Saint James, the son of Zebedee, is called the Greater, as the other James is called the Less. He is called the Greater because he was called earlier by Christ and because of his intimacy with Christ. Our Lord seems to have held this James in closer friendship than the other, admitting him to His secrets, as when he was present at the raising of the daughter of Jairus and at the Transfiguration. Saint James was the first of the apostles to be put to death. He is called Greater because he received the grace of the apostolate earlier.

James the Apostle went to Spain to sow the word of God. He had been able to gather only nine disciples in Spain. He left two disciples to preach and returned to Judea with the other seven. Upon his return to Judea the Pharisees asked a magician named Hermogenes to send his disciple Philetus to confront James and to convict him of the falsity for his doctrine before the Jews.

When the Jews saw that Hermogenes was converted, they came in anger to James, and turned against him for preaching Christ crucified. And the apostle proved the mission and the Passion of Christ so clearly to them, citing the sacred books, that many were converted. Abiathar, who was the high priest of the year, incited the populace to riot, caused a rope to be thrown about the apostle's neck and dragged him before Herod Agrippa. Saint James was beheaded on March 25, the day of the Annunciation.

The disciples laid the body of the apostle on a great stone, which immediately softened as if it were wax, and shaped itself into a sarcophagus fitted to his body. The disciples went to Queen Lupa and said to her: "Our Lord Jesus Christ sends thee the body of His disciple, that thou mayest welcome in death him whom thou wouldst not welcome alive!" And they narrated to her the miracle whereby they had come thither without a rudder nor a steersman, and besought her to appoint a place for the burial of the saint. She guilefully sent them to the king of Spain, a most cruel man, with the pretext of seeking his permission for the saint's burial; and the king arrested them and threw them into prison. In the night an angel opened the prison doors and set them free. The king sent soldiers in pursuit of them but just as these soldiers were crossing a bridge it collapsed and the soldiers were drowned. At this report, the king feared for himself and his people, and repented.

The disciples returned to Lupa, to make known to her the kings's assent. The queen was sore distraught at these tidings, and answered: "I have oxen in a mountain place. Take them and yoke them, and carry your master's body wherever you wish, and build him a tomb!" All this she said in cunning, for she knew that the oxen were really untamed and savage bulls, and she thought that they could not be yoked or harnessed. The disciples, unaware of the queen's ruse, went up into the mountain, where first they encountered a dragon which belched fire; but they held a cross before him, and he was cloven asunder. Then they made the sign of the cross over the bulls and they became as meek as lambs. They drew the saint's body, with the stone in which it was laid into the middle of the queen's palace. The queen was dismayed, believed in Christ, transformed her palace into a church of Saint James, and endowed it munificently.

Saint James feast day is July 25.