There is perhaps no saint more famous and less known than Nicholas of Myra. To most of the modern world, he is a jolly fellow in a red suit, patron saint of department stores and shopping malls. But the real Nicholas would likely have given our commercial Christmas the same treatment he gave Arius at the Council of Nicaea – a sharp slap across the face.

 

This, of course, is the great paradox of Nicholas: that the man who would become associated with gentle generosity and children's presents was also the bishop who, according to tradition, struck a heretic in defense of Christ's divinity. But perhaps this is not really a paradox at all. For true gentleness often requires fierce protection of what matters most, just as true giving requires knowing what is truly worth giving.

 

The historical Nicholas lived in the tumultuous period of the early fourth century, when Christianity had emerged from the catacombs into the courts of emperors. This emergence brought its own dangers. No longer threatened by persecution from without, the Church faced the subtler threat of corruption from within. Chief among these threats was the Arian heresy, which claimed that Christ was not truly divine but merely the highest of created beings.

 

To modern ears, this might sound like theological hair-splitting. But Nicholas understood what many today have forgotten: that if Christ is not truly God, then Christmas becomes merely a sentimental story about a baby in a manger, rather than the earth-shattering moment when the Creator entered His creation. The Arian Christ was a sort of celestial middle-manager, neither fully divine nor fully human – a comfortable compromise that would have made Christianity far more palatable to sophisticated Roman sensibilities.

 

It was against this comfortable compromise that Nicholas lost his composure at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Whether he actually struck Arius matters less than what the story reveals about his character. Here was a man who had endured persecution under Emperor Diocletian, who had given away his inheritance to help the poor, who was known for secret acts of charity – and yet he could not remain silent when the very nature of Christ was being questioned.

 

The irony would not be lost on Nicholas that in our time, his own story has undergone a similar dilution. Just as Arius reduced Christ to a more manageable figure, modern culture has transformed Nicholas from a passionate defender of orthodoxy into a benign dispenser of consumer goods. The bishop who fought for the full divinity of Christ has become the mascot for a holiday that increasingly forgets Christ altogether.

 

But perhaps there is hope in remembering the real Nicholas. His famous acts of charity – providing dowries for poor girls, leaving coins in shoes, helping those in need – flowed not from a vague sense of seasonal goodwill but from a profound understanding of what it meant that God became man. He gave because he had received the ultimate gift. He defended truth because he knew that truth matters more than comfort.

 

The slap at Nicaea and the secret gifts to the poor came from the same source: a recognition that some things are worth fighting for and some things are worth giving for. Nicholas understood that the Incarnation changes everything. If Christ is truly God become man, then every act of charity becomes participation in divine love, and every defense of truth becomes protection of that same love.

 

This is the key to understanding both Nicholas's gentleness and his ferocity. Modern people, who like their saints to be either completely militant or completely mild, might find it strange that the same man who punched a heretic would sneak around leaving coins for the poor. But Nicholas knew what we have forgotten – that love without truth becomes mere sentimentality, and truth without love becomes mere cruelty. He embodied both because he served the One who is both Truth and Love incarnate.

 

The great witness of Nicholas's life is how thoroughly he understood the implications of the Nicene Creed he helped to defend. That Christ was "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father" was not just a theological formula to him – it was the foundation of everything he did. His secret gifts were not just random acts of kindness, but a reflection of the greatest secret gift of all: God's gift of Himself to humanity.

 

It is telling that the modern world has kept the gifts but forgotten the reason for them. We have turned Nicholas into "Santa Claus," a figure who gives simply for giving's sake, demanding nothing more profound than good behavior and perhaps a plate of cookies. But the real Nicholas gave because he had first received; he was generous because he understood the overwhelming generosity of God becoming man.

 

What would Nicholas make of our modern Christmas? He would surely be puzzled by the sight of his image being used to sell everything from soft drinks to luxury cars. He might be alarmed at how thoroughly the feast of Christ's birth has been transformed into a festival of consumption. But most of all, he would be grieved that the very truth he fought for at Nicaea – the full divinity of Christ – has been forgotten in favor of a vague holiday spirit.

 

Yet Nicholas's witness endures for those with eyes to see. In an age that wants to reduce both Christ and Christmas to comfortable proportions, his example reminds us that true love sometimes requires a fighting spirit. In a time that has forgotten why we give gifts at all, his life points back to the greatest gift ever given: God with us, Emmanuel.

 

The next time you see a shopping mall Santa or hear a song about St. Nick, remember the real Nicholas – the bishop who knew when to give in secret and when to take a stand in public, the saint who understood that defending Christ's divinity and giving to the poor were two sides of the same coin. Remember that this "jolly old elf" was in fact a warrior for truth and a channel of God's love, and that his greatest gift to us might be the reminder that Christmas is about something – Someone – far greater than presents under a tree.

 

For Nicholas, Christ's birth was not just a nice story to celebrate once a year, but the central fact that shaped everything else. He would want us to remember that the baby in the manger was the same God who created the universe, that the child wrapped in swaddling clothes was the eternal Word wrapped in human flesh. This is the truth he fought for at Nicaea, the truth that inspired his giving, the truth that makes Christmas more than just a holiday.

 

In the end, perhaps the most fitting tribute we could pay to the real St. Nicholas would be to recover what he understood so well: that the only reason to celebrate Christmas at all is that it marks the moment when, as the Nicene Creed puts it, God "came down from heaven, and was incarnate, and was made man." Everything else – all the gifts, all the celebrations, all the traditions – flows from this one extraordinary fact. Nicholas knew this truth was worth fighting for. The question for us is: do we?

 

 

-The Seeker's Quill