Is Valentine's a pagan holiday? Should Christians celebrate Valentine's? Valentine's began with
the Saint Valentine. Let's dive in into this topic. As Valentine's is around the corner,
we have to go back a little bit to the history of Roman Empire and the holiday that they had
celebrating what they call it Lupercalia which some Christians think and some historians even
say that that is what became the Valentines and therefore the Valentines has deep satanic and
demonic roots but if you take a closer look and read enough of historical background you will see
a few things about Lupercalia, it was actually pretty pagan and really terrible crazy holiday
festival. Lupercalia which was celebrated on February the 15th, it was a Roman Festival
that was instituted but Romulus which is one of the founders of Rome and was held in honor of
Lupercus which was the god of fertility and the god of shepherds. Now the festival was associated
with the purification of the city and was taught to have had the roots in pre Roman pagan rituals.
During the festival a young man would gather and sacrifice goats and dogs in the cave of Lupercal.
Now the blood of the animals was then smeared on the strips of goat's skins and then these
young men would run through the streets of Rome striking women with the goat's skins dipped in
blood. Now later on it was believed that this were to bring fertility and good luck to the women who
were being struck. Weird. But you know there's a lot of other pagan rituals and festivals that
are weird. Now Lupercalia was actually a time of loose sexual perversion feasting nudity. It
was associated with celebration of love and fertility but it was more focused on actual
fertility for goats than humans. It was later on that it was believed that if women would be
hit with the goat skins that it will improve their chances of having kids. There's actually
no record of this holiday being a matchmaking that Valentine's has become today or that it promoted
romance or love you know Romans had other gods of eros and sex and all of this stuff
and those gods were not necessarily mentioned or celebrated on this holiday. Times have an article
and I have a link below, you can read it when they quote some historians that say that there
is no record of men being paired randomly with women for participation in the ritual
and that the math of the idea doesn't make sense anyway. The number of women must have been much
greater than that of men and they are saying that the amount of young men running around
with goat skin dipped in blood were not many. This wasn't something that every man participated in.
Therefore this thing, that Lupercalia is somehow morphed into Valentine's is not historically
accurate. It brings me to the second most asked questions is the Valentine's Day originated or
came forth because of Saint Valentine? Now Saint Valentine served in the 3rd Century
Rome. Emperor Claudius decided that a single man would be made better soldiers and therefore
Claudius banned soldiers for being married. There's a tale that says that one version of
this is that Valentine continued to perform weddings for young soldiers who were in love
and Emperor Claudius had Valentine imprisoned. While he was in prison, Valentine reportedly fell
in love with the jailer's daughter and she was blind and then she was healed and I guess he sent
her a letter and that signed love your Valentine. There's different versions of kind of a similar
story of Valentine defying the Claudius by helping Christians to escape the torture of Romans. So
there's actually like three different versions. Some of them are very similar and Valentine gets
executed approximately 270 A.D Later on Pope Gelasius I, in the 5th Century made February
14 into a day that would honor Christian martyr Saint Valentine. Now, the interesting part is
that there is no evidence that the pagan holiday of Lupercalia influenced the pope to make February
14th into a Valentine's Day to fight the Roman pagan holiday. Now, this Pope was very outspoken
against the pagan holidays but it does not seem like that the church took the Roman Holiday and
converted it or christianized it into a holiday of love. We just don't see throughout the centuries
after that, Christians celebrating love and romance in honor of February 14th. This had to do
more with a saint being martyred for the cause of Christ, the cause of you know defying the emperor
than love romance or what we know February 14th to be, where most likely Valentine's celebration
have come from, it probably was influenced by the Saint Valentine where most likely the Valentine's
Day morphed into where we see today, it probably may be started with the Saint Valentine but we
just don't see for a thousand something years Christians or other cultures really celebrating
love and romance in honor of Saint Valentine. We see that there was a poem that was written
by this guy named Geoffrey. The poem was called, 'The Parliament of Fowls.' It probably had more
influence on what we know the Valentine's Day to be today than anything else. It was written in
the 14th century. It described a group of birds which would gather together in the early spring
to send Valentine's Day. A poem was written in the late 14th century. It describes a group of birds
which would gather together in the early spring to choose their mates for the year. Now later on,
people started to send love letters during the bird mating season and it just happened to be also
on February 14th and it kind of remained, the name stayed with Valentine's Day and then Shakespeare's
also wrote in his plays about the Valentine's Day being a day about love and romance and etc. Saint
Valentine's day has been acknowledged as a minor holiday to Christians in the Americas since the
arrival of Christopher Columbus and the arrival of Christianity in 1492. Now when Valentine's became
popular in the United States was in 1840 and the person that kind of made it popular was Esther
Howland. Now she acknowledged that she is named as the mother of American Valentine. At the age
of 19, Esther received an European Valentine card from a friend, she loved the card and was inspired
to bring this custom to the United States. Fortunately, she was in a great position because
of the wealth in her family to start a company that started to create these cards and now it's
like a regular thing that so many people do on the February 14th. They write love notes or they write
you know love cards to their spouses, girlfriends or to the person that they are romantically
connected with. They also buy gifts and etc. Now to end this video with, Should Christians
celebrate or participate in the Valentine's Day? There is no biblical reason why Christians should
not celebrate the Valentine's Day. Historically speaking, it's actually not connected to a Roman
pagan holiday and historically speaking, it's not really connected to a guy who was martyred. I
don't think those two things they connect. If you read most of the or a lot of historical records,
they don't seem to connect unlike other events like Christmas and even Easter.
But I think there's nothing wrong with giving your loved one flowers, candy or cards. Honestly
celebrating any holiday that doesn't go against the scripture is a decision between an individual
and the Lord. Some people feel very strongly that observing any secular holiday like 4th of July
or Valentine's Day is wrong and others see it as harmless. I think the real question is your motive
and also what you're doing on that holiday. If you're a single person and you know you're
drinking yourself to death because you feel so miserable then yeah this is wrong or maybe you're
a single person and you're fornicating, that's also wrong. For us as Christians, it's something I
think we need to rally around the idea that we do celebrate love not loud like the world defines it,
where everything is love and love is love. Our definition of love is it's unselfish,
sacrificial giving of oneself for another person. The Christian commandment is love the Lord your
God with all your heart or your soul and all your mind and the second commandment is to love your
neighbor as yourself. That's Matthew chapter 22 verses 37 through verse 30. As Christians
we understand that love is not sex. Love is not a feeling. Apostle Paul actually gives a very
beautiful definition of love. It's not candy and buying bears and cubits and you know love notes.
Love, Paul says suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not
puffed up. Love does not behave rudely. It does not seek its own. It's not provoked. It thinks no
evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies they
will fail, whether there are tongues, they will fail, whether there's knowledge, it will vanish
away. 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 4 through 8. See love is not sex. Sex could be an expression
but it's not a creator of love. Love is not selfish. If it doesn't cost you anything, it's not
love. For God so lovely the world that He gave His only begotten Son and also love is not a feeling.
Feelings could be a fruit of love but it's not love itself. Love is the value, respect, worth,
importance, honor, admiration, reverence, high esteem, devotion that you place on another person,
how you honor and value another person. Now my personal stance on this whole Valentine's Day,
I don't see anything wrong to celebrate, honor and to give special attention to my wife. Because the
Bible says in Ephesians 5:25 Husbands love your wife just as Christ loved the church and gave
Himself for her. Now I am not running around with goats blood you know or hating my wife
or anything of that sort nor am I going around and honoring Saint Valentine. I respect for whoever he
was. We don't for sure know who that guy was but somehow he was so important that this Pope decided
to give a whole holiday to honor this guy and I hope one day, I'll meet him in heaven and really
hear his story. But I think for the Christian, husband to romance, to love, provide affection,
give a card and special attention to your spouse, I think it's a good thing and you don't have to
do it on the February 14th, I would actually encourage you maybe not to do it on February
14th because all the restaurants are booked out. You can't buy the flowers on the February 14th and
all of the stuff but you can do it some other day. It doesn't honestly matter as long as you
give special attention and honor and celebration of the person that you love in the name of Jesus
and to honor Jesus. Let me ask you question. Are you going to celebrate the Valentine's Day?
If so, why? If you're not going to celebrate, what is your reason for not celebrating the Valentine's
Day? If you are single, what do you do on the Valentine's Day? Share in the comments below.
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