ADVENT CALENDAR – DAY 7
December 6. Saint Nicholas Day. Yay! Jolly old Saint Nick, right? Wrong!
While it would be impossible to deny Saint Nicholas having done a lot of good in the world, with a reputation for miracles and outstanding generosity, his modesty was so extreme as to sometimes verge on the sociopathic. In fact, he suffered fools grudgingly and became cantankerous if thanked.
Nicholas is one of those rare all-purpose saints, who seems to watch over everyone – sailors, merchants, archers, prostitutes, women seeking husbands, repentant thieves, wrongly condemned prisoners, travelers, pawnbrokers, students, and of course children. Is it any wonder he’s grouchy?
The historic Nicholas served as Bishop of Myra (part of modern day Turkey) in the 4th century. When his parents died, he gave away his inheritance to the poor.
To avoid uncomfortable scenes, he developed a reputation for secret gift-giving. In one famous incident, he rescued three daughters of an unfortunate man who could not afford a proper dowry. In that time and place, it would have made them unmarriageable, and with no opportunity for honest employment, they would have had no alternative but to enter into a life of prostitution.
Nicholas learned of their plight and under the cloak of darkness passed their house three times, each time tossing a purse of gold through a window. Some traditions say he dropped the purses down the chimney; others claim he left coins in stockings left out to dry. When the elated father tried to thank him, Nicholas responded gruffly that it is God he should thank.
The next time you pass a pawnbroker’s shop, take a look at the symbol with the three spheres. Its significance is attributed to Nicholas’ gift of three bags of gold.
On another occasion, during a sea voyage, Nicholas’ ears were assailed by a cacophony of oaths and blasphemies lustily exchanged by the crew. When he tried to get them to mind their language, the sailors laughed and mocked him, and took to swearing with renewed vigor. Nicholas responded by praying for stormy seas, until the sailors dropped to their knees in repentance, effectively scared straight.
He was also wholly intolerant of pagans and heretics. He sent Arius, the father of Arianism, sprawling with a box on the ears, for his assertion that Jesus Christ is subordinate to the entity of God.
The creepiest Nicholas tale concerns the murder of three boys by a butcher during a time of famine. The butcher placed their remains in a barrel to cure, hoping to pass them off as ham(!). Not surprisingly, this didn’t go down well with Nicholas, who resurrected the three children. The episode is captured most eerily by Benjamin Britten in his cantata, “Saint Nicholas.”
While he’s not a “Bad Santa,” exactly, he’s also not the jolly old elf Clement Moore, Thomas Nast and Coca Cola would have us believe.
That said, more in that vein, here’s the “Santa Claus Symphony,” really an ambitious symphonic poem, by the Philadelphia composer William Henry Fry (1813-1864):
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