Season of Giving

During the festive season, it’s easy to overlook the Christian origins of Christmas, as the holiday has become increasingly disconnected from its beginnings; a disconnect that reflects the broader shift away from religiosity as a whole.

The most pertinent example of this is the figure of Santa Claus. The morbidly obese old man at your local mall is far removed from the figure he was inspired by: Saint Nicholas of Myra.

Saint Nick was a 4th century Catholic Bishop from modern day Turkey that was renowned for donating the substantial wealth he inherited from his parents to the poor in order to fully dedicate his life to Christ.

This generosity is what laid the foundation for the idea of gift-giving and selflessness that we all celebrate during the Christmas season.

With that brief intro, let’s get into some of the stories surrounding Saint Nick.

The Slap Heard Around the World

After suffering severe persecution, imprisonment, and torture under the rule of Roman emperor Diocletian, he was anointed Bishop of Myra in 317 and was in attendance a few years later for the Church’s first ecumenical council located in Nicaea.

As mentioned in the previous memo, the council gathered for the specific purpose of discussing the merits of Arianism, a heresy that claimed The Father and Son were not of the same substance. It didn’t take long before Arianism was denounced and the Church affirmed the Trinity and established the Nicene Creed.

However, before the gathering could conclude, it is alleged that Saint Nick, growing furious over the lies and heresy that Arius was spreading, slapped Arius in the face before being reprimanded by his fellow bishops.

Some claim that Nick punched, not slapped, Arius, but the vast majority of historians agree that it was indeed a slap. This difference is more than just semantics; in that era, there was a major difference between a slap and a punch.

A punch was a way of expressing violence, assault, or cruelty, while a slap was seen as more disciplinary and was perceived as more of a correctionary action.

Nicholas & the Three Innocents

Saint Nick was roaming around the city one day when he stumbled upon an execution about to occur. Just as the three convicts were about to be executed, he had a strong conviction that they were falsely accused and therefore innocent.

He then runs to where the executioner, and just in time as the axe is about to be raised over the first prisoner, he grabs the executioner’s arm to prevent him from killing them.

At this point, Eustathius, the governor of Myra, who is present and aware that the suspects are innocent, looks up to see Saint Nick intensely glaring at him. He then immediately confesses that he concocted the charges to hide his own charges of corruption, abuse of power, and bribery.

To this day, Saint Nick, among many others, is the patron saint of the falsely accused.

Nick & the Three Little Pigs

During an extended famine, a malevolent butcher was able to lure three little children into his house and murder them with the intention of selling them as pork.

Saint Nick was visiting the region to care for the hungry and, most likely through divine revelation, was able to identify the injustice committed by the butcher.

He confronted the butcher, and after a lengthy dispute, was able to pray fervently over the children’s body and ask God to perform a miracle. After making the sign of the cross, the children’s lives were restored.

Generosity Saves

There are numerous other legends about Nicholas, but arguably the most relevant is the story of the saint aiding a family in poverty. By this time, Saint Nick had already built up a reputation for his impressive generosity and humility, and this story represents these traits perfectly.

The father of the family mentioned had three daughters ready to be married, but the father cannot afford the dowry, the payment made from the bride’s family to the groom’s at the time of the wedding.

If the daughters were to remain unmarried, it was likely that they would be forced into prostitution given the lack of other possible employment options.

Saint Nick hears about the family and decides to anonymously donate the capital needed for by tossing a bag of coins through the window not once, but twice.

After the second time, the father is curious to see who his Secret Santa is and stays up late to identify the mystery giver. When Nicholas finally rolls around the third time, the father is shocked to see that it is none other than the bishop of the city.

This type of anonymous giving became synonymous with Saint Nick, as he was known especially for providing aid for families in need, children, orphans, widows, and society’s most vulnerable.

Looping back to the money throwing, it is said that the second bag of money thrown into the house landed perfectly inside of a shoe.

Because of this, many regions of the world, especially Eastern Europe, pay tribute to this precise toss from Saint Nick by leaving presents for others in their shoes on Christmas Day. Western countries, like England and America, have altered the tradition by leaving gifts in stockings rather than footwear.

In addition to his generosity inspiring the gift giving tradition of Christmas, the Feast Day of Saint Nicholas is in the middle of the Advent season (December 6th), thus providing an easy path for the Santa Claus legend to develop.

More specifically, the term Santa Claus comes from the Dutch term of Sinterklaas, which is simply “Saint Nicholas” in English.

The tradition of Sinterklaas was originally brought to New York by Dutch sailors during the colonial era and there was no major difference between the Saint Nick of the Eastern world and the Western version.

However, this didn’t last very long, as writers and illustrators in the 19th like Washington Irving, Clement Clarke, and Thomas Nast, gradually transformed the miracle-working bishop from Myra into the plump, jolly fellow we know today.

Pagan Christianity?

Speaking of the modern day Santa Claus and Christmas, it is common to hear the phrase “cHrIsTmAs iS a pAgAn HoLiDaY” from a fairly wide variety of people.

The main argument here is that pagan celebrations with similarities to Christmas occurred on the same day of December 25th previous to Christians establishing the birth of Christ on that day.

While there seems to be some merit to the claims upon initial inspection, closer analysis evinces that they have little to no credibility.

The first celebration that Christmas allegedly mimicked is the Winter solstice celebration.

Not only did that “holiday” not occur on the 25th (most likely the 21st or 22nd), but the Romans, the main pagans that the Christians interacted with, did not consider the solstice to have any festive significance to them.

The next one is Saturnalia, a Roman celebration that honors their god of agriculture, wealth, and time.

While there is the parallel of gift giving, the list of similarities essentially ends here, as the celebration was nearly a week along and lasted from the 17th until the 23rd of December.

Also, the concepts of social role reversals, sacrifices in temples, and gambling are nowhere to be found in contemporary Christmas traditions.

Lastly, Sol Invictus, or birthday of the Sun, is the celebration that the trolls swear was the Christmas before Christmas. According to some records, this seems to be the only pagan holiday that is actually celebrated on the 25th of December.

But here’s the kicker: it isn’t recorded as being on the 25th until after Christians had already begun celebrating Christmas on that day. There is historical evidence that shows it was actually celebrated in July before being switched to December in the 4th century.

Celebrating a holiday about the birth of the sun in July follows logically given that the celebrants would actually be able to see the sun, due to the region that Rome was occupying at the time.

Additionally, Roman emperors had a clear incentive to move a popular celebration worshipping their false idols right on the date of Christians’ most important holiday: Christianity was on the rise and Roman polytheism was on the decline.

Emperors and other important officials began to notice that religiosity among Romans, and more specifically temple worship, had been decreasing due to the staggering number of Christian converts.

Pliny the Younger, an important magistrate of Rome, had identified as early as the 2nd century that Roman temples were “being forsaken” due to the increased popularity of Christianity.

Emperor Julian from the 4th century also began to grow frustrated with the lack of religious devotion to their idols and blames Christians specifically for this shortcoming.

While there is not an official consensus, many historians agree that it is likely the Roman emperor Aurelian placed Sol Invictus on the 25th to compete with the growing rate of Christianity.

The explanation of why Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th starts with the early Church tradition that the holiest figures would die on the day they were conceived.

With this fact in mind, many early Christian scholars, with Tertullian of the 2nd century being the most notable, pinpointed March 25th as the day Jesus was crucified. This day was the 14th day of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, otherwise known as Passover.

Because of this, the date of the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary, telling her she would conceive Jesus has also been identified as March 25th.

Finally, because of Jesus’ divine nature, it is believed that the pregnancy lasted exactly nine months and the Savior was born on the 25th of December.

With all of these facts in mind, you can now respond to the Twitter troll that thinks Christianity is false because Sol Invictus was allegedly celebrated on the 25th.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and long live Christ the King.

Thanks for reading and until next time.

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