Who was Saint Nicholas?

Saint Nicholas is best known for being the inspiration behind the legend of Santa Claus due to his habit of secretly giving gifts, but who was he and what is his importance in Church history? It is easy to dismiss many of the early church figures as Roman Catholic, due to the appendage of 'Saint' to their name by Rome, and also due to the style of illustrations which have been left to depict them. In many cases this view is inaccurate, especially when dealing with the earliest centuries of the Church, and so it is in the case of Nicholas. Born in 270 AD he was appointed bishop of Myra in what is modern day Turkey. Many legends have grown up around him, most of them only appearing centuries after his death and being without historical foundation, however his most significant contribution to the church was at the Council of Nicaea.

 

The Council of Nicaea was called by the Emperor Constantine in 325 AD to settle a dispute which had been running in the church since the year 318. The main antagonist in this dispute was Arius, a presbyter from Alexandria, and the issue in dispute was the divine nature of Jesus Christ. Arius had denied the full deity of Christ, teaching that Christ was simply the first and greatest of the creatures that God had created, but that only the Father was fully divine. Similar to the earlier views of Origin, who believed Christ to be less divine than the Father, Arius held to the erroneous view that Christ was in some way or other inferior to God the Father.

The purpose of the Council of Nicaea was to rule on the question of Christ's divinity, with men such as Athanasius continuing to lead the fight for truth in the years that followed the council. Alongside many others Nicholas of Myra was one of those bishops in attendance who sided with the men who defended the truth of Christ's divine nature against Arian heresy. Legend has it that such was his opposition to Arius's heresy that he struck him in the face at the Nicaean Council. In all likelihood that altercation did not actually take place, and such actions are not the recommended means of dealing with heretics, however they do serve to illustrate his desire for the truth to prevail. 

Ultimately the Council of Nicaea would declare Christ to be fully divine, with just one letter in a Greek word making the difference in the Council's statement of what the church would believe on this matter. Christ was declared to be 'homoousios' with the Father, meaning of the same essence or substance, rejecting Arius's term' homoiusios' which only meant of similar substance. Nicaea did not discover the truth of Christ's deity, but rather it defended and defined it in terms that were in accordance with what the scriptures had always taught. The text of the Nicaean Creed stated that Christ was 'from the essence of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not created, of the same essence as the Father'.

The fundamental truth of Christ's deity is of great importance when we consider Christ's incarnation. Not only was he fully man, but he was also fully God; Emmanuel, God with us. If Christ is not come into the world as both God and man then his sacrifice on the cross is insufficient to the saving of men's eternal souls. It is for defending the truth of Christ's deity that we have most cause to thank God for men like Nicholas and Athansius.

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1)

'And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth'. (John 1:14)