matamoros & boanerges

[Joe & MJ]

Donald very wisely (in trying to bring the current list "holy war" back to
its Camino purpose wrote:
> Is it possible a little historical reflection on the contradictory
> experiences and symbols of the pilgrimage itself would serve us here?
>
> I remember reading that the Matamoros legend, Santiago on horseback, sword
> drawn riding above the heads of the beleaguered Spanish, was a piece of
> monastically generated medieval propaganda.  The 'vision' appears in the
> account of a battle that never happened.   But it captured the imagination
> of a people needing divine sanction for their war and it created a
> non-pilgrim iconography of St. James.
>
> What's fascinating to me is that experience of pilgrims seems to push
> Matamoros to the side, and the wayfarer St. James, the dusty pilgrim with
> the big hat, walking stick, and water gourd seems to replace the
> warrior St.
> James so steadily and relentlessly
[snip]
> Thousands and millions of people actually walking the pilgrimage re-framed
> Santiago back to imagery that fit their experience.  James, an
> ordinary man,
> a disciple of Jesus who taught peace and died for it, shed the incongruous
> warrior garb that had been thrust on him.
[snip]

It should be remembered, that the Matamoros image did not develop ex-nihilo.
James and his brother John were given the name "Boanerges" (sons of thunder;
Mark 3:17) by Jesus in the following NT passage: (Luke 9: 51-56)
When the days drew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to
Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a
village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; but the people would not
receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his
disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to bid
fire come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked
them. And they went on to another village.


Also in Mark 10: 35-40 James and John, not so humbly, go to Jesus and ask
Him to grant their one request--that they will be allowed to sit "one at
your right hand and one at your left, in your glory". Not such humble guys,
and they certainly stirred up the wrath of the other disciples with this
request.

So it seems to me that the "re-framed Santiago" is actually reframed back
into Christ's image, rather than the other way around. The "matamoros"
imagery is perhaps truer to James' original nature / image than the peaceful
pilgrim.

Maryjane