As it turns out, there are a few possible origins and many stories surrounding Valentine’s Day, which we nowadays celebrate with Cards, Flowers, Chocolates and such, as a day of the heart…of “Eros,” or erotic, Love. It did NOT start out this way; it started as AGAPE Love, and as a refusal of one man, to allow the Government to over-ride the teachings of the Bible; specifically in this instance, about Marriage. Let’s take a short look at a couple of the back-stories, some fascinating things I found, and then spend some time with the origin story I believe is closest to the truth. By the way, I was on another track for a Muse, which we’ll get to later, but – hat-tip to Pastor Joe Domico this morning at church, for peaking my interest and sending me down this rabbit-hole I now share with you.
Debauchery you say!?
First let’s look at maybe the most outlandish theory, or at least the one most likely to make your jaw drop surrounding the origins of Valentine’s Day:
Feb. 14th was designated a Catholic “Holy-Day” (holiday) by Pope Gelasius I in order to replace the ancient Roman festival Lupercalia, a celebration of fertility dedicated to the Roman god of agriculture, Faunas, and Roman founders Romulus and Remus.
That feast of Roman debauchery was from Feb. 13-15 and involved a ritual where an order of Roman priests sacrificed a goat and a dog, then ran naked through the streets, “gently slapping” women with the blood-soaked hides of the sacrificed animals. Young women would actually line up for the men to slap them with the hides, which they believed promoted fertility. Following this flagellation was a tradition in which men selected women’s names at random from a jar to decide who would remain together for the next year, or, if they fell in love, they’d marry.
This is what Pope Gelasius I muddled up in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine’s Day with Lupercalia in an attempt to expel the pagan ritual. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been by this time anyway. One historian, Noel Lenski from the University of Colorado states: “It was a little more of a drunken revel by then, the Christians basically just put clothes back on it. That didn’t stop it from being a day of fertility and love.”
Chaucer played a part
Another story, maybe not about origination, but about how it became solidified as a holiday of romantic love rather than the true AGAPE love it originally represented, may be when the poet Geoffrey Chaucer linked “romantic” love with St. Valentine for the first time in his 14th-century works “The Parlement of Foules.”
In this 1375 poem, Chaucer described the 14th of February as the day that birds found their mate (birds mate for life), I quote : “For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day / Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.”
In defense of this theory, there is no actual record of the day being called “Valentine’s Day” before Chaucer’s poem in 1375.
So it would seem at the least, this is the first time that the feast of St. Valentine was linked to romantic love progressing into the modern era.
The Origin – Saint Valentine
So…long way around, how did “Valentine’s Day” actually originate? There are a few stories, seems its muddled in history. Here is the story I believe has the most factual, written history, to back it up:
Saint Valentine was a Doctor who became a Priest. He lived in Italy during the third century AD and was a Priest of Rome. His early life isn’t much known, including when he was born; history picks up Valentine’s story after he began working as a Priest. He became famous for marrying couples who were in love but couldn’t get legally married in Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II, who outlawed weddings. You see, Claudius wanted to recruit lots of men to be soldiers in his army and thought that marriage would be an obstacle to recruiting new soldiers. He also wanted to prevent his existing soldiers from getting married because he thought that marriage would distract them from their work; you know, fear of losing your life on the battlefield and how would your family survive, never seeing your wife or kids again, departing for long periods to war. Hey, “I” never said it was a good idea, just that it was Claudius’ idea.
So…Valentine goes about marrying soldiers and other young couples secretly. When Emperor Claudius discovered that Valentine was performing secret weddings, he had him captured, tortured and jailed. Valentine, not to be stopped, used his time in jail to continue to reach out to people with the love that he said Jesus Christ gave him for others (Agape Love).
Valentine befriended his jailer, Asterious, who became so impressed with Valentine’s wisdom that he asked Valentine to help his daughter, Julia, with her lessons. Julia was blind and needed someone to read material for her to learn it (in those ages very few common people read well, if at all…both Doctors and Priests would have been exceptions). Valentine became friends with Julia through his work with her when she came to visit him in jail.
Now Asterious, the Jailer was also one of the men who was to judge Valentine, in line with the Roman law at the time. One story told in Catholic circles, but historically I could not verify it anywhere (so is it true, this part, I don’t know, but it is interesting, thus I include it); is Valentine prayed with and healed the young girl of her blindness, and that Asterious himself, and his whole family, became Christian as a result.
Now it’s said Emperor Claudius also came to like Valentine. He even offered to pardon Valentine and set him free if Valentine would renounce his Christian faith and agree to worship the Roman gods (and, of course, the Emporer). Not only did Valentine refuse to leave his faith, he preached the Gospel to Emperor Claudius, encouraging him to place his trust in Jesus Christ. Well, Valentine’s faithful choices cost him his life. Emperor Claudius was so enraged at Valentine’s response that he sentenced Valentine to die by a three part execution of a beating, stoning, and finally decapitation.
Before he was killed, Valentine wrote a last note to encourage Julia to stay close to Jesus and to thank her for being his friend. He signed the note: “From your Valentine.” That note inspired people to begin writing their own loving messages to people on Valentine’s Feast Day, February 14th, which is celebrated on the same day on which Valentine was martyred. So, Valentine was beaten, stoned, and beheaded per Emperor Claudius orders on February 14, 270. People who remembered his loving service to many young couples began celebrating his life, and he came to be regarded as a Saint through whom God had worked to help people in miraculous ways. By 496, Pope Gelasius designated February 14th as Valentine’s official feast day, as we saw above…in an attempt to stop a pagan holiday celebrated around the same time.
So how did it get so commercial, and what about Cards, Roses, Chocolates, and Cupid?
The Victorians, who lived in fake embarrassment, thought it both embarrassing and bad luck to sign the cards with their actual names…started using Valentine’s original signature “from your Valentine”
Now roses have been the symbol of love since the early 1700s when Charles II of Sweden brought the Persian poetical art known as the “language of flowers” to Europe. Throughout the 18th century, ladies loved their floral dictionaries, which listed the symbolic meanings of different flowers. The red rose was believed to be the flower favoured by Venus, the Roman Goddess of Love, and has therefore come to represent that.
The first heart-shaped box of chocolates was introduced in 1861. It was created by Richard Cadbury, son of Cadbury Chocolates founder, John Cadbury, who started packaging chocolates in fancy boxes to increase sales. His son, Richard introduced the first heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in 1861, and today, more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolates are sold each year. I guess it was a successful marketing campaign, YA THINK?!
A huge amount of printed cards would get sold too, then in 1913 Hallmark Cards in Kansas City began mass producing specific Valentine’s Day cards, another successful marketing campaign; especially with the invention of the postage stamp – people began to send them anonymously. Racy messages and poems became common, as did increasingly elaborate designs. Today, over 25 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent annually in the UK, and over 190 million in the USA.
…and often lost in the commercial shuffle, the AGAPE LOVE that started it all…
One Pilgrim's Journey 