The translation of St James the Great’s body

Abstract

There is enough evidence outside Spain on Saint James the Great’s preaching of the Gospel in Hispania. There are also documents of Spanish origin on that evangelization. However, the tradition on the transfer of the Apostle’s body from Palestine to Galicia rests on scarce evidence.

The earliest writings on the coming of the Apostle to Spain are two martyrologies composed in Lyon: one by Floro, written between 808 and 838, and the other by Adón, written between 850 and 860. Alphonse III is the first Spaniard who gives some details about this transfer in a writing from 906. Among the medieval texts on this transfer, there is one found in a book written between 1100 and 1139, during the lifetime of archbishop Diego Gelmírez, La historia compostelana or the Gelmírez’s Deeds, however, some historians of the Church consider two or three different transfers more plausible than one.

In his lecture on the Apostolic sepulchre, Professor E. Kirschbaum, S.J., an expert on Christian archeology, stated that in the light of the recent archaeological discoveries the transfer of a corpse in Roman times from Palestine to the distant corner of the then known land does not contradict what is known about the traditions on the transfer of corpses of other famous figures in the late antiquity, such as Moses, Alexander the Great or St. Stephen.