What is Valentine's Day? St Valentine's Day is an annual festival to celebrate romantic love, friendship and admiration. Each year on February 14, lovers across the world shower their significant other with flowers, cards, gifts, special meals, and unbridled passion. It’s been known for centuries as the definitive peak of the year for romantics and a close second for chocolate lovers.
But, history shows us that this holiday wasn’t
always wrapped in stuffed animals and jewelry, “IT’S NOT WHAT IT SAYS IT IS”
The Characters:
1.
Father Valentine
2.
The Fertility Festival
3.
Cupid and Psyche
Who is Father Valentine?
Saint
Valentine is an Italian catholic priest and also a physician who live in Rome
from the 3rd century during the reign of Emperor Claudius II at AD
268-270.
Emperor
Claudius recruited young man to be trained as soldiers and serve as Roman
Armies. He made a decree to forbid this young soldier to get married,
foreseeing that this would hinder their service and lessen their efficiency as
soldiers when they get home sick with their wives and love ones. But Father
Valentine secretly perform marriages to young couples defiling the decree of
Claudius II and was put to prison. On his imprisonment he ministered the sick
in prison cell, includes, restoring the site of the blind girl who known to be
the Jailers daughter which the two become secret lover. The young girl visited
Valentine in his prison cell allows them to exchange letter. On the day of
Valentine’s execution February 14 AD 270, the jailer caught his daughter with
letter in her hand that is signature by the sender: “FROM YOUR VALENTINE” which become popular
undersigned on love letters until today.
The LUPERCALIA
The day most
people call Saint Valentine’s Day or simply Valentine’s Day has nothing to do
with hearts or flowers, and definitely nothing to do with the Christianity or
the Saint that the church tried to connect it to.
The pagan celebration called
Lupercalia were hijacked, renamed, and altered, Valentine’s Day is a
product of a growing religion to compromised Christianity with pagan festival.
An ancient Festival celebrated from February
13th to 15th.
Filled with nudity, sexuality, ritual sacrifices, feasting, games, and
history, all wrapped up in a healthy dose of naughtiness. To start the
celebration, the high priests would ritually sacrifice dogs and goats in a cave
called Lupercal on the Palatine Hill. Immediately after the killing, two
young male priests were led to the altar with their foreheads touching.
The blood from the sacrificial knife was smeared upon their joined foreheads
and then wiped clean with a piece of wool dipped in milk, at which time both
were required to laugh. No one is certain why the laughter part was
needed, but it was included.
The slaughtered goats were skinned and the
skins divided into long thongs, similar to whips. After a period of
feasting, the young men would strip naked and parade through the streets
striking people with the goat-skin thongs. Since a male goat represented
sexuality in ancient Rome, this practice was heavily laden in eroticism.
It was believed that anyone who was struck with the thong would be granted
fertility and would be free from evil. Of course, you can imagine many Roman
women “accidentally” getting in the way of the light whip, some several
times. The sight of naked men running through the streets whipped willing
maidens and the revelry and feasting over the days must have been viewed by the
church as an excessive indulgence in debaucherous behavior. The Romans on
the other hand loved it.
The red blood of the sacrifice and the female
menses associated with fertility seemed to dictate the coloration of all things
associated with Valentine’s Day including the primary color of cards, roses,
and most decorations. The white milk was associated with semen, thus
completing the circle of fertility
Others focus on the goat skin as a focus
point. At the time, a goat thong when used as a whip, was called a
Febura, which closely ties to the month the celebration occurred. At the
time, there was a strong belief that whipping ones-self would drive out evil;
an evil which was believed to diminish a woman’s chance of getting pregnant.
Since the goat was the symbol of lust and a never-ending need for
sexual gratification, it made perfect sense as the whip of choice. They
were basically whipping out the evil and replacing it with lust and desire; and
since the administers of these whippings were naked youthful males, that sweetened
the exchange.
Cupid & Psyche
In classical mythology, Cupid (Latin Cupīdō [kʊˈpiːdoː],
meaning "passionate desire") is the god of desire, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus
and the god of war Mars. He is also known in Latin as Amor ("Love").
His Greek counterpart is Eros.
Psyche
Psyche was the youngest
daughter of a Greek king and queen, with two elder sisters. She was so
beautiful that people, including priests, compared her to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. Many went
to the extent of saying that she was even fairer than the goddess. When
Aphrodite's temples were deserted because people started worshiping Psyche, the
goddess was outraged. As a punishment, she sent her son, Eros, to make Psyche fall in love with a vile and hideous
person. However, Eros fell in love when he saw her and decided to spare her
from his mother's wrath.
