This particular Saint Nicholas was not the Christmas one. In fact, Butler does not have much historical data about him–he was named bishop of Linköping, a city in southern Sweden, at some point before the 12th century. One detail regarding Nicholas is of particular interest: “In the discharge of his office he suffered, with unshaken constancy and patience, many grievous persecutions from the tyranny of great men and incorrigible sinners . . . .”
What a combination of tyrants: great men and incorrigible sinners! And it’s not as though the two lists have ever been exclusive. Right now, the vulnerable in America–those whose skin is not white, those whose first language is not English, those who need but cannot afford health care, those who are sojourners among us (with or without passports, visas, or green cards)–are targeted by “great” men with power in the highest reaches of government on the state and national levels, and are also targeted by those that Hillary Clinton inelegantly dubbed as “the basket of deplorables.” It is a horrific one-two punch: from above, so you cannot get up; from the side, so you cannot get away.
Nicholas was known for his constancy and patience, and, as Butler later adds, his meekness. In this, there is a strategy, or at least a conscious choice about how to respond, with respect to persecution: through simultaneously refusing to go away and refusing to be drawn into violent exchange. It is not giving in, giving out, or giving up–it is deciding not to cooperate with the evil, not to engage its energies, not to add to its power by making it one’s focus. Far from masochism or doormat-ism, it is reckoning that evil shall not be an irresistible force in one’s world. This Way–a path taken not only by Nicholas but by Gandhi, by King, by Romero, and by so many others–responds with conviction, “You will do what you will do, but I will not mirror your actions, I will not respond in kind, I will not see myself through your eyes, I will not take you as the focus on my attention and my own actions. In short, I will not become you.”
This is not a sure-fire formula for stopping the acts of a vile person, but it is for stopping the proliferation and spread of that person’s evil. This is the victory of saints.