HISTORY

The History of Valentine's Day

While working on this new website-the cause is not a new one to me–I have been shocked to find out just how many people don’t know anything about the history of Valentine’s Day.

I think that once you know a little about it, you will be inspired.

I think that once you know a little about it, you, too, will want these simple changes: let’s add Acts of Kindness to Strangers to our Valentine’s “to do” list.

The story goes something like this: 270 years after the death of Christ, Rome was ruled by the Very Unpleasant Claudius the Second, an emperor who was no fan of Christianity. During the reign of the surly Claudius, a man by the name of Valentine made it a point to preach the Gospel–kindness, mercy, forgiveness, the usual stuff–and then Valentine took an even greater risk when he married numerous soldiers, in secret ceremonies, each to their beloved. You see, Claudius II thought that his legionnaires would make fiercer, more brutal and bloodthirsty soldiers if they did not have a sweet wife and beautiful little children waiting for him at home-so the act of soldiers marrying was forbidden by Claudius. The Emperor found out about these secret weddings and ordered Valentine to be executed. Specifically, his head was to be severed from his body. That would surely shut Valentine up for good. And all this drama, just for the Roman crime of joining in holy matrimony two strangers who wanted to build a life together. Why should we be surprised, though? Beheading, as I see it, would be a speedy end, at least, compared to the fate awaiting some mouthy Christians: they would be placed inside The Golden Bull--a hollow, life-sized, bronze horror chamber; then a fire would be built under the bull, and the agonized screams of a poor dying soul inside would amuse the Romans as they feasted. Wow.

Enter the Jailer's Daughter. In another great act of Kindness Towards Strangers, she visited the jail secretly, showing random acts of kindness to Valentine, bringing him gifts, sustenance, and human decency. The deep caring that she showed Valentine has been historically recognized as “agape” (meaning Christian, unconditional, sacrificial love, and pronounced to rhyme with “frappé”, for those of you in the Starbucks generation), not romantic or “eros” (erotic love). In the process, Valentine managed to convert her entire family from paganism to Christianity. Alas, she, too, got found out and set up for execution along with, why the hell not, her entire family.

She and her family somehow escaped execution, St. Valentine did not. And the rest is history. (You can stop reading now, if you want.)

The morphing of Valentine’s into this romantic holiday full of roses, chocolate, and trips to Victoria’s Secret would take about 1700 years. The jarring transformation from “Kindness to Strangers” into scared men tromping the mall on February 13th, at the last minute, stumbling stupidly, putting one foot in front of the other in Troglodytic Terror as they search for the one special gift that won’t put her in a huff, started, as it happens, with Chaucer, of all people. It then had another seminal moment in the appearance of sassy entrepreneur Esther Howland on the scene. That story is noteworthy and inspiring all on its own; suffice it to say that Capitalism got feeling all lovey-dovey for most of the twentieth century, and next thing we all knew, we were spending billions of dollars just to get all romantic with someone.

A long-ass haul from Saintly martyrdom to red g-string panties . . . although given the amount of blood that must spurt from your body when you are beheaded, the symbolism of red to represent St. Valentine’s Day is certainly something we can all wrap our minds around.

I want to point out here: I purposely used the word “story” above, as opposed to the oft-used “legend”, because I do believe there is more truth than fancy in the Valentine saga, and I think the word “legend” implies a tall tale. What you need to know is that for centuries, centuries, mind you, a group of monks and other respected scholars, known as the Bollandists, scoured the globe, looking for bits, pieces, and proofs about the lives of the saints. While there ended up being two men named Valentine (a common Roman name back in the day, that means “vigorous” and “strong”), who both preached the gospel in the same geography and, wait for it, were both beheaded on February the 14th, the Bollandists wisely concluded that this of course had to be the same man, merely being “claimed” by two different proud Italian cities, each understably anxious to claim St. Valentine as their own. You can see Valentine’s skull, if that kind of thing floats your little heart-shaped boat, in the Basilica di Santa Maria, located in Cosmedin, Rome.

By the way, one of the reasons that St. Valentine was, in fact, declared a saint is because the jailer’s daughter, who doted so on St. Valentine, was actually blind. So as a last act of profound gratitude, Valentine restored her sight after praying to God for a miracle, and his prayer was granted–a pretty saintly act, if you ask me.

What is the big takeaway from all this? A person risked their own life to preach love, and also married couples in secret, as Acts of Kindness towards Strangers. And the jailer’s daughter also committed her own Acts of Kindness to a Stranger.

We ought to respect his memory, his sacrifice, and the hell he went through by maybe committing a few Acts of Kindness of our own?

Yes?

A final thought: Notice I do not refer to “Random Acts of Kindness”. I delete the “random”. I do that because that phrase, with its very unique and inspiring origins, is not quite the same thing as what I am advocating: a planned, conscious, and dare-I-say predictably recurring Act of Kindness. Read elsewhere on this site about the amazing health benefits of committing Acts of Kindness, and you will want it to be as regular a part of your health routine as juicing, yoga, your gym membership, and your weekly golf game. (Yeah, right, like I do any of those things. . .)

POST SCRIPT: There are, of course, wise scholars who will argue that Valentine’s Day originally derived from the Roman holiday and general day-off-from-work “Lupercalia”. This was a thing with early Christians: place a big religous day right near a big whopping, whooping Roman feast day . . . and it’s sort of easier to convince newbies to Christianity to try it out, go along with it all for the weekend. Christmas, for example, sort of “replaced” Saturnalia at the end of December, even though many scholars say the Biblical evidence points to Christ being born in the spring. Easter replaced a celebration of the goddess Oestra. And Halloween once was “All Soul’s Day”, celebrated on November 1st. You get the idea. But if you read about the Roman holiday of Lupercalia that was replaced by St. Valentine’s Day, let me caution you to not take it too seriously or incorporate Lupercalian rituals into your big VD: seriously, the Romans would kill dogs, strip the bloody skin from the poor creatures, then they’d run around the town, hitting women with the bloody skins. It was supposed to make the women more fertile. WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.