Searching for the real Saint Nicholas presents the usual
problems. Historians in the age of the saints were not interested in removing
certain doubtful accretions from their hagiographic accounts. It is very
difficult, if not impossible, at this remove to separate the historical wheat
from the chaff in the legends of old Saint Nick; and doing so would be
inadvisable – because legends also affect history; in fact, the legend may have
a more profound effect on events than what we moderns call historical facts.
It does not help that the legend and hagiography of Saint
Nicholas of Myra (4th century) is in some measure intermingled with
the life of Nicholas of Pharroa, monk of Sion and Bishop of Pinara (6th
century).
Church records in the 6th century were more
complete than those of earlier centuries because the Christian church only
began to flourish after a long period of severe persecution had ended. Nicholas
of Myra (in present day Turkey) is a saint of the persecuted church, a time in
which Christian saints witnessed to the truth with their blood, sweat and tears.
Although there were more churches and monasteries during
Nicholas of Sion’s time -- and therefore a greater accrual of detailed
chronology – the personality that emerges from these accounts is far less
powerful than that of the earlier Saint Nicholas of Myra, already known and
venerated during Nicholas of Sion’s time. In fact, many of the elements of
Christian hagiography properly attributed to Nicholas of Sion -- such as having
Christian parents, being an only child, suckling only once a day on Wednesdays
and Fridays, receiving a Christian education and charity towards the poor, all
common elements of saints' lives -- were transferred backwards during the 9th
and 10th centuries to Nicholas of Myra.
Modern historians, in discounting the power of legend while in
pursuit of the “real” Saint Nicholas of history, by-pass an important creative
element of history itself – the very real and historical effects produced by
historically questionable fabulist elements.
There are roughly 15,000 books written about Abe Lincoln.
Authors who have written about Lincoln, called by Henry Mencken “the solar myth
of American history,” no doubt were faithful to historical fact. But the
authors wrote their books and film makers made their films not because they
were captivated by facts, but rather because they were drawn into the orbit of
a commanding personality that transcended the facts to which they were, we
hope, faithful. Such was the personality of Nicholas of Myra.
The Saint Nicholas of history – and history will forever
include fabulist elements – is the (ITALICS) venerated (END ITALICS) saint
of the Christian Church. By the 9th and 10th centuries,
the hagiography of Nicholas of Myra was fully formed.
St. Nick was what we might be called a man of the people;
indeed, a bishop of the people. Legend has it that he was made bishop almost by
accident. In the 6th century, bishops were chosen by convocation of
bishops, later by the pope of the Christian Church. One of the bishops gathered
to choose a bishop for Myra in the 4th century had a dream the night
before the convocation in which an angel had told him that the first person
entering the church door on the day of the convocation who was named Nicholas
was to be chosen bishop of the see vacated by a recently deceased bishop.
Nicholas of Myra entered first. Replying to the question “What is your name?”
he answered “Nicholas of Myra” and was so chosen, in accordance with heavenly
instructions.
Nicholas of Myra, a witness to the truth during a period
when the emperors of Rome were ruthlessly persecuting Christians, was a bishop
of the suffering church. In 325, near the end of the persecutions, he answered
the call of Constantine and appeared at the council of Nicaea to rebut the
Arian heresy, which held that Christ was a created being, not fully God. Legend
has it that so on fire was Nicholas in his defense of Christian orthodoxy that
he slapped Arias in the face. However, modern scholarship tends to the view
that Nicholas persuaded heretics with all the talents at his disposal, chiefly
his superior intelligence and his virtue, a principal of right action among
early Christians.
The saint’s most often remembered exploit involved three
daughters whose father, a poor man, could not afford a proper dowry for them,
which meant, in the absence of any other possible employment, they would be
forced into prostitution. Too modest to offer public help and wishing to save
the father the humiliation of accepting charity, Nicholas, under cover of
night, threw three purses, each containing gold coins, through a window opening
on the man’s house.
There are variations of the legend: In one, the purses are
given out in three year periods just as each daughter comes of age; in another,
the father, wishing to discover his benefactor, confronts the saint and is met
with an avowal that he should not thank Nicholas but God, through whom all good
things come; in another, wishing to escape the notice of the father, Nicholas
drops the third purse down the chimney; and in another, Nicholas hides the
coins in a stocking one of the girls has washed and hung over the embers to dry,
an image we recreate in hanging of our Christmas stockings by the fireside.
Nicholas is venerated all over the world. Among Greeks and
in Italy, he is the saint of Harbors. A Greek himself – indeed, the patron
saint of Greece -- Nicholas appears in folklore as “The Lord of the Sea,” a
Christianized version of Poiseidon. In iconography, an art that captures in its
representations the religious essence of personality, Nicholas is without
question the most recognized saint of the Christian Church. The Museum of
Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, which houses the largest collection of
Russian icons in North America, has in its collection no fewer than 20 icons of
the saint, one of which dates from 1525 and is shown above.
Within the Orthodox Church, St. Nicholas is specially
venerated. In the liturgical weekly cycle of the church, only three persons –
the mother of God, John the Forerunner and Saint Nicholas – are singled out by
name. Léonide Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, in their magisterial The
Meaning of Icons, tell us why. The church regards the saint, who left
behind no theological works or other writings, as the personification of a shepherd,
defender of the church and intercessor:
"Having
fulfilled the Gospel of Christ . . . thou hast appeared in truth as a most
hallowed shepherd to the world. According to his Life, when St. Nicholas was
raised to the dignity of bishop he said, ‘This dignity and this office demand
different usage, in order that one should live no longer for oneself but for
others.’ This ‘life for others’ is his characteristic feature and is manifested
by the great variety of forms of his solicitude for [people] — his care for their
preservation, their protection from the elements, from human injustice, from
heresies and so forth. This solicitude was accompanied by numerous miracles
both during his life and after his death. Indefatigable intercessor, steadfast,
uncompromising fighter for Orthodoxy, ‘he was meek and gentle in his
disposition and humble in spirit.’”
A minister for all
seasons, St. Nicholas is venerated in the Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church,
the Episcopal Church, the Baptist Church and other churches because in him was
mixed in a vital way the very essence of the Christian ministerial spirit, and
for this reason also he is a more powerful force for good in history than many
historical persons about whose lives we know, or think we know, all the dead
historical facts.
Nicholas was
regarded as a saint by his contemporaries before
he died, and his remains, his very bones, gave birth to miracles; so much so
that he is called “The Wonderworker.” Over the years, his relics have been
dispersed to his native Greece, Italy, Russia and – this will surprise some --
New York City.
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, a modest four
story structure nestled in the shadow of the World Trade Center Towers, was one
of the repositories of a Saint Nicholas relic when on 9-11 it was destroyed in
the terror attack by one of the falling Trade Center Towers, the remains of
Saint Nicholas mingling with those of so many others who died that day. They
will be in our prayers this Christmas as we eat our candy canes, a visible
symbol of Saint Nicholas’ crozier, as we hang our stocking over the warm embers
in our fireplaces, a remembrance of the saving kindness – more than a fable, so
much more – of that day centuries ago when a father discovered the charity of
Saint Nicholas in gold coins left in his daughters stockings. And we know – do
we not? – that the relics of Nicholas now mixed with the dust of New York are
yet this Christmas capable of saving what is best in us all.
Comments
Thanks. I was toying with the idea of calling the piece, “Yes Nick, There Is a Saint Nick,” a knock off on the usual Christmas column printed during this time of year, “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” My nephew is named Nick.