Merry Christmas!
If you are bored, here's the real story on Santa.
Nicholas was born in the third century in Patras, a city in Asia Minor. His wealthy parents were devout Christians. When they died, he used his inheritance to help the poor and entered the Monastery of Holy Sion, near the city of Myra, to get an education.
When he came of age, Nicholas made a life-changing trip to the Holy Land.
He went to Bethlehem to see the spot of the Nativity. He stood on the Mount of Olives where Christ had taught. He visited Golgotha where Jesus died on the cross. And he prayed in the empty tomb from which Jesus had risen. This pilgrimage confirmed in his mind what he had studied in the Scripture: that Christ was indeed Emmanuel, God-with-us. This settled conviction that shaped his future career.
As he sailed home, his ship ran into a storm. Nicholas helped the sailors in the rigging and took over the tiller. The sailors attributed their survival to him; he attributed safety to God. He vowed to go to church to offer thanks as soon as the vessel reached land.
While Nicholas was on his pilgrimage, the bishop of Myra had died. The church leaders disagreed about who should fill the office. After a lengthy debate, one suggested, "We'll let God decide; the first man who comes through the church doors tomorrow morning will be the new bishop."
Nicholas's ship docked at dawn.
Immediately he went to give thanks for deliverance from the storm. The church leaders greeted him at the door with miter and staff of office. Thus, according to legend, he became one of the youngest bishops in history. Some sources indicate he was still a teen-ager when he took office.
It was not long before Bishop Nicholas came into conflict with government authorities. A famine descended on Myra. Crops withered in the fields. No food was to be found anywhere. His people looked to Nicholas to save them from starvation. Eustathios, the provincial prefect, commandeered several cargo ships loaded with grain riding at anchor in the harbor at Andriaki. This corrupt official planned to hold the grain until scarcity forced prices to their highest. Nicholas revealed the governor's hoarding and shamed him into releasing the shipment.
Nicholas further aggravated Eustatios when he learned of the proposed execution of three political prisoners. Nicholas argued for the release for these innocent men.
"Too late," Eustathios cried. "They're on their way to the chopping blocks now."
Nicholas rushed to the town square where the executions were to take place. The first prisoner lay with his neck on the block, his head over the basket.
The executioner swung.
Nicholas grabbed the sword as it descended, snatching it out of the executioner's hands. He cut the prisoners' bonds and set them free. Public acclaim assured the men's continued safety. The governor backed down--for a while.
On February 23, A.D. 303, the Emperor Diocletian issued an edict which launched one of the most systematic and prolonged persecutions the Christian church has ever endured.
The Diocletian persecution marks one of the first organized attacks on the Scriptures, for the edict demanded that Christians turn in their holy books to be burned. To refuse meant death. The faithful (such as Felix, bishop of Thibiuca, who told the arresting officers, "It is better for me to be burned than the divine Scriptures") resorted to various subterfuges, such as turning in grammar books, medical books, collections of sermons and other religious books to protect the Scriptures. These actions forced the Christians to clearly define which writings should be considered divinely inspired and which should not.
Strangers confiscated property owned by Christians. The situation repeated the outrages reported in a letter by Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, a few years earlier when mobs "rushed to the houses of Christians, breaking in on those who were known as neighbors, and looted and plundered. The more valuable property they stole; the cheaper wooden articles were strewn about the streets and burnt, so that the city looked as if it had just been taken by an enemy. But the believers... took joyfully the spoiling of their goods."
Eusebius, an eyewitness, said:
Words cannot describe the outrageous agonies endured by the martyrs.... They were torn to bits from head to foot with potsherds like claws, till death released them. Women were tied by one foot and hoisted high in the air, head downwards, their bodies completely naked without a morsel of clothing... I was in these places and saw many of the executions myself... The orgy went on so long that the murderous blade became blunt and killed by its weight. The executioners themselves became exhausted and took turns at the work.
Relatively few Christians dramatized their faith with stirring last words before an audience in the arena; for most, the fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the hiding, the imprisonment and the anguish went on for years and years. Christian children grew up knowing no conditions other than these.
Like many others, Bishop Nicholas was caught early in the persecution and imprisoned. They beat him. They branded his skin. They used iron pliers to pinch various parts of his body. Then he was left alone in his cell till his wounds healed enough for the process to begin all over again. The persecution kept up for years. Yet Nicholas would not deny that Jesus is God.
At the height of the persecutions, a plague broke out. Fearing contagion, pagan dumped members of their own families in the streets when they got sick. But Christians, Eusebius said, "heedless of the danger, took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them... drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors... The best of our brothers lost their lives in this manner... so death in this form, the result of great piety and strong faith, seems in every way the equal of martyrdom."
When the plague passed, the pagans resumed the persecution with a renewed vigor. Judges "made a show of cruelty...and in a wretched competition for new tortures attempted to best their rival judges as if they were striving for a prize."
They sentenced young Christian girls to be chained naked in brothels.
The pagan emperor died. Constantine assumed the throne and stopped the persecution.
Nicholas had endured the torture, but now he confronted a more insidious danger threatening to undermine Christianity.
Arius, a popular Alexandrian preacher, began teaching that Christ was inferior to God. He taught that Jesus was not God-become-man, but rather an intermediate spirit creature which was "enfleshed"--neither God nor even quite human.
Arius spread his ideas by setting them to the music of drinking songs which were popular at pagan orgies. His most well-known song, disparaging the Incarnation and birth of Christ, was "Thalia." It bordered on the obscene, but the tune was so catchy that soon virtually everyone was whistling it in the streets and markets.
"So scandalous did the situation become that in the very theaters of the unbelievers the venerable teachings of God were exposed to the most shameful ridicule," said Eusebius.
Confessors who had survived the persecution as Nicholas had preached and reasoned with the people as Jesus, pointing to such Scriptures as:
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. (Col 2:9)
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. (Jn 14:9)
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (Jn 1:14)
The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. (Heb 1:3)
All this doctrine was to no avail. Arianism appealed to minds which reasoned that since they could not understand the Trinity, there could be no Trinity.
Constantine called a council of church leaders at Nicaea to discuss whether or not Jesus is really God, the teachings of Arius, and other matters dividing the church.
Those attending the Council of Nicaea had survived the Diocletian Persecution. A number of them concealed the stubs of most limbs. Many were hamstrung. (Prisoners in the mines were crippled in this way to keep them from escaping.) Many had empty sockets where their tormentors had gouged out eyes.
Legend has it that in the course of his presentation to the Council, Arius began to sing the "Thalia." Some of the bishops rushed out of the meeting. Others covered their ears. St. Nicholas walked slowly to the center of the floor where Arius sang--and deliberately punched him in the mouth!
The shocked bishops sympathized with Nicholas but could not condone his action. After all, the Christ whom Nicholas defended was he who taught his followers to love their enemies and be people of peace.
They deprived Nicholas of his bishopric (he was later restored to office) and they expelled Arius. Before the Council ended, they wrote the Nicene Creed which states what most Christians believe about Jesus. No other document which Nicholas may have helped write remains.
Nicholas spent the rest of his life in Myra caring for the sick, founding orphanages and protecting the poor from exploiters. He was noted for playing with children and scandalized his more dignified contemporaries by letting street urchins wear his bishop's hat.
Nicholas died on December 6 around A.D. 343; but his love for Jesus, his defense of the Christmas doctrine of the Incarnation and his habit of generous secret giving, all combine to cause his shadow to linger in the legendary figure of Santa Claus.
Taken from a book called, "People Whose Faith got them in Trouble" by John W. Cowart
Truth is worth finding and life is too short to work for money.
