(The Way of St James)
“Look it up in the Internet, Dad, it’s all in there”
“Is it, really?” This bit I just think to myself. No need to get into a useless discussion with my son, a fully-fledged member of the Digital Generation. It works for him. Plus he might well be right!
So I do a bit of research on the ‘Net.
I am looking up St James the Elder, sometime disciple of one Jesus of Nazareth, martyred in Jerusalem around the year 44AD and whose mortal remains came somehow to rest in the town of Santiago de Compostela in the Northwest of Spain. It is this “somehow” that has always fascinated me considering that over a quarter of a million pilgrims walk up to a eight hundred kilometers to his shrine every year, searching for … what? That is precisely the point.
If, like my son says, it’s all in the Internet it should take me no time at all to clear any uncertainty that has followed me since my Spanish childhood.
Typing St James the Elder brings up on screen a multitude of results and offerings, St James the Greater? St Jacobus or Iacobus, Iago, Tiago or Santiago? “What lies behind the first screen?” I ask my son. “Who knows?” He says. I do now. Thirty eight more pages of results! Even scanning the titles at great speed some of them catch your eye like a fish hook: “Dead Theologians Society” Who are those guys? “Santiago y cierra Espana. Death to all Moslems” Whoa! This islamophobic webpage makes Hitler seem like a conciliatory negociator! There are also the faith mail-order shops: “Aquinas & More”. Aquinas? Any relation to St Thomas Aquinas? They are a company selling “Catholic goods. Good Faith. Guaranteed.” What is guaranteed, the Good Faith? Or are the goods guaranteed to do something? They stop short of offering pieces of the True Cross. Sorry, I had a flashback to the faith market in my neighboring town of Lourdes in France and its billions of Virgin Mary sculptures and Holy Water containers on offer in its streets, all fashioned from the purest of plastics. It seems faith has also turned digital.
First port of call Wikipedia, then. They tell me it is the version of history most people agree on. Reality by consensus. In this particular case the consensus seems to be that we know next to nothing about the guy. Fishing around to elucidate the soubriquet “the elder” or “the greater” that sets him apart from another Apostle also called James, or James the Less or James the Just, apparently Jesus’ brother. Didn’t know Jesus had a brother? Neither did I but I just found out he had four, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas, plus a minimum of two sisters, based simply on the fact that the writer used the plural form. Could be two, could be ten. Why haven’t I, or for that matter anyone around me, ever heard of this?
We read in both John and Marks gospels that He apparently got no respect from his brothers while living in the same house, being definitely the odd one in the family, which prompted Him to coin the phrase so often quoted out of context “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor”!
The provenance of this crop of brothers/sisters is another mystery: were they natural children of Mary, half brothers/sisters from a previous marriage of Joseph or may it be simply that at that time all apostles and sympathisers called themselves “brothers”, as they would use the word “broer” “boet” or “bro” in the country where I live.
Whoever wrote this article doesn’t know the provenance of this whole bunch of brothers/sisters, obviously, otherwise he would have told us. He also had to tread carefully not to rough up the feathers of the various churches who postulate the Eternal Virginity of the Virgin Mary. It doesn’t take long to hit on the suspicion that in what regards this old biblical stuff your guess is as good as anybody’s!
I then find somebody hazarding the theory that maybe, just maybe, “greater” might have meant “taller” to differentiate between the two. Why not? You know how it goes with translations.
We read in the Bible that James was the son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of John “the beloved disciple”, both early apostles of Jesus, part of his inner circle. They had apparently been recruited by Him “from the seashore” where they stood with their father. One assumes that the sea was the Sea of Galilee because the boys’ dad had his fishing business there and that Jesus could have been on a boat as he sometimes went with Simon Peter the fisherman. But assumptions and allegations aren’t going to get us anywhere, there are enough of them in the hundreds of thousands of web pages already published on this subject. (Most of them actually giving the same facts, accurate or not, through the wonderfully impartial medium of “cut and paste”).
We read in the Good Book that James hanged around Jesus with the other apostles for a couple of years and witnessed some of his miracles, in particular the transfiguration on Mount Tabor and the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and was also part of the core group present at his last miracle, his apparition and resurrection on the shores of Lake Tiberias. We lose track of him after that for about eleven years until we hear that Herod Agrippa, King of Judea, has had him beheaded in Jerusalem around the year 44AD. Peculiar that, as the favourite method of execution for dangerous radicals like the Christians were considered at the time was crucifixion. We have the example of St Paul claiming Roman citizenship in order to have his crucifixion sentence commuted to simple beheading somewhere in the years 66–68AD. St Peter (Simon) wasn’t so lucky, he was crucified in Rome, again sometime in between the years 64–68AD. Upside down according to some legends although there is no written evidence of it. But knowing that the ruler at the time was Emperor Nero we would not be too surprised.
All these dates play havoc with the ready-made history I had in my head running on the lines of Spanish tradition, namely that St James after preaching in Palestine had travelled to Spain to establish the Christian Church there, I mean here, (I am in Spain) arriving somewhere in modern-day Andalucía. Preaching and converting on his way he crossed the entire Iberian Peninsula west as far as what is today Portugal, then turned north and arrived in Galicia. After some years he went east, experiencing on the way an apparition of the Virgin Mary atop a marble pillar on the banks of the river Ebro in the town of Cesar Augusta. The pillar is still there, with a statue of the Virgin on top, and is the object of great veneration in the town now called Zaragoza. (I even kissed the base of that pillar as a kid, finding that the constant kissing of the faithful had actually eroded quite a big chunk out of its base).
That is one version; another is that he only got as far as Cesar Augusta where he managed to make seven conversions. These are the Boys that follow James in a parallel story which only got traction in the south of Spain, where bishop Isidoro de Sevilla effectively discarded it to keep the simpler one already popular in the northern kingdom of Galicia.
All versions agree that James then crossed the Mediterranean, not too difficult as Spain was a Roman province at the time, and arrived back in Jerusalem only to be executed by Herod Agrippa. I somehow thought that he had been called back to Palestine because he had become the head of the Church (no pun) by default, every other Apostle having already met his martyrdom in the foreign country where he was preaching. But Peter, head of the Christian Church, outlived him by twenty years so that won’t do. One can get very confused.
All the Apostles had taken on the mission of spreading the Gospel around the known world and most of them met their martyrdom in foreign lands, but we have an epistle (letter) from St Paul to the Romans announcing his intention of going to preach in Hispania in a near future which raises doubts about whether St James had actually gone at all! There were very few Apostles and they were not in the habit of doubling up on any particular country.
So far any discrepancies or incongruities can be assigned to the lack of communication and bad record-keeping of that time, remembering that Christians were not yet a very big or militant group and were treated by the authorities more as a nuisance than anything else, the followers of the new doctrine being simply executed out of hand or fed to the lions in the circuses.
But the next episode gets a lot stranger, necessitating ever more miracles and acts of divine intervention to reach its conclusion, the equivalent of the inter-galactic drive of the Star Trek series.
My Lonely Planet guide to Spain (2003) does a wonderful job of simplifying the events that followed, which started with:
One Queen Lupa, (Queen She-Wolf for you), found one day on her doorstep two Palestinian refugees (already!) carrying with them the headless body of … you guessed it, St James.
There are already in that sentence several points to clarify:
Queen Lupa: never heard of that particular queen before, a quick search reveals a half-hearted opinion that maybe more than a real character she is a generic legend for strong-armed female rulers in the Northwest of Spain, a region nominally under the rule of Rome at the time, in practice inhabited by Celts and pockets of Ibers, and maybe other tribes. Nobody uses the word “ferocious” when referring to them, it is simply permanently implied. Wikipedia doesn’t want anything to do with Queen Lupa.
The Palestinians: they were in fact Jews, two disciples of St James who had stolen his body after the execution. By most accounts the head had been left behind but it seems to have caught up a few centuries later. Despite the vagueness of most of these records we surprisingly know the name of both these disciples, Anastasio and Teodoro.
The means of transport: “everybody” seems to agree that the departure was from the port of Jaffa, the simpler version has a sailing boat crossing the Med, then it gets upgraded in another text to a sailing boat carrying a stone sarcophagus. The deluxe version does then completely away with the boat and the stone sarcophagus itself does the sailing. A final text adds the cherry on the top: “rudderless stone boat” Come on guys, I am as ready to believe in supernatural events, mystical, magical, you name it, as the next man, but, do you have to make it so difficult?
The location: you would have thought that crossing from Jaffa the obvious landing point would be one of the Roman settlements on the Mediterranean, Malaga, Cartagena, Valencia, but no, the boat/sarcophagus crossed the Pillars of Hercules (Strait of Gibraltar) into the Atlantic Ocean, rounded Portugal and ended up in Iria Flavia, later named Padron, as far away from Jaffa as it is feasible according to Google Maps. Not for nothing is the region called Finisterre, Land’s End.
Anyway, these two strong lads carry the stone sarcophagus up to Queen Lupa’s palace and beg her to allow them to bury their Master somewhere around there. Queen Lupa smells a rat, or whatever, and tricks them into going to ask rather the Roman commander of the region who she is sure will execute them and save her the trouble. But before the Roman commander can follow his natural instincts there are more Divine Interventions that allow the said Anastasio and Teodoro to get back to Lupa and reiterate their demand. She pretends to agree to the plan and even lends them two oxen to help move the sarcophagus, as long as they can go and fetch them in the mountain where they live. These are not oxen but the wildest of bulls which in her mind are sure to shred the Christians to pieces. To cut a long story short, as my friend Clive would say, the bulls predictably turn into docile oxen and are more that happy to help with the transportation of the sarcophagus. The Queen, fresh out of treachery, converts to Catholicism and builds a small shrine for St James Apostle.
All is well, all is quiet for eight hundred years.
Or just about. It was not until the year 813, when a hermit named Pelayo told Theodomir, bishop of Iria Flavia, of a strange star that could be seen on Mount Libredón throwing a strong light on a certain tree. There, under a bush, an altar with three funerary monuments was found. In one of them there was the skeleton of a decapitated body with his head under his arm. Beside him a convenient sign read, “Here lies James son of Zebedee and Salome.” It was then a simple step to attribute the other two skeletons to Theodore and Athanasius, the two disciples who brought the Apostle to Compostela, and case solved! To me it seems a little too easy, the scene of the crime was obviously contaminated and the clues look too much as if they had been planted. Also, how did James’s head get back from Judea? Was it even the right one? Like in Miami Vice other interests, political and commercial, must have been at play for Bishop Theodomir to come out so confidently with: “Yeah, that’s them, James and his guys!” Finally, what happened to the other five men recruited by James for his Spanish campaign (the “Boys”, as they were called in some texts, were seven) and who according to some texts helped bring the body from Judea?
The incredible discovery was reported to the king of Asturias/Galicia at the time, Alfonso II El Casto (The Chaste) who, after visiting the place, appointed James Patron Saint of his kingdom and built a church in his honour.
Incredibly convenient for the Catholic King to have such a powerful, miraculous symbol of the Faith drop on his doorstep to help him in his fight against the Infidel Moors!
The news of the existence of the Holy Galician Sepulchre soon spread throughout Europe and the Apostle Santiago became the great symbol of the Spanish Reconquista. (that is reclaiming Spain from the Moors).The King of Asturias was just the first of many pilgrims who came to Compostela on what became the Camino de Santiago.
The French Emperor Charlemagne also welcomed the establishment of the pilgrimage route which constituted a buffer south of the Pyrenees against the encroaching Moorish troops.
Pilgrims started walking the Camino in ever increasing numbers during the Middle Ages, new miracles and saints coming out of it to the great delight of the Pope who rated that destination just about as highly as Jerusalem, granting indulgences (*) to all who reached their goal.
Then things got a bit out of hand: the sweet, love-preaching Apostle turned frankly blood-thirsty and at the famous battle of Clavijo appeared on a big, beautiful white horse and with a silver sword slain 70,000 Moors helping the Christian troops win the day. Yes, I know, but I am just writing it as I read it: big, beautiful white horse, silver sword, 70,000 Moors slain. And yes, his head was back on. Not surprisingly the title of Santiago Matamoros (Moor-slayer) was bestowed onto him, and stuck!
Well. If you think the casualty figures are a little inflated and the whole scene a bit Holliwoodesque you won’t be surprised to hear that in spite of the very precise date, 23rd of May 844, the Battle of Clavijo never took place! It appears that no serious student of Spanish history will even broach the subject. Myself I just mentioned it in passing to a friend who lives nearby and he got quite worked up! “Of course it took place! It is the most important battle in Spanish history!” Seeing his violent reaction I thought prudent not to mention my doubts about St James himself and didn’t even visit Clavijo, only 20 Kms away at the time. There is a castle up there now, they tell me, put up around the 12th Century by either Christians or Moors, nobody is certain.
In the modern world one would try to find out which ad agency had engineered the whole thing. The Client, that is the Catholic Kings trying to chase the Moorish invaders out of Spain, not only got a powerful ( free and gratis) ally, but through the medium of the Vow of Santiago filled up their coffers as well with the mandatory donations that every Spaniard had to make to the Cathedral on their enforced pilgrimage!
As a support cast a powerful Order of Knights of Santiago created to defend Santiagos’sepulchre, protect the pilgrims and … well yes, kill as many Moors as possible.
Even centuries after the end of the Reconquista the Order of Santigo flourished (not so the unlucky Order of the Templars of the Holy Land) and many of the Spanish Court’s most important members belonged to it. If you want to see what the cross of Santiago looks like just have a look at a reproduction of Velazquez painting “Las Meninas”, or the original if you are around the Prado museum. Yes, that’s the painter Velazquez on the left and there, on his breast, the famous Cross.
Having looked at the history such as there is, it is surprising that Spaniards have hanged for so long onto a symbol for their national pride and bravery that is so patently invented. The famous cry of “Santiago y cierra Espana” has resonated on every battlefield where a Spanish army has been involved but for myself I remember it only from two cartoon characters, Capitan Trueno and El Guerrero del Antifaz who were still demolishing Moors during my childhood. What does this war-cry mean? I am not sure and I haven’t read a convincing explanation anywhere. Take it as Tally-ho!
The toning-down of the Matamoro image to bow to Political Correctness has provided a further insult for some patriots: a beautiful polychrome wooden statue of Santiago Matamoros on his white horse trampling Moor soldiers underfoot with severed heads lying around that had the place of honour in Compostela’s Cathedral was deemed offensive to many and the massacre had to be disguised by placing bunches of flowers on the base. “Offensive to whom?” Cry those patriots. “Offensive to Moslems? What would they be doing they doing in our Cathedral?”
In Europe we pass everyday monuments to people with dubious careers, heroes to some, monsters to others, who have invariably needed help from the Faith, Captain Kirk or a vast army to attain their positions. Should we be bitter about that fact or just adopt a “forgiving-yet-watchful” attitude?
When asked by a group of black South African activists to remove from Balliol College in Oxford a plaque commemorating that uber-empire-builder Cecil John Rhodes, the Dean responded that if they had to remove the plaques, busts and statues of all those who had done something nasty on their way to power and success, there would be nobody left! And, would anybody pay back their endowements?
After its medieval popularity the Camino went into decline, diverse wars in Europe cooling off the ardour of the pilgrims but it has made an incredible come back after being declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco, also European Cultural Itinerary by the Council of Europe, etc. Countless articles as well as films and books have helped along the way.
Do the dubious beginnings of the legend bother any of the 278.041 pilgrims that walked the Camino in 2016? Not at all. I guess very few of them know the history, anyway. The motivation for the walk varies from the religious to the cultural to the simply curious, but the result is usually unanimous: a tremendous, uplifting experience.
It is not difficult to see that if one sets aside five weeks to do something so totally alien to one’s normal life new experiences are bound to emerge. One has perforce to get to know his inner soul… and his feet!
The mystic of the Camino is still there, the legends, the volunteers still running free refuges for the low-income pilgrims, but I believe that like every other sight or activity in Europe it is becoming overrun with tourism and commercialism. Just think that in January 2017 the most common nationality on the Camino was … Korean. South Korean, obviously. As a result of a reality show that run in that country following a group walking the Camino.
How are we to view such an extraordinary event that has doubled in size in the last eight years? Is it due to a sudden popularity of the Christian faith, a renewal of interest in medieval history, in the Crusades? Doubtful. I suppose there could be a bit of that but looking at the increase in size of some of the other crazy events in the Spanish calendar, such as the running of the bulls in Pamplona (40,000 people crammed into a small town traversed by a bunch of wild bulls) or the feast of the tomato in Bunol (160,000 kilograms of tomatoes used as projectiles in the space of an hour) or El Rocio in Cordoba (over a million people in a weekend) you understand that there must be a universal need for people to join in somebody else’s traditions, to feel for a while part of something not totally understandable.
In Spain, frankly, that is not a problem.
