Not only that, many Valentines littered – and still keep littering – the pages of history. It is this same confusion, I believe, that led Pope Paul VI to put a stop to the veneration of Valentine in 1969. The Valentine wasn’t just any man – he was a “Saint.” Wow! A saint linked to the celebration of romantic love?

Where the word came from

Valentinus is the original Latin word/name, meaning “strong” and “worthy.” It was popular between second and third centuries A.D. There are several Saint Valentines. A particular Pope was said to be one of them: Pope Valentine. The Catholic Church officially recognizes three martyred Saint Valentines. One of them could be Bishop of Terni who was said to be murdered by Emperor Claudius II in the suburbs of Rome. Another could be the priest that the same Emperor murdered because he secretly helped to join Christian couples together in holy matrimony. The Emperor had banned marriage because of his philosophy that unmarried men were superior soldiers. This is perhaps the saint in question. He died in 270 A.D. This is just one of the origins of Val’s day. It doesn’t really explain cogent reasons for the veneration of the Valentine figure. Many good people had been martyred in human history, yet no day was named after many them in celebration of their lives and what they died for.

Celebration of the Lupercalia

A Roman Emperor known as Constantine the Great had just validated Christianity in Rome, in 313 A.D. This spelt an end for public torture of Christians throughout the Roman Empire and many people gradually became converts. The new converts found it hard to completely forsake their old ways, thus came several importation of pagan rites and practices from the worship of their gods into Christianity.

Edward Gibbons writes in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire “After the conversion of the imperial City (Rome), the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual celebration of the Lupercalia…” One of the traditional practices that the people brought into Christianity was called Lupercalia. It was the Roman pagan festival of fertility in the worship of the Roman god of agriculture: Faunus.

This festival usually happened on February 15 of every year. Boys picked girls’ names from a container. A boy picked a girl’s name and the girl became his partner for the duration of the festival. It was noted that most of such relations ended up in marriage. Lupercalia festival could not survive the reign of Pope Gelasius who in the fifth century (496 A.D) officially renamed it as Valentine’s Day and pegged the date at fourteenth of February.

We take it that Pope Gelasius probably heard too much of several saintly heroes of love within the Catholic Church and thought it out that if he could refocus people’s attention, Christianity would be better for it. Did the people become more Christlike? How much has the renaming achieved?

Valentine’s Day Origin is traced to Early English Literature

Further up the ladder of confusion is the literary school that believes that Geoffrey Chaucer, the prominent medieval English poet, famous for The Canterbury Tales, might have been the originator of Valentine’s Day. The way he weaves the characters in his poetry with historical incidents easily leaves literary critics in an indeterminate axis where the line blurs between poetry and history. In his fourteenth century poem “Parlement of Foules,” Chaucer mentions Valentine’s Day as an important day for lovers.

He lets his narrator fall asleep while reading and takes him to the dream realm where he experiences nature convoking a meeting of birds getting ready to pick their mates. Three Tercel (male eagles) fight to win the love of formel (a female eagle). The poet states “For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day/Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.” It was said that there was no written account of Valentine’s Day before the year Chaucer wrote this poem. The year of composition has been a subject of hot debate amongst scholars since the first few years of the twentieth century. Fred N. Robinson argues that if the allegorical aspect of the poem is removed, then there is no more validation for 1381-2, the date some believed the work was written.

Critics point to lines 117 – 118 of the poem as a clue: “As wisly as I saw the Venus, north north west/ when I began my sweune for to write.” John M. Manly claims that Venus is never found “north north west” but can be in that position when it gets to “its extreme northern point.” Manly mentions that the “north north” state was only realizable in May of 1374, 1382 and 1390. Some critics actually put a tag on 1375. Derek Brewer’s reasoning keeps the date at 1382 since Chaucer wrote many poems between 1373 and 1385. He therefore specifically states that “a very reasonable, if not certain, date for the Parlement is that it was begun in May 1382, and was ready for St.Valentine’s Day, 14th February1383.”

Let’s assume that the year is 1382. Does that mean there was no mention of Valentine’s Day before that year? This is not believable because history teaches that the main St. Valentine died in 270A.D. Between 313 AD and 380AD Christianity settled in Roman Empire and Gelasius already renamed the pagan festival. All of these are earlier dates. How come Chaucer who wrote “Parlement of Foules,” in the fourteenth century did not have a hint of what Valentine was and yet wrote it in his poem? You mean Roman Empire did not have means of keeping records before the fourteenth century?

What is the best version of truth?

You will continue to stumble on blocks of historical inaccuracies anytime you try to understand the rationale behind the several versions of Valentine’s character and day. This is enough reason to lose faith in this festival of Eros and Cupid. When there are many versions of a reality, the reality itself becomes an illusion.

There is a crucial characteristic of Truth that can’t be compromised anywhere in the world: it is constancy. There is no how you want to twist it – the Sun always rises in the East and sets in the West. It is believable because of its constancy.

You don’t easily believe someone who has many versions of a story to tell because they often leave you confused. You won’t know the version to trust, especially when all the versions contain elements of truth. A seal of myths and legends is multifaceted versions. The Greek can tell you how the world began just as the Romans have their own version of the same story. The Yorubas have their own versions of the creation story. The Bible has its creation story, different from that of the Quran. Within the same culture the versions are often slightly different. That is why they are often called a myth: something that is not true but helps beef up the belief system of a people. It helps them to explain certain behaviour, philosophy or practice. How do you wholeheartedly believe anything that lacks constancy?

Defining the day for our own good

The only constant thing about St. Valentine’s Day is the fact that it is about love. This is the connective tissue in all the versions of the saint’s story. No matter the origin of this celebration, one thing is sure: it helps us pause awhile to remember all the people we love and think of ways to show them that we love them. It helps us think fondly of the little moments that define our affection and humanistic essence. Perhaps, Pope Gelasius who instituted the day (according to one of the versions) has actually successfully won the heart of the pagan world for God.

Every year, this day wins new converts. Some people now stretch the idea beyond romantic love to showing love to everything and everyone around them: father, mother, children, the aged, the orphans, trees, and pets. What more do we need but to express our love? We don’t always have to wait till death takes people away before we realize we loved them. Now is the time to always remind them of the sureness of our love for them. This is enough redefinition of the festival of Lupercalia which initially was in honour of lupercus, the Roman god of shepherds and Lupa, the female wolf which according to legend nurtured Romulus and Remus, the two children who later grew to become the founders of Rome. After all, nothing has a meaning but the meaning we give to it.

Written by Omidire Idowu.

Omidire, Idowu Joshua is an editor and script writer. He has written for several online magazines. Reach him via noblelifeliver@gmail.com