The Cornerstone The Cornerstone February 2018 | Page 23

A BIT
OF A
HISTORY
LESSON:
IT’S MORE
THAN
CUPID AND
ARROWS
BY MAX KRUSIEWICZ
M
illions of people celebrate the holiday of
Valentine’s Day, which revolves around love,
but many do not realize its origin is quite the
opposite. There are several legends of how this
mushy and romantic holiday came to be, and none of them
contain any chocolate boxes or the color pink.
Two of the most impactful legends both center around
the Saint Valentine, a mysterious martyr who was jailed
for preaching the Gospel in Rome around 270 AD. While
he was imprisoned, the Saint fell in love with the jailer’s
daughter. With the days counting down to his inevitable
doom, Valentine sent letters to his love, signing, “from your
Valentine.”
However, their undying love for each other was cut short
when Valentine was executed. On the other hand, he became
a Saint, which makes up for getting sentenced to death. And
fortunately, many people today celebrate the special day
without any thoughts of imprisonment or executions.
Another account states Valentine wanted to increase the
youthful love missing in Rome. The Roman wars caused many
young men to leave home as juveniles, which prevented them
from pursuing their true loves. So in secret, Valentine married
young couples so that the men did not have to go to war.
Unfortunately, Valentine was soon caught and killed for his
actions. In response, the young men and women expressed
their gratitude towards the martyr by making his name
remembered and passing this tragic anecdote through the
generations.
As Christians continued to celebrate this love-infested day,
the Romans took interest and created their own version of the
holiday, naming it “Lupercalia.” They celebrated by pawning
women off to bachelors almost like a lottery. Evidently, this
version of the holiday had not withstood the test of time.
Sorry, Caesar.
The rest of the mushy-gushy stuff like the doves, candy,
and flying, naked babies come as a modern morphing to the
original story. It is very unlikely that Saint Valentine was shot
with a heart-shaped arrow by a naked child.
While these tales all include love as a catalyst, the holiday
seems to forget the tragic demise of a heartwarming preacher,
only yearning for love. So students, when it is time to pick
out a cheap, thirty-cent card or a bouquet of flowers, just
remember Saint Valentine: the man who died on Valentine’s
Day.
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