The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James

other disciples, for, as St. Matthew says: ‘When the ten heard it, they were moved with indignation against the two brethren.’ Jesus, however, did not so readily censure the mother who ministered to Him and whose love remained steadfast even to the end. He knew that the two brothers were inspired by exultant faith, and their answer to His question showed that they would go through any suffering for Him, and so He accepted their sacrifice. With Peter they would witness His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
    After the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension there is a period of twelve or fourteen years about which the Holy Books say nothing. In the Golden Legend we are told that James the Apostle, son of Zebedee, preached in the Jewry and SaMaría, and afterwards he was sent into Spain to sow the word of Jesus Christ. He profited but little in Spain, for he converted unto Christ’s law but nine disciples, of whom he left two there to preach the word of God.
    Such is the most ancient Spanish tradition as repeated in the Golden Legend, but other historians maintain that the Apostle made many converts and founded dioceses. It was said that he landed in Andalusia and from there followed the Roman road which linked Italy with Mérida and passed through Coimbra and Braga to the harbour of the river at Iria in Gahcia. Iria, which later was known as Padrón after the Apostle, deserves to be visited no less than Santiago, if we believe the proverbial saying so often quoted by pilgrims:

    Quien vay a Santiago e non va al Padrón,
    O faz roMaría, o non.

    Many of the local legends in Galicia describe the adventures of the wandering Apostle. He is said to have preached at the wind-swept hamlet of Mugía on a narrow isthmus near the cliff of Finisterre, where the inhabitants still proudly show a large, flat stone that was the keel of the stone boat in which Our Lady sailed from Jerusalem to Spain. She appeared to comfort the Saint when he was preaching and the prints of her feet are still shown in the stone. At certain times, according to the fishermen, the keel of that stone boat appears to sway slightly, but this is probably the imaginations of the natives who inhabit this ghostly shore with its roaring sea and moaning wind. The fisherwomen who chant the old folk song of Our Lady of the Ship still believe in the rocking-stone:

    Veño d’a Virxe d’a Barca
    Veño d’abaná-la pedra
    Tamén veño de vos ver
    Santo Cristo de Finisterra!

    In Caldas de Reyes a curious relief was discovered which shows the body of St. James in a boat drawn by a swan maiden who, though like a siren, is winged and web-footed like Lohengrin’s magic pilot. *
    An ancient tradition tells us that the Saint, after leaving one of his disciples, Pedro Rates, as bishop in Braga, and other anonymous followers in Lugo and Astorga, wended his way along the Roman road, through Osma and Numantia to Caesaraugusta or Saragossa; though other historians, such as Fray Lamberto de Zaragoza, maintain that he disembarked at Cartagena or Tortosa. The tradition holds that during his stay in Saragossa the Saint was depressed in spirit, for the sight of the enslaved population and its miseries made him feel that his mission had been in vain. Was it not useless to preach the Sermon of the Mount to the deaf ears of those who gloried in their pagan feasts? Again Our Lady came to him in his affliction.
    One night when his disciples were sleeping and he was kneeling in prayer he heard in the distance the voices of angels singing Ave María, gratia plena, as though they were beginning Matins. And he saw a multitude of angels bringing Our Lady on a throne from Jerusalem in great glory, and by her a wooden image of her, and a column of jasper. The celestial harmony continued to the Benedicamus Domino which ends the Matins, and the Apostle then heard Our Lady call him gently by name, bidding him build her a temple on that spot, for said she, “this place is to be my house, and this image and column shall be the title and Altar of the temple that you shall build.” *
    St. James straightway began to build there a church to which he gave the name, Our Lady of the Pillar, and, according to the ancient Latin manuscript preserved in the archives of El Pilar, this was the first church in the world to be consecrated by the hands of an apostle to the glory of the Blessed Virgin. Before he left Saragossa on his way back to Jerusalem and to his martyrdom the Saint named his