Ancient Roman Origins
In ancient Rome, February 13-15 used to be Lupercalia, a festival of fertility that saw three days of carousel, license, and mayhem. Cambridge University professor Mary Beard describes the holiday’s bizarre rites: “at the festival of Lupercalia…naked young men ran round the city whipping any women they met.” Lupercalia also involved some pretty bloody sacrificing of dogs to the god Lupercalia (the Roman name for the Greek god, known for his impishness and nasty sense of humor, Pan).
Lupercalia was popular for over a thousand years, from the very founding of Rome in the 8th century BCE, to the 5th century CE. (It was one of few Roman pagan holidays routinely celebrated by Christians even after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380 CE.) Thousands of Jews lived in Rome during the many centuries when Lupercalia was celebrated. (The Emperor Titus deported an estimated 50,000 Jews from Judea to the city of Rome in the year 70 CE alone.) How did they view this annual libertine festival?
Prof. Beard notes that “ancient Roman religion (was not) particularly concerned with personal salvation or morality. Instead it mainly focused on the performance of rituals that were intended to keep the relationship between Rome and the gods in good order....” (quoted in SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard: 2015). It’s a view that’s opposed to contemporaneous Jewish writings. Take the example of Hillel, the 1st Century CE Jewish sage who lived at a time when Lupercalia was a major event. Hillel – like many Jewish thinkers – focused intensely on the human struggle for self-improvement. “Be among the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them closer to the Torah,” Hillel advised (Ethics of the Fathers 1:12), invoking the Biblical forefather Aaron, who was known to spend his time reconciling friends and relatives after quarrels. While Jewish writers were urging people to look inward for personal growth and improvement, Romans observing Lupercalia were relying on empty (and pretty bawdy) ritual to magically bring about improvements in their personal states.
The contrast between Jewish and ancient Roman thought was huge, and earned Jews the enmity of ancient Rome. In 139 BCE and then again in 19 CE, Jews were banished from the city of Rome, though in both instances they were soon able to return. Differences over festivals such as Lupercalia – and Judaism’s emphasis on morality and personal growth – helped turn Roman public opinion against Rome’s Jews, and formed a wedge between ancient Roman Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors.
Saint Valentinus
It was Pope Gelasius I, who served as Pope from 492-496, who abolished Lupercalia. In its place, he instituted a new Christian holiday on February 14: a feast day to remember the martyrdom of Saint Valentinus. .
There’s not much agreement on exactly who Saint Valentinus was. It seems likely there were at least two and possibly three Saint “Valentini” (the plural of Valentinus) who were martyred in ancient Rome. Almost nothing is known of the first Valentinus other than that he perished in Africa along with 24 soldiers in the 3rd Century. Later on, there was another Valentinus who was beheaded in Rome by the Emperor Claudius Gothicus, who governed 269 to 270 CE and was known to execute Christians. A similar account is given of another Valentinus in nearby Umbria, who was also beheaded by Gothicus for his Christian beliefs; historians differ about whether these were separate martyrs or simply different versions of the same story. Either way, these ancient Christians became the basis for replacing Lupercallia with a new, Christian, festival which could be overseen and controlled by the Pope.
Relics of St. Valentine of Terni at the basilica of Saint Mary in Cosmedin
(In 1969, the Catholic Church removed St. Valentine’s Day from its calendar of feast days because there is so little reliable proof about his life or very existence.)
Medieval Legends of Love
In the Middle Ages, as the ideal of “Courtly Love” captured the minds and hearts of European poets and their readers, St. Valentine’s Day began to be associated with love and romance. Writers began to embroider the history of St. Valentinus.
One popular story invented then asserted that Emperor Gothicus forbade his soldiers to marry, and in defiance of this order, St. Valentinus risked his life by carrying love letters back and forth between soldiers and their sweethearts. Some legends say he even conducted weddings for them. Another version says that Valentinus brought love letters to prisoners in Gothicus’ jails.
Some Medieval writers described Valentinus curing the blindness of a young girl and then falling in love with her. (Other versions say he cured a boy of blindness.) He was said to be so loving and good that he persuaded Romans to become Christian just by talking to them.
Chaucer and Valentine’s Day
The most famous Medieval poet to contribute to the growing myth of St. Valentinus was Chaucer, who boldly declared that February 15 was a day of love and romance – for birds. In his poem Parlement of Foules, Chaucer described “Volantynys day” as a day of mating and sending messages to lovers (framed as a description of birds). Chaucer’s choice of St. Valentine’s Day spurred a craze of Medieval Europeans sending love letters on February 14.
Love and romance on St. Valentine’s Day wasn’t the only idea Chaucer popularized: his popular Canterbury Tales, still read today, described Jews as evil and malevolent, opposed to everything wholesome and good in the world. The Canterbury Tales spread a vicious blood libel about Jews and describes a stomach-turning story about Jews kidnapping and murdering an innocent Christian child (and then describes Jews being arrested, tortured, and executed while the child is declared a saint).
In 1349, Jews gained yet another reason to associate St. Valentine’s Day with dread and horror instead of romance. The Bubonic Plague was sweeping Europe and in many locales, Jews were accused of spreading the disease. On St. Valentine's Day, 1349, a Shabbat, the entire Jewish community of Strasbourg, in France, was massacred, burned alive in the town square while townspeople watched. Afterwards, townspeople searched the corpses, looking for valuables, and the property of Strasbourg’s Jews was distributed to local Gentiles.
Irresistible Love?
Cupid wasn’t traditionally a part of St. Valentine’s Day until the 1800s, when commercial greeting card manufacturers began placing pictures of the childlike Roman god of desire on cards. Today, he’s ubiquitous. Even though Cupid wasn’t a conventional part of the holiday in its early years, his inclusion in modern celebrations highlights one more difference between St. Valentine’s Day and Jewish views of love and romance.
In Greek times, Cupid was known as Eros, the god of sex and desire, and was often described as the son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Depicted as a handsome young man, Eros carried a bow and arrow with him. Whomever he shot, whether at a god or a mortal, it was said, would fall in love. The ancient Greek poet Euripides captured the terror that Eros could bring about: “I pray that love (Eros) may never come to me / With murderous intent, in rhythms measureless and wild” (quoted in Hippolytus by Euripides). Romans included Eros in their pantheon as Cupid, generally depicted even younger, like a child, but no less sinister. Wherever Cupid’s arrows landed, it was thought, love – no matter how unwelcome or inappropriate –would follow.
Watch out for those arrows.
Judaism’s view of love is very different. Romance and attraction are crucial, but so is the hard work of getting to know our romantic partners and connect with them. Instead of being utterly random, something you happen to fall into, true love is the result of time and effort to truly know the subjects of our love. When the Torah describes sexual intimacy, it uses the Hebrew word da’at, which means to know: truly connecting romantically is only possibly when we take the time to notice, understand and be close to another person.
Jewish Day of Love
Jews have a day of romance and love. Tu B’Av celebrates several turns of good fortune for the Jewish people. In ancient Israel, it was a day for young unmarried people to ask each other out. In modern day Israel today, Tu B’Av is a day for romance, with couples spending time together, going out to dinner, and declaring their love.
With so much about Valentine’s Day anathema to Jewish values, Valentine’s Day isn’t a holiday I feel comfortable celebrating. So this Valentine’s Day – like every day – I plan on enjoying a nice meal with my husband and son. I plan on texting friends and relatives to check in on them. I intend to reach out to friends who are having a hard time and ask how I can help. Because if there’s anything being Jewish has taught me, it’s that connecting with other people is paramount, that the world is full of blessings, and it's up to all of us to choose to see and appreciate them.
