Herland: Christmas & Saint Nicholas the Original and true Santa Claus

A recent column by best-selling author and historian Hanne Nabintu Herland is entitled: “Saint Nicholas, the original and true Santa Claus.” That article was provided by the WND News Center to this writer for MHProNews and this Patch and follows in Part I below.

Obviously, anyone can have an opinion on anything. But an informed look can have particular value. With that in mind, some background on Herland is useful to set the stage for her thoughtful and interesting Christmas-linked column.

According to her bio-in-brief, per WND.com, is the following. “Hanne Nabintu Herland is a historian of comparative religions, bestselling author and founder of The Herland Report. Providing independent analysis on current events, philosophy and religion, the Herland Report also features a YouTube channel with interviews with leading intellectuals from across the political spectrum. Her books include "The Culture War. How the West Lost its Greatness" (2017), "New Left Tyranny. The Authoritarian Destruction of Our Way of Life" (2020), "Trump. The Battle for America" (2020) and her latest, "The Billionaire World. How Marxism serves the Elite" (2023), an analysis of how the elites use Marxist repression to achieve their goals. To learn more about her, visit www.theherlandreport.com and follow her on social media: YouTube, Facebook. Read more of Hanne Nabintu Herland's articles here.” According to left-leaning Bing’s AI powered Copilot, she is Christian, but no specific branch of Christianity is stated.

With that understanding, here is her article on “jolly” Saint Nick and its obvious ties to Christian history and the birth of Jesus Christ which is celebrated on the rapidly approaching Christmas day. Some additional thoughts will follow in Part II, along with some other unrelated subjects.

Part I

REASON FOR THE SEASON

Saint Nicholas, the original and true Santa Claus

'He helped prisoners, consoled those who were tortured, provided solutions for a variety of problems'

By Hanne Nabintu Herland | December 18, 2024

Read Hanne's The Herland Report.

The Christmas celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ has been a religious tradition for more than 2,000 years. Yet, over the past decades the Christian holiday has been reinvented by Western secular forces to serve consumerism, indulgence and materialism alone. The deep, philosophical meaning of Christmas and God's love for humankind is gone from our atheist mainstream culture, and we are shifting into nihilism, vanity and lovelessness.

Santa Claus has become this fat, humorous troll from the North Pole who puts gifts into children's stockings, riding his sleigh on reindeer in the air like a witch, while occult figures such as gnomes and elves aid him in the pursuit of serving the interests of the retail market. It is all Walt Disney. The story of the true Santa is totally lost.

Church history explains well who the original Santa Claus was, namely an early Christian bishop in modern-day Turkey, Saint Nicholas (A.D. 270-343). He was a wealthy man and one of the greatest church fathers in Christian history, an example in humility, generosity, love for the suffering, fearlessly facing evil. He used his money to help the destitute, the poor, the orphaned, and courageously spoke up against political leaders when he found injustice and wrongdoing. Saint Nicholas' work was marked by a desire not to achieve praise for his good deeds. He kept giving in secret, so that only God would see it. The aim was to mimic Christ in doing good to others and helping solve their problems. "The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic His giving," he said.

One of the well-known stories about him is that of a formerly rich man who had lost everything and now was so poor that he was in the process of sending his young daughters into prostitution. Saint Nicholas heard about this and in secrecy threw stockings filled with gold coins into their house. The man was enabled to avoid the pitfalls of poverty and restore the honor of his daughters. Stories of how Nicholas helped prisoners, consoled those who were tortured, provided solutions for a variety of problems that his contemporaries faced – this all sums up the work of St. Nicholas as recorded in the early centuries after Christ.

The gentle Saint Nicholas is also described as an ardent warrior, zealously confronting political as well as religious leaders when he felt the truth was in jeopardy. His willingness to suffer in prison, lose his social status, be depraved of worldly honor in order to stand up for truth, made him exemplary. Saint Nicholas became the archbishop of Myra in Lycia, known for his love for the population. Under the excruciating persecutions against Christians under the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284-305), Nicholas was in prison for refusing to give up his faith in Christ. Then, when Emperor Constantine the Great (272-337) took power, Saint Nicholas was brought out from prison and returned to his esteemed work as archbishop. He later participated in the First Ecumenical Council in A.D. 325 and the very institutionalization of Christianity that would cause the Roman Empire to last another thousand years in Eastern Constantinople.

With the advent of Protestantism, Christians in Europe lost much of the knowledge about the early church fathers who lived in the centuries after Christ. Their stories were forgotten.

The modern twist to Santa Claus is only about 120 years old, and serves as a testament to how profoundly atheism has changed our culture. It is gnomes and occult trolls we focus on now, not the birth of Jesus Christ in a manger: The son of God, born in humility, destined to give those who submit to him existential peace and eternal life, born to enlighten our darkened hearts with love for one another.

"In the 19th century, decisive works cemented the modern reshaping of Saint Nicholas," writes the author of "Kingdom of Vikings," Simon Vincent, including "'A Visit by Saint Nicholas' by Clement C. Moore in 1823, and a widely distributed illustration of St. Claus by Thomas Nast in 1863. In England, 'Father Christmas' was trending as a literary personification of the festive Christmas spirit – most famously exemplified in Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol.' References to the gift-giving Saint Nicholas were abbreviated to 'St. Claus,' from the Dutch Sinterklaas."

In the 1930s, the Coca-Cola Company used Santa Claus to promote their brand, Walt Disney films emerged, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra sang about it, and the secular creation of Santa Claus was complete to the joy of financial capital markets. And just like that, the true Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, was lost.

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Part II - Additional Information with More Analysis, Commentary, and Other Topics

Well, it is obvious that Herland was using some literary flare to emphasize that the commercial version of Santa Claus was overshadowing the real St. Nick, who was the Bishop of Myra, according to the Vatican website. Before pressing further into St. Nicholas, let me briefly inform new readers and remind longer term ones that this writer has been reading Herland's thoughtful columns for several years. On MHProNews, we have referenced and shared her numbers of her thoughtful columns for years, see the link here for a sampling. That said, more on St. Nick.

https://patch.com/florida/lake...

Per the Vatican is the following. Keep in mind that the date shown is the saint's feast day.

St. Nicholas of Bari, Bishop of Myra

06 December

San Nicola | A life of obedience

Nicholas was born at Patara, a seaside town in Licia, in southern Turkey, in the third century. He came from a good family that raised him as a Christian. His life, from his earliest days, was marked by obedience. When he was orphaned at a young age, Nicholas, remembering the rich young man in the Gospel, used his inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the poor. He was elected Bishop of Myra, and under the emperor Diocletian was exiled and imprisoned. After being freed, he attended the Council of Nicea in 325. He died in Myra on 6 December 343. Many stories have been handed down about Nicholas, all testifying to a life spent in service to the weak, the small, and the defenceless.

Defender of the weak

One of the most ancient stories about Saint Nicholas involves a man with three daughters of marriageable age. The family was poor, and the young girls were in danger of being forced into prostitution, because their father could not afford to offer a suitable dowry. One night, Nicholas went to the family’s home, and threw a bag of coins through the open window -- then fled before he could be identified. With the money, the father was able to procure a marriage for his eldest daughter. Nicholas returned twice more, always at night so that he could not be identified. But the third time, the father rushed out of the house to identify his mysterious benefactor. Nicholas begged him not to tell anyone what he had done.

Another story relates the fate of three young theologians travelling to Athens. Along the way, they stopped at an inn, where they were robbed and killed by the innkeeper, who hid their bodies in a barrel. Saint Nicholas, then a bishop, stopped at the same inn when he travelled to Athens. In a dream, he saw the crime that had been committed by his host. Turning to prayer, Saint Nicholas miraculously restored the three young men to life, and obtained the conversion of the wicked innkeeper.

A third story tells how Saint Nicholas freed a young boy, Basileos, who had been kidnapped from his home in Myra, and forced to serve as a cup-bearer for a foreign potentate. While his parents prayed for his safety, Saint Nicholas appeared to Basileos, and miraculously restored him to his family -- still holding the potentate’s golden cup.

These and similar stories helped to spread devotion to Saint Nicholas as patron of children and young people.

Protector of seafarers

St Nicholas is also the patron of sailors and seafarers. When he was a young man, Nicholas boarded a ship to take him on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Following in the footsteps of the Lord, Nicholas prayed that he might be able to experience more fully the closeness of Jesus, and share in His sufferings. Returning to Greece, a frightful storm arose, and the ship he was on was in danger of flooding. Nicholas calmly prayed, and suddenly the wind ceased and the waves died down, to the wonder of the sailors, who feared shipwreck.

Saint Nicholas of Bari

After the death of Saint Nicholas, his tomb at Myra soon became a place of pilgrimage; his relics were considered miraculous on account of a mysterious liquid that flowed from them, known as the “manna of St Nicholas.” After Licia was conquered by the Turks in the tenth century, Venetians attempted to make him their patron -- but sailors from Bari were able to acquire his relics first, and brought them to their town in Puglia in 1087. Two years later they were buried in the crypt of a new Church, which the Baresi had built over the place where a Byzantine palace had once stood. The relics were placed under the altar by the reigning Pope, Urban II, as the Norman rulers of Puglia looked on. The translation of the relics of Saint Nicholas was seen in the Medieval period as an extraordinary event, and his sanctuary soon became an important goal for pilgrims, with the result that devotion to Saint Nicholas “of Bari” (rather than “of Myra”) spread throughout the world.

Santa Claus

In the Low Countries, and throughout Germanic lands generally, the winter feast of Saint Nicholas (in Dutch, “Sint Nikolaas” and later “Sinteklaas”), and his patronage of the young, gave rise to the tradition of giving gifts on his feast day: on the Eve of his feast, children would leave socks or shoes on a chair, or next to the fireplace, and go to sleep trusting that the following morning they would be filled with gifts.

According to left-leaning Wikipedia is the following on good St. Nick.

"Saint Nicholas of Myra[a] (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343),[3][4][b] also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Patara in Anatolia (in modern-day Antalya Province, Turkey) during the time of the Roman Empire.[7][8] Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nicholas the Wonderworker.[c] Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, repentant thieves, children, brewers, pawnbrokers, toymakers, unmarried people, and students in various cities and countries around Europe. His reputation evolved among the pious, as was common for early Christian saints, and his legendary habit of secret gift-giving gave rise to the folklore of Santa Claus ("Saint Nick") through Sinterklaas."

So, Herland is quite right to raise the subject of Saint Nicholas of Myra in the context of the true meaning of Christmas. But there are clearly other possible takeaways.

In an increasingly secular culture, the life of Nicholas of Bari is a reminder that there is extensive history that directly or indirectly sheds light on early Christianity and the life of Jesus Christ. There are scores of saints lives from that early period in the development of the Christian faith.

Herland mentioned in her article:

• the early "church fathers in Christian history"
• She also said: "Under the excruciating persecutions against Christians under the reign of Emperor Diocletian (284-305), Nicholas was in prison for refusing to give up his faith in Christ."
• "He (i.e.: Nicholas) later participated in the First Ecumenical Council in A.D. 325 and the very institutionalization of Christianity that would cause the Roman Empire to last another thousand years in Eastern Constantinople."
• "With the advent of Protestantism, Christians in Europe lost much of the knowledge about the early church fathers who lived in the centuries after Christ. Their stories were forgotten."

Again, in fairness, her use of the term "forgotten" should be considered as an apparent literary device to make a point. Clearly, St. Nick is remembered by Herland, by the Vatican, by Wikipedia, and millions of others.

That said, each of those are reasons to consider the recent post on the existence of God and why that matters. Herland is a routine and positive advocate for a renewals of Christian influence on society.

https://patch.com/florida/lake...

Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus, and his name was Saint Nicholas. St. Nick is part of the eternal family of faith that stretches back to the time of Jesus, and before him, to the Jewish people because "salvation is from the Jews." (John 4:22). The reason that millions stream to Mass on Christmas eve or Christmas day is because the word Christmas is a contraction of 'Christ Mass' - the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Many other non-Catholic Christians obviously celebrate Christmas with their religious services, or among Orthodox Christians, to a Divine Liturgy.

Christmas is just ahead. Other topics follow. Thanks for checking in.

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