Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/525

Rh NICHOLAS 483 NICHOLAS, ST, of Myra, according to the Koman breviary (December 6) was a native of Patara in Lycia, and was given to his parents in answer to their prayers. From his earliest infancy he signally displayed the piety for which his whole life was remarkable, on Wednesdays and Fridays regularly refusing to receive nourishment from his nurse except once only, and that after sunset. While still a youth he was deprived of his parents, and the wealth that he thus early inherited he forthwith distributed to the poor. To this period belongs what may be called the characteristic deed of his life, his secret bestowal of dowries upon the three daughters of a citizen fallen into poverty, who, unable to procure fit marriages for them, was minded to give them up to a life of shame. Having given himself wholly to God, Nicholas made a pilgrimage to Palestine, and in his voyaging miraculously stilled a storm by his prayers. On his return to his native province he visited Myra, the capital, where, as it fell out, the bishop had just died, and the chapter had been divinely advised to select as his successor a man named Nicholas who should be the first to enter the church next morning. Nicholas, thus plainly indi cated, was duly consecrated, and displayed throughout his whole term of office every episcopal virtue. Under Maximian and Diocletian he was seized for his constancy, removed far from his diocese, and thrown into prison, where he lay until the days of Constantine, when he returned to Myra. He afterwards attended the council of Nice, and died a natural death not long after his return. His remains were subsequently removed to Bari (Barium) in Apulia. So far the authoritative Roman legend, the documentary evidence for which, however, does not take us farther back than to the 9th century at the earliest (Simeon Metaphrastes). Nicholas is not mentioned among the Nicene fathers by any of the church historians of that or the succeeding century, and the earliest extant trace of his existence is in the fact that a church was dedicated to him in Constantinople by Justinian about the year 560. Before the 12th century his name had become very pro minent both in the Eastern and in the Western Church, it is difficult to tell precisely why ; and to this day he is one of the most popular saints in the orthodox Greek communion. Among the miracles assigned to him is that of restoring to life three youths who had been murdered and salted down by an innkeeper in whose house they had taken lodging ; thus Nicholas figures as the patron saint not only of poor maidens and of sailors but also of travellers and merchants. Children, and especially schoolboys, are also regarded as being especially under his guardianship, and in Russia and Greece, as well as throughout the north of Europe, the liberality of Nicholas or Klaus is yearly appealed to by them on the eve of his festival (December 6). His protection is specially invoked against thieves and losses by robbery and violence. It may be well to note that the &quot;Old Nick&quot; belonging to another cycle of legend has no connexion, as has sometimes been supposed, with the subject of the present article, that designation being etymologically connected with such words as Nixie, Nickar, and perhaps even with the river-name Neckar (see Grimm s Deutsche Mythologie}. NICHOLAS I., sometimes called The Great, and certainly the most commanding figure in the series of popes between Gregory I. and Gregory VII., succeeded Benedict III. in April 858. According to the annalist &quot; he owed his election less to the choice of the clergy than to the presence and favour of the emperor Louis II. and his nobles,&quot; who can hardly have foreseen with what ability and persistency the rights of the holy see as supreme arbiter of Christendom were to be asserted even against themselves by the man of their choice. Of the previous history of Nicholas nothing is recorded. His pontificate of nine years and a half was marked by at least three memorable contests which have left their mark in history. The first was that in which he supported the claims of the unjustly degraded patriarch of. Constantinople, Ignatius; the history of the conflict cannot be related here, but two of its incidents, the excommunication of Photius, the rival of Ignatius, by the pope in 863, and the counter-deposition of Nicholas by Photius in 867, were steps of serious moment towards the permanent separation between the Eastern and the Western Church. The second great struggle was that with Lothaire, the king of Lorraine (second son of the emperor Lothaire I., and brother of the emperor Louis II.), about the divorce of his wife Theut- berga or Thietberga. The king, who desired to marry his mistress Waldrada, had brought a grave charge against the life of his queen before her marriage ; with the help of Archbishops Gunther of Cologne and Thietgand of Treves, a confession of guilt had been extorted from Thietberga, and, after the matter had been discussed at more than one synod, that of Aix-la-Chapelle finally authorized Lothaire, on the strength of this confession, to marry again. Nicholas ordered a fresh synod to try the cause over again at Metz in 863 ; but Lothaire, who was present with his nobles, anew secured a judgment favourable to himself, whereupon the pope not only quashed the whole proceedings, but excommunicated and deposed Gunther and Thietgand, who had been audacious enough to bring to Rome in person the &quot; libellus &quot; of the synod. The archbishops appealed to Louis II., then at Benevento, to obtain the withdrawal of their sentence by force; but, although he actually occupied Rome (864), he was unsuccessful in obtaining any concession, and had to withdraw to Ravenna. Thietberga herself was now induced to write to the pope a letter in which she declared the invalidity of her own marriage, and urged the cause of Lothaire, but Nicholas, not without reason, refused to accept statements which had too plainly been extorted, and wrote urging her to maintain the truth steadfastly, even to the death if need were, &quot; for, since Christ is the truth, whosoever dies for the truth assuredly dies for Christ.&quot; The imminent humiliation of Lothairs was prevented only by the death of Nicholas. The third great ecclesiastical cause which marks this pontificate was that in which the indefeasible right of bishops to appeal to Rome against their metropolitans was successfully maintained in the case of Rothad of Soissons, who had been deposed by Hincmar of Rheims. It was in the course of the controversy with the great and powerful Neustrian archbishop that papal recognition was first given (in 865) to the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, which had probably been brought by Rothad to Rome in the preced ing year. (For some account of these, see CANON LAW, vol. v. p. 17.) At an early period in his reign Nicholas also had occasion to administer discipline to John of Ravenna, who seems to have relied not only on the prestige of his famous see but also on the support of Louis II. After lying under excommunication for some time he made a full submission. Nicholas was the pope to whom Bogoris, the newly converted king of Bulgaria, addressed himself for practical instruction in some of the difficult moral and social problems which naturally arise during a transition from heathenism to Christianity. The letter from the holy see in reply to the hundred and six questions and petitions of the barbarian king is perhaps the most in teresting literary relic of Nicholas I. now extant. He died on November 13, 867, and was succeeded by Hadrian II. NICHOLAS II., a Burgundian, whose Christian name was Gerard, was archbishop of Florence when he was chosen (December 28, 1058) at that place to succeed Stephen IX. in the papal chair. Some time previously the