Feast of Lupercalia
There is still no single historic explanation for the Saint Valentine's Day origins, and there is no historic figure of
the saint who gave its name to this beautiful holiday. One of the most
acceptable explanations is based on the Feast of Lupercalia, a pagan festival
of love, celebrated in Ancient Rome. The festival has been arranged on February 15th, commemorating young men's rite of
passage to their God of fertility Lupercus, who watched over the
shepherds of Rome against predatory lupus or wolves. According to
Noel Lenski, classics professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, young
men would strip naked and use goat- or dog-skin whips to spank the backsides of
young women in order to improve their fertility.
An
interesting custom was followed in the Feast of Lupercalia to bring together young
boys and girls who otherwise were strictly separated. On the eve of the
festival names of young Roman girls were written on a slip of paper and placed
into jars. Each young man drew out a girl's name from the jar and was paired
with the girl for the duration of Lupercalia. Sometime pairing lasted for a
year until next year's celebration. Quite often, the couple would fall in love
with each other and later marry. The custom lasted for a long time until people
felt that the custom was un-Christian and that mates should be chosen by sight,
not luck.
In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius decided to put an end to the Feast of
Lupercalia, and he declared that February 14 be celebrated as St Valentine's
Day.
Who was Saint
Valentine?
While the historical background of the holiday is somehow clear, the
personality of Saint Valentine himself is still questionable. According to the
Catholic Encyclopedia, "At least three different Saint Valentines, all of
them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of 14
February." One was a priest in Rome, the second one was a bishop of
Interamna (now Terni, Italy) and the third St. Valentine was a martyr in the
Roman province of Africa.
However, the most popular and the most logical explanation is pointing on
a Roman priest or bishop
who used
to live in Rome around
270 A.D.
Ancient Rome was in state of war most time in its glorious history.
However, under the rule of Emperor Claudius II
(Claudius
the Cruel), he country became involved in several unsuccessful, unpopular, and bloody
campaigns. After a while, the emperor has started getting difficulties with
recruitment to his military leagues. Claudius strongly believed that Roman men
were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their
wives and families. Therefore, to get rid of the problem, Claudius banned all
marriages and engagements in Rome.
A romantic
at heart priest of Rome Saint Valentine defied Claudius's unjustified order.
Along with Saint Marius, St Valentine secretly married couples. When Valentine's
actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Valentine
was arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be
beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was
carried out on February 14, 269 A.D.
Legend also has it that while in prison Valentine fell in love with blind daughter of his
jailor Asterius, who visited him
during confinement. Before his death Valentine wrote a farewell letter to his
sweetheart from the jail and signed “From your Valentine”.
Saint Valentine of
Rome was buried on the Via Flaminia, and his relics can be found at
the Church of Saint Praxed in Rome, and at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church
in Dublin, Ireland. In 1969, the Catholic Church revised its liturgical calendar, removing
the feast days of saints whose historical origins were questionable. St.
Valentine was one of the casualties.
Sources and
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