BIOGRAPHY AND LEGEND
It is quite apparent that the journeys of Santa Claus by night over the
housetops, and his various chimney escapades, are beneath the dignity
of the reverend Bishop of Myra, formally canonized by the medieval
church as St. Nicholas. In appearance, too, Santa Claus is more like an
elf, or one of the other beings of Teutonic mythology, than like the
Christian bishop whom early artists were fond of representing in full
episcopal vestments, with miter, pallium, and pastoral staff. In his
manners, too, he is more like a friendly fairy than a patron saint. In
reality, as has been seen, in his origin there is more of the pagan
than of the Christian. At the same time Christian legend has had its
influence. The name Santa Claus is a popular, or juvenile, derivative
from St. Nicholas, and the mysterious visit by night which wins for
Santa Claus the hearts of children, is closely associated with a famous
incident in the life story of the Christian saint.
What then do we know about St. Nicholas? “Of all patron saints,”
says Mrs. Jameson, “he is perhaps the most universally popular and
interesting. No saint in the calendar has so many churches, chapels,
and altars dedicated to him. In England, I suppose, there is hardly a
town without one church at least bearing his name.” Both in Eastern
Church and Western Church he is the object of extreme veneration, to a
degree unequalled in the case of any other saint.[31] It is established
that veneration of St. Nicholas goes back to the early centuries in the
history of the Christian faith. The Emperor Justinian built a church
in his honor at Constantinople about the year 430, and he was titular
saint of four churches at Constantinople.[32]
Yet with all this high esteem and veneration through so many centuries,
little is known concerning the facts of his life. Historical criticism
has demolished much of the story built up around his lovable
personality. One by one the cherished tales of his beneficence have
been questioned, because lacking the required corroboration of
historical evidence. There has even been raised doubt whether he ever
existed. In any case certain knowledge is extremely dim. The authorized
story of his life set as the _lectio_ or “reading” for the second
nocturn of St. Nicholas’ day (Dec. 6th) in the Roman Breviary, makes
but a slight narrative. In brief paraphrase it runs as follows:
An only child, in infancy he manifested singular piety. His youth
was characterized by deeds of charity, among them one that saved
three maidens from a life of shame. In youth, on a sea voyage, he
saved the ship in a fearful storm. In youth also he was elected
Bishop of Myra, a miraculous sign indicating him to be the divine
choice. In later life he succored the oppressed, in particular
saving three tribunes unjustly condemned to death. At the Council
of Nice he is said to have condemned the Arian heresy, and at his
death is said to have received miraculous sign of divine approval.
His remains are preserved with the greatest veneration at Bari in
Italy.
This sober biography, so lacking in concrete detail, is the life of the
beloved saint as sanctioned by the Roman Church of to-day. As already
remarked, most even of its meager details have been questioned by
higher criticism. In earlier times, however, when the test of reality
was not as rigorously applied as is the wont to-day, there flourished a
luxuriant growth of stories about St. Nicholas as about other saints,
the objects of popular veneration and gratitude.
Much is to be said in favor of the earlier, more imaginative, lives
of the saints, _legends_ as they were technically called. It has been
remarked, with much truth, that all of us lead double lives, a life
of our fancy, in a world of things as they should be, or as we should
like them to be, and a life in a world of things as they really are.
And this is as it should be. We can lift the level of real existence by
thinking of things as we should like them to be. It is well not to walk
with one’s eyes always fixed on the ground. The uplift to be derived
from the contemplation of things as they should be as distinguished
from things as they are, is well exemplified in the case of the
legendary stories about St. Nicholas. The fact that these largely
imaginative stories existed in the belief of people served to influence
human action, leading to imitation which eventually crystallized into
some of the noblest of popular customs. In some of the beautiful
popular customs connected with the name of St. Nicholas we have the
projection into reality of fanciful stories once held worthy of
implicit faith.
Much deserves to be said also in favor of the creators of legendary
story. One is sometimes disposed to look on such story uncharitably
and to regard it as the product of willful intent to deceive. Such
is by no means the real explanation of the origin of legendary tales.
Such tales are usually the product of intense emotional life, when
the imagination becomes heated by prolonged contemplation of any
subject. Thus we must explain the revelations to St. Francis and the
vivid scenes from the life of Christ attributed to St. Bonaventura. A
similar condition serves to explain the popular capacity for belief in
tales of the supernatural. We sometimes think of such legendary story
as the exclusive product of an earlier, uncritical age. That we are
mistaken in this opinion and that the conditions for the production of
legendary story continue to exist in our own time, is illustrated in a
striking manner by certain highly interesting stories that owe, if not
their origin, at least their circulation, to the intensity of feeling
aroused by the war in Europe. There has found wide circulation a story
concerning certain supernatural occurrences on the battlefield of Mons.
“The story goes that at the crisis of the fighting, when the French
and English were growing disheartened by their ineffectual efforts to
overcome the enemy, certain celestial beings, in the midst of whom was
St. George, suddenly appeared between the armies and by their timely
aid brought victory to the Allies”.[33] The origin of this story has
been clearly explained. Its author, Arthur Machen, in a recent volume,
gives a circumstantial account of its creation. It “was conceived and
written by me,” he tells us, “in prosaic London, on the last Sunday of
August, 1914,” immediately after reading of the retreat from Mons, and
this story, for which he chose the title, “The Bowmen,” was published
in _The Evening News_ of September 29th the same year. This story then,
an admitted fiction, has nevertheless found life in popular belief. It
has found not only oral circulation but has been reproduced in print
with variants and corroborative testimony. In its circulation it has
reached the outermost bounds of the British Empire. How a story which
under ordinary conditions would at once be recognized as fiction, now
finds ready credence, is revealed in the following extract from a
personal letter from far-away Sydney in Cape Breton:
Rev. Mr. ---- preached in Falmouth Street Church on Sunday night on
the Angels at Mons. I had seen in the papers that the Allies had
seen three figures in the sky in the retreat from Mons and that
although the Germans pursued them, they never could catch up with
them. But I just thought it some Roman Catholic superstition. But
Mr. ---- thought otherwise. He said reliable people on both sides
had undoubtedly seen them, and he thought the age of miracles is
not yet past and that if anyone had told him two years ago that
he would have been preaching to justify this vision he would have
thought him crazy. I really never heard a more wonderful sermon.
Rev. Mr. ---- has enlisted and goes overseas with the 85th.
The origin of such a miraculous tale and of others of the same kind,
such as that of the “Comrade in White,” and the credence given in our
own time, by critical, skeptical Protestants, enable one to understand
the origin of earlier stories of the supernatural and how in less
critical times general credence could be attached to stories to the
unsympathetic now often seeming preposterous.
[Illustration: Scenes from the Legend of St. Nicholas in the Stained
Glass (thirteenth century) of Bourges Cathedral.
Reproduced from Paul Lacroix, _Science and Art of the Middle Ages_.]
The Church, too, in earlier times was not rigorous in the exclusion
of extravagant features in the life history of its heroes. On the
contrary it permitted the fancy to play freely about the objects of
its veneration, was hospitable to the wonderful, the supernatural,
element in story. By various means it aimed to keep ever alive the
memory of the saints, not excluding the livelier details contributed
by popular tradition. Legendary stories in Latin prose formed a part
of the private reading of the clergy in their canonical hours, and in
vernacular prose or verse were read before popular congregations in
church on the days devoted to the honor of the particular saint.
Sometimes they found a place in the story repertory of secular
minstrels. Artists other than literary contributed their share toward
the perpetuation of the legendary story. The separate scenes in the
lives of the popular saints were presented in stained glass windows,
particularly in France,[34] in series of pictures on canvas, in wall
paintings adorning the chapels devoted to particular saints, especially
in Italy, or in sculptured series, in low or in high relief, as
architectural ornament or decorating the sides of baptismal fonts as
in the case of the St. Nicholas scenes represented in the fonts at
Winchester cathedral and elsewhere in England and on the continent.
In even more effective ways the stories were kept alive when the
principal scenes were reenacted in dramatic entertainments, by towns or
guilds in honor of their particular patron saints, or by schoolboys in
honor of their patron Saint Nicholas.
In all these ways the story of St. Nicholas was kept in memory. Of
Eastern origin, St. Nicholas became the object of general veneration
in the West, especially after the transfer of his remains to Bari in
Italy in the year 1087. The especial honor paid to him doubtless finds
its explanation in the nature of his life story and the particular
needs of earlier times. In the days when the idea that God is love had
not become the central feature of Christianity, when God was regarded
rather as a judge, just but therefore severe, suffering humanity
felt the need of a more approachable divine personality. This place
of intermediary between man and divine justice was taken in part by
Our Lady, the Divine Mother, and almost countless are the _Miracles
de Notre Dame_, the tales of aid afforded by her to human beings in
distress. A similar part was played to some extent by each of the
popular saints, but above all by St. Nicholas, who was the principal
agent in many stories of this kind.
It is my purpose, then, to take up in detail the story of St. Nicholas
as found in these earlier records, which reflect so well the devotion
felt for the most thoroughly human of all the saints. Though many
elements pass the bounds of modern credulity, they serve to express
the loving reverence felt for the saint who, second only to Our Lady
herself, was looked to as the beneficent source of aid in times of
human distress, and at the same time serve to explain some of the most
interesting of popular customs.