The debate about Santa Claus is almost as heated as this ridiculous El Niño December we’re having in the Northeast U.S (sorry warm weather lovers, but I’m old school — I like my snow for Christmas). And while there is nothing I can do about the weather, I think I can help shed some light on the Santa question.
Let’s cut right to it: Can Christians claim Santa as their own, as being based on the fourth-century St. Nicholas of Myra?
Certainly, the evidence is there. The sainted bishop was well known for his amazing generosity to the poor, and in particular for clandestinely helping three dower-less young women by tossing bags of gold coins through their window under cover of night. According to one version of the story, the bags landed in a stocking hung up by the fire to dry (hence the tradition of hanging stockings at Christmas).
Not surprisingly, as early as the Middle Ages the custom of giving gifts to children was observed on St. Nicholas’ feast day (Dec. 6th).
But there is also a resemblance to various folkloric figures of pre-Christian Europe. Take for instance the Germanic god Odin, often portrayed as a wandering old man with a long, white beard. Odin was said to have led the fabled “Wild Hunt,” a ghostly procession of spectral horsemen, across the sky. Here we may have an “ancestor” of Santa’s sleigh and the flying reindeer (albeit a less jolly one).
Or, is Santa Claus simply the jolly old caricature that has become so familiar to the modern Western world?
If you are familiar with this blog, you may have gathered by now that I am not a big fan of either/or scenarios when it comes to stuff like this. I am a devout Catholic, which might lead some to think me narrow-minded. Quite the contrary. My Catholic faith gives me a comprehensive worldview in which everything good and true has its place.
J.R.R. Tolkien has some things to say in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” that I find helpful here. He points out that the fact of a certain motif or situation appearing in various stories cannot be taken as proof against its actual occurrence in the life of a flesh-and-blood human being, and goes on to say the following:
I wish to point out something else that these traditions contain: a singularly suggestive example of the relation of the ‘fairy-tale element’ to gods and kings and nameless men, illustrating (I believe) the view that this element does not rise or fall, but is there, in the Cauldron of Story, waiting for the great figures of Myth and History, and for the yet nameless He or She, waiting for the moment when they are cast into the simmering stew (. . .) If indeed Ingeld and Freawaru never lived, or at least never loved, then it is ultimately from nameless man and woman that they get their tale, or rather into whose tale they have entered.
(Tolkien, pg. 127 — parenthesis included, brackets and italics mine)
Anyone’s life story can participate in the age-old archetypes of storytelling, and saints are no exception.
But with sainthood, something else gets thrown into the Cauldron. By living in union with God, the saint becomes holy; and, being thrown int the Cauldron, s/he sanctifies the Cauldron (much as Christ sanctified the waters of the Jordan by being baptized in them).
With this I segue to Blessed John Henry Newman, who speaks of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies in Christians as well as in Christ (or, rather, in Christians by participation in Christ):
In answer to the objection urged against our Lord’s supreme Divinity from texts which speak of His exaltation, St. Athanasius is led to insist (. . .) that, in truth, not Christ, but that human nature which He had assumed, was raised and glorified in Him.
(. . .)
[The saints] have those titles of honour by participation, which are properly His. Without misgiving we may apply to them the most sacred language of Psalmists and Prophets. “Thou art a Priest for ever” may be said of St. Polycarp or St. Martin as well as of their Lord. “He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor,” was fulfilled in (. . .) St. Laurence. “I have found David My servant,” first said typically of the King of Israel, and belonging really to Christ, is transferred back again by grace to His Vicegerents upon earth. “I have given thee the nations for thine inheritance” is the prerogative of Popes; “Thou hast given him his heart’s desire,” the record of a martyr; “thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity,” the praise of Virgins.
(An Essay on the Development of Christian Docrtine — available at Project Gutenberg]
In a somewhat vaguer sense, Christ and His saints can also be seen foreshadowed in the myths of the gentile nations. Take, for instance, the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” in which the Viking’s wife sees in a gentle and faithful Catholic priest the living image of “Baldur the mild.” Or take St. Francis of Assisi, whom we might call the fulfillment of Orpheus, that great mythic friend of animals and nature. Finally, consider the holy virgins who dedicate their lives to Our Lady, much like the “train of nymphs” who would attend the goddess Artemis in Greek mythology.
I could go on and on, but you get the point. As a lifelong lover of mythology myself, I have come to understand and love it for what it truly is at root: A nameless dream of a Christified humanity.
St. Nicholas could well be thought of as the fulfillment of many wise old men from folklore, and our modern Santa Claus most definitely draws attention to his love and generosity. And as fellow Internet Catholic Brett Fawcett suggests, Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole is in some sense suggestive of St. Nicholas’ place in Heaven, “the North Pole of the universe,” and the elfin toymakers of the hosts of angels and saints into whose fellowship he has entered (see video, Santa Claus is Real. Seriously).
Furthermore, something of the flying reindeer is realized in the angelic hosts who proclaim the Creator from one end of creation to another. Finally, Santa’s generosity and gift-giving is realized in St. Nicholas’ loving care and intercession for humanity as a saint in heaven.
In short, the modern Santa Claus shows us much of the spirit of St. Nicholas, while also shining a light on the latter’s place in the Gospel’s hallowing of storytelling. And to the extent that he does this, he is preparatio evangelica.
And so I conclude with a hearty ho ho ho, and: St. Nicholas, pray for us!
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Acknowledgements
1. “MerryOldSanta” by Thomas Nast – Edited version of Image:1881 0101 tnast santa 200.jpg.. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MerryOldSanta.jpg#/media/File:MerryOldSanta.jpg
2. “St Nicholas Icon Sinai 13th century” by Unknown – Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai (Egypt) / K. Weitzmann: “Die Ikone”. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Nicholas_Icon_Sinai_13th_century.jpg#/media/File:St_Nicholas_Icon_Sinai_13th_century.jpg
3. “Georg von Rosen – Oden som vandringsman, 1886 (Odin, the Wanderer)” by Georg von Rosen – Appeared in the 1893 Swedish translation of the Poetic Edda. Immediate source: http://www.ginnungagap.info/gge_pic6.asp (accessed July 14th 2005). Taken from the English Wikipedia.. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Georg_von_Rosen_-_Oden_som_vandringsman,_1886_(Odin,_the_Wanderer).jpg#/media/File:Georg_von_Rosen_-_Oden_som_vandringsman,_1886_(Odin,_the_Wanderer).jpg
4. “SantaWithKids2014” by Bailiwick Studios from Rockford, MI – _C130063.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SantaWithKids2014.jpg#/media/File:SantaWithKids2014.jpg
5. “Oxford Tolkien” by Julian Nitzsche – Own work (own photograph). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oxford_Tolkien.JPG#/media/File:Oxford_Tolkien.JPG
6. Tolkien, J.R.R. “On Fairy-Stories.” The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays. London: HarperCollins, 2006.
7. “John Henry Newman circa 1863” by Not stated – The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman: https://archive.org/stream/a612281201warduoft#page/568/mode/2up. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Henry_Newman_circa_1863.jpg#/media/File:John_Henry_Newman_circa_1863.jpg
8. “Santas’s Workshop2” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santas%27s_Workshop2.jpg#/media/File:Santas%27s_Workshop2.jpg
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