© 04 Colin Melbourne
The origin of Valentine’s Day: What has the sending of Valentine’s Day Cards got to do with Christianity, Love, and the Message of Christ? Absolutely nothing.
Here’s a light-hearted Christian Perspective on Valentine’s Day and Romance: With the Perfect Antidote to both: the only True Love Story.
What is the Origin of Valentine’s Day?
Old wives revel in lashing their tongues around the countless tales concerning Saint Valentine’s Day. Present-day, politically-correct Pagans attempt to portray a depraved Roman fornicating festival as respectable ‘spirituality’, Catholics use it as another excuse to indulge in rampant idolatry, whilst Big Business doesn’t care where it came from: For them it’s a welcome marketing opportunity.
The saddest group are fence-squatting Christians who try to combine Valentine’s Day with Christianity by mangling the Gospel, and mixing it with sentimental drivel and Catholic-Pagan lies. You won’t fall into that snare after you’ve read this article.
The truth is, nobody knows the origin of the annual festival of romance celebrated on February 14th, but here’s some related myths propagated by parents and schoolteachers, who really ought to know better:
Romulus, Remus, and the Wolf Nanny
Mummy, what big teeth you’ve got!
Ancient Pagan Rome was a wild place; they swallowed any story as long as it led to sin’s pleasures. So a lazy-but-shrewd shepherd with a cave; a fig tree, and a pair of illegitimate twins, told gullible Italians:
‘Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your money: I mean ears. Look what I found under my fig tree. A pair of twins suckled by a She-Wolf; they must be really special!’
He struck a winner; the kids were treated as gods, founded the city of Rome, and the shepherd rode a gravy train thereafter. He persuaded his mates to dress in spooky gear as wolf-priests, or Luperci, to officiate at an annual fertility rite (nudge, nudge) performed at his, now ‘sacred’, cave, in the ‘sacred’ olive grove.
It involved; vestal virgins, animal sacrifices, fresh blood, total nudity, drunkenness, and male youths running amok whipping nubile women with goatskin thongs to ‘increase their fertility’. I warned you it was wild. But don’t get the wrong idea; Pagans declared it a ‘purification’ rite. So the rite’s alright: Right?
The second month of the year was fairly quiet in Rome, it needed spicing up or risk losing its raunchy reputation, so this festival of debauchery was held on the 15th. day, and the month designated Februarius, named after those vital implements, the goatskin thongs, or februum. The rite was given the name Lupercalia, signifying the ‘fertility god’ Lupercus. (The Latin name for a wolf is Canis lupus).
So that’s why you are encouraged to send flowers, chocolates, and sentimental cards to sweethearts on February 14th. Thrashing them with goatskin thongs is now optional.
Wait; I forgot to run through the other essential myths.
Catholic Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
This myth takes the line that Pope Gelasius, a fifth century Bishop of Rome, offended by pagan revelry, ordered that it be transformed from Lupercalia to Saint Valentine’s day.
Mythmakers insist that, ‘the emphasis was still on love’.
To cement this illusion they fixed on a handy martyr called Valentine who was killed on February 14th. 269 AD. Actually, they could have chosen another martyr called Fred, but ‘Fred’s Day’ didn’t quite have the romantic charisma as Valentine’s Day, so they switched the rite to February 14th. Legends were encouraged or created so he could be rapidly ‘canonised’, as a focus of Catholic idolatry and money spinning.
The Roman Catholic Herald ran full page ads like:
‘Valentine’s Day Special!: Swap your old goatskin thongs for lucky Valentine statues and medals. Only $6.66 each.’
They had back-up Valentines in case people didn’t swallow the first one, such as:
- A priest, who broke the order of Emperor Claudius II not to marry his troops, Valentine married them in secret. His Emperor thought they’d be happier plundering, and pillaging, if they were single. Valentine disagreed, and was clubbed to death for his disobedience.
- A priest called Valentine refused to worship Pagan gods, was imprisoned, and whilst clapped in irons, prayed for the jailer’s blind daughter who was healed. He wrote her a note declaring his faith before his martyrdom, signing it, ‘Your Valentine‘.
I don’t know about you, but my rule of thumb is,
‘Don’t believe a word Roman Catholic leaders say, especially Popes and Catholic historians.’
The noble John Foxe does mention a martyr by the name of Valentine: a solitary sentence in his 1583 edition of Foxes Book of Martyrs that does not substantiate any of the above.
Sweetening the Myth
To put distance between the grubby Pagan roots of Valentine’s Day and its modern re-packaging, emphasis was laid on the springtime parallel of birds choosing mates and nest building. Here’s an example by Geoffrey Chaucer, a closet Greenie, who in 1382 wrote a dodgy poem about the ‘goddess Nature’ called:
The Parliament of Fowles,* that includes the following, best read out loud. Deep breath…
Whan I was come ayen unto the place
That I of spak, that was so swote and grene,
Forth welk I tho, my-selven to solace.
Tho was I war wher that ther sat a quene
That, as of light the somer-sonne shene
Passeth the sterre, right so over mesure
She fairer was than any creature.
And in a launde, upon an hille of floures,
Was set this noble goddesse Nature;
Of braunches were hir halles and hir boures,
Y-wrought after hir craft and hir mesure;
Ne ther nas foul that cometh of engendrure,
That they ne were prest in hir presence,
To take hir doom and yeve hir audience.
For this was on seynt Valentynes day,
Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make,
Of every kinde, that men thenke may;
And that so huge a noyse gan they make,
That erthe and see, and tree, and every lake
So ful was, that unnethe was ther space
For me to stonde, so ful was al the place.
And right as Aleyn, in the Pleynt of Kinde,
Devyseth Nature of aray and face,
In swich aray men mighten hir ther finde.
This noble emperesse, ful of grace,
Bad every foul to take his owne place,
As they were wont alwey fro yeer to yere,
Seynt Valentynes day, to stonden there.
That is to sey, the foules of ravyne
Were hyest set; and than the foules smale,
That eten as hem nature wolde enclyne,
As worm or thing of whiche I telle no tale;
And water-foul sat loweste in the dale;
But foul that liveth by seed sat on the grene,
And that so fele, that wonder was to sene. [Emphasis added]
In addition to proving Chaucer invented American spelling; it’s one of the earliest mentions of Saint Valentine’s Day in literature. He also wrote when he was sober, and is best remembered for The Canterbury Tales.
NOTE: Parliament of Fowles: Not to be confused with The Parliament of Fools: the worlds longest running farce, currently starring Tony Blair.
Merchandising the Myth
Readers of Jane Austen and Henry James will be aware that arranged marriages are not exclusively a third world tradition. In genteel circles it’s called matchmaking, and occupied the energies of Ladies of Society from the Dark Ages until 1964, when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards stopped it in its tracks with…
Kerrrraaang! “I can’t get no sar… tis… fac… shun…”
Part of the greasy ritual of matchmaking was the sending of syrupy letters between prospective mates, egged-on by parents, matrons, and busybodies with a vested interest. Naturally, the February anniversary of Valentine’s Day whipped this into a frenzy; mail coaches bursting under their burdens of passionate prose.
Composing a Valentine ‘love’ letter required a degree of literacy beyond the reach of many struggling with rising sap. What was needed was an anonymous card devoid of handwriting, bearing a thumbprint, or lipstick marks. But all they had were Get Well Soon cards and Christmas Greetings.
Legend has it that a desperate wench created the first Valentine Card during the American Civil War, and opportunistic greeting card manufacturers, confectioners, florists, and goatskin thong makers encouraged the practice.
What’s Love Got To Do, Got To Do With It?
Here’s the rub: Nothing.
Nor has it anything to do with Christianity. Roman Catholics are not Christian: They are idolaters following a false Christ. See here for details.
The focus of Valentine’s Day is not love: but romance.
The world calls romance, ‘love’, but they are polar opposites. You will find no romance in love, nor any love in romance. Satan seduces the gullible into the deceits of romance. But once you are made aware you’ll not be tricked like the world.
Think about it and you will see that romance is imaginary; a dream, false, quixotic, temperamental and vain. Love is the unselfish giving of your heart to another, it knows no sacrifice. Romance is completely selfish: love is utterly selfless. Romance arrives at dawn, and vanishes by breakfast: real love endures from eternity to eternity. Romance says, ‘If you don’t keep pleasing me, we are history’: Love says, ‘I go wherever you go’.
Love is genuine, never changes, never fails.
Human ‘love’ disintegrates at the slightest chill. When you look for love in anybody but the Lord Jesus Christ you will certainly be let down. Perhaps you’ve already found out that Gospel truth.
God doesn’t give Valentines
He gave His Only Begotten Son
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
Holy Bible Jn. 3:16 and 1 Jn. 4:9-11 KJV
The antidote to romance is Love: Real Love, unfailing Love, and there’s only one way to know Real Love, you must know The LORD Jesus Christ personally. Do you?
When you do, you’ll be cured of romance, you’ll begin the wonderful adventure of exploring the limitless heights, depths, and breadths of Real Love.
© 04 Colin Melbourne
