By: Diego Campbell
Throughout the world, people celebrate different holidays or traditions, and that means a whole lot of stories floating around to explain the celebrations. With Valentine's Day approaching, I figured it’s only fair to write about the origins of the holiday. I discussed Christmas traditions, but in this article, I’d like to address a few reasons for the season. The first Valentine's Day happened all the way back in the third century. Back then, there was a celebration known as Lupercalia. I won’t recount a lot of the traditions, but there are two important things about it. The first is that it marked the beginning of Roman springtime. The second is that they held a sort of love lottery. Details about this tradition vary, but to avoid censorship let’s go with love lottery. In simple terms, it was a romantic celebration for the Romans. However, real life doesn’t have censorship, and the Church knew what was going on in Lupercalia. They appreciated the love aspect, but not much of the everything-else aspect. So, they replaced the celebration with a new holiday that keeps the love but gets rid of the everything-else: St. Valentine's Day. The origin of Valentine’s Day's name, one of them anyway, begins with a Roman emperor. This emperor was Emperor Claudius II, and he had a bad habit of killing off Christian people (It was an emperor thing). In one year, he met this guy called Valentine. He was a nice priest who disagreed with a lot of Claudius’s ideas, to the point of encouraging marriage when the emperor was banning it. So when the good-ole' emperor found out, he decided the most responsible and mature thing to do would be to kill the loving priest. He couldn’t live with himself if a harmless priest was out there marrying lovers; it was unacceptable. Valentine was sentenced to death and killed on February 14th. However, this wasn’t the last Valentine Claudius II would have to deal with. A few years later, the emperor had to deal with a pesky bishop from Terni who also disagreed with him. As it happened, he was also called Valentine. Maybe some divine intervention was at play here, but Emperor Claudius II ended up sentencing this Valentine to death on February 14th as well. In memory of the world's greatest V-named coincidences, the Church decided to honor them using Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day has blossomed from the remains of an unspeakable Roman tradition and bloomed into a holiday of love and romance. But can we really celebrate a holiday built off the backs of all the martyred Valentines? I think we can because no matter which Valentine we are talking about, they spent their lives spreading love and kindness. So yeah, I think a day celebrating love and kindness is the perfect way to honor them. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!
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