages. Even for this miraculous event, however, Luke catalogues foreign place names confined to the Eastern Roman Empire, with the exception of Rome itself (Acts 2:1–13). To repeat, this is not surprising coming from a Hellenist author, one primarily concerned with recounting the words and deeds of Saint Paul.
The extensive biblical writings attributed to Paul add nothing to shed any further light on this. Famously, in the epilogue to his Romans epistle—probably written before Luke’s Acts but long after James’ martyrdom—Paul repeatedly states his intention of traveling to Spain, prefacing the remark with “…it has been my rule to preach the gospel only where the name of Christ has not already been heard for I do not build on another’s foundations…” (Romans 15:20).8 Thus Luke’s assigned apostle to the gentiles of the Latin-speaking West, by Paul’s own admission, seems to have no knowledge of Christianity being preached in Spain before the time of the Emperor Nero. On the other hand, there is no reason to insist that Paul was all-knowing or infallible in such matters. For example, it is well established that the Christian gospel message had reached Rome long before SS. Peter and Paul did so in person. Furthermore, even determined apologists for James’ Spanish mission concede that he was not conspicuously successful in terms of generating multitudes of followers. If the tradition is true, James may have considered himself a failure in this regard and not proclaimed it very loudly after returning home to Judea. Given the spectacular success of others, he may have even been somewhat embarrassed. In any event, the worst that can said is that by the time the New Testament began reaching its accepted modern form sometime during the second century, there was absolutely nothing within it that could be claimed by the Iberian Santiago tradition for purposes of authentication.
Unfortunately, beyond scripture, the same problem of written omission for a Spanish Santiago tradition continues to inconveniently accumulate over the next 500 years or more. Compounding difficulties, these omissions persist long after Christianity became the favored religion of the late Roman Empire. After the “Great Persecution” of 303–310 was unleashed by the Emperor Diocletian, followed by a period of civil war lasting until 313, Constantine the Great emerged as victor and new Emperor. Almost immediately he issued his Edict of Milan, proclaiming religious freedom throughout the empire. More importantly, Constantine formally declared himself to be a Christian, owing all his worldly advancement to the Christian faith, and extended imperial favor to anyone else doing the same. As a result—and not too surprisingly—the fourth century saw the previously slow spread of Christianity grow by leaps and bounds throughout the Mediterranean world. At this point in history, early church fathers began, really for the first time, to write proudly and extensively of their faith, and were sometimes subsidized by the Roman government for doing so. One would expect the Santiago cult to now clearly emerge from the shadows; instead, one must wait patiently for yet another three centuries before seeing the name of Saint James the Greater mentioned in any connection whatsoever with the Iberian Peninsula, and even then only as being one place that he once had preached (see Chapter 2).
During the early fourth century, immediately following Christianity’s dramatic political ascendency, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea Maritima (in modern day Israel), wrote his benchmark Ecclesiastical History, still considered a semi-reliable source of information on the early church. Citing a lost work by Clement of Alexandria from the early third century, Eusebius recounts the heroic martyrdom of Saint James the Greater, adding many new details but making no mention of Spain.9 In particular, Eusebius introduces the attractive and durable tradition (one not found in Luke) that James’ accuser, the scribe Josias, was so impressed by the apostle’s courage, dignity, and miracles performed that he too was converted, condemned, and executed at the same time.10 Regarding the lack of reference to Spain, one might argue that Eusebius, despite his trustworthiness, was (like Luke) a Greek-speaking easterner whose writings generally tended to downplay the importance of the Latin-speaking west.11 It is worth recalling that by 324, the Emperor Constantine was in full process of redeveloping the former Greek city of Byzantium into a newly rechristened Constantinople as capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and de facto capital of the entire Roman world. The power center of the empire had by then, thanks to Constantine, shifted eastwards away from Rome, and the Western Empire would gradually decline over the next 150 years. It would be fair to say that most early church fathers from this period followed suit by glorifying the eastern history of the church at the expense of the west, which included Iberia.
Meanwhile, another significant inconvenience for the Spanish Santiago cult had appeared in the Holy Land. Several years before Christianization of the Roman Empire was initiated by Constantine, King Tiridates III of Armenia had, in the year 301, thanks to the evangelical efforts of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, controversially proclaimed Christianity to be the national religion of his country.12 Accordingly (and with little or no dissent from historians), Armenia holds the signal honor of being the first country on earth to do so. Sometime soon thereafter, Armenian Christian monks began migrating to Jerusalem, where they established the still-intact Armenian Quarter of the city.13 Some eight centuries later, the Armenian Orthodox Church would claim the site within the Armenian Quarter on which, according to another old tradition, Saint James the Greater had been executed by order of Herod Agrippa I in 44 CE. On this very same locale today stands the Armenian Cathedral of Saint James (see Chapter 6), allegedly housing the venerated relics of both Saints James the Greater and James the Just, kinsman of Jesus and first Bishop of Jerusalem. Although the Armenians claim only to possess the skull of James the Greater, this is obviously in direct contradiction to existing Roman Catholic shrines at both Santiago de Compostela and Pistoia, Italy (see Chapter 7). More on this later. For now, let it simply be noted that these competing claims represent a major bone of contention between the Catholic and Armenian Orthodox faiths, if we may be permitted to use that turn of phrase.
Sometime after Armenian monks began arriving in Jerusalem during the fourth century, the prolific Roman-Hispanic poet Prudentius wrote in praise of Spanish Christian martyrs, saints, and shrines in his verses titled Peristephanon (“Crowns of Martyrdom”). Among others, Prudentius showed keen interest in martyrs associated with the eastern Iberian city of Caesaraugusta or Zaragoza, which some believe may have been the poet’s home town, as well as a place name later closely associated with the first Marian vision of Saint James (see Chapter 2). It would be hard to imagine a better time and spokesperson to celebrate the Spanish Santiago tradition, if in fact one existed at that point in history. Instead (and rather strikingly), Prudentius makes no mention whatsoever of Saint James the Greater. Regarding this frustrating omission, the modern British critic T.D. Kendrick tartly observed that “The inescapable conclusion is that when Prudentius wrote the Peristephanon, he had not the slightest idea that an apostle-martyr was reputed to be buried in Galicia.”14 The silence of the poet on this matter becomes even more troubling when one considers that it came at a time when the Iberian cult was presumably being ignored or contradicted by reputable Christian sources in the east.
One of these reputable sources, in fact arguably the most preeminent, was Saint Jerome (c.347–420), a Doctor of the Church who personally spent significant amounts of time living in both the eastern and western sides of the late Roman Empire. Among Jerome’s voluminous surviving works, his De Viris Illustribus (“On Illustrious Men”), written during the late fourth or early fifth century, presents an extensive collection of biographical sketches on early Christian authors, some biblical, some not, and even some heretical as well. James the Greater is not included among these since Jerome did not consider James to be a writer; however, James is briefly mentioned in Jerome’s account of Saint John the Evangelist, in which the martyrdom of John’s brother James’ is duly mentioned, but little more than that and nothing at all about Spain. Elsewhere in his writings, Jerome suggests that one of the apostles had been to Spain and that each of the apostles were interred in the lands in which they had preached, but then very oddly stops short of linking James the Greater to Iberia.15 It was if Jerome had heard something but declined to endorse it. His silence on James’ alleged overseas journeys is also surprising coming from a prolific writer who had himself traversed the Mediterranean world from Gaul, Italy, and Greece, to Asia Minor, Egypt, and the Holy Land. His presumed view of James as a non-literary holy man (in contrast to his brother John) is further interesting in that much later James would routinely be portrayed in medieval and Renaissance art as an honorary pseudo-doctor of the church (comparable to Jerome himself), heavy bible in hand as part his necessary pilgrim’s gear, sometimes too engrossed in the good book to be bothered with any other distractions (see Chapter 14).
In contrast to these speculations, it is well documented that in the year 385, the Galician-born Priscillian, Bishop of Ávila, was declared a heretic by a Roman court of law and executed (along with his followers) by order of the Emperor Magnus Maximus, a fellow Spaniard by birth.16 It appears to have been the first documented instance of a high church official being condemned and put to death by civil authorities on religious grounds after the empire had become predominantly Christian.17 It was certainly not the first time that professed Christians had turned on each other in violent fashion; however, it may have in fact been the first time in which this was done under the guise of legal due process. The capital punishment inflicted on Priscillian by Maximus was publicly opposed by the sitting Pope (Siricius), as well as by the contemporary likes of Saint Martin of Tours and Saint Ambrose of Milan, but to no avail. About three years after this lamentable affair (in 388), and after the military defeat and execution of Maximus by the new Emperor Theodosius (another native of Galicia), the remains or relics of Priscillian were brought back to his native Galicia and there interred.18 His memory was afterwards honored in northwestern Spain for centuries, long after the Western Empire had fallen, and well into the subsequent Visigoth era, although the precise location of his shrine was forgotten. To this we shall later return as well (see Chapter 4).
After death of Theodosius in 395, and after the execution of Theodosius’ leading General, Flavius Stilicho in 408 (at the hands of Theodosius’ inept son and successor, the Emperor Honorius), the Western Roman Empire began its final phase of precipitous decline and collapse. Restless Germanic tribes once again erupted across the Rhine frontier in 406, but this time there was nothing to stand in their way. After overrunning Gaul, by 409 they had invaded the Iberian Peninsula, and following years of famine, pestilence, and political chaos, the conquerors gradually assimilated with their new Spanish subjects. Galicia became part of a new Suebian Kingdom while the Visigoths ruled most of the remaining peninsula. In 410 a Visigoth army under its intrepid chieftain Alaric—another one of Theodosius’ former generals—sacked the city of Rome itself, the first event of its kind in over 800 years. Coming hard on the heels of a devastating raid into Italy by Attila in 452, an even more destructive sack of Rome by the Germanic Vandals in 455 soon followed. Rome was no longer able to offer resistance against its enemies. In 476 the last western emperor was summarily deposed by a Germanic warlord, and the Western Roman Empire was no more. Although many of the invaders identified as Christians, most subscribed to Arianism, a flat-out heresy in the eyes of both Rome and Constantinople, and a far more dangerous one than that which killed Priscillian a century earlier, in that Arianism often led to violent political disturbances.19 More importantly, by the fall of the Western Empire during the late fifth century, some 432 years after James the Greater had been martyred in Jerusalem, there was still no surviving indication that anyone, Catholic, Arian, or pagan, associated his memory with Spain. This surprising silence on the part of church fathers would continue for yet another century and well beyond.
Returning to the death of Saint James as a historical fact, the event has been regularly portrayed in the visual arts for nearly a thousand years. Many of these depictions are quite remarkable, but insofar as this untrained eye can tell, most add extensive details not found in the bible, understandable since the bible itself does not have many details to offer. Much of this extraneous content is drawn from later, non-canonical sources, and a good deal of it appears to come directly from artistic imagination, occasionally to gripping effect. For example, the ancient but non-biblical tradition (as recorded by Eusebius) of James’ accuser led to the execution block after being converted by the condemned apostle has inspired more than one great artist. Far more unusual, however, have been works attempting to strictly follow Luke’s Acts, or at least to minimize the embellishments. One artist able to accomplish this difficult task in spectacular fashion was the highly-regarded painter Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), sometimes called the Spanish Caravaggio, near contemporary of Diego Velázquez, and active during the reign of King Philip IV.20 Zurbarán needs little introduction to art lovers, but suffice it within these pages to say that he lived and worked during a time in which the Spanish Empire was beginning its long decline as a political and military power, but certainly not its cultural sophistication. Indeed, this extended period has been rightfully dubbed by some historians as the Spanish Golden Age for its impressive output in literature and visual arts.
The Martyrdom of Saint James by Zurbarán dates from a mature, prolific phase in which the master seemed to be at the height of his powers. Eventually acquired by the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the 19th century provenance of the work is uncertain, but the enormous size of the painting, combined with what little is known, indicate that it was produced for a church somewhere in in Zurbarán’s home region of Spanish Extremadura, circa 1640.21 Whatever the exact circumstances, he certainly put his best effort into it. The depiction is plaintive and restrained, with some very subtle non-biblical details added, but nothing to contradict Luke’s account from Acts. The apostle kneels at the execution block as if in prayer. Herod Agrippa and his approving Jewish advisors—one looking suspiciously like a Spanish Inquisition official—watch closely as a swordsman prepares to strike while holding the martyr’s long hair aside. An angel overhead holds a floral crown in one hand and a symbolic martyr’s palm in the other, as royal guardsmen stand in the background, one of them clutching a distinctively Spanish spiked axe.22 A marble column in the immediate background symbolizes James as a pillar of the church, or perhaps the Zaragoza pillar on which he was later alleged to have seen his Marian vision. The most interesting detail, however, is the canine head of a saluki to the direct right of the kneeling martyr at eye level, looking on impassively, expectantly.23 Nature itself is witness to the deed. Likely completed during the ugly apex of the Thirty Years War, Zurbarán’s tremendous masterpiece conveys its powerful message with absolute clarity despite minimal reliance on extraneous ornament.24
The Martyrdom of Saint James is doubly interesting in that it was produced during an era in which nearly all Zurbarán’s contemporaries were painting the apostle as a lone pilgrim or penitent (see Chapter 14).25 Taken within this historical context, the work comes across as a refreshing exception to then current fashion. Viewers are presented with an episode having nothing to do with the later Spanish Santiago tradition—and yet one that somehow lays at the very heart of it—a biblically-recorded occurrence undisputed even by non–Christians. James’ martyrdom dated nearly 16 centuries before Zurbarán’s memorable rendering, a time in which the Roman Empire was at its seemingly invincible height while Christianity itself little more than a regional cult within that large empire. Nevertheless, less than four centuries later Iberia would have new de facto rulers, many of whom called themselves Christians, but with a heretical barbarian twist. The Dark Ages had officially begun, and the task of bringing the Visigoths into the fold of the orthodox Roman Catholic faith would fall to those living within their own society. Curiously, it would also be this highly obscure period that saw the first faint signs of Saint James the Greater being personally associated with Iberia by its new masters.