Origin
Every February 15 the ancient Romans celebrated Lupercalia, a festival to honour Lupercus, the god of fertility and farming. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica[1]:
“The origins of the festival are obscure, although the likely derivation of its name from lupus (Latin: “wolf”) has variously suggested connection with a primitive deity who protected herds from wolves and with the legendary she-wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus.”
Lupercalia was a festival of fertility[2]. The high point of the celebrations was a bloody religious ceremony conducted by a corporation of male priests called Luperci and assisted by vestal virgins in the Lupercal cave on Palatine Hill. This was the place where the Romans believed the twins Romulus and Remus had been sheltered and nursed by a she-wolf before they eventually founded Rome. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the rites thus:
“Each Lupercalia began with the sacrifice by the Luperci of goats and a dog, after which two of the Luperci were led to the altar, their foreheads were touched with a bloody knife, and the blood wiped off with wool dipped in milk; then the ritual required that the two young men laugh. The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims and ran in two bands around the Palatine hill, striking with the thongs at any woman who came near them. A blow from the thongs was supposed to render a woman fertile.”
These thongs were called “februa”, derived from the Latin word februare which means “purification”[3]. The sacramental slashing of the februa was hence a purification rite to induce fertility.
Encyclopedia Americana[4] confirms:
“… an ancient Roman rite held each February 15 for the fertility god Lupercus. Goats and a dog were sacrificed, and goats’ blood was smeared on the foreheads of two young men and wiped off with wool dipped in milk. Young men, wearing only goatskin about their loins, ran around the base of the Palatine hill, striking with goatskin strips any women they met. This was to ease labor for pregnant women and to make the others fertile.”
Because the festivities of Lupercalia provided sexual licence, merriment, revelry and abandon, it was popular with the masses in Rome. Attempts by the church and the converted Roman emperors to stamp out this sinful affair predictably met with failure. Even Christian converts found them irresistible. The well-respected historian Sir Edward Gibbons wrote this in his classic treatise The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:
“After the conversion of the Imperial city, the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual celebration of the Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and mysterious influence of the genial powers of the animal and vegetable world.“[5]
Seeing that the people could not be persuaded to relinquish their customs, pursuing its usual policy of religious compromise the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Gelasius I in 494 A.D. christianised the Lupercalia – letting the masses continue with their paganistic rituals but insisting that they be done under the guise of Christianity. Encyclopaedia Britannica says:
“In A.D. 494 the church under Pope Gelasius I appropriated the form of the rite as the Feast of the Purification.”
It will be recalled that the climax of the Lupercalia was the purification rite involving the slashing of the februa. The initial name of the adopted festival, Feast of the Purification, reflected its source. No doubt the intent was to facilitate its quick acceptance by the heathens who were accustomed to the purification rite of the old Lupercalia. In 496 A.D. this Roman Catholic festival[6] was brought forward to February 14 and renamed Saint Valentine’s Day[7] in commemoration of a third century legendary martyr by that name (or maybe two or maybe three martyrs of the same name) who was believed to have been beheaded on that day in 270 A.D. Encyclopaedia Britannica gives this account of the possible Roman Catholic candidates whose names were borrowed to replace the pagan name Lupercalia:
“One was a Roman priest and physician who suffered martyrdom during the persecution of Christians by the emperor Claudius II Gothicus and was buried on the Via Flaminia. Pope St. Julius I reportedly built a basilica over his grave. The other, bishop of Terni, Italy, was martyred, apparently also in Rome, and his relics were later taken to Terni.”
Encyclopedia Americana takes this view:
“Nothing for certain is known of his life except that he was a Christian priest in Rome and was martyred under the persecution of Emperor Claudius II (r. 268-270). His legend became intermingled with that of another bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), about 50 miles northeast of Rome.”
According to The New Standard Encyclopedia:
“Saint Valentine was an obscure, possibly legendary, martyr who by tradition was put to death by the Romans on February 14, about [AD] 269. This day was made a feast day by the Roman Catholic Church. The date of his death almost coincided with that of the Roman feast of the Lupercalia. … The celebration of the two occasions merged.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia says:
“At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in early martyrologies under the date of 14 February. One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city. … Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing is further known.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica opines that:
“It is possible these are different versions of the same original account and refer to only one person.”
This martyr was chosen and canonized as the patron saint of this festival because of his role in promoting romantic love to coincide with the sexual theme of Lupercalia. There are two versions of what he had done. The first is that he secretly married lovers at the time when Emperor Claudius made marriage illegal because such unions were deemed disruptive to the conduct of wars as the men would refuse to leave their wives to serve the Roman legions. The second begins with his incarceration. It is said that he was thrown into jail because he had performed many miracles that saved the early Christians. There he met a girl and healed her blindness. After his execution, a love note written by him was found. It was written on the eve of his execution and addressed to this girl. He signed off the note with the now famous words, “from your Valentine”.
Customs and Celebrations
Drawing Names Of Partners
On February 14, Roman damsels would put billets, small pieces of paper with their names written on them, into a container. Roman lads would then pick out the billets at random. The boy and the girl whose names were drawn would become a couple and they would frolic together in erotic games at feasts and parties celebrated throughout Rome. After that day, they would remain sexual partners for the rest of the year.
When Lupercalia was converted to Saint Valentine’s Day, this sexual lottery was banned. As a more acceptable form of celebrating the day, names of various saints, instead of girls, were put into an urn. The saint whose name was drawn out would then be the model for the particular Roman Catholic to live up to for the rest of the year.
But when the Protestants who did not hold to the veneration of saints came on the scene, the people began to draw the names of ordinary young men and women in order to match partners for the celebration.
Cards And Gifts
When the Roman Catholic Church banned the sexual lottery, the practice did not die off but became toned-down. Young men began to send to young women whom they desired handwritten romantic messages under the cover of Saint Valentine’s name. Cards bearing such messages were often laced because lace in Latin means, “to catch” – referring back to the Lupercalia practice of catching a mate during the festivities. The ribbons that were attached dated back to the times when ladies gave these satin strips as tokens of love to their favourite knights who had to go to war. Of course, the cards, and other momentos, were heart-shaped because the heart was where the first stirrings of love (or lust during Lupercalia) were said to be felt. Venus, the goddess of sexual love, and his son Cupid, portrayed as shooting arrows of passion into the hearts of hapless victims, were often pictured because, in keeping with the theme of Lupercalia, they were believed to have magical power to ignite romance.
As for gifts, Encyclopaedia Americana has this to say:
“The most plausible of several theories is the medieval European belief that birds began to mate on February 14. This notion presumably suggested that lads and lasses should choose lovers and should exchange gifts.”
Dinners And Parties
Lupercalia was a time of merriment marked by revelry and abandon. Although solemnity was enforced after its assimilation into the church, it reverted to its former gaiety following the Reformation, with secret trysts and wild partyings. According to Encyclopedia Americana:
“… by the 14th century its religious significance was overshadowed by the non-religious customs still associated with the day.”
Christian Viewpoint
The origin and practices of Saint Valentine’s Day are paganistic. Christians cannot be part of this festival.
Even ignoring its origination, the fact is this festival is held in honour of a man whom the Roman Catholic Church made a saint. The veneration of saints is in itself wrong[8]. Further it involves praying to saints which is unscriptural. Firstly, saints are not in heaven, yet. Jesus said that no one except Himself has ascended into heaven[9]. They are sleeping:
“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first“[10].
Hence they cannot listen to or answer prayers. Secondly, the only intercessor is Jesus to whom alone prayers should be directed: “Therefore He [Jesus] is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them“[11].
Finally, as a practical preventive measure to preserve chastity, Christians should avoid the festivities of Saint Valentine’s Day as they lead to immorality.
[1] Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1981.
[2] According to The American Heritage Dictionary, Lupercalia was “a fertility festival in ancient Rome, celebrated February 15 in honor of the pastoral god Lupercus.”
[3] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. 15, 1907: “These thongs were called Februa, the festival Februatio, and the day Dies Februetus, hence arose the name of the month February, the last of the old Roman year.“
[4] Encyclopedia Americana, 1969.
[5] Edward Gibbons, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 2, The Modern Library, p. 327.
[6] The Feast of Purification was re-instituted subsequently on February 2 and became known also as Candlemas, the Presentation of the Lord, the Purification of the Blessed Virgin and the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.
[7] Jan M. Hatch, The American Book of Days, 3rd Ed, p. 178: “… association [of Valentine’s Day] with lovers is a survival, in Christianized form, of a practice that occurred on February 14, the day before the ancient Roman feast of the Lupercalia …” Laurence Vrdang and Christie N. Donohue, “Valentine’s Day” in Holidays and Anniversaries of the World: “[Valentine’s Day is] also believed to be a continuation of the Roman festival of Lupercalia.”
[8] Revelation 22:8-9.
[9] John 3:13.
[10] 1 Thessalonians 4:13-16.
[11] Hebrews 7:25.