(4) ST ANDREW AND ST LUKE THE EVANGELIST
We can deal with the festivals of these two saints together, for in the year 357, on the 3rd March, their relics were solemnly translated at the same time to the Church of the Apostles in Constantinople.[620] Until this date the tomb of St Andrew was in Patras, where he had suffered death. The previous burial place of St Luke is not specified, but it may have been either in Patras or somewhere in the neighbourhood. The possession of St Andrew’s relics was of great importance to Constantinople, because he was regarded as the apostolic founder of the Christian community there, and the catalogue of bishops, which, historically speaking, only begins with Metrophanes (315-325), has been carried back to him, inasmuch as it was maintained he had ordained Stachys as first bishop of the See. More certain, from an historical point of view, is his martyrdom at Patras, of which we have a trustworthy account.[621] Besides this, there is a well-known encyclical letter to the priests and deacons of Achaia, which in all essential points agrees with the account of the martyrdom, although in some other respects it is open to criticism.[622] The so-called martyrology of Jerome on 5th February commemorates St Andrew’s ordination as Bishop of Patras.
The date for St Luke’s death never varied and seems to be correct. Both dates, the 18th October and the 30th November, appear in the oldest Neapolitan Calendar, which contains no other festival of an apostle except St James the Less (27th December). From the fact that the relics of St Andrew and St Luke happened to be translated at the same time, many ancient and modern writers drew the hasty conclusion that St Luke had also died in Patras and been buried there. A document which, though certainly late, can yet be traced back to Philostorgius,[623] gives the true place of his death and burial as Thebes, which Paulinus of Nola confirms. His relics may well have been translated thence at the same time as those of St Andrew were brought from Patras. They were carried to Constantinople at the command of the Emperor Constantius by the official Artemius, who had also brought the relics of St Timothy to the capital.
(5) ST JAMES THE GREAT
James, the son of Zebedee and brother of St John the Evangelist, was a native of Galilee. His labours, after the Crucifixion, were not of long duration, for in the year 42 or 43 he was beheaded at the instigation of King Herod Agrippa I., who had enjoyed indeed the dignity of king of Judea since 37, but only during the last years of his reign did his power extend over Jerusalem. According to the usual custom he came to Jerusalem for the Passover, and then, in order to gain favour with the Jews, he had St James seized and made away with shortly before the feast; and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also, in order to make away with him too, after the feast. This happened not long before the death of Herod himself, which is narrated in the same chapter of the Acts (Acts xii. 1-4 and 23).
The day of St James’s death was shortly before Easter, or, as we should say, in Holy Week, and, in accordance with this circumstance, the Copts keep his commemoration on the 12th April,[624] and the Syrian lectionary of Antioch on the 30th of the same month. Although these do not exactly represent the actual day of his death, they are not far off from it. The observance of the actual day was, moreover, interfered with by the circumstance that it came at a season when the thought of our Lord’s passion prevented the celebration of a martyr’s feast. In the menologies he is mentioned only in the Basilianum on the 9th October.
The bodily remains of St James, as well as those of St James the Less, were still in Jerusalem in the sixth century.[625] In the ninth century we find them in Spain, at Compostela, where they were an object of great veneration, as we learn from Notker Balbulus.[626] They must have been taken there some time between the seventh and ninth centuries. An account of the translation, such as we possess in other instances, is not extant; there is no information in any author to show when or by whom the translation was carried out. The translation itself can well be historically true, although the opinion that St James preached the gospel in Spain is only a legend.[627] One is led to think that the relics were secretly carried off by Christians from Jerusalem from fear of the Arabs, and finally found a second resting-place in Spain.
The Roman breviary and martyrology place his feast on the 25th July, which is marked as the day of a translation of his relics, without giving any further particulars. The Gelasianum does not mention St James, and he appears in liturgical books only at the end of the eighth century. His name is entirely absent from the older liturgical books of the ancient Spanish Church, an inexplicable circumstance had he been the apostle of Spain. The veneration for him begins to show itself in Spain only from the ninth century. In Western Calendars he appears in that ascribed to Charlemagne of 781, published by Piper, and also in the later MSS. of the Gregorianum, but not in the sacramentary of Mainz dating from 840. The entries in the different recensions of the Hieronymianum are noteworthy. The Weissenburg codex on the 25th July has simply a martyr James, with no other specification except Portus Romanus as an indication of place; the Echternach codex describes this martyr as apostolus and frater Joannis Evang.,[628] and adds Hierosolym; the codex of Bern has briefly Passio S. Jacobi. It is not evident on what grounds the two later recensions have made James, the martyr of Portus Romanus, into the apostle. The Neapolitanum does not mention an apostle James on the 25th July, although it does on the 15th November,[629] and, along with Philip, on 1st May. Although he is found in Bede, he is absent from the Calendar of St Geneviève, dating from 731-741.