Tomorrow is the feast of St. Valentine aka St. Valentine’s Day, and this year, as in many years before it, there have been several articles mentioning the Pagan origins of the romantic holiday. Take this example from NPR.
From February 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain. [...] Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the fifth century by combining St. Valentine’s Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Dr. Lenski adds, “It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn’t stop it from being a day of fertility and love.”
As much as I love a good “Christians appropriate pagan holidays” story, in reality, St. Valentine’s Day most likely isn’t the holiday created to replace Lupercalia. When Lupercalia observances were suppressed by Pope Gelasius I in 494, the pre-existing Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (which in the Julian calendar fell on the same day as Lupercalia) was promoted in Rome as the purification of the Virgin Mary (later called Candlemas, a holiday Pope Innocent XII believed was created in opposition to Roman paganism). Since the month of February and Lupercalia were seen as times of purification by the Romans (indeed, February was a month full of celebrations and observances in ancient Rome), the new emphasis on Mary’s purification makes perfect sense. The Feast of St. Valentine, established two years later by Gelasius doesn’t seem to have much to do with the replacement of Lupercalia.
If you want to blame someone for equating love with St. Valentine’s Day, you’ll most likely have to blame Geoffrey Chaucer (who hath a blog). As for the festival of Lupercalia, the ancient Roman observance of fertility and the coming spring, it should not to be confused with the commercialized martyr’s celebration. Though, while equating Valentine’s Day with Lupercalia is incorrect, the yearly press blitz has done more to further awareness of ancient (and modern) Paganism than any Pagan advocacy group could hope to attain. So perhaps, as more people grow sick and tired of the Valentine’s Day expectations, perhaps I’ll be hearing more “blessed Lupercalias” in the future.
Instead of branding Valentine’s Day as ours, we should instead take a cue from P. Sufenas Virius Lupus and look to reviving some other Roman festivals from February, like The Parentalia, a major festival honoring the ancestors, or the movable feast of Fornacalia, where we clean and bless our baking ovens. Truly, we are spoiled for choice. So let Halmark have Valentine’s Day, we’ve got plenty of other festivals and holidays to celebrate or revive.
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