Santa Claus: Heresy Hunter?
Did old St. Nicholas slap Arian heretics to destroy them or write them letters to persuade them?
For a long time, the “real” story of Santa Claus has intrigued me. It starts almost eighteen-hundred years ago in modern-day Turkey. A wealthy, influential family welcomed a new baby boy, with an unusual name. “Nicholas,” they called him. That baby grew into a young man. The church in Myra in Asia Minor ordained that young man as the pastor or “bishop” for their little church. As centuries strung together, myths have attached to this man’s story. For example, a story circulates that he currently lives at the North Pole, where he bases his mission to bring gifts to children across the world on Christmas Eve. Other, more historically plausible stories bubble up, too.
St. Nicholas at the Council
One story narrates the attendance of Nicholas at the hinge council of Christian history and theology. In 325 AD the newly converted Emperor Constantine convened a gathering of all the church’s bishops to discuss church theology and policy. While many bishops could not attend due to weather and distance, Nicholas made it and attended. Most importantly, at Nicaea the bishops discussed and debated teaching from an influential man in Alexandria, North Africa. The teaching took its name from its teacher: Arius taught what most everyone called Arianism. Arianism spread the idea that the Son was not the eternally begotten Son of God the Father. Instead, Arius said, the Father created the Son as his first and most glorious creation.
Many sniffed out something wrong with this doctrine, including Nicholas. The Council of Nicaea determined that the Son was equally God with the Father. Some have explained that this means that the Son was not merely like the Father’s nature as Arius claimed. The Greek word for this false doctrine is homoiousios, homoi meaning “similar” and ousios meaning “nature”: “The Son has a similar nature to the Father.” Nope, said the church as it studied the Scripture. Instead, the truth and eternity would hinge on removing a single letter—“i” (iota in Greek). The Son is homoousios with the Father, homo meaning “same” and ousios meaning “nature”: “The Son has the same nature as the Father.” God the Father and God the Son are equally and fully God. As the council stood squarely on the Scripture, it rejected Arius’s false teaching as “heresy.” Nicholas agreed, strongly. He had read his Bible and knew what it said.
Saint Nicholas and the Heretics
The “Santa Claus: Heresy Hunter” story gets going from the fact that Nicholas attended Nicaea and argued for true, biblical doctrine. One account says that Arius or a spokesman for Arianism stood and spoke at the council, saying that “There was a time what the Son was not” (in other words he was created and not God). Nicholas grieved at this blasphemy and stood to defend the truth, slapping Arius with the fat of his hand. In this telling, Nicholas becomes a forceful and powerful image of literally fighting for the truth. He becomes Will Smith, telling Arius to keep his Savior’s name out of his mouth. He becomes a belligerent example for how to fight heretics with literal violence, if needed. He becomes a picture of a sort of “manly” and “uneffeminate” Christianity.
Just one problem. The story isn’t true. In The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus: The True Life and Trials of Nicholas of Myra, historian Adam C. English tells this mythic tale and then the truer one. If we extract the myths about “ole Saint Nick” from the true story, we find a courageous, compassionate, convictional Christian man. Instead of face-slapping heretics, Nicholas wrote letters to them. Another bishop, Theognis of Crete sympathized with the Arian side, so he was stripped of his title and sent away from the council. Adam English sets the scene, citing an ancient writer named Andrew:
Theognis…needed to get on board. Arian belief was heresy, and heresy could not be tolerated. Nicholas, however, didn’t give up, lose control, slap his face, or stand him in front of a flaming pyre and ask him to reconsider. Instead, according to Andrew of Crete, Nicholas wrote a string of letters to Theognis patiently persuading him of what was right. Nicholas quoted Psalm 133:1 to him: “See how good and pleasant it is for brothers to live together in unity.” He urged Theognis to put aside his pride and be reconciled to his fellow bishops.
And here’s the upshot: “In the end, Theognis was convinced.”
St. Nicholas and the Better Story
I have seen memes about “the real St. Nicholas punched heretics” as a sort of glib, tongue-in-cheek poke at the cartoony Santa Claus of the movies. The true story of humble and bold persistence opposes and subverts that legend of St. Nicholas the silly slap-happy heresy hunter. The slap might make a good meme, but it teaches trashy theology. Maybe it appeals to certain strains of Christians with a triumphalist warring spirit. Such folks take the verse “contend for the faith” (Jude 3) as a call to arms, and face-slaps if needed. They sound the call for war, but are the weapons of their warring those of the flesh or the Spirit?
The truth is better than the myth, because Ole Saint Nick lived out the even truer truth:
For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
Here we find a model for persuasion that destroys bad ideas and arguments, while trying to win back the person. As Jesus taught us, “If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won your brother” (Matthew 18:15). What if we learned from Saint Nicholas, the letter-writer and tireless persuader of wayward brethren? Now, that doesn’t slap (pun intended) like “Santa Claus: Heresy Hunter.” But it’s a much better story, and a much better way.