CHAPTER X
ST. NICHOLAS, DEFENDER OF THE FAITH
Throughout the present discussion of St. Nicholas the fact has been kept constantly prominent that St. Nicholas is more famed for deeds than for doctrine. His rôle was not in general that of the apostle extending the boundaries of Christendom nor that of the expounder of creed. His fame rests on his kindly acts. But it was inevitable that the authority of so beloved and so influential a personage should be invoked in support of orthodoxy. In the Golden Legend mere mention is made of the presence of St. Nicholas at that meeting of critical importance, the Council of Nice. But in the Roman Breviary it is recorded that just before his death he was present at the Council of Nice and there, “with those three hundred and eighteen church fathers, condemned the Arian heresy.”
Controversy, particularly religious controversy, has its pitfalls even for those of most gentle nature, and connected with this momentous occasion and the part in it played by St. Nicholas, there is a legendary story[109] which exhibits a side to his character, if less saintly, at least, more human. The story goes that St. Nicholas at Nice struck an Arian bishop who spoke against the faith and that, for this too violent zeal, he was deprived of the right of wearing bishop’s robes. But, the story adds, in celebrating the mass, he saw angels bearing him the miter and the pallium as a sign that Heaven had not blamed his wrath.
The orthodoxy of St. Nicholas is thus put beyond question. If he was a foe to heresy, he was still more a foe to paganism. In the story from the Golden Legend already quoted is recorded his activity in uprooting the worship of Diana in Lycia and the particular hatred of the goddess, or devil as she was conceived of, that he incurred thereby. Concerning his zeal in this work, Wace[110] has the following additional details to offer. “Before the time of St. Nicholas,” he tells us, “devils had power. People worshiped gods and goddesses: Phœbus, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Diana, Juno, Venus, Minerva. They had painted images with names written on the foreheads. Diana in particular was a she-devil. St. Nicholas broke her image and delivered the people from idolatry.”
But it is particularly in the conflict between Christianity and Mohammedanism that St. Nicholas is prominent as defender of the faith. The time when St. Nicholas worship was introduced in the West was a time when this conflict was at its height, the time of the Crusades. It will be remembered how Jean Bodel in his play, written about the year 1200, made new use of the story of the image of St. Nicholas set as the guardian of treasure. It will be remembered that the setting for the story provided by Bodel was in the wars of Christian against Saracen, and that the central feature of the story in the play is the way in which the Christian image of St. Nicholas proved his power to be greater than that of the Mohammedan idol of Tervagant, and thus led the Mohammedan king with his seneschal and all his emirs to adopt the Christian faith.
In Eastern countries the conflict between Christianity and Mohammedanism, so much alive in Western Europe in the time of the Crusades, continues in active form in our own time. It must be remembered, too, that in Eastern countries St. Nicholas occupies a place even higher than that occupied by him in the West in our time. It is not unnatural, then, that there he should be looked to as the defender of the Christian faith. How well he is thought to be able to represent the Christian cause is well brought out in a naïvely humorous Albanian folk-tale.[111] The story goes as follows: Mohammed was the guest of St. Nicholas. When the time to eat came around, Mohammed asked where were the servants. St. Nicholas replied that no servants were needed, that at a word from his mouth or a stroke on the table, the edibles would be ready. He then proceeded to demonstrate that what he said was entirely true, causing to appear on the table everything that one could desire to eat and drink.
Mohammed, not to be outdone, on his return home caused his servant to construct a table which would turn and could thus be closed into the wall leaving no visible sign. He commanded his servant to make ready food of every kind, and when he heard a rap, to push the laden table through the wall. He then invited St. Nicholas to his house, intending to exhibit powers as great as those shown by St. Nicholas.
But St. Nicholas made all his plans go awry. He made the servant deaf, so that there was no response to the rap of Mohammed, and St. Nicholas himself had to get up and bring in through the wall the table laden with food, naturally to the discomfiture of his host.
The next day Mohammed invited St. Nicholas again, promising to work a miracle before him. He caused a great number of jugs and cans and dishes of various kinds to be taken to the top of a hill. At a sign from Mohammed, these were to be rolled down the hill and a cannon fired. When St. Nicholas arrived, he bade Mohammed work his miracle. Mohammed raised his hand, and the expected noise followed. St. Nicholas, however, gave no sign of fear. Mohammed then bade him work a miracle. St. Nicholas clapped his hands, and immediately the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed, overwhelming Mohammed with terror.
CHAPTER XI
CONCLUSION
And when it pleased our Lord to have him depart out of this world, he prayed our Lord that he would send him his angels, and inclining his head, he saw the angels come to him, whereby he knew well that he should depart, and began this holy psalm: In te domine speravi, unto in manus tuas, and so saying: “Lord into thine hands I commend my spirit,” he rendered up his soul and died, the year of our Lord three hundred and forty-three, with great melody sung of the celestial company.
This is the Golden Legend account of the end of the earthly life of the kindly bishop-saint. His body was placed in a tomb of marble, and in the year 1087 was discovered by Italian merchants and borne by them to the city of Bari in Italy. There his tomb is a famous center for pilgrimages. On his festival day, many thousands bearing staves bound with olive and pine honor his memory.[112] It is said that when his tomb at Myra was opened, the body was found swimming in oil, and that to this day there continues to issue from his body a holy oil “which is much available to the health and sicknesses of many men.”
St. Nicholas, the guardian of so many things, also keeps guard over his own remains. Wace relates the story of a man carrying off a supposed tooth of the holy saint. In the night St. Nicholas appeared and admonished the thief, and in the morning the tooth was gone.
St. Nicholas was mortal. But his deeds are immortal. His beneficent acts have flowered in legendary story and have found fruition in universal popular customs animated by the same spirit of kindness that pervaded the whole life of the saint. Probably the life history of no other person, save that of the Founder of Christianity himself, has been so intimately woven about human custom and human life as that of St. Nicholas. In certain parts of Siberia he is worshiped as a god. Even in our own country, although we are supposed to have outgrown idolatry, representations of Santa Claus about Christmas time, in shop windows and on street corners, are objects of worship little short of idolatry. To Santa Claus also at Christmas time are addressed the most sincere, even if not the most unselfish, supplications.
We may well conclude our present consideration of St. Nicholas and his works with an invocation to him, using the words composed by the recluse Godric, back in the twelfth century, which form one of the very earliest of English lyrics:
Tymbre us faire scone hus—
At thi burth, at thi bare—
Sainte Nicholaes, bring us wel thare.
NOTES
CHAPTER I
[1] Manchester Guardian.
[2] A. Tille, Die Geschichte der Deutschen Weihnacht, Leipzig, 1893, p. 30.
[3] O. von Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Traditions et Légendes de la Belgique, p. 302.
[4] Do., p. 323.
[5] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr der germanischen Völker, Leipzig, 1863, pp. 360 ff.
[6] Do., pp. 362, 363.
[7] P.M. Hough, Dutch Life in Town and Country, London and New York, 1901, pp. 116 ff. The present account of St. Nicholas customs in Holland is based on notes from the book by Hough, but is not quoted exactly in order of details nor in wording.
[8] Do., p. 121.
[9] I. von Zingerle, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, ii., 329 ff.
[10] Hough, op. cit., p. 117.
[11] Do., p. 125.
[12] Do., p. 125.
[13] I. von Zingerle, op. cit., p. 343.
[14] Hough, op. cit., p. 125.
[15] Do., p. 126.
[16] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 362.
[17] Tille, op. cit., p. 35.
[18] Brand, Popular Antiquities, i., p. 420.
[19] Tille, op. cit., p. 299.
[20] Do., p. 36.
[21] Do., p. 33.
[22] Do., p. 36.
[23] Do., p. 202.
[24] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Das festliche Jahr, p. 382; C. A. Miles, Christmas, London, 1912, p. 231.
[25] St. Nicholas, Our Holidays, New York, 1916, p. 64.
[26] W. A. Wheeler, Dictionary of Noted Names in Fiction, Boston, 1883.
[27] Tille, op. cit., p. 119.
[28] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, op. cit., p. 342.
[29] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, quoted by Miles, op. cit., p. 277, footnote.
[30] Hough, op. cit., p. 120.
CHAPTER II
[31] G. de Saint Laurent, Guide de l’Art Chrétien, 1874, v., p. 349.
[32] A. Butler, Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and other Principal Saints, London, 1838.
[33] New York Times, Oct. 24, 1915.
[34] Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, vol. ii.
CHAPTER III
[35] The Golden Legend, Caxton translation, Temple Classics series, vol. ii., pp. 109-122.
[36] Do., pp. 119, 120.
[37] Mrs. Jameson, op. cit.; also H. Thode, Franz von Assisi, Berlin, 1904.
[38] C. Cahier, Caractéristiques des saints dans l’art populaire, Paris, 1867, vol. i.
[39] E. Anichkof, “St. Nicholas and Artemis,” Folk-Lore, v., pp. 108 ff.
[40] Hough, op. cit., p. 122.
[41] Brand, op. cit., i., p. 417.
CHAPTER IV
[42] Tille, op. cit., p. 32.
[43] Do., p. 300.
[44] Brand, op. cit., i., p. 420.
[45] R. T. Hampson, Medii Aevi Kalendarium, London, 1841, ii., p. 76.
[46] T. Wright, Songs and Carols, Warton Club, 1856, p. 4.
[47] Brand, op. cit., i., p. 421.
[48] Brady, Clavis Calendaria, quoted by W. Hone, The Every-Day Book, London, 1838.
[49] New York Times, April 18, 1915.
[50] Mrs. Jameson, op. cit.
[51] Brand, op. cit., ii., p. 356.
[52] Encyclopedia Britannica, article “Pawnbrokers.”
[53] Cf. the story of the Jew who left his property under the protection of the image of St. Nicholas.
CHAPTER V
[54] Galleria antica e moderna.
[55] C. A. Miles, op. cit., p. 168.
[56] A. F. Leach, “The Schoolboy’s Feast,” Fortnightly Review, vol. lix., pp. 128-141.
[57] E. K. Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, London, 1903, i., p. 294. The total amount of the debt to Chambers’s work it has not been possible to indicate in these notes.
[58] Do., p. 357.
[59] Do., p. 348.
[60] Brand, op. cit., i., p. 423.
[61] Chambers, op. cit., p. 338.
[62] Tille, op. cit., p. 31, quoted by Chambers.
[63] Reinsberg-Düringsfeld, Traditions et Légendes de la Belgique, p. 348.
[64] Leach, op. cit.
CHAPTER VI
[65] H. Thode, Franz von Assisi, Berlin, 1909.
[66] Verses 1080-1143.
[67] Verses 208-216.
[68] M. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 47, 48.
CHAPTER VII
[69] G. R. Coffman, A New Theory concerning the Origin of the Miracle Play, Univ. of Chicago diss., 1914.
[70] Henry Morley, English Writers, 1889, vol. iii., pp. 105-114.
[71] E. Du Meril, Les Origines Latines du Théâtre Moderne, new edition, Paris, 1897, pp. 272-276.
[72] C. M. Gayley, Plays of our Forefathers, New York, 1907, p. 64.
[73] Du Meril, op. cit., pp. 276-284.
[74] Gaston Paris, La littérature française au Moyen-Age, Paris, 1890, §167.
[75] W. Creizenach, Geschichte des neueren Dramas, Halle, 1893, i., pp. 139-141.
CHAPTER VIII
[76] E. Bisland and A. Hoyt, Seekers in Sicily.
[77] Brand, op. cit., pp. 363, 364.
[78] Do., pp. 363, 364.
[79] H. F. Feilberg, Jul, Copenhagen, 1909, i., p. 105.
[80] C. Cahier, op. cit.
[81] This additional list is derived from somewhat scattered references in works cited above by Brand and by Cahier.
[82] M. Hamilton, op. cit., pp. 29, 30.
[83] E. Anichkof, op. cit., pp. 108 ff.
[84] Brand, op. cit., i., p. 419.
[85] Anichkof, op. cit.
[86] Zingerle, op. cit., p. 334.
[87] Anichkof, op. cit., p. 109.
[88] First part of Henry IV., Act II., scene i.
[89] Brand, op. cit., i., p. 418. Cf. also the Oxford Dictionary under Nicholas.
[90] T. Wright, op. cit., p. 99.
CHAPTER IX
[91] M. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 16.
[92] Do., p. 13.
[93] Do., p. 18.
[94] Do., p. 20.
[95] Do., p. 33.
[96] Do., p. 34.
[97] Do., p. 31.
[98] J. C. Lawson, Modern Greek Folk-Lore and Ancient Greek Religion, Cambridge, 1910, p. 135.
[99] M. Hamilton, op. cit., p. 30.
[100] E. Anichkof, op. cit., p. 114.
[101] Do., pp. 115, 116.
[102] Hampson, op. cit., p. 68.
[103] Keightley, Fairy Mythology, i., pp. 234, 235, quoted by Hampson, op. cit., p. 75.
[104] Revue des traditions populaires, i., p. 7, quoted by Anichkof.
[105] This is the main thesis of the article by Anichkof.
[106] J. W. Wolf, Hocker, and Al Kaufmann, quoted by Zingerle, op. cit., p. 331.
[107] A. Tille, Yule and Christmas, London, 1899, p. 115; H. Feilberg, Jul, Copenhagen, 1904, ii., p. 179.
[108] C. A. Miles, op. cit., p. 221.
CHAPTER X
[109] C. Cahier, op. cit.
[110] Wace, op. cit., vv. 342 ff.
[111] J. V. Jarnik, Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, ii., pp. 348, 349.
CHAPTER XI
[112] Miles, op. cit., p. 221.
Transcriber's notes:
The following is a list of changes made to the original. The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
Belgian children, exiled in France for more that two years,
Belgian children, exiled in France for more than two years,
paintings there is a scene respresenting the infant Nicholas
paintings there is a scene representing the infant Nicholas