Now that we can think straight after all of that holiday & holy day spending........
The original St. Nick was a brother, a Moor, a Melanoid....a person of African descent........
Unwrapping the Myths & Origins Surrounding Santa Claus
That jolly old elf gracing the masthead of books, magazines, cards, toys, advertisement media in Western culture looks nothing like the historical Saint Nicholas, the bishop of Myra whose life first gave impetus to the myth we have today.
We know very little about Bishop Nicholas, other that he was possibly a East African Ethiopian Coptic Christian Bishop in the Orthodox Coptic Christian Church in Turkey, according to church tradition, Nicholas traveled extensively in the regions of Myra (present-day Turkey). Regions also of Ethiopia, Egypt, Greece, and Syria. Also he traveled into other parts of Northeastern Africa, under the rule of Christian Rome. Save for the church myths and legends that grew up after his death in 350 CE. We're not even sure if there was a real
St. Nicholas. However, paintings of Saint Nicholas demonstrate his dark hue, curly afro'ed hairstyle, and negro features. The History Channel's Christmas expose on the origins of Christmas named "Unwrapping Christmas" showed pictures of this Black-looking Saint Nicholas.
In the book The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Harper San Francisco, 1983) that Bishop Nicholas was a Christianized fiction who replaced the pagan gods Artemis and Poseidon. Given the stories told about him by the early Church, this might very well be the case. Nicholas was said to have calmed violent storms, cured diseases, and resurrected the dead.
Bishop Nicholas earned a reputation for being extraordinarily kind to
children. Other myths and legends told the story of how he gave an
impoverished father gold coins to prevent him from selling his three
young daughters into, slavery. Various versions of the legend suggest
that Bishop Nicholas tossed the coins into an open window while
another variation says that he threw them down the chimney to
preserve his anonymity.
Imprisoned as a martyr sometime during Emperor Diocletian's rule, he
was later released when Emperor Constantine instituted the new
paradigm of tolerance toward Christians. Bishop Nicholas assigned by
Constantine, was one of the first African Christian Bishops, who
participated in the Council of Nicaea (325 CE) and helped to craft
the creed that confessed the mythical historical Jesus as a divine
god. Little did Nicholas realize at the time that he was himself to
become immortal alongside Jesus as well.
An anonymous 11th century medieval manuscript The Translation of
Saint Nicholas, tells a tale of legend how the church in Bari, Italy
decided to send a ship to Myra to exhume the relics and bones of
Saint Nicholas for re-deposition in their city. After meeting initial
fierce resistance from Coptic guardian monks, one of the monks tells
the others that he experienced a vision from the Saint in which the
Saint assents to the relocation.
After the tale, the monks allowed the sailors to take the Saint's
remains. Thus, the remains of Nicholas (or probably some unknown
crusader) were brought back from Myra in 1087 and installed in the
church at Bari.
The story also tells of the epiphany of a sea gull whose appearance
from heaven blessed the ship carrying the Saint's remains, thus
signifying divine approval of the enterprise. Once interned at Bari,
and after several visions, appearances, and healings among the
people, Saint Nicholas become known as the protector of children and
widows. What this fanciful tale omits, however, is that Nicholas's
cult replaced an older goddess cult in Bari after Befana (Pasqua
Epiphany) or "The Grandmother." described as "a female baboon-giving
deity"(symbology created in Egyptian religion), that "used to fill
the children's stockings with her gifts." The cult that spread
rapidly around Nicholas/Befana culminated in a pageant on December
6th of every year. Drawing upon the stories of his kindness to
children and the giving of gold coins, followers gave each other
gifts in honor of the Saint.
The Church eventually moved the pageant of Saint Nicholas to the winter solstice (the final day of the ancient Roman Saturnalia festival, now December 25th) to merge it with the celebration of Christ's birth. Before it became attached to Christ's birth, December 25th was the Mithraic winter-solstice festival called Dies Natalis Solis Invictus, Birthday of the Unconquered Sun.
Mithras was known as the Light of the World, Sun of Righteousness,
and Savior. The divine child (symbology the Sun disk, ancient
Egyptian religion, sun rising "Heru") was celebrated on the winter
solstice, the darkest days of winter where the sun's rebirth (rising
sun in the East - resurrection) would lead to longer days and spring.
Nicholas's cult was gradually combined with German and Celtic pagan
Yule rites to produce a Christianized "Father Christmas," a somber
figure closer to the twinkling elf we know today. Father Christmas
was traditionally old, bearded, wore a thick coat of furs, and rode a
white horse. Pagan celebrants lighted candles in trees and decorated
their homes with ivy, pine, and holly. Mummer's danced and small
troupes traveled from house to house singing (traditional tribal
songs) carols.
The Yule ritual of dragging a log (Christmas Tree) through the
streets by domesticated reindeer represented the phallus (penis), and
invokes fertility magic associated with the cult of Frey. When pagans
were Christianized by the Church, Frey would be changed to Kris
Kringle, ("Christ of the Orb"), i.e., the reborn divine child of
earlier Mithras cult.
Americans will come to see Father Christmas as riding a reindeer,
which magically flies. In the nineteenth-century, Saint Nicholas
rides a sleigh pulled by a team of reindeers. Now Santa Claus, that
jolly old man with a pipe, is now transformed and immortal. He lives
at the North Pole among elves and continues to respond to greedy
little urchins all over the world on Christmas Eve.
To this day Saint Nicholas's cult competes alongside Christ on the same holiday in a strange mixture of commercialization, paganism, excess and holy reverence. This has led some Christians in recent years to proclaim the slogan; "Jesus is the reason for the season."
However, the prior enduring history of Santa Claus, Mithras, Yule,
and The Grandmother, Unconquered Sun Mithraic winter-solstice
festival, prove that this slogan is quite incorrect. Jesus has been
clumsily papered on top of deeper rituals and the fact that these
rituals cannot be contained and often overshadows the Christians
reveal the tremendous power that these older myths still possess.
Web Posted 1997
By Azikewe' Kamarif
african.net/html
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This is a centuries old painting of Saint Nicholas in a museum in Italy. The modern character Santa Claus is based on this Blackamoor saint. Learn more about St. Nicolas from the Hidden Colors film series.
http://www.hiddencolorsfilm.com/
Carricutures of St. Nicholas:
1. http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=40
2. http://www.domestic-
church.com/CONTENT.DCC/19981101/SAINTS/nicholas.htm
Saint Nick was the Bishop of Myra in Lycia; died 6 December, 345 or 352. Though he is one of the most popular saints in the Greek as well as the Latin Church, there is scarcely anything historically certain about him except that he was Bishop of Myra in the fourth century.
Some of the main points in his legend are as follows: He was born at Parara, a city of Lycia in Asia Minor; in his youth he made a pilgrimage to Egypt and Palestine; shortly after his return he became Bishop of Myra; cast into prison during the persecution of Diocletian, he was released after the accession of Constantine, and was present at the Council of Nicaea. In 1087 Italian merchants stole his body at Myra, bringing it to Bari in Italy.
The numerous miracles St. Nicholas is said to have wrought, both
before and after his death, are outgrowths of a long tradition. There
is reason to doubt his presence at Nicaea, since his name is not
mentioned in any of the old lists of bishops that attended this
council. His cult in the Greek Church is old and especially popular
in Russia. As early as the sixth century Emperor Justinian I built a
church in his honour at Constantinople, and his name occurs in the
liturgy ascribed to St. Chrysostom. In Italy his cult seems to have
begun with the translation of his relics to Bari, but in Germany it
began already under Otto II, probably because his wife Theophano was
a Grecian. Bishop Reginald of Eichstaedt (d. 991) is known to have
written a metric, "Vita S. Nicholai." The course of centuries has not
lessened his popularity. The following places honour him as patron:
Greece, Russia, the Kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Lorraine, the Diocese
of Liège; many cities in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Belgium; Campen
in the Netherlands; Corfu in Greece; Freiburg in Switzerland; and
Moscow in Russia. He is patron of mariners, merchants, bakers,
travellers, children, etc. His representations in art are as various
as his alleged miracles. In Germany, Switzerland, and the
Netherlands, they have the custom of making him the secret purveyor
of gifts to children on 6 December, the day on which the Church
celebrates his feast; in the United States and some other countries
St. Nicholas has become identified with Santa Claus who distributes
gifts to children on Christmas eve. His relics are still preserved in
the church of San Nicola in Bari; up to the present day an oily
substance, known as Manna di S. Nicola, which is highly valued for
its medicinal powers, is said to flow from them.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11063b.htm
