Millions walk to his grave in Santiago de Compostela, but who was St. James?

I was a modern-day pilgrim for five weeks following the Way of St. James to Santiago de Compostela.

The first time I heard about Saint James was most likely in Andrew Lloyd Webber's rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. When I got the double album of this famous rock opera for my twelfth birthday, I translated the lyrics word for word by looking them up in a dictionary. I still remember the long afternoons in my room, listening to Deep Purple's Ian Gillan as Jesus on my small (and bright seventies-orange) pick-up player. Not only was it my first introduction to learning English, but it also formed my view of the New Testament.

In the garden of Gethsemane, a desperate Jesus sings during his last hours in freedom:

"Will no one stay awake with me?

Peter, John, James?

Will none of you wait with me?

Peter, John, James?"

I remember visiting the garden of Gethsemane many years later, and these lines kept singing in the back of my head. Likewise, I often associate location and music; I hear Art Garfunkel's New York when I'm flying in from London or even the Beatles' Get Back when I drive into Tucson, Arizona.

A pilgrim monument on the Camino soon after entering Galicia. (all photos by Alexander Verbeek)

So who was St. James? He is referred to in the New Testament as Zebedee's son and John's brother. Some say he might be Jesus' cousin, the son of Mary's sister. In the Gospel of Matthew, we learn that James, a former fisherman, left his trade to follow Jesus. He is referred to as James the Greater to avoid confusion with the other disciple known as the younger James. 

The presence of James during the weeping in the Garden of Gethsemane is described in Matt. 26:36-46. And long before Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice wrote their rock opera, this moment figured prominently in Bach's magnificent Mattheus Passion. When I was in my forties, I listened every year on Good Friday to the Mattheus Passion in the Pieterskerk in Leiden (also known as the Church of the Pilgrim Fathers, a story to write about some other day).

Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims walk to Santiago yearly, but quite a few skip the feared, hot, dry, and flat Mesata and take the bus instead.

And there we find James again, in what is the same sad scene in the Garden of Gethsemane; let's take the English translation:

Evangelist:

And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee

And he began to grieve and be disheartened.

Then Jesus said to them:

Jesus:

My soul is distressed even to death,

stay here and keep watch with me.

The three most important disciples are Peter and the two brothers, John and James. But, as we know, they didn’t stay awake with Jesus (“Könnet ihr denn nicht eine Stunde mit mir wachen?”).

After a 500- mile walk, you can see St. James (Santiago) on top of the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.

If James returned to our world in 2022, he would be surprised about the posthumous career he has made. And it is indeed a remarkable story, especially for the first disciple to be martyred. 

His life was cut short in 44 AD; he was beheaded under the command of Herod Agrippa (Acts 22:12), King of the Herodians. The head was then buried at a spot that is still easy to find. In Jerusalem, look for the Cathedral dedicated to Saint James the Greater, go to the altar and look for the piece of red marble surrounded by burning candles.

Fast forward more than 600 years, and the plot thickens. By this time, an angel has led a boat from the Holy Land to the Iberian Peninsula. Quite an impressive feat, even for an angel, since legend has it that the ship was rudderless and carried no sail. 

Once safely landed near modern-day Padron, the followers of James (and his body that they carried with them) were chased by troops of the Celtic Queen Lupia. They crossed a bridge, and when the queen's troops followed, it collapsed under their weight. Lupia took the death of her soldiers as a sign not to be ignored, and she converted to Christianity. She also provided an ox and a cart for the followers of James to transport the body. Since nobody knew where to bury the body, they decided to trust the ox. It stopped at the top of a hill, and that is the spot where you find the Cathedral of Santiago today.

The Camino has countless starting points but only one endpoint: the magnificent Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. Note the resting pilgrims with their backpacks in the foreground.

What has happened since is also remarkable. Santiago de Compostela became Europe's most famous pilgrimage site in the Middle Ages. More than a million pilgrims visited the site, but in later centuries, the popularity waned. That is until a revival of the pilgrimage in the 1980s; today, the annual number of pilgrims honoring this 1000-year tradition is record-breaking.

Santiago stands for Saint James, which is easier to understand if you start with his Spanish name, Saint Jacob, or Santo Iago, and that brings us to the shortened version is Santiago. He is not only Spain's patron saint but is also important in other countries. 

For me, he was never far during the years I lived right next to the biggest church in The Hague. We keep things simple in the Netherlands so that one is known as the Great Church. Sources in the year 1337 speak of the "Grote Kercke," which any Dutchman can still read as "Grote Kerk" in today's spelling, which means the great church indeed.

St. James’ Church, or the Great Church, in The Hague (August 4, 2022)

But since its founding, the church was also known as St. James' Church. If you ever visit The Hague, you will likely remember it by its six-sided tower, which was completed between 1420 and 1424. It is 93 meters tall (305 ft), which makes it one of the tallest in the Netherlands. 

Today, I was in The Hague and walked to St. James Church. The best shot would have been from the apartment where I used to live, but now I had to do it from the street level. The result was a typical wide-angle shot, but it gives an impression.

So for many years, I lived next to St. James' Church without giving much thought to his head in Jerusalem or his complete body that rests in Santiago de Compostela. (Spoiler: no evidence suggests it's actually St. James who is buried in Santiago). So I never considered visiting his Cathedral in Spain in those years. 

And while I lived in The Hague, I often visited the island on weekends that later became my home base in the Netherlands. In those years, I always stayed in the neighboring village of Renesse. It has a modest church that is a fine example of churches in the province of Zeeland, and again, this one is also dedicated to St. James. 

Some years ago, someone posted a sign in front of the church indicating the distance to St. James' grave in Santiago de Compostela. I am sure this must have awakened at least a little bit of my appetite to go there in the future.

St. James is never far: the church of Renesse: 2427 kilometers from Santiago de Compostela. (July 13, 2022)

This year, just before I left for Santiago de Compostela, I took this photo of the church. I realized its motivational value while walking the Camino: it would remind me that I would walk only one-third of a "real" pilgrimage that would have started from my Dutch home. Besides, I knew I might use it someday in a newsletter about St. James and the Camino.

I always end with a call to subscribe to this newsletter. People subscribe when I write about climate change and ignore this call when I write posts like these. But those who have followed me for a more extended period know that I took -and needed- a break from the bad news. So the focus this summer is on travel, history, the beauty of nature, or anything else that I believe might interest you. Yes, we will be back at all the planet's problems by late September, but let's enjoy these themes a bit more. Your support helps; I recently lost some subscribers, and new supporters would be very welcome.

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Somehwere along the Camino

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The Back Page

Another pilgrim you will see on the Camino.

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Notes:

https://www.hillwalktours.com/walking-hiking-blog/camino-history-who-was-saint-james/

https://followthecamino.com/en/blog/history-of-the-apostle-saint-james/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grote_or_Sint-Jacobskerk_(The_Hague)

https://medieval-sculpture.com/2018/10/19/not-the-hand/