(1900–1939)
Then the rider threw back the cloak and a flash of steel smote light into John’s eye’s and on the giant’s face. John saw that it was a woman in the flower of her age: she was so tall that she seemed to him a Titaness, a sun-bright virgin clad in complete steel, with a sword naked in her hand… “My name is Reason,” said the Virgin.—C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress1
The 20th century began calmly enough, notwithstanding the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley in 1901 and swearing in of Vice President Theodore Roosevelt as new chief executive, but within a decade it was widely apparent that global politics were not going to transpire according to the conventional wisdom of the last century. The United States would indeed be foremost among international powers, but not in the precise manner that its apologists had envisioned. To begin with, technological advances were changing everyday life much faster than anyone previously imagined. Then the tumultuous Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920 signaled to all outsiders (including the United States) that Latin American democracy was its own force to be reckoned with, one having little tolerance for foreign interference, even from within its own hemisphere.2 The grand opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 was overshadowed by the outbreak of the World War I, dubbed the Great War to End All Wars, into which the U.S. was somewhat reluctantly drawn by 1917. That same year (1917), after a period of uneasy neutrality, Brazil also declared war on Germany, becoming the only Latin American country to actively participate in that conflict. By the time a shattered and depopulated Europe brought the Great War to an armistice in 1918—mainly because of forceful American intervention—peoples of all nationalities suddenly found themselves living in a strange modern world that few (if any) anticipated only five years earlier.
Despite all the upheaval and mayhem, however, there still appeared to be a secure place for Christian religious shrines. As the U.S. and Brazil entered World War I in 1917, Brazil’s former mother country Portugal was the scene of Catholicism’s latest series of Marian visions at the remote mountainous village of Fátima, whose name, curiously enough, was originally derived from the daughter of the Islamic Prophet.3 There, a group of three shepherd children reported seeing repeated apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Soon afterwards, a “Miracle of the Sun” was reported in which thousands of witnesses, many not particularly religious, saw unusual solar phenomena on a date previously forecasted by the same three children. This quickly led to the establishment of a chapel, later and better known to the world as Our Lady of Fátima. Therefore, nearly overnight, not so distant Spanish Zaragoza had a serious Portuguese rival for Marian pilgrimage or tourism traffic (see Chapter 2). The difference was that the Fátima apparitions had nothing to do with Saint James the Greater, nor the long-cherished Iberian apostolic tradition. More significantly, Galician Santiago de Compostela to the north was no longer the exclusive Christian pilgrimage site for western Iberia. In truth, the Fátima cult seemed to arise as a response to the mass suffering produced by the Great War which, tragically enough, would prove not to be a passing phase, especially within Iberia. In 2017, on the centennial of the event, Pope Francis I canonized two of the Fátima child witnesses as saints over few, if any objections.4
As World War I unleashed its fury on western civilization, another holocaust—perhaps the first true holocaust in the modern sense of the term, though one not widely reported at the time—was triggered against the ancient Armenian community living within the confines of the old Ottoman Empire.5 The origins of the genocide were complex, but in short, the Armenians made convenient scapegoats for the Turks, some victims being agitators for ethnic independence, others supporting Turkish political progressive causes, and most resisting military conscription into a world war they wanted nothing to do with.6 As a result, by 1916, it is believed that well over a million Armenians, many of them Christian, had been murdered by their Turkish persecutors throughout Asia Minor. Somewhat miraculously, many refugees found sanctuary within the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem—a city also under Turkish rule, but traditionally with its own separate Armenian patriarch, and more importantly, located in distant Palestine, over which the Ottomans exerted less total control, thanks in no small part to a growing Arab revolt movement throughout the Middle East. In December of 1917, British forces under the command of General Edward Allenby, spearheaded by the creative efforts of British operative Major T.E. Lawrence “of Arabia,” permanently wrestled control of Jerusalem away from Ottoman rule. Thus, the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem, centered around its own traditional shrine and relics of Saint James the Greater (see Chapter 6), became symbolic of miraculous Armenian sanctuary and divine protection during an era in which it seemed the entire community might be exterminated. It was in fact during the period of the British Mandate, culminating in the 1920s, that the Armenian population of Palestine reportedly reached its peak. In effect, the British Empire had once again, either intentionally or unintentionally, helped to steal a little bit of prestige away from the faraway Spanish shrine of Santiago de Compostela.
By 1917, the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem had been under continuous Islamic rule since the 1187 conquest of Saladin, or 730 years total, during which time its Cathedral of Saint James had not only survived, but at times even seemed to thrive. During that long interval, Islamic rule, even coming from Istanbul, tended to be tolerant or at times favorable towards the Jerusalem Armenians, since the Jerusalem Patriarchate frequently helped to offset the substantial influence of other Christian or Jewish rivals within the holy city, as well as that of the separate Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, the latter tending to bear the brunt of escalating Turkish persecutions. The establishment of the British Mandate towards the end of the Great War, on its surface at least, seemed to usher in a golden age for the Armenian Jerusalem shrine. Here was a powerful new governing body that espoused religious freedom, and was committed to modern democratic institutions, but at the same time no great booster of rival Roman Catholic religious cults, especially those in Spain. Nevertheless, the same stubborn iconoclastic separatism that had served Jerusalem Armenians so well for so long during times of adversity, now appeared as liabilities, often putting them at odds with outside local insurgents given similar freedoms by the British. A bigger factor in decline was that the Armenian Quarter was surrounded by rival or hostile groups, in contrast to faraway Galician Spain in which that society was pretty much homogenous, both religiously and, for the most part, politically as well. By the eve of World War II, population within the old Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem had been reduced to few thousand residents as in pre-war levels. Moreover, all religious pilgrimage to the Holy Land was once again about to be disrupted by ongoing global conflict.
Meanwhile in the distant United States, the aftermath of the Great War saw the Santiago tradition undergo another unlikely literary transformation, one whose popularity seemingly continues to grow. In 1919, American pulp fiction writer Johnston McCulley produced The Curse of Capistrano, better known by its 1920 silent film title, The Mark of Zorro. Matinee idol Douglas Fairbanks by random chance read McCulley’s artless tale of romantic heroism, and immediately had it transformed into a star vehicle for himself. In the book and movie, Zorro’s real name is Diego (James) de la Vega (of the Meadow), while his nom de plume translates as “fox,” denoting both cunning and the furrier trade with which Santiago was so closely associated.7 Zorro swears oaths “by the saints” and adopts multiple personas worthy of any superhero or religious icon. He is a mounted warrior par excellence in the à la jinete tradition, a natural leader of men (especially of men in revolt against established authority), and a friend of the oppressed in general. He thinks nothing of covering long geographic distances, having been educated in overseas Spain, then in California moving easily between Capistrano (near San Diego) to Santa Barbara along the central coast. Thus, without invoking the name of James or Santiago a single instance, McCulley, and later the movies inspired by his novel, repeatedly echo the cult of Spain’s famous patron saint, distilled into paperback or Hollywood format for popular consumption by American general audiences.8 Over, a hundred years later, the Zorro franchise still appears to be going strong.9
In England, a more distinguished writer appears to have been mildly influenced by the Santiago tradition during this same period as well. In 1933, the same year as the Nazi takeover of Germany, Irish-born Oxford don C.S. Lewis released his first work since his conversion to Christianity (two years earlier), The Pilgrim’s Regress, an opaque and somewhat difficult allegory that still offers substantial rewards for those readers patient enough to peruse its compact pages. Lewis’ chosen title was obviously a play on John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (see Chapter 14), upon which Lewis would eloquently comment not long afterwards in his classic 1936 study, The Allegory of Love. In Pilgrim’s Regress, Lewis takes highly critical note of ascendant fascism worldwide, including Germany, where Hitler and the Nazis are bitterly satirized as Mr. Savage and the Dwarves. The hero-pilgrim John eventually becomes an aspiring knight-errant and dragon-slayer, inspired by the allegorical figure of Reason, a supernaturally-armed virgin female on horseback capable of killing giants or removing any other obstacles that stand in her way (see header quote). This presentment of Reason as a Santiago Matamoros–like figure is interesting on several levels, not the least of which is Lewis’ inversion of conventional gender roles. Although images of the Virgin Mary had been used by Christians both in war and peace since at least the Middle Ages, Reason of Pilgrim’s Regress is clearly more in the tradition of the biblical Apocalyptic riders that most likely influenced the first conceptualization of Santiago Matamoros via medieval Spanish writers such as Beatus of Liébana (see Chapter 3). The fact that one of these Apocalyptic riders becomes a woman in early 20th century literature should not surprise us, plus it adds considerable resonance to an ancient, if not all-too-familiar symbol.10
During the 1930s, as the political and military situation in Europe rapidly deteriorated, Latin America and the United States enjoyed a level of harmony and cooperation not enjoyed before or possibly since. Horrified by the Great European War in which they had reluctantly opted to participate, Brazil reacted, among other ways, by erecting the monumental Cristo Redentor (“Christ the Redeemer”) statue in Rio de Janeiro, completed in 1931.11 Convinced that an unabated rise in secularism had contributed to the human catastrophes of the early century, the local Roman Catholic Archdiocese decided it needed to make a bold statement. No one has argued with it since. Then in 1933, newly-elected U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt initiated his “Good Neighbor” policy towards Latin America by withdrawing American troops and promoting smooth trade relations—both stark contrasts to previous American involvement in the southern hemisphere. The move was designed as a bold and surprisingly effective counterweight to rising fascist influence within those countries. 1936 saw the landslide re-election of FDR, as well as Carlos Saavedra Lamas (1878–1959) of Argentina becoming the first Latin American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Lamas, after a distinguished political career of his own, worked tirelessly as an international diplomat for his country and advocate of nonaggression between South American nations of the type that had so recently destabilized Europe. A continuing legacy of Lamas’ efforts is that political violence in South American countries has pretty much ever since been limited to internal divisions, with a minor exception of brief and intermittent territorial disputes between Peru and Ecuador. Santiago Matamoros (or his various permutations) was nowhere to be seen. Instead, religious shrines such as Christ the Redeemer or Our Lady of Guadalupe, or even the newer Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Montreal (see below), now seemed to predominate instead.
One would think that by this late stage in history, slightly more than 80 years before the present day, the very notion of Santiago Matamoros would be dismissed as psychologically passé, archaic or obsolete, and yet this proved not to be the case. In America, whether it be Latin, Anglo or French, the old icon appears to have been, at the very least, dormant; in the adopted Spanish homeland of the saint, however, the ancient supernatural horseman had at least one more ride to make. The highly complex origins and aftershocks of the ghastly Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) are emphatically not the focus of this study; however, a few agreed-upon facts may be restated herein for purposes of backdrop and perspective.12 In brief, within a space of three years, the leftist Second Spanish Republic, one proving overly hostile towards the Spanish nobility and Roman Catholic Church, was violently overthrown by a populist counterrevolution that in many respects, defying Marxist stereotypes, pitted rural Spanish commoners against urban elites and intellectuals from Republican strongholds such as Madrid and Barcelona.13 Victorious Nationalist forces were led by the controversial and charismatic Galician-born General Francisco Franco, supplied with crucial covert munitions and air support from Mussolini’s Fascist Italy and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The end-result was that by the outbreak of World War II in 1939, exhausted and depopulated Spain, along with its latest unlikely ally, the authoritarian Estado Novo (“New State”) of Portugal, both declared themselves officially neutral during the impending conflict, but in fact were quite willing to cooperate with Hitler’s Third Reich should it continue ascendant.
Hostilities in earnest for the Spanish Civil War were initiated at the Battle of Mérida north of Seville and east of Lisbon on August 10, 1936, in which an invading Nationalist army under the command of General Franco decisively defeated Republican defenders.14 The Nationalist victory at Mérida was crucial in that it gave Franco’s seasoned forces a firm foothold on the Iberia Peninsula, also allowing them to geographically link their scattered allies from both north and south. From this point moving forward, the Republicans never really recovered, although it took another three years for opposition to be ruthlessly crushed. Startlingly, at Mérida, Santiago Matamoros was reportedly seen fighting on behalf of the Nationalists—perhaps not surprisingly, since the Republicans were generally hostile towards the Roman Catholic church and many Republican elites questioned the very authenticity of the Santiago cult.15 More persuasively, Franco’s Nationalists benefited from their German-supplied weaponry, and crucially, the presence within their ranks of the formidable Spanish Legion, an elite corps of veteran shock troops, still today representing the ultimate pride of Spain in terms of military discipline.16 The successful Nationalist counterrevolution of the Spanish Civil War might be viewed in hindsight as a modern Reconquista of sorts, therefore favored by boosters of the Santiago cult, especially given that Galicia and northwestern Spain supported almost unanimously their cause throughout course of the conflict. The fateful 1936 Battle of Mérida also represents the last or latest point in recorded history that Santiago Matamoros was said to have intervened for the winning side.17 Ironically, many of the political principles that Spanish Republicans fought in vain to achieve during the war—parliamentary government over monarchy, clear separation between church and state, a more secularized society, etc.—eventually became firm realities in Spain, but only after the death of Franco in 1975 (see Chapter 19).
In contrast to the rank inhumanity of the Spanish Civil War and global conflagration following in its wake, the legacy of Saint André of Montreal from roughly the same time period, physically symbolized by the popular shrine of Saint Joseph’s Oratory, offers a pleasing beacon of hope for the future of humankind. By way of background, the city of Montreal and the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec had their own long and unique legacy in relation to Saint James the Greater, or Saint Jacques-le-Majeur (see Chapter 17). This French Canadian legacy might in fact boast a more multi-cultural and less violent interpretation, or at least one less domineering, than that put forth by its Spanish-speaking counterpart. One of the oldest surviving local remnants of this devotion is the Saint-Jacques Cathedral, now part of the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), whose original parish roots extend back to the early 1800s and the first Bishop of Montreal, Jean-Jacques Lartigue (1777–1840), whose personal namesake patron saint was James the Greater.18 The façade of the current structure dates from the late 1800s, after a series of fires had destroyed or disfigured previous cathedral buildings, but a transept rooftop statue of Saint Jacques in pilgrim’s guise still towers over the Rue Saint Catherine, becoming an officially designated landmark structure for the 1967 Montreal Exposition.
Seemingly in response to the bad luck that dogged this original cathedral site, the diocese then constructed a newer, more magnificent Saint-Jacques Cathedral, located in the western downtown district of the city in 1894. It remains the seat of diocese, although the basilica was itself re-consecrated as Mary Queen of the World Cathedral in 1955.19 Vestiges of the old Saint Jacques cult remain, however, both within and without, including statutes of the saint and prominent gold letter texts (in Latin) from the nave touching upon the life of James the Greater, one of which acknowledges that he preached in Spain—but nothing regarding the other legends, most notably the apostle’s alleged interment there. The church also contains a prominent statute of Brother André, who did much of his life’s work within the environment of the Montreal diocese. Thus in 1939, as Spain became a dictatorship, and France fell outright to Hitler while England alone stood on the brink, Canada continued to be free, thereby allowing the dream of Brother André (who died in 1937) to be completed as a monument to charity and healing, one for which he will always be remembered.
After years of planning, promotion, and preliminaries, construction on the final Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Montreal began in 1924, and its dome was completed in 1939 while yet another world war commenced. Today it is the largest church in Canada and that country’s most renowned pilgrimage site, situated atop Mount Royal (facing west) for everyone in the area to clearly behold. In a major metropolis which derives both its civic flag and coat of arms from the original red cross of Saint James, the Oratory stands as an interesting example of how older religious traditions are sometimes transformed into new ones having different meanings. Montreal began life as a North American trading post in which French explorers dreamed of spreading Christianity westward as they made themselves wealthy from commercial activity and appropriation of natural resources, not unlike the Spanish conquistadors. By the 20th century, however, France was no longer in the local picture (although French language and culture are both alive and well), and under the humane vision and influence of Brother André, devout residents of Montreal retooled their religious focus towards the cult of Saint Joseph, co-patron saint of Canada.20 The change marks a notable contrast to the reinvigorated cult of Saint James the Greater at Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where General Franco’s lifelong veneration was carried to grotesque extremes. Even so, within the magnificent edifice of Saint Joseph’s Oratory, one may still view a striking, oversized wooden sculpture of Saint Jacques-le-Majeur (as one of the 12 apostles) by Henri Charlier (1883–1975).21
Choosing artwork that captures the spirit of this restless, impulsive era is ultimately a subjective task in the extreme. The worldwide rise of totalitarianism amidst widespread economic hardship during the early 20th century was far from the first time in history that this correlation had occurred. One must bear in mind that it produced both bad and good results. On one hand, it led to political dictatorships; on the other, it also generated a selfless religious fervor of the type so well represented by Saint André of Montreal or Saint Frances Cabrini (see Summary). With respect to Saint James the Greater, surely the incident in his life that captures this impulse the best, one recorded so unambiguously in all three of the New Testament synoptic gospels (and of which there is no reason to doubt), is his calling, along with his brother John, to become a disciple of Jesus, accompanied by SS. Peter and Andrew.22 In keeping with their reputed fiery temperament, both brothers immediately drop the drudgery of their thankless labor, and leave their no doubt stunned father to join Jesus in what the older Zebedee surely viewed to be a carefree, vagabond life of adventure on the road. The subject has been popular with painters since the Renaissance, and has inspired several notable works. These range from the massive pre–Columbian mural depiction in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo’s teacher Ghirlandaio Domenico (1449–1494), or a striking French treatment by Claude-Guy Hallé (1652–1736) originally displayed in the since destroyed Saint Jacques de la Boucherie Church of Paris (see Chapter 15), to the English pre–Raphaelite austerity of Victorian master Edward Armitage (1817–1896). Among all these, however, it would be remiss not to mention one other highly unusual painting by a little-known artist working in Venice during the same historical era that saw the initial rise of Spanish power in the New World.
Marco Basaiti (c.1470–c.1530) was active in the Veneto and contemporary with many of the most famous artists and political figures of the High Renaissance, though he remains relatively obscure even within circles of dedicated art lovers. Very little is known of Basaiti’s life, and his output was comparatively small; he painted strictly religious themes and portraiture. It is generally believed that he was not native to Venice, and that his family came there as refugees from a Greek or Albanian homeland oppressed by the rise of the Ottoman Turks after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. In this respect, Basaiti is an artistic forerunner of El Greco, who came to Spain from Greece about a century later (see Chapter 9), bringing with him a more eastern, and hence somewhat more bleak and severe aesthetic. The age in which he developed as an artist was also similar in some respects to the early 20th century; just as civilization was being threatened by fascism during the prelude to World War II, Europe was also being threatened by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire during the late 15th century. By 1492, however, the tables had suddenly turned. Western Europe had by then gone on the offensive, and was expanding westward in the truest global sense. Around the year 1510, Basaiti painted his Call of the Sons of Zebedee for an altarpiece at the Venetian defensive outpost at Certosa Island, today on display at the Gallerie del’ Accademia in Venice.
The canvass is stunning; it rarely fails to elicit comment from even the most sophisticated of critics. The depiction is completely faithful to scripture and has nothing to do with Spain, as if the artist has the Venetians appealing to James for continuing protection against Turkish aggression. Jesus on the shoreline is flanked by the brothers Peter and Andrew, as the bearded, presumably older brother James leads his younger brother John out of the fishing boat, while a helpless, alarmed Zebedee follows, as if scolding them. Tools of the trade lay scattered about. Idle bystanders are either uninterested or appear somewhat entertained. Shepherds off to the left are equally unengaged. In the background, on the lake, crewman of another fishing boat slave away with no apparent success. In the further distance are fortified towns, castles, and ancient ruins, subtly suggesting that these things come and go, but the Word of God is eternal. A few years later, Basaiti also painted a depiction of the Agony in the Garden, in which James, John, and Peter are portrayed sound asleep like children, but in the earlier work we see the sons of Zebedee wide awake and in decisive motion. The feeling effectively captured is that of the impoverished dispossessed being summoned to something greater and more meaningful in their otherwise tedious and unglamorous lives.23
Returning to the mid–20th century, it had become apparent by then to most sensible people that global conflict was something to be negotiated if possible, rather than simply fought out as it had been in times of old. Technology had finally reached the point where all-out war was simply too destructive, and the dawn of nuclear age was upon humankind. The old model of forcible conquest, as symbolized by Santiago Matamoros, was still being clung to by various dictators and autocrats, but for those hoping that civilization might outlast their own lifetimes, there needed to be a new approach to resolving international disputes. Unfortunately, although Hitler, Mussolini, and Japan would all soon be beaten, the Franco regime in Spain had become a type of inspirational model for Latin American dictatorships to follow. At the other end of the spectrum, and providing far more hope for the future, was the allegorical Reason of C.S. Lewis, also an irresistible warrior on horseback, but one with a completely different sensibility, no overt loyalty to any specific religious creed, and whose wrath was directed solely against world oppressors, rather than against the oppressed.