February 16, 2026 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Valentine’s Day began as a feast honoring a third-century Christian martyr. So how did we get from beheading to betrothing? Our own Greg Hengler shares the story of Saint Valentine, a Roman priest executed under Emperor Claudius II for secretly marrying Christian couples.
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Episode Transcript
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Today, very little is known about the origins of Valentine's Day,
nor the holiday's namesake. What we 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 Bolandists after Jean Boland, a
(00:48):
Jesuit scholar, who in sixteen forty three began publishing the
massive sixty eight volumes titled The Lives of the Saints.
Since then, success of 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
(01:10):
on the liturgical calendar and printed the text arranged according
to the saint's feast day. The volume 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
(01:32):
thousand people a day, which greatly depleted the number of
soldiers in the Roman army, by far the most powerful
military in the world. Believing that men fought better if
they were not married, the ambitious Emperor Claudius the Second
banned marriage in the military. Also to quell internal rivalries
over the previous emperor's assassination, Claudius had the Senate deify
(01:57):
him along with the Roman gods, and 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
(02:20):
young brides. When Emperor Claudius got word that 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
(02:42):
and flowers between the bars as symbols of their gratitude.
During this time, Valentine also shared the Gospel with his
judge and jailer Asterius. Here's Corney Becker, dean of regent University.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
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. The one
legend says, and what happened is that Valentinis or Valentine him,
led his hands upon this go and she was healed. Immediately.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
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 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.
(03:42):
Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs and stones, and when
that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the
Flaminian Gate on February fourteenth to 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
(04:04):
that celebrates love. Here's Father Dwight Longnecker and doctor Becker.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
When we see those hearts on Valentine's Day, 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
(04:33):
that Saint Valentine actually made for that love.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
For Christian's marriage is a holy 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 gave his
life for his church. It should be a day where
we celebright the power of true love to change our world.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
In four ninety six, a d Pope Glesius designated February
fourteenth 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 to creed the February feast
of Saint Valentine's to the mating of birds. He wrote
(05:34):
in his poem The Parliament of Fowls, for this was
on 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 Hamlet's Valentine. In the following centuries, English men and
(05:57):
women began using February fourteenth as an excuse depend verses
to their love objects. People often signed Valentine's cards with
xes and o's. 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
(06:21):
X MISS. In medieval times, the X was called Christ's cross,
which we now call Chris 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
(06:43):
with an 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
(07:04):
origin of signing Valentine's cards and love letters with an
X to express a pledge before Christ to be faithful
in 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. History is intertwined with Valentine's references. Frederick
(07:29):
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 the eighteen forties, esther A. Howland began
(07:52):
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 card sending holiday of the year. Christmas earns
(08:15):
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, seventy three percent of the purchasers
(08:38):
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, Americans spend almost twenty billion dollars
(09:02):
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 ultimated romantic gesture are definitely not alone.
A recent survey revealed that as many as six million
(09:24):
couples are likely to get engaged on February fourteenth. But
if you're worried that you can't afford to treat your
loved 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, as Saint Augustine the Great
(09:48):
fifth century theologian and philosopher argued in his Treaties 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,
(10:10):
but of faith. I'm Greg Hingler, and from all of
us here at our American stories have a lovely Valentine's.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
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 this country was founded on this notion
that we don't pray to our leaders, we pray for
(10:41):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Today, very little is known about the origins of Valentine's Day,
nor the holiday's namesake. What we 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 Bolandists after Jean Boland, a
(00:48):
Jesuit scholar, who in sixteen forty three began publishing the
massive sixty eight volumes titled The Lives of the Saints.
Since then, success of 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
(01:10):
on the liturgical calendar and printed the text arranged according
to the saint's feast day. The volume 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
(01:32):
thousand people a day, which greatly depleted the number of
soldiers in the Roman army, by far the most powerful
military in the world. Believing that men fought better if
they were not married, the ambitious Emperor Claudius the Second
banned marriage in the military. Also to quell internal rivalries
over the previous emperor's assassination, Claudius had the Senate deify
(01:57):
him along with the Roman gods, and 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
(02:20):
young brides. When Emperor Claudius got word that 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
(02:42):
and flowers between the bars as symbols of their gratitude.
During this time, Valentine also shared the Gospel with his
judge and jailer Asterius. Here's Corney Becker, dean of regent University.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
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. The one
legend says, and what happened is that Valentinis or Valentine him,
led his hands upon this go and she was healed. Immediately.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
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 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.
(03:42):
Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs and stones, and when
that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the
Flaminian Gate on February fourteenth to 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
(04:04):
that celebrates love. Here's Father Dwight Longnecker and doctor Becker.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
When we see those hearts on Valentine's Day, 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
(04:33):
that Saint Valentine actually made for that love.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
For Christian's marriage is a holy 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 gave his
life for his church. It should be a day where
we celebright the power of true love to change our world.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
In four ninety six, a d Pope Glesius designated February
fourteenth 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 to creed the February feast
of Saint Valentine's to the mating of birds. He wrote
(05:34):
in his poem The Parliament of Fowls, for this was
on 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 Hamlet's Valentine. In the following centuries, English men and
(05:57):
women began using February fourteenth as an excuse depend verses
to their love objects. People often signed Valentine's cards with
xes and o's. 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
(06:21):
X MISS. In medieval times, the X was called Christ's cross,
which we now call Chris 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
(06:43):
with an 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
(07:04):
origin of signing Valentine's cards and love letters with an
X to express a pledge before Christ to be faithful
in 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. History is intertwined with Valentine's references. Frederick
(07:29):
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 the eighteen forties, esther A. Howland began
(07:52):
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 card sending holiday of the year. Christmas earns
(08:15):
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, seventy three percent of the purchasers
(08:38):
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, Americans spend almost twenty billion dollars
(09:02):
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 ultimated romantic gesture are definitely not alone.
A recent survey revealed that as many as six million
(09:24):
couples are likely to get engaged on February fourteenth. But
if you're worried that you can't afford to treat your
loved 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, as Saint Augustine the Great
(09:48):
fifth century theologian and philosopher argued in his Treaties 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,
(10:10):
but of faith. I'm Greg Hingler, and from all of
us here at our American stories have a lovely Valentine's.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
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 this country was founded on this notion
that we don't pray to our leaders, we pray for
(10:41):
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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