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View from the Pew  Mary Adamski |
Valentine wasn’t
always about loveAhem! As you celebrate this day in loving, intimate, exotic ways, don't forget it started out being named for a saint. And Saint Valentine made his mark by losing his head -- not in the raptures of romance, but by getting on the wrong side of an irate emperor and his hatchet man.
There are sweet stories about his being a marrying preacher and a warm letter writer. But honestly, the fellow whose name is on everyone's lips as they deliver roses, chocolates, jewelry and kisses to their beloved today didn't leave much of a verifiable history.
Valentine's Day has a lot in common with Christmas. It's not just that it ranks as the second most popular occasion to send cards and give gifts. This is also a holiday that the early Christian church borrowed from the pagan Romans and reshaped into something more politically correct for the growing religion. The winter festival of Saturnalia segued into Christmas, and the spring fling of Lupercalia was passed down as this holiday of love.
One way the ancient Roman masses celebrated the February holiday dedicated to fertility god Lupercus was through a lottery for lovers, what the author of Butler's "Lives of the Saints," first published in 1756, described as a "lewd, superstitious custom." Women put their names -- and suggestive messages -- into a bowl. Each unmarried man drew a note from the bowl, and that's how he hooked up with a partner for the X-rated entertainment of the holiday and, according to some versions, for the following year as well.
Pope Gelasius I, who headed the church in Rome in the late 400s, is credited with changing the message writing from prurient to pious. Young people gathered to draw missives naming exemplary saints on which to mold their lives. Well, that's what it says in the Catholic encyclopedias.
If you believe that, would you like to hear another one about St. Valentine?
Old Gelasius I is also credited with putting St. Valentine's feast day on the church's liturgical calendar for Feb. 14, from which it spread into a secular feast.
Alban Butler's four-volume catalog of saints and Catholic Church chronicles of martyrs show two Valentines who were executed by the forces of Roman Emperor Claudius II in the late third century. A basilica was built near the Porto del Popolo gate into Rome dedicated to a physician and priest who was beheaded in February 270. Another Valentine, a bishop in Terni, was also decapitated in Caesar's campaign to stamp out Christianity.
A myth that put the romantic spin on the saint is that the Roman emperor had forbidden marriage for young men because it made them disinclined to go off to war. But Valentine secretly performed marriages.
According to "Idiot's Guide to Saints," churches in Rome contain enough relics -- bones -- attributed to Saint Valentine to make up eight bodies, with an extra skull left over.
A thought to ponder: Wouldn't the skull be a more appropriate symbol than a heart when we celebrate what old Val would do for love? I lost my head for you, that sort of sentiment?
Another pleasing myth about the chap whose name is synonymous with love is told in "Saint Valentine," a children's book by Robert Sabuda, unearthed in research at Barnes & Noble. In this tale the physician-priest was called upon to treat a jailer's little daughter.
While imprisoned, he wrote kindly notes to the child, signed "from your Valentine," and she was cured of blindness.
According to legend, the idea of writing letters of love really caught on in Europe in the Middle Ages, fueled by the belief that February was the time when birds chose their mates. The first known Valentine card was sent in 1415 by Charles, duke of Orleans, to his wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. By the 1700s it was a widespread custom.
Ah, those were the days, when a lover actually wrote an original sentiment, not something prepackaged, freeze-dried, off the rack. What a concept!
Poor old Valentine. In 1969 his name was deleted from the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church, which marks at least 500 saints' feast days during the year. This came as the church, which has continued to name new saints down to the present time, tried to sort out only the verifiable, historical characters for the honor.
There might not be proof, not even in the bones. But the idea was bigger than history. Deleting his name from the lineup made not a flicker of impression on Valentine season retail sales. And people keep losing their hearts and their heads over love.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Religion Calendar
Mary Adamski covers religion for the Star-Bulletin.
Email her at madamski@starbulletin.com.
