Saint Nicholas

By Joe L. Wheeler

 

You know him as the rotund merry-maker in the red suit. But set aside the childhood myth. In this portrait, you’ll encounter the true St. Nicholas, a figure revered for his astonishing miracles and a humility that redirected all attention to God’s glory. You’ll be amazed to find St. Nicholas always turning up at just the right time—rescuing sailors from the certain death of a violent sea, saving three young women from a life of prostitution, and guarding an infant from the burns of a boiling bath.

A tireless defender of God’s truth and His people, St. Nicholas’s wonderful and mysterious deeds illustrate, time and again, a heart for the weak, the poor, and the endangered—truly “the patron saint of practically everybody” and one of the most fascinating figures in all of Christian history.

We learn about life through the lives of others. Their experiences, their trials, their adventures become our schools, our chapels, our playgrounds. Christian Encounters, a series of biographies from Thomas Nelson Publishers, highlights important lives from all ages and areas of the Church through prose as accessible and concise as it is personal and engaging. Some are familiar faces. Others are unexpected guests. Whether the person is D.L. Moody, Sergeant York, Saint Nicholas, John Bunyan, or William F. Buckley, we are now living in the world that they created and understand both it and ourselves better in the light of their lives. Their relationships, struggles, prayers, and desires uniquely illuminate our shared experience.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Oct 10, 2010
• ISBN: 9781595553768

Book preview

Reviews for Saint Nicholas

[longhorndaniel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a wonderful look at St Nick and the real reason for the holiday season; truly a must read for all families who want to leave a legacy for their children

[merechristian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas season is now beginning. During this time, there will be cultural battles not just between Christians and secularists, but amongst Christians as well. All too many folks like to pit Santa Claus against Our Lord and Savior Jesus in terms of how Christmas is celebrated. They act as if it is an “either/or” proposition. Santa is “secular”, they say. Well, if he is secular, then that is largely the fault of society which has made him into a secular symbol. Originally, and in the very history of Santa, he was very much a religious, Christian symbol. All of the more recent secular aspects to the jolly old elf are really window dressing our cynical, secular age has given him.In his book, Saint Nicholas, part of Thomas Nelson Publishers' Christian Encounters Series, author Joe Wheeler examines both the history of the real-life man who was St. Nicholas, as well as the myths that sprang up about him, culminating in his two most popular Western forms, Britain's “Father Christmas” and the Dutch “Sinterklaas”, who was eventually anglicized (beginning slowly after the British takeover of Dutch New Amsterdam, renamed New York) into “Santa Claus”.To summarize quickly, there was a real man named Nicholas, who eventually was made a Saint by the early post-Apostolic Church. He was a contemporary and personal acquaintance on more than one occasion of Constantine, the Christian emperor of Rome. Before Constantine's rise to power, the previous Emperor, Diocletian, instituted one of the worst persecutions of Christians (I would presume eventually Jews as well, due to them sharing the monotheistic belief in Jehovah and no other gods) in history. In this environment, one of the youngest bishops of a large city, or anywhere, really, Nicholas of Myra, rose to prominence.When the persecution began, the young bishop could have fled, but chose not to do so. He knew that with him fleeing, the hunt for him would make the tortures and interrogations exerted on his flock much worse than they already would be. So he stayed where he was in his home and awaited the inevitable arrest. While many Christians would prove false and recant their faith under the flames, floggings, and other tortures of Rome which were so hideous that the word “brutal” can not even begin to describe them, there were many more who did not. Among these was Nicholas of Myra. When he was released, his reputation for deep, unwavering faith in God soared.At this point, the the foundation of the myths would really be laid, with random acts of kindness that Bishop Nicholas performed for others. Though not all of the stories are true, there is commonality enough among so many varied accounts, that most historians believe that many are true. Essentially, Nicholas gave gifts anonymously, and when caught, made the thankful recipient swear to never tell a soul during Nicholas' lifetime. He took very seriously Christ's admonition that God should get the glory and that He would reward us for what we did in secret.What really cemented the myth of Nicholas was how he was believed to have been successfully invoked by folks in distress. It was not always seen as somehow “heretical” to invoke the name of a dead saint, as it was later on when the process of making someone a saint and of most other functions of the Roman Catholic Church became increasingly corrupt, prior to the period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Essentially, there was the belief that if someone who had gone to be with the Lord was petitioning God in prayer in Heaven for us, and God answered, then they were a “saint”. Granted that it's more complicated than that, but that is the essence of how Bishop Nicholas became a Saint.Unfortunately, along with the good in the Protestant Reformation, they threw the “baby out with the bathwater” and got rid of the religious “Saint Nicholas” as a Christian myth. But the guise and person of the Bishop of Myra had to take some form to evoke and push for kindness to the less fortunate in the harshest times of the year. Various folkloric alternatives appeared, and paganism became to once again rear it's ugly head, as these “alternatives” were reminiscent of pre-Christian religious practices. Eventually, Protestants gave way a little bit with Santa Claus and Father Christmas as compromises of sorts. Unfortunately, in trying to straddle a careful line of not offending anyone of Catholic or Protestant traditions in any way, and in trying to avoid the mention of the actual man “Nicholas of Myra” and his Sainthood, the symbol was somewhat secularized.Not entirely, mind you, as the Christian origins of the myth are still there if you dig beneath the surface. In fact, many aspects of the largely secularized “Santa Claus” and only a little less-secularized “Father Christmas” are still there. The anonymous giving to children dictated by Our Lord, the appearance of Santa to help people as a call-back to the myths of the dead Saint being sent by God to help those in need, and so forth. Even his outfit is a largely secularized version of the Bishop's robes the real Saint Nicholas (and his apparition in the legends) wore.That is the crux of the story that Wheeler tells us in the book. My short sketch has not ruined the experience of reading the book, however, as Wheeler has included a great deal of research in this slim volume, and mentions much more information than I have in this review. Much more historical research and many of the myths of Saint Nicholas are given in the book. He gives anyone a good enough “start” or “foundation” in the life and lore of the Bishop to help them do some more research themselves.Of course, this impressive amount of research and history condensed into such a small format is common in the Christian Encounters biographies. What makes Wheeler's installment on St. Nicholas so unique is that his actual biography of the Saint is only a small beginning to the book. He spends much more time on how the actual myths and legends of Saint Nicholas developed and progressed to the point of our two most well-known depictions of him today.In essence, this book is two biographies in one. First we have the biography of the man, and then of the myth that grew up around him. Thrown in is some church history and world political history, as the author successfully traces Nicholas from the man (very much a pious Christian) to the myth straight through to the present time. In all of this, the essentially Christian character of the man and the myth are both explicitly established.This is not to say that the book is without faults. The author's brilliant and accurate research on the myth of St. Nicholas took a great deal of skill. Skill that, unfortunately, did not extend to some areas of world history such as Muslim culture, the wars between Christian and Muslim forces, or Muslim treatment of non-Muslims. If he thinks that Muslims were nice and kindly to Christians at first, he really needs to hit the books on the subject again. This isn't a major part of the narrative, but really annoys me as it could legitimately call the rest of his research into question if I didn't know that he was largely accurate on his main subject matter.To see the issue of Santa Claus and St. Nicholas actually researched and not made part of some weird “culture” battle, one which falsely portrays him to boot, was refreshing. The myth of Santa Claus/Father Christmas/Saint Nicholas is a Christian myth that has been largely secularized. It is time we reclaimed it. To that end, the author gives some helpful suggestions in the appendix on how we can start to do this at the individual and family level. Let us take back our patron Saint of giving.Highly Recommended.