Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 5:16am

I Saw Santa Punching Arius

 

 

“After the king seated himself on the throne, one hundred and fifty nine fathers seated themselves at either side of him, both they and Arius arguing with much unease.  Saint Nicholas, noticing that Arius was about to quash all the archpriests and moved by divine zeal, rose up and gave him a slap that shook all his members. Complaining, Arius says to the king: “O most just king, is it fair, before your royal highness, for one to strike another?  If he has something to say, let him speak as the other fathers do; if he is ignorant, let him remain silent as his like are. For what reason does he slap me in the presence of your highness?”  Hearing this, the king was greatly disappointed and said to the archpriests: “Holy archpriests, it is the law, that whosoever raises his hand before the king to strike someone, that it should be cut off. I leave this to you, so that your holiness(es) might be the judge.”  The archpriests replied, saying: “Your majesty, that the archpriest has acted wrongly all of us confess it; except that we beseech you, let us unstate him now and imprison him, and after the dissolution of the council, we shall then convict him.”

Having unstated and imprisoned him, that night Christ and the Holy Mother Theotokos appeared in prison and said: “Nicholas, why are you imprisoned?”  And the saint replied: “For loving You”. Christ then said to him: “Take this,” and gave him the holy gospel; the Holy Mother Theotokos gave him the archpriestly omophorion (scapular).  The next day some acquaintances of his brought him bread and they saw that he was freed of his fetters and on his shoulder he was wearing the omophorion, while reading the holy gospel he was holding in his hands. Having asked him where he found them, he told them the whole truth.  Having learnt of this, the king took him out of the prison and asked for forgiveness, as did all the others.  After the dissolution of the council, all the archpriests returned home, as did saint Nicholas, to his province.”

 

Damascenos the Monk:  Life of saint Nicholas the wonder-worker

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Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Tuesday, December 6, AD 2016 11:01pm

I think given what’s going on in the Church, we need more fistfights and a lot less phony dialogue.

.Anzlyne
.Anzlyne
Tuesday, December 6, AD 2016 11:47pm

Stephen Greydanus said:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/steven-greydanus/lets-stop-celebrating-st.-nicholas-punching-arius .

I like the story myself and I hope it is true. At least I hope our great saint was above being just a passive aggressive verbal slapper come lately.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, December 7, AD 2016 12:40am

This is popular, and powerful, and fun– so of course some scold on the Register came out to do a rant about how it’s evilbadnonoicky.
/sigh
Some things are depressingly predictable.

James
James
Wednesday, December 7, AD 2016 12:01pm

I used to think Greydanus was OK, but he seems to have swung to the Liberal or Arian (redundant?) side in the last couple of years.

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