The history and origins of Saint Nicholas

The legend of St Nicholas is based on a real man named Nicholas. Not much is known about the man himself. Many legends and stories circulate around him.

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Nicholas was born in Patara, in southern Turkey, around 280AD.

It was rumoured that his parents were wealthy and they may have been Christians. And so it is presumed that Nicholas himself also became a Christian while he was quite young.

After being educated by his uncle, a priest in Xanthos, a local community to Patara, Nicholas moved to Myra. Legend has it that his parents died around this time leaving him a considerable amount of money. Instead of living off his parents' money, he decided to give it all away and become a priest. This would probably not have been an easy decision - not only was he giving away his inheritance - but becoming a Christian priest meant standing up against Roman opposition and persecution.

For over 200 years Christians had been persecuted. It started with Emperor Nero in 64 AD. He blamed Christians for burning down Rome. The persecutions continued under Emperor Domitian during the 90s AD and during the next 200 years, tensions between Rome and Christians would periodically bubble to the surface.

When Nicholas was young, Emperor Diocletian was co-ruler and governed over the eastern part of the empire. Christians were ignored for many years. However, in a few years, his whole world would be turned upside down as Diocletian turned against the Christians. During 303 AD the persecutions began.

Nicholas was a priest in the city of Myra when the local Bishop was killed. Legend has it that the church was looking for a new Bishop. One of the elders of the church had a dream which he believed was sent from God. The vision was that the first priest to walk through the ‘front’ enterance of the church the next day would be called Nicholas and he was to become the next Bishop. Sure enough, the next day, Nicholas entered the ‘front’ church first thing in the morning and he was the first priest to arrive. The old man was waiting at the door. He greeted Nicholas and asked “what is your name?” And the young man replied, “Nicholas, your servant in Jesus Christ!” When the rest of the elders of the church arrived, the old man shared his dream and declared that Nicholas was the man and should be made Bishop. The other elders of the church agreed and Nicholas was then ordained Bishop of Myra.

The legend also states that Nicholas was still very young – around 20 years of age. During the Middle Ages, Pope Gregory IV decided to institute a clerical office as a tribute to Nicholas. So he selected one boy from the church, who would serve in full capacity as Bishop. This would occur each year from December 6, the date of Nicholas’ death, until Holy Innocence day, on December 28. And in some churches, this tradition still continues today.

During the early days of Nicholas’ time as Bishop, his faith was tested and his life was in grave danger due to the fires of persecution.

Diocletian, the principal ruler of the eastern part the empire, ruled from Nicomedia (modern day Izmit in Turkey). During the 19th year of his rule, 303 AD, Diocletian was encouraged by Galerius to reinvigorate patriotic feeling and Roman culture within the empire. This meant more than just feeling proud to be Roman - it meant getting back to the foundations of Roman culture, which was the public worship of Roman gods. So suddenly, the Roman Empire and Christians were once again on a collision course.

The first of Diocletian’s laws was to burn all Bibles and prohibit Christians from worshipping publicly. The second law stated that all priests and Bishops must worship and sacrifice to the Roman gods – something a Christian couldn’t and wouldn’t do. If these priests and Bishops failed to do so, they were to be arrested or worse, killed.

Nicholas, being Bishop of Myra, would have been one of those forced to worship and sacrifice to Roman gods. It appears that he refused to do so, as he was immediately placed into prison.

The ancient church historian Eusebius, who was alive during this period of persecution, wrote that:

“The persecution caused rivers of blood to flow through the Empire, especially up north in the Capital Nicomedia, where the Bishop Anthimus and a great many Christians were martyred.”

This persecution would test the convictions of many Christians. And for some, the price of staying true to their beliefs would prove too much.

After Diocletian’s announcement of the laws, two fires broke out within his imperial palace at Nicomedia (where Galerius, the man who was encouraging the persecution, was staying). Rumours circulated that the Christians from Nicomedia were to blame. This only enraged Diocletian and Galerius and made them more determined to continue their persecution and torment of Christians.

When Diocletian retired, Galerius became co-Emperor and ruler of the eastern side of the empire in 305AD. He continued the Christian persecution policy that in many ways he began.

However, six years later, Emperor Galerius seemed to have a change of heart about his persecution policy. At age 61, his health deteriorated – no one is sure of his sickness but many historians believe that he was dying of cancer. While sick in bed, he called in the other two rulers of the Roman Empire - Constantine and Licinius - and decided to change Diocletian’s law of persecuting the Christians, which he had encouraged. The law had failed. It was created to unify the population and destroy the Christian minority, but it hadn’t really inspired enthusiasm in the empire and had only served to harden the commitment of Christians.

So he issued the law of ‘Toleration’ during 311:
“… since many still persist in their opinions and since we have observed that they now neither show due reverence to the gods nor worship their own God, we therefore, with our … clemency in extending pardon to all, are pleased to grant indulgence to these men, allowing Christians the right to exist again to set up their places of worship…”

Christians were released from prison and one of those released was the Bishop of Myra, Nicholas. Christians would soon receive further good news a year later when the new co-Emperor Constantine won the battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD. All church property taken during the years of persecution was to be returned to Christians and in a few years time, Christianity would soon become the state religion.

The physical threat of Roman persecution was over. Indeed it appeared that Emperor Constantine, if he wasn’t already Christian, would soon be converted to the faith. Under Constantine’s rule, it seemed all that Bishop Nicholas and his contemporaries had to do was rebuild their churches and care for the population. But this was not the case.

A new threat emerged to challenge contemporary Christian thinking and the foundation of the Gospel that the Apostle Paul had established throughout Turkey and Greece.

The threat would come from within the church. A man named Arius, who lived in Alexandria, started to challenge conventional Christian thinking. He was born in 256 AD and he was more than 60 years of age when his assertions started to take effect.

He put forward the notion that Jesus Christ was not God’s son. This thought not only challenged Christian teaching and what the Apostle Paul had taught. It also challenged what Jesus had taught about himself.

You might remember the story in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus took his disciples to Caesarea Philippi and asked them: “Who do people say that I am?” And one of the disciples Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of God!” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you Simon Peter. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, this understanding has come from God’s Holy Spirit.”

Despite what the Church taught at the time, Arius’ teaching started to attract a large following. It is said that women were impressed by the way he spoke and men by what he said.

However the leaders of the church weren’t. And they saw this as a direct threat to the very foundations of Christianity. So the Emperor Constantine, who was now the sole ruler of the empire and a supporter of Christianity, was persuaded to host a conference in Nicea. The subject of discussion: the very foundations of Christian belief. Bishops from all over the empire attended the conference in 325 AD. One of the Bishops who attended was Bishop Nicholas.

Legend has it that during the conference Arius spoke and explained his views. Nicholas heard what he said and was so enraged at the heresy that he walked over and slapped Arius in the face. Nicholas was quickly restrained and put in prison for a short period. He was later allowed to return to the conference. The story is meant to teach us something of Nicholas’ theology, that he believed that Jesus Christ was the son of God. The physical confrontation, however, is very unlikely to have occurred, as there is no evidence that Arius was at the conference, and if he was, he would have been about 71 years old, while Nicholas was just 45, which makes for a bit of a physical mismatch.

What we do know about the Nicea conference is that Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea (Israel) and subsequent church historian put forward a creed, or in other words, a statement of belief for the council to consider. He had written it for his congregation back in Caesarea, and they had been using for some time. It read:

“We believe in one God, the Father All-sovereign, the maker of things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, Son only-begotten, first born of all creation, begotten of the Father before all the ages, through whom also all things were made; who was made flesh for our salvation and lived among men, and suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended to the Father, and shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead;

We believe in one Holy Spirit."

The council members like Eusebius’ creed. However they feared that it did not explicitly address some of the heresies that Arius raised. So it was taken as a base and developed slightly to deal with some of the present problems. (Additions and alterations to the creed are in bold type below.)

We believe in one God, the Father All-sovereign, the maker of things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son Word of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, true God of true God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, Son only-begotten, first born of all creation, begotten of the Father before all the ages, through whom also all things were made, things in heaven and things on the earth; who for us men and for our salvation came down, was made flesh and became man. lived among men, and He suffered, and rose again on the third day, and ascended into the heavens, is coming to the Father, and shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead;

And we believe in one Holy Spirit."

In this creed, the council not only had a statement of belief that reflected what the Bible taught about Jesus, it also outlined in no uncertain terms that what Arius taught was completely wrong.

Many Christians today still recite the structure and substance of the creed, which is still called the Nicene Creed.

The Bishops at the Nicene conference were all asked to sign up to the creed. Only two Bishops refused. They were Theonas and Secundas. Both these men, along with Arius, were exiled.

Nicholas returned to Myra and continued to minister until he died, probably on the 6th December 343 AD. What he never probably realised is that one of his acts of kindness would form the foundation and very basis for our modern Christmas today.

Many legends still circulate about Bishop Nicholas’ life today.

One story says that three young children were travelling along the road where they stopped at a local inn. The inn keeper murdered them. Nicholas was travelling down the same road just after them and went to stay at the same inn. In the story, with divine power, it is said that he raised the three children back to life. Out of this story, it is said he was made the patron saint to children.

On another occasion, it is said he was sailing back across the Mediterranean from Jerusalem when a storm blew up big seas. The sailors were afraid and they called on Bishop Nicholas to do something. So in a Christ-like manner, he rebuked the winds and the waves and they stopped, and all was calm. From this story, he became known as the patron saint to sailors.

But the story that seems post plausible, and is one reason why we give presents to each other, occurred in his home town of Myra. On this occasion, it is said that Nicholas heard about a local family in need. The father of the family was unable to afford dowries for his daughters. During the 3rd and 4th century, a young woman’s father had to offer something of value to prospective grooms – land, money or possessions. The more expensive the dowries, the better class of man his daughter could marry. In the story, the father had no money for any of his three daughters. So the girls were destined to be sold into slavery and prostitution. Nicholas heard about the father’s problem, so in the middle of the night, he put some gold into a sock (or you could call it a stocking) for the eldest daughter and threw it through the father’s window. Nicholas did this over three nights, one sock for each girl. The last night, the father of the girls stayed awake all night to see who this generous man was – low behold it was Bishop Nicholas.

This act of generosity was carried on by European nuns during the Middle Ages. It subsequently led to European parents leaving small gifts in children’s shoes on the eve of Nicholas death. Nicholas’ one act of charity lead to a tradition that millions of families around the world continue today, either in the name of Santa Claus or St. Nicholas.

So how did a 3rd century Mediterranean Bishop turn into a European saint?

When Bishop Nicholas died 343 AD, he was buried in the church at Myra. What is fascinating is that the church historian at the time of Nicholas’ life, Eusebius from Caesarea, wrote at great length about church history, men of influence and what was happening in the Roman world at the time. But he wrote nothing about Nicholas. It seems that Bishop Nicholas’ reputation got bigger during subsequent centuries than it was during his own lifetime.

The possible reason for this was tourism. During Nicholas’ later years, Christian tourism had become quite a large industry. Constantine’s mother had travelled to Jerusalem and declared that a number of sites there were holy and sacred. Churches were subsequently built in Israel and those around the Mediterranean wanted to cash in on this business opportunity. So churches and shrines were built all over the Empire. These places were said to be holy or magical in some way or another.

The city of Myra had no special significance. Before Christianity had reached the city, it had been the site of worship for the Roman god Diana. Aside from being a pagan worship centre, Myra had only one claim to fame and that was that the Apostle Paul, who evangelised this area, once stopped over in the port. So the city of Myra had to find another drawcard. And it appears that not long after Nicholas’s death, it was said his tomb excreted a healing ointment from his bones. Obviously, this captured the attention of those who were sick, since there were no hospitals or medical support available.

By the early part of the 11th century, holy pilgrimages were still very popular. And Nicholas’ reputation had travelled all over the Christian world, especially since Pope Gregory IV had encouraged elevating young boys to ‘Bishop Boy’ in honour of him.

But at the same time, the Christian church in Turkey (Asia Minor) was under attack from a new religion, Islam. Moslem armies had attacked the region on several occasions and appeared to threaten the Christian way of life there. Priests from Bari and Venice in Italy became fearful that Nicholas’ grave might be desecrated. They hatched a daring plan in 1087 to steal the bones of St Nicholas and take them back to Bari. Their motivation might well have come from the fact they also saw an opportunity to encourage Christian pilgrimage to their churches.

The priests from Bari paid a group of sailors or possibly pirates to sail from the sea port of Bari to Myra to steal the bones of St. Nicholas. The sailors succeeded in grabbing most of the bones. They are now entombed at Bari and are still said to exude the healing ointment. The bones that the sailors left behind are now on display in Antalya Museum in Turkey.

Once his bones were located at Bari, many pilgrims travelling from Europe would visit the Vatican in Rome and the bones of St Nicholas in Bari. The legend of St Nicholas spread far and wide and gathered more momentum. During the Middle Ages, he was reported to be the third most well-known and popular religious identity behind Jesus and Mary.

If Santa Claus’ contribution to Christmas is “genoristiy”, St. Nicholas contribution and example is that of “charity” – caring for the poor and needy. He’s a terrific example to us today of caring for those who have less, who we don’t know and who are doing it tuff.

In our modern society, it is so easy to forget those we can’t see and don’t want to see and their needs. So let’s keep this Christmas Spirit alive, not just at Christmas, but all year round – caring for the less fortunate.

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