The Journey: How an obscure Byzantine Saint became our Santa Claus. David Price Williams
THE JOURNEYHOW AN OBSCURE BYZANTINE SAINTBECAME OUR SANTA CLAUS
DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS
The Journey: How An Obscure Byzantine Saint Became Our Santa Claus © 2017 David Price Williams & Markosia Enterprises, Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction of any part of this work by any means without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbidden. Published by Markosia Enterprises, PO BOX 3477, Barnet, Hertfordshire, EN5 9HN. FIRST PRINTING, October 2017.
Harry Markos, Director.
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-911243-42-7
Hardback: ISBN 978-1-911243-41-0
eBook: ISBN 978-1-911243-43-4
Book design by: Ian Sharman
FRONT COVER PICTURE:
St Nicholas. 13th Century icon,St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai
BACK COVER PICTUREUpper church at Gemlier.
www.markosia.com
First Edition
For Luke, Joe and Zoe, Isabella and Charlotte,all of whom at one time or another willhave believed in Santa Claus.
CONTENTS
Maps of the East Mediterranean & Arabia 6
Timeline 7
Part I A moment in time
Epitaph An incident on Partridge Island 9
Part II A story of my life 1 In the beginning 15
2 Complexities of the empire 31
3 Going to sea 47
4 Service in Cyprus 59
5 Into the light 72
6 The eternal Nile 90
7 Through the mountains 108
8 Journey to Berenike 126
9 A voice from the past 145
10 Cruising the Erythraean Sea 163
11 Into the frankincense mountains 180
12 Through the deserts of Arabia 200
13 The rock city of Reqem 218
14 Crisis in Philadelphia 235
15 To the Holy City 252
16 Life in Judaea 270
17 Return to Lycia 289
18 Home in Patara 306
19 Bishop of Myra 323
20 The Council of Nicaea 341
Part III Looking for Nicholas
21 The writings: Reading about Nicholas 356
22 The archaeology: Digging up Santa 369
References, glossary of place names & acknowledgements 389
THE JOURNEY
DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS
PART I
A MOMENT IN TIME
EPITAPH
AN INCIDENT ON PARTRIDGE ISLAND
The old man had been feverish for days now, his pale skin stretched like ancient parchment stitched with straggling tufts of white beard, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets. Andreas and his wife began to fear for his life. But each day, even as he seemed to grow frailer before them, he would insist on climbing to the summit of the island behind which they were sheltering from the winter storm. From here he would stand and gaze for hours far across the sea, south along the mountainous coast towards the place of his birth. Maybe he could sail there soon, he must have thought, back to his city, back to his old life. But the gales continued unabated, lashing the rocks below where he stood and howling among the high peaks of the nearby mainland. The flying spume of the surf thundered at the base of the cliffs, giving no indication of when they would ever be able to set sail from their refuge in the narrow sound where they were moored.
This day had begun like all the rest. The old man stood wistfully looking into the teeth of the wind, his eyes filling with tears. He remembered all his years since his childhood long ago. He had lived an eventful life, a life full of change and drama, a life for which he was deeply thankful and now, as the blustering
DAVID PRICE WILLIAMS
storm tore the whispered prayers from his thin, cracked lips, he sensed he heard God calling him to another home. As the faint sunlight slanted through a gap in the wild sky and shimmered on the sea, he knew that his earthly work was finally over.
They had only left him for a few minutes in order to fetch a jar of water from the boat, but when they struggled back up the steep slope to the top of the island, they knew at once he had left them. His lifeless body, now an almost weightless rag, lay crumpled on the bare, wet limestone just below the highest point of the island, the wind plucking jerkily at his sodden robes. Although they had always known that he would not be with them for much longer, the sight of his insensible body supine in front of them, the man who had been their leader for so many years, moved them to a profound sorrow. Falling on their knees and tearing their rough shifts, they wailed into the buffeting wind, so alone now on that remote island. Even as they did so, the charging ominous clouds opened and an angled, watery sun shafted through the heavens again and touched the old man’s corpse, for an instant illuminating in yellow-gold the place where he lay, catching the edges of his raiment almost like a halo.
In that moment Andreas knew what he must do. He would create a shrine to the old man’s memory, a simple monument here on the top of the island exactly where he had been taken from them, to remember his life, to commemorate his great
THE JOURNEY
works and to honour the leader who had guided them through such troubled times. He would not be forgotten.
Later that day Andreas fashioned a rough cross from odd spars on the ship, lashing the cross piece together with old rope from the hold. He dragged it up to the summit where the ship’s crew had already begun building a cairn out of the sharp limestone boulders. They carefully covered the old man where he had fallen, then piled more and more stones on top, making a high pyramid, high enough to be visible out at sea. They erected the cross in the centre of the cairn and threw more and more stones around it to make it firm. When it was finished, Andreas gave one last benediction and with an aching sadness they made their way down the hill to the ship.
By dawn the next morning the storm had blown itself out and a fresh breeze sent clouds scudding across the tops of the mountain ranges. Undoing the mooring ropes they heaved the stone anchors in-board one by one and hoisting the weather-beaten sail, they slowly edged the ship down the sound and around the edge of the island. What was it the old man had called this place, Andreas pondered? “Partridge Island,” was that it?
The wind quickened and caught the rigging. The ropes stretched, the patched