Straight Dope on Medicine: Valentine

Author

Scott Ganser
February 26, 2024

Saint Valentine’s day is February 14th.

Really don’t celebrate this in the church. Observe Christmas, Easter, Lent, Pentacost.

This tradition was spread by the Benedictines, the first guardians of the basilica dedicated to the saint in Terni, through their monasteries, first in Italy and then in France and England.[i]

What is a Saint?

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

Saints are God’s chosen people. We are sanctified in Jesus. That would be all believers. Typically the protestant view.

Roman Catholic view is different.

The bar is higher.

In Roman Catholicism and certain other Christian faith traditions, a saint is a holy person who is known for his or her “heroic sanctity” and who is thought to be in heaven. 

Eastern Orthodox, Greek Orthodox have saints.

In the 10th century, Pope John XV formalized a process for the identification of saints. Before that time, saints were largely established by public cult. There are more than 10,000 saints recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, though the names and histories of some of these holy men and women have been lost to history.

Their ranks include martyrs, kings and queens, missionaries, widows, theologians, parents, nuns and priests, and “everyday people” who dedicated their lives to the loving pursuit of God.

Saints who devoted themselves in service to the poor, sick, and disenfranchised, such as Mother Teresa and Vincent de Paul, among others. Many of the saints who were persecuted for their faith, such as Stephen and Perpetua.

Many Catholics take or are given a saint’s name for their confirmation.

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

All Christians are called to be saints. Saints are persons in heaven (officially canonized or not), who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others, or were martyred for the faith, and who are worthy of imitation.

In official Church procedures there are three steps to sainthood: a candidate becomes "Venerable," then "Blessed" and then "Saint." Venerable is the title given to a deceased person recognized formally by the pope as having lived a heroically virtuous life or offered their life.  To be beatified and recognized as a Blessed, one miracle acquired through the candidate's intercession is required in addition to recognition of heroic virtue or offering of life. Canonization requires a second miracle after beatification.  The pope may waive these requirements. A miracle is not required prior to a martyr's beatification, but one is required before canonization.

Miracle –something that has occurred by the grace of God through the intercession of a Venerable, or Blessed which is scientifically inexplicable.

St. Valentine

Valentine was a popular name in ancient Rome, and there are at least 50 stories of different saints by that name. In the Roman Catholic church, he is the patron saint of lovers, people with epilepsy, and beekeepers. Valentinus (from the Latin "valens", meaning to be in good health).

Saint Valentine’s Day has also been associated with a Christian effort to replace the older holiday of Lupercalia, which Romans celebrated on February 15. Shepherds outside the city walls waged a constant battle against hungry wolves and prayed to the god Lupercus to watch over their flocks. Every year in February, the Romans would repay the god’s vigilance with a festival, which doubled as a celebration of fertility and the onset of Spring. Some modern stories paint Lupercalia as a particularly sexy holiday, when women wrote their names on clay tablets which men then drew from a jar, pairing up random couples.

But, again, early accounts don’t support this. The closest parallel between Lupercalia and modern Valentine’s Day traditions seems to be that the Roman festival involved two nearly naked young men slapping everyone around them with pieces of goat skin. According to the ancient writer Plutarch, some young married women believed that being hit with the skins promoted conception and easy childbirth.

The goat skins were called februa (strips of goat skin and the derivation of our word February) to purify their bodies in preparation for childbirth.[ii]

The original religious celebration named after the Christian saint and martyr Saint Valentine of Terni was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496, to replace the previous pagan festival of Lupercalia.

Biblical Romance

You would think that book that instructs, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth, would have something to say about romance. And indeed it does.

Kol Dodi Dofeck means “listen, my beloved knocks.” Many know this portion of scripture as “The Song of Songs.”

Synopsis:

Rabbi Soloveitchik's unique and widely influential approach to theodicy is that in the face of catastrophe and misfortune, we cannot ask why, since that question is unanswerable. Instead we must ask how we can grow and individuals and as a community. It is not the why? that is important, but the what?[iii]

 

“The Song of Songs is one long description of the rapture, the unquenchable yearning and the restless willingness and readiness, with which both partners in this covenant. In the Bible the promises made between God and God's people are known as covenants; they state or imply a relationship of commitment and obedience.[iv]

The Song of Songs is not about two human lovers, but the love story between God and His covenant people. It is allegorical. That is not to say that it’s themes cannot be extended to other pairings.

Interestingly, this book is categorized as part of the “Wisdom Literature.”

Twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth describes vividly the Bible’s surprising delight in “the eros for which there is no…shame,” both in Genesis 2 and in the Song:

“The Song of Songs is one long description of the rapture, the unquenchable yearning and the restless willingness and readiness, with which both partners in this covenant [their relationship with God the Creator] hasten towards an encounter….God the Lord and sexual eros…are brought into close relationship….The authors of Gen. 2 and the Song of Songs speak of man and woman as they do because they know that the broken covenant is still for God the unbroken covenant, intact and fulfilled on both sides” (Church Dogmatics III/1, pages 313-315).

In other words, in its daring and provocative praise of love and sexuality, the Song of Songs celebrates the relationship between man and woman under God as God intends it and as God still sees it: as pure and innocent, even in all its full physical sensuality—a sense that, despite all difficulties, human lovers can still sometimes experience and enjoy.

Garden

The Song’s frequent use of images from nature, including several explicit references to a “garden,” is bound to remind readers of the Genesis story of the garden of Eden. The poet wants to transport the audience back to a time of innocence: a world of harmony among man and woman and God, a time of sexuality without shame.

Love and death

According to the Song, “love is strong as death” (8:6). That is, love, like death, is an elemental force beyond human control, a power that humans cannot escape. Human language gets something right when it speaks of “falling” in love. That does not mean, of course, that love and death are outside the realm of divine concern or of human ethics; but it does give readers pause in any attempt to trivialize or to “master” too easily the human experience of love and sexuality.[v]

 

Valentine probably died between 260 and 270 A.D. Third century. There are two candidates for who St. Valentine actually was. Many times when we go back hundreds or thousands of years, we cant find information on people. Their stories have been lost to the sands of time.

Sometimes when I visit my relatives in Wisconsin, I have to drive through the rural parts of Illinois. There are just fields and farmhouses for miles and miles. Every so often I see a graveyard by itself off in a field. Typically small. I wonder, who were these people? What did they do? After about 3 generations, most people won’t know, including their own families.

First possibility for St. Valentine was a Roman Priest brought before Claudius II. He refused to renounce his faith, and Claudius put him in prison at the house of a noble man called Asterias. Asterias asked him to heal the eyes of his blind adopted daughter, which he did. The entire household converted to Christianity. Claudius wasn’t impressed however. He had Valentine executed and buried at the Flaminian gate of Rome. He wasn’t finished. He has Asterias sent away, also tried and executed.

The second possibility was the Bishop of Terni. He was summoned by a man named Kito to heal his crippled son. Valentine would only do so if Kito would convert to Christianity. The man refused. They modified the agreement: Valentine would restore the boy first, and then the household would convert. Today, we convert individuals, but in the ancient world and in the Middle East today, especially among Arab people, households convert.

Born into a patrician family, Valentino was converted to Christianity and consecrated bishop of Terni in 197, at only 21 years of age. There are many legends have become part of popular culture on episodes of his life.

Back to our story: the Roman Senate found out about the healing and conversions. They had Valentine arrested and beaten. Then they demanded that he renounce his faith. He refused and was beheaded. He was buried outside Tierni by his followers, who were in turn arrested and killed.

Province of Terni, Italy

Common elements: healing miracle of a child, conversions to Christianity, refusal to renounce faith, martyred by the state.

These two stories have strong historical evidence. There are other stories about St. Valentine which are often told, but are less likely to be true. Might be what we call hagiography. Take a historical figure and add even more and greater attributes to them.

For example, some of the stories of North Korean dictators could be considered hagiography. Many North Koreans look on their leaders as more than normal people. Superhumans or something greater than human. If Kim Jung Un played basketball, he’d never miss a shot. If he took up golf, he would immediately be the greatest golfer the world has ever known. Probably getting mostly holes in one.

Other things that have been told about Valentine that may or may not be true are secret marriages, valentine cards.

Roman government did not want married soldiers, they thought unmarried soldiers fought better, so they forbade their soldiers to marry. It is said that St. Valentine secretly married these fellows, so that they could be with their loved ones.

According to legend, St. Valentine signed a letter “from your Valentine” to his jailer’s daughter, whom he had befriended and healed from blindness. This is an origin story about Valentine day cards.

It is said that, hearing two lovers quarreling, Valentino offered them a rose and begged them to hold it between their hands together without getting pricked by its thorns, and after some time they returned and asked him to join them in marriage. Another version of this story has it that the saint was able to inspire love in the young couple making several pairs of pigeons flying around them and exchanging sweet gestures of affection - from this episode the spread of the expression "lovebirds" is believed to have originated.

Another legend has it that Valentino, already bishop of Terni, celebrated a marriage between Sabinus, a Roman legionary (it was against the law to marry young soldiers who were to fight for the Roman Empire), and Serapia, a young Christian woman, whose parents opposed the marriage. Serapia was discovered to be seriously ill. Sabinus called Valentino to the bedside of the dying girl and asked him to be never separated from his beloved: the bishop baptized him and then united him in marriage to Serapia, after which they both died.

One tradition about Valentino's death is that in the year 270 he was in Rome, at the invitation of orator Craton, to preach the Gospel and convert the pagans.

 

It took some time for Valentine’s day to get going. The two men who could have been Valentine were third century. Valentines’s Day as a lovers’ festival dates at least from the 14th century. February 14th is the day Valentine was martyred.

Some superstitious practices emerged. Young ladies in England would write the names of prospective lovers on slips of paper, before rolling them in clay and placing them in a bowl of water. Whichever name rose to the surface first, would be their Valentine. In Scotland, names were drawn from a hat three times and if the same name appeared each time then marriage would follow. Of course, it was possible to increase your chances of finding the right name. The name of your Valentine was then worn on your sleeve for the remainder of the day.

It was not just a day for humans, either. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that birds chose their partners on St Valentine’s Day and poets often rejoiced in the link between lovebirds and lovers. 13th century poet Chaucer connected Valentine and mating of birds or fowls, which mate for life.

We are all saints. Christians are saved, chosen and sanctified by God. We shouldn’t be worshipping any humans. God alone gets our worship and our prayers.