The Life
James was the older brother of Saint John the Theologian. The two were fishermen of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee, sons of Zebedee and Salome (Salome was one of the holy myrrh-bearing women, and the family had hired servants in their boat). The Lord called the two brothers while they were mending their nets with their father. They left their nets, left their father, and followed him at once. The Lord called the two brothers “the Sons of Thunder” for the fiery character of their love. James was one of the inner three apostles, with Peter and his younger brother John. The Lord took these three with him on his most intimate occasions — the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the Agony in Gethsemane. After Pentecost he preached widely, by tradition even as far as Spain. He was the first of the Twelve to be martyred, beheaded by King Herod Agrippa I at Jerusalem around the year 44 (Acts 12:2). It is the only apostolic martyrdom recorded in the New Testament itself.
James and John were working in their father’s fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee one morning, mending the nets after a long night’s work. The Lord came along the shore. He had already called Peter and Andrew. He looked at the two sons of Zebedee and called them. They got out of the boat, left their father with the hired servants, and followed him. The Gospel of Matthew says simply: “And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him” (Matthew 4:22). The detail that they left their father is significant. They did not wait for the next season. They did not provide for transition. They left at once.
About a week after Peter’s great confession at Caesarea Philippi, the Lord took Peter, James, and John — the three apostles closest to him — up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun. His garments became dazzling white. The patriarchs Moses and Elijah appeared and talked with him about his coming Passion at Jerusalem. A bright cloud overshadowed them. A voice from the cloud said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.” The three disciples fell on their faces in deep awe. The vision was the uncreated divine light shining out of the Lord’s humanity. James saw it with his own eyes.
On the road to Jerusalem in the last weeks of the Lord’s public ministry, James and John — with their mother Salome — came to the Lord with a bold request. “Grant unto us that we may sit, one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, in thy glory.” The Lord answered with a question that cut directly to the meaning of glory: “Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?” They answered, perhaps too quickly, perhaps without yet understanding: “We can.” The Lord’s response was a prophecy: “Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of” (Mark 10:35-40). Both brothers would drink that cup. James would be first.
After the Resurrection of the Lord and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, James preached the Gospel widely. He preached first in Judea and the surrounding regions. According to the tradition of the Spanish Church, he then traveled westward across the Mediterranean and preached in the Iberian Peninsula — modern Spain and Portugal. He is honored to this day as the apostolic founder of the Spanish Church. He returned eventually to Jerusalem, where he resumed his ministry there. He preached openly and powerfully against the unbelief of the religious authorities, refuting them from the Hebrew Scriptures. None of them could withstand his preaching.
Around the year 44, the Jewish religious authorities persuaded King Herod Agrippa I (the grandson of Herod the Great, who had ordered the slaughter of the Holy Innocents) to begin a fresh persecution against the Christians. Herod arrested James and condemned him to death by beheading (Acts 12:1-2). It is the only apostolic martyrdom recorded in the New Testament itself. The historian Eusebius preserves a beautiful detail about the execution. One of those who had given false testimony against James, named Josiah, was so struck by the courage and serenity with which the apostle bore his condemnation that he himself converted to Christ. As they were leading James to the place of execution, Josiah fell at his feet, repented of his false witness, and asked forgiveness. James embraced him, kissed him, and said: “Peace and forgiveness be with you.” Josiah confessed his faith in Christ and was beheaded together with the apostle.
These words of the Lord to James and his brother John on the road to Jerusalem are the prophecy of their entire apostolic life. James drank the cup of martyrdom in 44, the first of the Twelve. John drank the cup through decades of exile on Patmos and pastoral suffering at Ephesus, the only apostle who did not die a martyr. The cup the Lord himself drank in his Passion is the cup he offers to all his disciples. The Eucharist itself is the cup of his blood, the cup of communion with him in suffering and glory together. Every Christian who comes to the chalice drinks the same cup that the Lord first drank, that James drank, that John drank, that every Christian drinks who unites his life with the Lord’s.
The tradition of the Spanish Church holds that after his martyrdom at Jerusalem, James’s disciples Theodore and Athanasius brought his body back to the Spanish lands where he had preached. They buried him at a place in northwestern Spain that came to be called Compostela. The tomb was forgotten for many centuries during the Visigothic and Moorish periods. It was rediscovered in the ninth century, around the year 813, when a hermit named Pelagius was guided to the spot by a heavenly star (campus stellae, “field of the star,” from which the name Compostela is traditionally derived). The bishop of Iria Flavia confirmed the relics. King Alfonso II of Asturias built the first church over the tomb. The shrine became a major pilgrimage destination throughout medieval Christendom.
James matters to every Orthodox Christian for many reasons. He was the older brother of Saint John the Theologian. He was one of the inner three apostles — with Peter and John — taken into the deepest moments of the Lord’s public ministry: the raising of the daughter of Jairus, the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, the Agony in Gethsemane. He was the first of the Twelve to drink the cup the Lord had prophesied he would drink. He was beheaded by Herod Agrippa at Jerusalem around the year 44 — the only apostolic martyrdom recorded in the New Testament itself. By tradition he had also preached in Spain. His shrine at Santiago de Compostela has been one of the great pilgrimage destinations of all Christian history. He is the patron of Spain, of pilgrims, and of every Christian who drinks the cup of the Lord.