Everyone knows the original Santa Claus was St Nicholas, a bishop in the fourth century.

According to tradition he inherited lots of gold and melted it down into balls. He secretly threw into the houses of people who were so poor they might have to sell their children into slavery.

There were endless stories about Nicholas saving children, so from early on he became children’s patron saint.

What is less well known about St Nicholas is that he was also jailed for punching a fellow bishop on the nose.

He attended the Council of Nicaea in 325, where a bishop called Arius was arguing that Jesus was not really born as God. Nicholas was so furious he knocked Arius out. 

It was because Nicholas believed so strongly that God himself became a child that he cared about all children. In the ancient world children didn’t matter much.

One of the things that distinguished Christians was that even the poorest Christians didn’t abandon unwanted new-born babies in the wild – which was the usual Roman way of getting rid of them – nor did they sell children into slavery.

Christians put the same value on children as on adults, and in the ancient world that was astonishing. But it was a direct result of Christian belief that God became a baby in the manger.   

UNICEF statistics show Britain has one of the highest rates of child neglect, abuse and mental illness in the developed world. We need St Nicholas to 'punch us on the nose', and remind us what Christmas is actually about. 

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