Baring-Gould’s sources: All Oriental Menseas and Menologies. Roman Martyrology, Usuardus, and all Western Martyrologies. The translation of his relics to Bari on May 9. Authorities: — A Life by Metaphrastes, and that in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine.] NFORTUNATELY we have little or no trustworthy information concerning the probably most popular saint in Christendom. That he was bishop of Myra in the fourth century, is really all that we know for certain of him. But legend has supplied the deficiency with an abundant supply of material for the construction of an interesting, if fictitious, history of the saint.
He was bom aCPatara, a town of Lycia, in Asia Minor. Directly he was bom he was put in a basin to be washed, but, to the astonishment of the nurses, he stood up in the basin, and remained for two hours in an ecstasy, his hands clasped, and his eyes raised to heaven. Dionysius the Carthusian [a strict order of hermit-monks founded by St. Bruno in 1084], not stopping to inquire whether this was true or not, argues from it that Nicolas was endued with reason from the moment of birth. He began to fast from his cradle. 6*. Nicolas.
On Wednesdays and Fridays he refused nourishment from ins nurse's breasts, except in the evening, after sundown, when he sucked vigorously. He lost his parents when young, and was left with a considerable fortune. One day he heard that the father of three maidens, being unable to provide them with a jointure, was going to send them on to the streets to pick up a disreputable living. Nicolas stole one evening past the house, and flung a bag of gold through the window. The father then married honourably the eldest of his daughters. Soon after, Nicolas threw in a second bag of gold, to serve as a marriage portion for the second daughter; and afterwards a third sum, to assist the third maiden in finding a husband. But on this last occasion he was observed by the grateful father, who was on the watch. The three bags of gold have been converted into three gold balls, and serve as the emblem of pawnbrokers, who have chosen S. Nicolas as their patron.
Nicolas was ordained priest, and set off on a voyage to the Holy Land. On his way, the ship that bore him was nearly wrecked, but by the prayers of Nicolas the storm was suppressed, and the waves controlled, so that the vessel was enabled to reach Alexandria in safety. From that city he made his way to Jerusalem. On his way back by sea, the captain endeavoured to put into Alexandria instead of going to Lycia, but a violent storm prevented him, and he was obliged to deposit Nicolas at the port at which he desired to disembark.
About a.d. 325 he was elected bishop of Myra. After his consecration, a woman brought into the church a child which had fallen into the fire and was burnt. Nicolas made the sign of the cross over it, and restored it to health. On this account he is invoked against fire. His power over tempests has caused him to be also invoked by sailors. He is thought to have been a confessor [in old usage, a saint who was not martyred, or who suffered for the faith without being killed] under Licinius [Roman emperor in the East 308–324]. TraVOL. xv. K dition insists that he was present in the great council of Nicaea, and he is invariably represented among the assembled fathers, in the pictures of the council common in Eastern churches, though he is not mentioned as having been present by a single ancient historian. In that council were read the songs composed by Arius, under the title of Thalia, for the sake of popularizing his speculations with the lower orders. The songs were set to tunes, or written in metres, which had acquired a questionable reputation from their use in the licentious verses of the heathen poet Sotades, ordinarily used in the low revels or dances of Alexandria; and the grave Arius himself is said, in moments of wild excitement, to have danced like an Eastern Dervish, whilst he sang these abstract statements in long straggling lines, of which about twenty are preserved to us. To us the chief surprise is that any enthusiasm should have been excited by sentences such as these, — “ God was not always the Father; once He was not the Father; afterwards He became the Father.” But, in proportion to the attraction which they possessed for the partisans of Arius, was the dismay they roused in the minds of those by whom the expressions which Arius thus lightly set aside were regarded as the watchwords of the ancient faith. The bishops, on hearing the song, raised their hands in horror, and, after the manner of Orientals, when wishing to express their disgust at blasphemous words, kept their ears fast closed, and their eyes fast shut. It was doubtless at this point that occurred the incident embodied in legend, of the sudden outbreak of fury in Nicolas, bishop of Myra, who is represented in the traditional pictures of the council as dealing a blow with all his force at Arius’s jaw. It is this incident, real or imaginary, that gave some colour to the charge of violence brought by Peter Martyr against the Nicene fathers. But the story itself bears witness to the humane spirit which exalts this S. Nicolas.
earliest council above its successors. The legend best known in the West goes on to say that for this intemperate act S. Nicolas was deprived of his mitre and pall, which were only restored to him long afterwards by the intervention of angels — *. e. of monks, interceding for the restitution. But in the East, the story assumes a more precise and polemical form. The council, it is said, on the appeal of Arius, imprisoned the bishop of Myra. But in prison, the Redeemer, whose honour he had vindicated, appeared with His Mother; the One restored to him the Gospel, the other the pall, and with these credentials he claimed and obtained his freedom.1 He is said to have wrung from Eustathius, governor of Myra, the pardon of three men condemned to death and imprisoned in a tower. He was afterwards represented with this tower at his side, and three little men rising out of it. By degrees the tower was cut down, and the men converted into naked children; and then a new legend was composed to account for the transformed symbol.. It was said that an innkeeper, running short of bacon, had cut up three little boys, and pickled them in his salting-tub. S. Nicolas heard that three scholars had gone to the inn, and had disappeared there. He went to the tavern, asked for the pickle-tub, and at his word the remains of the butchered children came together, and the little pickles stood up alive in the tub. Even in his lifetime he was invoked by sailors. In a tempest he was thus called on, when he appeared, seized the rudder, and guided the ship in safety through the waves. His tomb at Myra was much resorted to, and it was contrived that an oil should flow from it, which was collected as miraculous. In 1087 some merchants of Bari, in southern Italy, made a descent on Myra, and earned oft the relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] of the saint, which they deposited in their own dtv. Since then 1 Stanley, ** Lectures on the Eastern Church," lect. ir. the oil has been made to flow from the bones as effectually as before their translation.
S. Nicolas is represented in art with three children in a pickle-tub at his side, or with three golden balls or purses in his hand.