Who was Santiago anyway?

The Camino de Santiago means the way of Saint James, but there are three of them in the New Testament.

Our guy is sometimes referred to as James the Greater. He was the son of Zebedee the fisherman and brother of John. According to one tradition, his mother was Salome, one of Jesus’ women followers and supporters.

There was also among the Twelve James son of Alphaeus, sometimes unflatteringly know as James the Less.

More interesting was James “the brother of the Lord,” also know as James the Just, who is referred to in Acts and Galatians. He was a leader of the Jerusalem congregation. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus refers to him as “brother of Jesus who was called Christ.”

He was said to have been stoned to death in the AD 60s during the Jewish rebellion against Rome. (Jesus’ followers during that time and place were total outsiders, neither supporting Rome nor the violent rebellion against it.)

Back to our guy. When Jesus called James and John to follow him, they left Zebedee holding the bag-or in this case the nets.

In the first three gospels, James, along with John and Peter, were in Jesus’ inner circle and were there for key events, including the Transfiguration.

No disrespect intended, but James was a bit of a screwup at times. He and his brother stirred up controversy among the Twelve by wanting front row seats in the Kingdom. They also wanted Jesus to call down a fire from heaven when they were hassled by Samaritans. For that, Jesus called them “sons of thunder.” He also snoozed with John and Peter while Jesus prayed in Gesthamene even though Jesus asked them to stay awake with him.

I find it comforting to think that Jesus had/has a soft spot for screwups.

James shows up again in Acts, where he is beheaded by Herod (probably Herod Agrippa around  44 AD). He wasn’t the first Christian martyr—that honor belongs to Stephen—but he seems to have been the first among the Twelve to die for the faith.

(Herod later gets his, being “eaten by worms” apparently before his death. Yuk.)

If that wasn’t eventful enough, Santiago’s story gets even weirder after his death.

More about that next time.