Saint Valentine

"San Valentino" redirects here. For other uses, see San Valentino (disambiguation).

For the holiday, see Valentine's Day.

Saint Valentine
Saint Valentine receives a rosary from the Virgin, by David Teniers III
Bishop and Martyr
Died	traditionally ca. 269 but see text
Honored in	Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church Anglican Communion Lutheranism, and individual Baptist churches
Feast	February (Roman Catholic Church) July 30 (Eastern Orthodox Church)
Attributes	birds; roses; bishop with a crippled or a child with epilepsy at his feet; bishop with a rooster nearby; bishop refusing to adore an idol; bishop being beheaded; priest bearing a sword; priest holding a sun; priest giving sight to a blind girl
Patronage	affianced couples, against fainting, bee keepers, happy marriages, love, plague, epilepsy

Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is the name of several ) saints of ancient Rome. The name "Valentine", derived from valens (worthy, strong, powerful), was popular in Late Antiquity. Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name, that he was buried on the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14, and that he was born on April 16. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or two saints of the same name. For these reasons this liturgical commemoration was not kept in the Catholic calendar of saints for universal liturgical veneration as revised in 1969. But "Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome" remains in the list of saints proposed for veneration by all Catholics.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Saint Valentine the Presbyter is celebrated on July 6 (Martyr Valentinus the Presbyter and those with him at Rome) and Hieromartyr Saint Valentine (Bishop of Interamna, Terni in Italy) is celebrated on July 30. Notwithstanding, because of the relative obscurity of this western saint in the East, members of the Greek Orthodox Church named Valentinos (male) or Valentina (female) may celebrate their name day on the Western ecclesiastical calendar date of February 14.^{[citation needed]}

Identification

The name Valentinus does not occur in the earliest list of Roman martyrs, compiled by the Chronographer of 354. The feast of St. Valentine was first established in 496 by Pope Gelasius I, who included Valentine among those "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God." As Gelasius implied, nothing was known, even then, about the lives of any of these martyrs.

Τhe Roman Martyrology, the Catholic Church's official list of recognized saints gives only one Saint Valentine for February 14, a martyr buried on the Via Flaminia

In other martyrologies the Saint Valentines that appears in connection with Feb 14 are given as either:

• A priest in Rome,
• A bishop of Interamna (modern Terni)
• A saint who suffered with a number of companions in the Roman province of Africa, for whom nothing else is known.

Hagiographical sources speak of a Roman priest and a bishop of Terni each buried along the Via Flaminia outside Rome, at different distances from the city, both venerated on February 14.

Though the extant accounts of the martyrdoms of the first two listed saints are of a late date and contain legendary elements, a common nucleus of fact may underlie the two accounts and that they may refer to a single person.

Other Saint Valentines

While some Eastern Orthodox sources of the Western rite may provide different lists of Saints Valentine , the Roman martyrology lists only six on days other than February 14: a priest from Viterbo (November 3); a bishop from Raetia who died in about 450 (January 7); a fifth-century priest and hermit (July 4); a Spanish hermit who died in about 715 (October 25); Valentine Berrio Ochoa, martyred in 1861 (November 24); and Valentine Jaunzarás Gómez, martyred in 1936 (September 18).

Hagiography and testimony

Saint Valentine of Terni oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni, from a 14th century French manuscript (BN, Mss fr. 185)

The inconsistency in the identification of the saint is replicated in the various vita that are ascribed to him. A commonly ascribed hagiographical identity appears in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). which also provides the first depiction of Saint Valentine. Alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine, the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner – until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor – whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stones; when that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate. Various dates are given for the martyrdom or martyrdoms: 269, 270, or 273.

Another popular hagiography describes Saint Valentine to be the former Bishop of Terni, a city in southern Umbria, in what is now central Italy. While under house arrest of judge Asterius, and discussing his faith with him, Valentinus (the Roman pronunciation of his name) was discussing the validity of Jesus. The judge put Valentinus to the test and brought to him the judge's adopted blind daughter. If Valentinus succeeded in restoring the girl's sight, Asterius would do anything he asked. Valentinus laid his hands on her eyes and the child's vision was restored. Immediately humbled, the judge asked Valentinus what he should do. Valentinus replied that all of the idols around the judge's house should be broken, the judge should fast for three days, and then undergo baptism. The judge obeyed and as a result, freed all the Christian inmates under his authority. The judge, his family and forty others were baptized. Valentinus was later arrested again for continuing to serve Jesus and was sent to the prefect of Rome, to the emperor Claudius himself. Claudius took a liking to him until Valentinus tried to lead Claudius to Jesus, whereupon Claudius refused and condemned Valentinus to death. Commanding that Valentinus either renounce his faith or he would be beaten with clubs, and beheaded. Valentinus refused and Claudius' command was executed outside the Flaminian Gate February 14, 269.

Churches named Valentine

Saint Valentine baptizing Saint Lucilla by Jacopo Bassano

Saint Valentine was not exceptionally more venerated than other saints, and no church was ever dedicated to him. There are many more churches containing the name of Valentine, but none are dedicated to Saint Valentine.

A 5th or 6th century work called Passio Marii et Marthae made up a legend about Saint Valentine. A later Passio repeated the legend and added the adornment that Pope Julius I (357-352) had built the ancient basilica S. Valentini extra Portam on top of his sepulchre, in the Via Flaminia. This church was really named after a 4th century tribune called Valentino, who donated the land it's built in. It hosted the martyr's relics until the thirteenth century, when they were transferred to Santa Prassede, and the ancient basilica decayed.

In the Golden Legend

The Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, compiled about 1260 and one of the most-read books of the High Middle Ages, gives sufficient details of the saints for each day of the liturgical year to inspire a homily on each occasion. The very brief vita of St Valentine has him refusing to deny Christ before the "Emperor Claudius" in the year 280. Before his head was cut off, this Valentine restored sight and hearing to the daughter of his jailer. Jacobus makes a play with the etymology of "Valentine", "as containing valour".

St. Valentine's Day

For more details on this topic, see Valentine's Day.

English eighteenth-century antiquarians Alban Butler and Francis Douce, noting the obscurity of Saint Valentine's identity, suggested that Valentine's Day was created as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia (mid-February in Rome). This idea has lately been contested by Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas. Many of the current legends that characterise Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.

Historian Jack Oruch has made the case that the traditions associated with "Valentine's Day", documented in Geoffrey Chaucer's Parliament of Foules and set in the fictional context of an old tradition, had no such tradition before Chaucer. He argues that the speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. In the French 14th-century manuscript illumination from a Vies des Saints (illustration above), Saint Valentine, bishop of Terni, oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni; there is no suggestion here that the bishop was a patron of lovers.

Relics and liturgical celebration

Shrine of St. Valentine in Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland

The flower-crowned skull of St. Valentine is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome.

In 1836, some relics that were exhumed from the catacombs of Saint Hippolytus on the Via Tiburtina, then near (rather than inside) Rome, were identified with St Valentine; placed in a casket, and transported to the procession to the high altar for a special Mass dedicated to young people and all those in love. Alleged relics of St. Valentine also lie at the reliquary of Roquemaure in France, in the Stephansdom in Vienna, in Balzan in Malta and also in Blessed John Duns Scotus' church in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland. There is also a gold reliquary bearing the words 'Corpus St. Valentin, M' (Body of St. Valentine, Martyr) at The Birmingham Oratory, UK ,in one of the side altars in the main church.

Of greatest interest at this altar is the rich coffin which lies beneath it, containing the body of St. Valentine, a martyr whose relics from the Roman catacombs were given to John Henry Cardinal Newman by Blessed Pius IX in 1847.

The Saint Valentine is now celebrated on February 14 remains in the Catholic Church's official list of saints (the Roman Martyrology), but, in view of the scarcity of information about him, his commemoration was removed from the General Calendar for universal liturgical veneration, when this was revised in 1969. It is included in local calendars of places such as Balzan in Malta. Some still observe the calendars of the Roman Rite from the Tridentine Calendar until 1969, in which Saint Valentine was at first celebrated as a simple feast, until 1955, when Pope Pius XII reduced the mention of Saint Valentine to a commemoration in the Mass of the day. It is kept as a commemoration by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who — in accordance with the authorization given by Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007 — use the General Roman Calendar of 1962 and the liturgy of Pope John XXIII's 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, and, as a Simple Feast, by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who use the General Roman Calendar as in 1954.

February 14 is also celebrated as St. Valentine's Day in other Christian denominations; it has, for example, the rank of 'commemoration' in the calendar of the Church of England and other parts of the Anglican Communion.

See also

• La Fête du Baiser
• Saint Valentine, 8th-century Spanish martyr

References

• The Golden Legend: St. Valentine
• Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Valentine
• Diocese of Terni. 2009. Saint Valentine
• In Search of St. Valentine
• Oruch, Jack B. 1981. "St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February", Speculum 56.3 (July 1981), pp 534–565.
• Paglia, Vincenzo. 2007. "Saint Valentine's Message".Washington Post, February 15, 2007.

External links

• Valentine's Day: Love and Romance Through the Ages
• La Saint-Valentin : L'amour et la tendresse à travers les âges