St. James the Elder, Apostle

James the Great, son of Zebedee and brother of John the Evangelist, was one of the first disciples called by Jesus and a member of the privileged inner circle that also included Peter and John. Together with these two, James witnessed three events that no other apostle saw: the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, the raising of Jairus' daughter, and the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus gave James and his brother John the nickname 'Boanerges' — 'Sons of Thunder' — possibly reflecting their zealous temperaments. This fiery character is displayed when they ask Jesus to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that refused to receive him, and when they (or their mother) request the privilege of sitting at Jesus' right and left hand in his glory. Jesus' response, asking whether they could drink his cup of suffering, proved prophetic: James became the first of the Twelve Apostles to be martyred. The account of James's death in Acts 12 is brief but historically significant. Around AD 44, King Herod Agrippa I 'had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword' — making James the only apostle whose martyrdom is recorded directly in the New Testament. This execution occurred during a period when Herod was persecuting the Church to curry favor with the Jewish religious leaders. James's most enduring legacy is connected to Spain and the famous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. According to Spanish tradition dating to at least the seventh century, James preached the Gospel in the Iberian Peninsula before returning to Jerusalem, where he was martyred. In the ninth century, a tomb identified as his was discovered in Galicia, and the site rapidly became one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Christendom, rivaling Rome and Jerusalem. The Camino de Santiago, the network of pilgrimage routes leading to his shrine, continues to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims annually and was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.