The Origin
of Valentine’s Day

Centuries before Christ, Romans celebrated the festival of Lupercalia, named after the great hunter of Rome and deified god, Lupercus.  We are told that he had a gift for howling and communicating with wolves, persuading them not to attack the livestock of his tribesman.  In Roman mythology, we are  told that Lupercus was married to Luperca, who, in the shape of a she-wolf, suckled Romulus and Remus. 

According to some scholars, the Luperci or priest of Lupercus dressed in goatskins.  They would then sacrifice goats and a dog and then smear themselves with blood.  These priest  would then behave as wolves by observing an annual ritual that consisted of hunting and chasing women through the streets of Roman cities, beating them with a leather thong called a “februa” (February) as a means of making them fertile.  The women would then be gathered in the city and their names put in a box.  Men would randomly draw from a box the name (love note/card) of a young woman in lottery to be their sexual partner and companion for the year.  This "Lover's festival" was celebrated on the 14th and 15th of each February.

Thus, February 14th became a day of unbridled sexual lust.  According to The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol III:  PG. 226;  BY James Hastings, "The customs of Valentine’s Day have been handed down from the Roman festival of the Lupercalia, celebrated in the month of February … This is the origin of valentines - cards linking men and women together for sexual purposes.  This festival was characterized in the later Roman period by wanton raillery and unkindled freedom."

What of the Valentine’s Heart?  Well, the color “red” was sacred to that day.  The blood is symbolized by the shape of a “heart” that is popular to this day. The heart-shape was not a representation of the human heart. This shape represents the human female matrix or opening to the chamber of sacred copulation.  As for the arrow, it is an ancient phallic symbol representing penetration.

                

The Greeks called Lupercus by the name “Pan”. The Semite name was “Baul”or “Baal”. He is also known as “Marduk”,“Gilgmesh”, and “Apollo” and “Osiris”. These names all refer to Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. (Genesis 10:9) The name Nimrod means “The Rebel”. Thus, Nimrod is derisive term of a type, a representative or a system that is epitomized in rebellion against the Creator, the One True God. To be straight forward, Nimrod is a fore-shadowing of Antichrist.

Another name for Nimrod was … “Cupid” – meaning desire.  It is said that when Nimrod’s mother, Semiramis, beheld her son that she lusted after him – desired him.  Her lust for her son eventually was consummated in marriage.  Nimrod was her “Cupid” or “Her Desired One”.  Inscriptions of monuments in Egypt refer to him as the “husband of his mother”, otherwise known as “Osiris” and his mother as "Isis”, “Ishtar”, “Ashtoreth”, “Asherah”, “Apphrodite”, “Venus”, “Diana”, and often referred to as “The Mother of heaven” and “Mother of god”  … (MOTHER’S DAY), but more of that later!

After Nimrod died, (2167 BC) Semiramis became pregnant.  The people were instructed by Semiramis to believe that Nimrod the "sun god" had been "reincarnated" and that he was coming back as the child that she was carrying.  The birth of her son, Tammuz became associated with the rebirth of the sun.  This is the origin for all of the art throughout the ancient world that we see of a "goddess" holding her child.  It can all be traced back to Semiramis and Tammuz.

To the ancient world this date is associated with the "rebirth" of Nimrod (the son god) in the person of Tammuz.  Just a tidbit of information here; guess where we got the name Sunday that is used to mark the first day of the week in our Gregorian calendar?

When you sit down and analyze the various pagan religions that spread throughout the ancient world, you quickly realize that for the most part that they can pretty much be traced back to ancient Babylon.

Lupercalia was firmly entrenched in Roman life, surviving even the arrival of Christianity in Rome. The Encyclopedia Britannica states, "The annual celebration of the Lupercalia continued until AD 494 when it was changed by Pope Gelasius I into “The Feast of the Purification."  Remember that a major ritual during the Lupercalia was the purification of the Roman women by the Luperci (priests  of Luercus).   Here we find a pope substituting God's post-pregnancy purification ceremony as a direct replacement for a heathen one!

The Roman Church originally held the feast of the Purification on February 14, forty days after the Epiphany (January 6), and the Armenian Church still keeps it on that date.  Later, it was changed to February 2, forty days after Christmas  (December 25th), and the empty day on the calendar was filled, apparently arbitrarily, with the dedication of February 14th to Saint Valentines.  Instead of Lupercus, the patron of the feast became Valentine.  This certainly would have been a disappointment to many young Roman men.  However, Valentine’s Day continues to be celebrated as an occasion to seek the affections of women, marked by the tradition of sending handwritten cards of admiration.   In addition, the worship of the child Tummuz and his mother Semiramis (Mother of Heaven) was substituted by The Roman Catholic Church with Mary, the Madonna and child along with the Sacred Heart.  Today we see these substitutions in numerous works of art consisting of paintings and statues that hang and are displayed in Churches and Museums throughout the world.