Valetine’s Day, Another Pagan Holiday

Valetine’s Day is another holiday with Pagan roots that most of us do not know about. This might be because we often forget the old gods long dead and replaced. Are they really dead though? Where they ever real? These are questions for your own pondering. For me, I enjoy learning the history of things.

Before anyone called Feb 14th Valentine’s Day, they called it Lupercalia!

Lupercalia

 A very old festival possibly re-roman that celebrated fertility. There are many holidays this time of year to celebrate fertility, they steam from old religions in many parts of the world but this one became special to the Church, and when converting followers of the old religions it was common to create a new holiday that mirrored the old but fell under church control. This made the transitions smoother for the people it had been thought. Simply outlawing festivals had often led to upheaval and blood shed. 

The timing of this holiday fell in the month of February, the month of spring cleaning in the old ways, it included ridding the home and land of bad spirits and begging the gods for prosperity. It was an active time for the people back then. 

The holiday is said to have ancient green connections to the god Pan, and to the wolf (lupus). Pan has many myths and one of them being that he was suckled by a wolf. Pan was often depicted as half man and half goat. On Feb 15th it is said his followers would wear goat pelts and sacrifice a goat and a dog together. They served honey cakes and sweets and it was a time to procreate with the blessings of the gods. Why they did all these things, well I think that would take a doctorate to understand and even then we are so far removed it might be hard for us to comprehend. 

Goodness the things we humans will believe! This is not to say they where wrong (Pan help me if I am) but we do have a very diverse history of gods and holidays don’t you think?

    What about St. Valentine?

The waters of this saint are rather murky. There in fact seems to be at least three of them. There is a tale of one writing a love letter to his beloved while in jail, right before his death. Pinning down the facts of this are hard however. 

It must be noted that in 1969 the feast of St. Valentine on Feb 14th was removed from the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints as the church said they could not prove a connection to any Saint. It is however still a holiday celebrated around the world! 

Biblestudy.org has this to say about the holiday: It is about time we examined these customs of the pagans now falsely labeled Christian. It is time we quit this Roman and Babylonian foolishness – this idolatry – and get back to the faith of Christ delivered once for all time. Let’s stop teaching our children these pagan customs in memory of Baal the sun god – the original St. Valentine – and teach them instead what the Bible really says!

It seems many are in agreement, the roots of this Holiday are pagan fertility rites. Lets celebrate! 

    A Confession: 

Two of my children are Valentines Babies…. I shall be hiding from the fertility gods this year! 

I hope you have learned a few things in this rambling of mine. As always I could be wrong, and please do look things up yourself if they interest you! There is so much to learn out in the world. No matter your faith or believe (I am more a nature loving science geek myself) be open to learning about where things really come from, the motivations behind them, and don’e be afraid to question what you think you know.