February 14, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Valentine’s Day began as a feast to celebrate the decapitation of a third-century Christian martyr. So, how did we get from beheading to betrothing?
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American stories. Valentine's Day began as a
feast to celebrate the decapitation of a third century Christian martyr.
So how did we get from a beheading to betrothing?
Here's Greg Hangler. Today very little is known about the
origins of Valentine's Day, nor the holiday's namesake. What we
(00:34):
do know comes from an order of Belgian monks who
spent three centuries collecting evidence for the lives of saints
from manuscript archives around the world. They were called Bollandists
after Jean Boland, a Jesuit scholar, who in sixteen forty
three began publishing the massive sixty eight volumes titled The
(00:56):
Lives of the Saints. Since then, successive generals of monks
continued the work until the last volume was published in
nineteen forty. The monks dug up every scrap of information
about every saint on the liturgical calendar and printed the
text arranged according to the saint's feast day. The volume
(01:17):
encompassing February fourteenth contains the story of Saint Valentine. In
the third century, the Roman Empire was being invaded by
the Goths. At the same time, smallpox broke out, killing
up to five thousand people a day, which greatly depleted
the number of soldiers in the Roman army, by far
(01:38):
the most powerful military in the world. Believing that men
fought better if they were not married, the ambitious Emperor
Claudius the second band marriage in the military. Also to
quell internal rivalries over the previous emperor's assassination, Claudius had
the Senate deify him along with the Roman gods, and
(02:00):
compelled citizens to worship him. Those who refused to worship
the Roman gods were considered unpatriotic enemies of the state
and were killed. Saint Valentine was a priest in central Italy.
He risked the emperor's wrath by secretly marrying Christian soldiers
to their young brides. When Emperor Claudius got word that
(02:23):
Valentine was performing these marriages and refused to deny his
conscience and worship pagan idols, Valentine was arrested, brought to Rome,
and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, young couples that
he had secretly wed would visit his cell, passing him
notes and flowers between the bars as symbols of their gratitude.
(02:46):
During this time, Valentine also shared the Gospel with his
judge and jailer Asterius. Here's Corney Becker, dean of regent University,
so say to him, well, if this indeed is true,
I want you to prove it. And he brought one
of his adopted daughters, who happened to be blind to
(03:08):
the one legend says, and what happened is at Valentinus
or Valentine him led his hands upon this goal and
she was healed. Immediately. Valentine and the judge's daughter would
fall in love, and on Valentine's last night, he wrote
a love letter to the jailer's daughter, signing it from
(03:28):
your Valentine. A tradition was born, and to this very day,
lovers all over the world signed their Valentine's Day cards
with the same signature. Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs
and stones, and when that failed to kill him, he
was beheaded outsigned the Flaminian Gate on February fourteenth, two
(03:52):
sixty nine AD. Although Valentine's Day is universally celebrated like Christmas,
those share the faith of Father Valentine find extra encouragement
in this day that celebrates love. Here's Father Dwight Longenecker
and doctor Becker. When we see those hearts on Valentine's Day,
(04:14):
we can remember that that heart is also had some
connections back to the heart of Jesus and to God's
love for us. And we can remember that the source
of all love, and the source of self sacrifice and
love for each other is rooted in God's love and
in the witness that Saint Valentine actually made for that love.
(04:35):
For Christians, marriage is a wholly parable of the love
of Christ towards his church. It's a visible sermon about
what holiness and purity could look like in our lives.
We should celebrate what true sacrificial love looks like in
a broken world. And ultimately, it should be a day
(04:57):
that we celebrate the commitment of Christ who his life
for his church. It should be a day where we
celebrate the power of true love to change our walt.
In four ninety six AD, Pope Galasius designated February fourteenth
(05:17):
as Saint Valentine's Day. The love connections solidified more than
a thousand years after the martyr's death, when Jeffrey Chaucer,
author of the Canterbury tales decreed the February feast of
Saint Valentine's to the mating of birds. He wrote in
his poem the Parliament of Fowls, for this was on
(05:38):
Saint Valentine's day, when every bird comes there to choose
his mate. Soon European nobility began sending love notes during
the February bird mating season. Ophelia spoke of herself as
hamlets Valentine. In the following centuries, englishmen and women began
using February fourteenth as an excuse depend verses to their
(06:01):
love objects. People often signed Valentine's cards with xs and os.
The Greek name for Christ begins with the letter X,
so X became a common abbreviation for the name Christ.
This is why Christmas is abbreviated as x mess. In
(06:22):
medieval times, the X was called Christ's cross, which we
now call Chriss cross. This cross was a form of
a written oath. Similar to the ancient practice of swearing
upon a Bible, saying so help me God, and then
kissing the Bible. People would sign a document with an
(06:44):
X or place their signature next to the Christ's cross
to swear before Christ. They would keep the agreement and
then kiss it to show their sincerity. This practice has
come down to us as sign at the X or
I swear cross my heart. This is the origin of
(07:05):
signing Valentine's cards and love letters with an X to
express a pledge before Christ to be faithful, and an
O to seal the pledge with a kiss of sincerity.
And like the holiday itself, this practice has been transformed
into the secular stamp we now know as hugs and kisses.
(07:26):
History is intertwined with Valentine's references. Frederick Douglas was born
a slave and separated from his mother as a child.
All he remembers is her calling him my little Valentine.
Theodore Roosevelt's wife and mother both died on Valentine's Day
in eighteen eighty four, and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
occurred in nineteen twenty nine during the Prohibition era. In
(07:49):
the eighteen forties, esther A. Howland began selling the first
mass produced Valentine's cards in America. Today, according to the
Greeting Card Association and estimated one hundred and forty five
million Valentine's Day cards are sent each year in America.
One billion worldwide, making Valentine's Day the second largest cards
(08:12):
sending holiday of the year. Christmas earns the gold medal
and Mother's Day gets the bronze. Women purchase approximately eighty
five percent of all Valentine's Day cards, but men spend
double the amount of money on Valentine's Day gifts than women.
The average amount a man spends is one hundred and
thirty dollars. Of all the flowers bought on Valentine's Day,
(08:36):
seventy three percent of the purchasers are men, and approximately
fifteen percent of women send themselves flowers. On Valentine's Day,
more than thirty six million boxes of heart shaped chocolates
are sold and more than two hundred and twenty million
roses are produced for the holiday in a typical year. Altogether,
(08:59):
Americans spend almost twenty billion dollars on Valentine's Day. While
the most popular gifts are candy and flowers, nearly twenty
percent of American splurge on jewelry, shelling out as much
as four billion dollars annually, and those who prefer the
ultimate romantic gesture are definitely not alone. A recent survey
(09:21):
revealed that as many as six million couples are likely
to get engaged on February fourteenth. But if you're worried
that you can't afford to treat your love one properly
on Valentine's Day, take heart. The poets were right. Love
is really all you need. It seems that the saint
behind the holiday of Love remains as elusive as love itself. Still,
(09:46):
as Saint Augustine the Great fifth century of theologian and
philosopher argued in his Treatise on Faith and Invisible Things,
someone does not have to be standing before our eyes
for us to love them. And much like love itself,
Saint Valentine and his reputation as the patron saint of
love are not matters of verifiable history, but of faith.
(10:11):
I'm Greg Hingler, and from all of us here at
our American stories have a lovely Valentine's Day, and what
a great story. And one need not be a person
of faith to understand so much of this and the
sacrificial nature of love, true love in a broken world.
And by the way, what was interesting is that Saint
Valentine didn't want to take orders from the emperor, and
(10:35):
this country was founded on this notion that We don't
pray to our leaders, We pray for our leaders. The
story of Saint Valentine and the story of Valentine's Day.
Here on our American Stories.
This is our American stories. Valentine's Day began as a
feast to celebrate the decapitation of a third century Christian martyr.
So how did we get from a beheading to betrothing?
Here's Greg Hangler. Today very little is known about the
origins of Valentine's Day, nor the holiday's namesake. What we
(00:34):
do know comes from an order of Belgian monks who
spent three centuries collecting evidence for the lives of saints
from manuscript archives around the world. They were called Bollandists
after Jean Boland, a Jesuit scholar, who in sixteen forty
three began publishing the massive sixty eight volumes titled The
(00:56):
Lives of the Saints. Since then, successive generals of monks
continued the work until the last volume was published in
nineteen forty. The monks dug up every scrap of information
about every saint on the liturgical calendar and printed the
text arranged according to the saint's feast day. The volume
(01:17):
encompassing February fourteenth contains the story of Saint Valentine. In
the third century, the Roman Empire was being invaded by
the Goths. At the same time, smallpox broke out, killing
up to five thousand people a day, which greatly depleted
the number of soldiers in the Roman army, by far
(01:38):
the most powerful military in the world. Believing that men
fought better if they were not married, the ambitious Emperor
Claudius the second band marriage in the military. Also to
quell internal rivalries over the previous emperor's assassination, Claudius had
the Senate deify him along with the Roman gods, and
(02:00):
compelled citizens to worship him. Those who refused to worship
the Roman gods were considered unpatriotic enemies of the state
and were killed. Saint Valentine was a priest in central Italy.
He risked the emperor's wrath by secretly marrying Christian soldiers
to their young brides. When Emperor Claudius got word that
(02:23):
Valentine was performing these marriages and refused to deny his
conscience and worship pagan idols, Valentine was arrested, brought to Rome,
and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, young couples that
he had secretly wed would visit his cell, passing him
notes and flowers between the bars as symbols of their gratitude.
(02:46):
During this time, Valentine also shared the Gospel with his
judge and jailer Asterius. Here's Corney Becker, dean of regent University,
so say to him, well, if this indeed is true,
I want you to prove it. And he brought one
of his adopted daughters, who happened to be blind to
(03:08):
the one legend says, and what happened is at Valentinus
or Valentine him led his hands upon this goal and
she was healed. Immediately. Valentine and the judge's daughter would
fall in love, and on Valentine's last night, he wrote
a love letter to the jailer's daughter, signing it from
(03:28):
your Valentine. A tradition was born, and to this very day,
lovers all over the world signed their Valentine's Day cards
with the same signature. Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs
and stones, and when that failed to kill him, he
was beheaded outsigned the Flaminian Gate on February fourteenth, two
(03:52):
sixty nine AD. Although Valentine's Day is universally celebrated like Christmas,
those share the faith of Father Valentine find extra encouragement
in this day that celebrates love. Here's Father Dwight Longenecker
and doctor Becker. When we see those hearts on Valentine's Day,
(04:14):
we can remember that that heart is also had some
connections back to the heart of Jesus and to God's
love for us. And we can remember that the source
of all love, and the source of self sacrifice and
love for each other is rooted in God's love and
in the witness that Saint Valentine actually made for that love.
(04:35):
For Christians, marriage is a wholly parable of the love
of Christ towards his church. It's a visible sermon about
what holiness and purity could look like in our lives.
We should celebrate what true sacrificial love looks like in
a broken world. And ultimately, it should be a day
(04:57):
that we celebrate the commitment of Christ who his life
for his church. It should be a day where we
celebrate the power of true love to change our walt.
In four ninety six AD, Pope Galasius designated February fourteenth
(05:17):
as Saint Valentine's Day. The love connections solidified more than
a thousand years after the martyr's death, when Jeffrey Chaucer,
author of the Canterbury tales decreed the February feast of
Saint Valentine's to the mating of birds. He wrote in
his poem the Parliament of Fowls, for this was on
(05:38):
Saint Valentine's day, when every bird comes there to choose
his mate. Soon European nobility began sending love notes during
the February bird mating season. Ophelia spoke of herself as
hamlets Valentine. In the following centuries, englishmen and women began
using February fourteenth as an excuse depend verses to their
(06:01):
love objects. People often signed Valentine's cards with xs and os.
The Greek name for Christ begins with the letter X,
so X became a common abbreviation for the name Christ.
This is why Christmas is abbreviated as x mess. In
(06:22):
medieval times, the X was called Christ's cross, which we
now call Chriss cross. This cross was a form of
a written oath. Similar to the ancient practice of swearing
upon a Bible, saying so help me God, and then
kissing the Bible. People would sign a document with an
(06:44):
X or place their signature next to the Christ's cross
to swear before Christ. They would keep the agreement and
then kiss it to show their sincerity. This practice has
come down to us as sign at the X or
I swear cross my heart. This is the origin of
(07:05):
signing Valentine's cards and love letters with an X to
express a pledge before Christ to be faithful, and an
O to seal the pledge with a kiss of sincerity.
And like the holiday itself, this practice has been transformed
into the secular stamp we now know as hugs and kisses.
(07:26):
History is intertwined with Valentine's references. Frederick Douglas was born
a slave and separated from his mother as a child.
All he remembers is her calling him my little Valentine.
Theodore Roosevelt's wife and mother both died on Valentine's Day
in eighteen eighty four, and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
occurred in nineteen twenty nine during the Prohibition era. In
(07:49):
the eighteen forties, esther A. Howland began selling the first
mass produced Valentine's cards in America. Today, according to the
Greeting Card Association and estimated one hundred and forty five
million Valentine's Day cards are sent each year in America.
One billion worldwide, making Valentine's Day the second largest cards
(08:12):
sending holiday of the year. Christmas earns the gold medal
and Mother's Day gets the bronze. Women purchase approximately eighty
five percent of all Valentine's Day cards, but men spend
double the amount of money on Valentine's Day gifts than women.
The average amount a man spends is one hundred and
thirty dollars. Of all the flowers bought on Valentine's Day,
(08:36):
seventy three percent of the purchasers are men, and approximately
fifteen percent of women send themselves flowers. On Valentine's Day,
more than thirty six million boxes of heart shaped chocolates
are sold and more than two hundred and twenty million
roses are produced for the holiday in a typical year. Altogether,
(08:59):
Americans spend almost twenty billion dollars on Valentine's Day. While
the most popular gifts are candy and flowers, nearly twenty
percent of American splurge on jewelry, shelling out as much
as four billion dollars annually, and those who prefer the
ultimate romantic gesture are definitely not alone. A recent survey
(09:21):
revealed that as many as six million couples are likely
to get engaged on February fourteenth. But if you're worried
that you can't afford to treat your love one properly
on Valentine's Day, take heart. The poets were right. Love
is really all you need. It seems that the saint
behind the holiday of Love remains as elusive as love itself. Still,
(09:46):
as Saint Augustine the Great fifth century of theologian and
philosopher argued in his Treatise on Faith and Invisible Things,
someone does not have to be standing before our eyes
for us to love them. And much like love itself,
Saint Valentine and his reputation as the patron saint of
love are not matters of verifiable history, but of faith.
(10:11):
I'm Greg Hingler, and from all of us here at
our American stories have a lovely Valentine's Day, and what
a great story. And one need not be a person
of faith to understand so much of this and the
sacrificial nature of love, true love in a broken world.
And by the way, what was interesting is that Saint
Valentine didn't want to take orders from the emperor, and
(10:35):
this country was founded on this notion that We don't
pray to our leaders, We pray for our leaders. The
story of Saint Valentine and the story of Valentine's Day.
Here on our American Stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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