What do you think about when you think of Valentine’s Day?
INSERT IMAGES - HEART, CUPID.
The Players
Cupid, Zeus, Venus, Saint Valentine, Lupercus,
Cupid - sexual love, not born but referred to as child of Venus & Zeus. +Tammuz [Add several notes ie ERIS for conversation]
Zeus - god of the sky & chief deity. ++Nimrod - arrow / lightning [archer, lightning - play on God]
Venus - love, sex, fertility. Semiramis [Had sex with Tammuz to try to bring back Nimrod.]
Saint Valentine - Commemorated in Western Christianity on Feb 14 and is associated with a tradition of courtly love. ++Is the patron saint of epilepsy & beekeepers. ++He ministered to persecuted Christians and was martyred. ++His skull still resides in the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin Rome. [History can actually lead you to 12-14 St. Valentine’s, to include 1 woman - Valentina. However, 2 were males preaching and 1 was martyred on 2-14-269
Lupercus - Roman god of wolves. ++May have heard about the Greek god he’s closely associated with - Pan. ++Where we get our word PANIC. ++Lupercus comes to power after saving twins Romulus & Remus.
Feb 14 & 15 is the Pagan holiday ++Lupercialia. ++It’s a fertility holiday. ++Celebrated when the Luperci (priests of Lupercus) would sacrifice a goat & dog. ++This holiday was still popular 150 years after Christianity was legalized by the Roman Empire. ++It was ended in 494 ad by Pope Gelasius. [They would smear their body with the blood from the animals and use their pelt. A priest would mark their forehead with a knife that had been dipped in the blood. They would then wipe it of with milk soak wool while the priest laughed. Men would make a “februa” or goatskin thong out of the animal and then wear only that while running around Palatine Hill red with blood. Women would sit around the hill and get smacked with the thongs for fertility & then gather in the city to have their name put in a box on a “billet” or “love note”. Men would draw a billet & that woman would became his sexual lust partner for the holiday & many times until the following Feb 14. **** Soon after ending the holiday Feb 14 was declared a day of feasts to celebrate the martyred St. Valentine.
Modern Day Valentine’s Day - 1st connected to St. Valentine by Geoffrey Chaucer [Wrote in the late 14th century. 1st connected St. Valentine with the holiday in his poem Parlement of Foules
