BIOGRAPHY: THE REAL SANTA CLAUS
4 — Saint Nick’s Hometown
Saint Nicholas: Amazing Kid & Teen
What This Book Is About:
This book uncovers the true story of St. Nick — St. Nicholas, the real man behind the legend of Santa Claus. By blending 3rd-century history with the life of young Nicholas, the narrative is uniquely presented through the eyes of a modern teen. It’s perfect for parents ready to share the “truth” about Santa and for anyone curious about the man who inspired the legend, his deep connection to Christmas, and the roots of early Christian faith. The entire book, “Saint Nicholas: Amazing Kid & Teen,” will be available on Medium.
Recap: In the previous chapter, “3 — Cracking the Code: Santa’s Birth Year,” David, my fourteen-year-old English language student, and I discovered why most scholars believe Nicholas was born in AD 250. Now, as David continues reading “Saint Nicholas: Amazing Kid & Teen” over his Christmas holiday, he’s uncovering the exact location where Saint Nicholas was born.
Chapter 4 — Saint Nick’s Hometown
David continued to read.
Nicholas was born in the city of Patara which is located on the Mediterranean Sea. At the time Nicholas was born, it was an important Lycian and Hellenic port city in a province of the Roman Empire called Lycia/Pamphylia.
Located in southwestern Asia Minor, the ancient city can still to be found on maps today.
“Let’s find it!” David stopped reading and brought up a map of Asia Minor as it was in older days.
I pointed the location out to him.
“It’s in the Republic of Turkey today,” he stated, and then we went back to reading the text.
Both the world of men living there and its geographic setting is different today from what it was when Nicholas was born.
In the year AD 250, the people living in Patara today had not even formed into tribes in their native, far-eastern steppes home of Asia. While those inhabitants of Asia Minor — Ionian, Achaean, Hellenes, Carian, Lycian, Pamphylian, Pisidian, Isaruian, Cilician, Cappadocian, Lydian, etc — flourished as one of the greatest of classical Greek, Roman and then, Christian lands.
Nicholas’s birthplace was one of the six major cities of ancient Lycia. It possessed an oracle of Apollo, held the Lycian League’s archives (probably kept in the Temple of Apollo), and at the time Nicholas was born, was the seat of the Roman governor.
Today however, its harbor, which had been the greatest commercial port of the Roman district of Lycia/Pamphylia, is silted up — something that happened during the Middle Ages.
David paused.
He scrolled back up to where it was written, “‘Its geographic setting is entirely different from what it was when Nicholas was born.’ So, not just the people, but the geography of the land has changed through time.” He commented.
“Yes.”
Like so many Anatolian cities of its era, at the time of Nicholas’ birth, under the Hellenizing spirit of the Greek polis — city — Patara possessed all that made it as great as the old Greek coastal cities of Miletus, Ephesus, and Smyrna. It had a theater, a council chamber, a music hall — Odeon — a — shopping area —called an agora — a covered walkway — called a stoa — a gymnasium, a stadium, and a temple or two.
In his book, Classical Anatolia, The Glory of Hellenism, the historian, Harry Brewster, wrote about St. Nicholas’ area of the world, “By the third century BC they [the Lycians] had given up their language for Greek under no trace of duress and had wholeheartedly adopted the Greek diaita or way of life.”
Even today, a few of the public buildings that were there when Nicholas lived in Patara in the third century AD, can be seen poking their masonry artistically above the sandy, wildflower-covered, pine-scented land that was once the bustling city of Patara.
“Cool!” David exclaimed. “I love ancient sites.”
“Athens is a good place to live then!”
He nodded and continued to read.
For instance, the first century AD, triple-arched, Roman gateway stands almost complete at what was the entrance of the city (see opening photo). And in Nicholas’ day, the busts of the Roman governor, Mettius Modestus — governor of the province of Lycia-Pamphylia in about AD 100 — and members of his family, would have still sat upon the consoles made for that purpose looking down with ‘watchful eyes’ upon all who entered and left the city.
Stonework suggests that the temple of Apollo sat on a slight rise nearby. Public baths, stoas, basilicas, a lighthouse, a granary built at Emperor Hadrian’s instigation —
“Hadrian?” David asked as he clicked on the window with the timeline of Roman emperors again. “He lived long before Nicholas, didn’t he?”
“That’s right. In the second century AD.”
“Here he is.” He found Emperor Hadrian and he moved the cursor to hover over the bust of the fine looking man Hadrian had been. “He ruled from AD 117 to 138,” David said and went back to reading the list of public buildings still in existence in St. Nicholas’ hometown.
— a granary that still carries Emperor Hadrian’s name, and a theater are still to be seen despite the sand that threatens to cover it all; the sand that has completely covered most all of the public buildings.
Through his glasses, David looked at me with inquisitive eyes. “Wait, sand covered the city?”
I nodded. “Actually, it protected it.”
“From what?”
“The elements, for one.”
“You mean wind, rain, and sun?”
“Yes.”
“And two?”
“People.”
“People?”
“Yeah…if people who lived there long after St. Nicholas’ childhood days, had known so many readymade, cut stones were just sitting there, they would have torn apart the buildings of the ancient city and used the stones to build their houses. It’s happened many times. Even here in Athens.”
“So that means…buildings are just sitting under the sand?”
“What’s left of them anyway.”
Rock-cut tombs, something found throughout Anatolia, which in the words of Mr. Brewster often amounted ‘to no more than a hole in the precipitous face of a hill or mountain,’ but made into architectural wonders in the shape of house-type tombs in many towns of Lycia, would have been a normal sight for the child who was to become the great Christian leader, Nicholas of Myra.
Because Patara was a seaside city on a coastal plain, it didn’t have the fine rock-tombs that many Lycian cities possess even today — including that of Nicholas’ future home, Myra.
“Wait.” I could see that David had just put two and two together and came up with four. “Nicholas is called Nicholas of Myra because he’s going to live in the city of Myra someday?”
“Exactly. In olden days people were often identified by the place in which they lived and worked.”
“Cool!” David paused but wanted clarification. “But when he was a kid he lived in Patara?”
“Correct.”
“It’s a fact?”
“A fact.”
“Okay. What’s next?”
“How he was named after his uncle, rather than his grandfather.”
“Cool.”
Interesting Facts
Harry Brewster was born in Florence, Italy in 1910. He took a degree in English Literature at Oxford University and was tutored by the well-known Christian apologist and author, C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, etc.).
A Note from the Author
David is very concerned about facts and I have to admit so am I.
While researching this book, one of the things that really impressed me, was how about 90% of the time historians would use words such as “we believe,” “it is possible,” “the possibility exists,” “maybe,” to describe happenings of the past. Historians hardly know what happened 100 years ago, much less a 1000! This is why Christian Lives (as in “The Life of [a Saint]” which I’ll touch upon in more detail in Chapter 16) are so important. They do record facts; granted sometimes extravagantly so and symbolically, but always with the Christian heart of truth. But the most important thing is, even if written hundreds of years apart, they basically say the same thing. So yes, Nicholas did indeed live in Patara when he was a kid and in Myra for most all of his adult life. It is a fact.
So is the following: How he received his name.
Read on and see!
