Santa's Surprising Origins by Rev. Austin Miles
He is loveable,
congenial, giving and jolly. What's more he knows everything, as any child
will readily testify. He is a colorful old man, whose visits are eagerly
awaited by millions of children each year and
who, for a little while,
makes the world a much happier place.
Is Santa Claus a good influence on
children, or a bad influence whose image merely commercializes Christmas and
who takes the reason out of the season, as some charge?
Where did Santa
come from? It will surprise many to learn that Santa Claus (as we know him
today) came out of the church itself through the charity of a very devout and
caring priest.
Now bear in mind that this is a true, historically documented account.
Approximately 200 years after the birth of Christ, a meeting of the elders of
a little Catholic church in Myra, Turkey had just been called
to order.
They needed to appoint a bishop but no fitting candidate could be found. So
great was the need that they decided to pray.
Out at sea, a ship battled a
raging storm. The crew valiantly fought to keep it afloat. Trunks were being
thrown overboard to lighten the load as frightened passengers held onto
whatever they could to keep from
being swept overboard while others huddled
in their cabins. The ravaging waves tore some wood from the sides of the
ship.
"Nicholas...NICHOLAS!" someone yelled frantically. It had been noised
about that a man named Nicholas, who was known to be a man of God, was on
board.
Out of a cabin, in response to the call, came a man with a long
white beard. Holding on to the rail of the tossing ship, he began to pray for
the storm to cease. As he prayed he lifted his hands
heavenward.
Miraculously, the storm calmed. The crippled ship drifted into
the harbor of Myra.
The elders of the little Catholic church in Myra
suddenly stopped in the midst of their intense prayer, opened their eyes and
looked around at each other, startled at a message from God that had come to
each of them in the form of a vision; they were to appoint as their bishop,
the first man named Nicholas who would, within the hour, enter the church to
pray.
As the leaning ship hobbled into the port and was docked, Nicholas
disembarked and made his way into the village to seek a church. He wanted to
give thanks to God for His intervention during the storm that
could have
killed everyone on board.
Finding the church, he eagerly approached it. The
heads of the elders turned toward the door as it slowly opened. The stately
man with the snow-white beard entered, and, focused on the altar, made his way
down to the front and knelt in a prayer of thanksgiving. As he rose to leave
the elders approached him. "What is your name?" asked one. "Nicholas." was the
reply.
He Lived to Serve God "God has sent you to us to be our new
bishop,"
said another. The group joyfully fitted the surprised Nicholas
with a long red priestly robe and miter.
Nicholas quickly became known as,
"The Bishop of Miracles," because of so many spectacular answers to his
prayers.
Unlike most priests, Bishop Nicholas was wealthy through family
inheritance. In his mind, wealth came from God and belonged to God. The very
reason for his existence was to serve God. And that is how he lived his
life.
Nicholas became increasingly concerned about a custom in Turkey. If
little girls did not have a dowry so that they could marry, they would be sold
into slavery, which included prostitution. Bishop Nicholas had
given away
most of his own fortune so he went about and managed to collect gold from
admirers.
On December 6th, under cover of darkness, he wrapped the gold
coins in several little bags and visited each home that had a daughter without
a dowry, dropping a bag of gold through the windows of each, which landed on
the hearth where the little girl's clothes would be drying.
When the gold
was discovered the next morning, the family rejoiced.
Their little
daughters were saved from slavery.
Nicholas continued what was to become an
annual tradition. Nobody knew the identity of the mysterious benefactor who
would slip around the village on that date each year.
On one such night, as
Nicholas put his arm through the window to drop the bag of gold, instead of it
landing on the hearth, the bag fell into a stocking that was hanging in front
of the fireplace to dry.
It was found the next morning, to the delight of
the family. Which, by the way, is how the custom of hanging up Christmas
stockings came to be.
Shortly before Nicholas's death, which occurred on
December 6th, the date of his annual visit, it was learned that he was the
individual who brought so much joy to so many families.
Now a Saint Five
hundred years later, in the 9th Century, Nicholas was canonized by the Roman
Catholic Church, hence the name, Saint Nicholas.
And since the celebration
of Christmas came after the life of St.Nicholas, he actually preceded
Christmas, as we know it today.
As the story of St. Nicholas spread, French
nuns in the 12th Century began making annual night-time visits to poor
families with children, leaving fruit and nuts, which these families could not
afford.
The nuns made their gift-giving rounds on what became known as,
"St. Nicholas Eve," December 5th. The tradition spread throughout the Old
World and across the ocean to the New. Many people to this day celebrate
Christmas on December 6th.
St. Nicholas became the Patron Saint of many
countries including Russia, becoming a major ingredient in the Russian
Christmas celebration.
England made St. Nicholas, "Father Christmas."
Germany picked up on that title and in France, he became known as "Papa
Noel."
As the various forms of Nicholas began to emerge in the secular
world over the years, some unanticipated problems arose: protests which came
out of...the church.
Martin Luther pounded his pulpit proclaiming that the
true Christmas message was being lost by the St. Nicholas connection.
The
Dutch came to the rescue and adopted what they believed to be a more religious
view of Nicholas that would satisfy the critics. The Dutch-German Protestant
Reform Movement brought with it the idea that the Christ child should be the
standard bearer for Christmas. The German word for Christ child,
"Christkindl," evolved to, "Kris Kringle," yet another version and another
irritant for Luther.
In 1822, on the night before Christmas, which the
world began to celebrate on December 24th, Clement Moore wrote a poem about
the gift-giver for his six children. That poem, "The Night Before Christmas,"
was published the following year in the Sentinel of Troy, New York.
Up to
that time, Nicholas had taken various forms. He was portrayed with a black
beard, then a white beard. He was shown dressed in everything including
buckskin.
Then ... Santa Mr. Moore defined Nicholas once and for all and
renamed him, Santa Claus. He had, no doubt, been influenced by the Dutch who
named him, "Sinter (Saint) Klass (short for Nicholas) and that had become,
"Sinterklass."
Others who spoke broken English, knowing that gold had been
found on the hearth by the fireplace, started a new legend. The gift-giver
came down the chimney and would land in the cinders of burning embers, so they
called him, "Cinder Klaussen," which would in Moore's hands become,
Santa
Claus.
Clement Moore's poem made Santa famous. He even named the reindeer.
Not only did he name them, he made them fly. He might have taken that idea
from the poet, Washington Irving, who wrote a book in 1809 about a Dutch
Colonist's dream in which St. Nick came riding over the tops of trees in a
wagon wherein he brings yearly presents to the children.
An artist named
Thomas Nash, who was a Harper's Weekly cartoonist, began to show what Santa
looked like. He dressed him in red, which had been the official color of the
priestly robes worn by St. Nicholas and went further by making Santa plump and
jolly.
To show how much of a church connection to Santa there is, Clement
Moore's father was the Episcopal Bishop of New York, and, Clement Moore
himself was Professor of Theology at Union Theological Seminary.
In 1897, a
little girl named, Virginia Hanlon, had been told that there really was no
Santa Claus. She was so disturbed about it that she wrote a letter to the
editor of The New York Sun, whose name, by the way, was Francis P.
Church...can't get away from that connection. He responded with a story
titled, "Yes Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus." And the world breathed
a sigh of relief.
It is interesting to note that the clearest image of
Santa came not from the church, or from a poet, but by, of all things, a soft
drink company advertisement! That drawing, known as 'the Coca Cola Santa,'
created and drawn by Haddon Sundblom, made him totally definable. And the
elves? Well, they were first seen in Ireland as Leprechauns.
A Return to
Love
St. Nicholas has been replaced by the created, Santa, who does indeed
delight millions of children. But maybe through the hustle and bustle we have
lost the very core of what Christmas is and should be; a time of love and
sharing with people in need (whether we know them or not), rather than an orgy
of gift giving, receiving, and thinking of one's personal wants.
I would
like to see the original idea of giving and charity, as set forth by the real
St. Nick, with nothing expected in return, brought back.
As for the
commercialization of Christmas, there still is a bright side.
It is the one
time in the year where we can hear songs proclaiming the King of Kings and
Lord of Lords, with others heralding the birth of The Holy Child, Jesus Christ
our Savior coming through the loud speakers of the malls and shopping centers
of the secular world. Homes are decorated with lights to proclaim Him. And
people are a little nicer to one another at least once a year.
So maybe
this commercialized version is better than having no celebration at
all.
Rev. Austin Miles is a Northern California chaplain, author,
award-winning writer and historian. He was a writer-researcher and technical
consultant for the multi award-winning TV series, "Ancient Secrets of The
Bible," for CBS TV, which is currently being re-run on the Total Living
Network (TLN). He portrayed Alexander Graham Bell in the Houghton Mifflin
interactive CD-Rom titled, InventorLabs, which won
two Gold Awards for
"Best Educational Software for Adolescents." Rev. Miles is listed in the
International Historic Who's Who Encyclopedia.
