Note 378 — Chapter XXVII
Reading edition
A shepherd, we are told, watching his flock in a wild mountain district in Galicia, was astonished at the appearance of a supernatural light. The Bishop of Iria Flavia (Padron) was consulted. The place so divinely illuminated was carefully searched, and in a marble sarcophagus, the body of Saint James the Greater was revealed to the faithful investigators. The king, overjoyed at the discovery, at once erected upon the ground thus consecrated a church or chapel dedicated to the apostle—the forerunner of the noble cathedral of Santiago de Compostella, and from the first, the favourite resort of the pilgrims of Christian Europe. For it was not only a relic, but a legend that had been discovered by the pious doctors of the church.