In situations of extreme poverty in the ancient Roman empire, when families had to pay the provincial tax collectors but did not have the means, they sometimes had to resort to the soul-crushing decision to sell their own children. In his book, The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus, Adam English shows us what we learn about this vile trade from the ways people, even emperors, tried to stop it. The Roman emperor Constantine made public funds available in Africa and Italy to provide food, clothing, and even cash for families in crisis lest they be tempted to abandon or sell their children. In one sermon, Basil of Caesarea remembers being in a marketplace and witnessing a father selling his children because of his debt. Another early Christian pastor, Ambrose of Milan, tries to imagine the impossible decisions of such moments:
"Who, he asks, "should be sold first? The father miserably sifts through his pathetic options and decides: "I will sell the firstborn. But, he was the first to call me father. He is the first among the children and the one who will bring me honor in my old age. So, I will put up the younger. But that one is so tender and in need of love. I am ashamed to sell one and I pity the other." Ambrose makes the pain of the decision palpable. Who could possibly look his child in the eye and say, "My son, I am selling you so I can eat?" (English, 58)
On one occasion in Patara, we're told by Nicholas' biographer that a neighbor had become so desperate that he resolved to sell his daughters one by one into prostitution. By law and by custom, the family of the bride was required to give a dowry of "property, business, or money to the husband's family as part of the marriage agreement. It was a tradition that dated back to the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1790 B.C.) and continued as a widespread practice into the nineteenth century of our own era; it is still in effect in some cultures to this day." (61) Unable to pay a dowry, the man had no prospects to find a marriage for any of his three daughters. So, "'desiring to provide for his own survival and abandoning hope in God,' the father decided to do the unthinkable and sell the sexual services of his daughters." (58)
In all we've seen so far, despite society's disapproval and the church's condemnation, this was something the father could do. Nicholas' biographer describes how God, "who does not want the work of his hands to slip into the guilt of sin" sent Nicholas to rescue the family from poverty. English reminds us of prostitution's prevalence in the ancient world, that the city of Pompeii supported a number of brothels, one of which was divided into ten separate rooms, that there are lurid scenes and inscriptions written upon the walls of the ancient baths, and that Nicholas must have wondered what he might do to rescue these girls from this fate. Having turned to the Scriptures for consolation, reading in the Proverbs the way that virtuous action on behalf of the poor is emphasized, he resolved to become their "protector." (59). "Compelled by the Scriptures and his Christian convictions, he placed a few gold coins in a small money-purse, tied the string, and in the dead of night tossed it through an open window into the man's house." (59-60)
(to be continued on December 15)
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