{"id":288,"date":"2014-02-14T09:17:32","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T09:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/?p=288"},"modified":"2014-02-14T09:17:32","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T09:17:32","slug":"st-valentines-day-uncovering-some-of-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/14\/st-valentines-day-uncovering-some-of-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"St Valentines Day&#8230;uncovering some of the truth!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adelenozedar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/20140214-091622.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" alt=\"20140214-091622.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/adelenozedar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/20140214-091622.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Valentine\u2019s Day<\/p>\n<p>(This is taken from The Signs and Symbols Sourcebook, Harper Element)<\/p>\n<p>The original Valentine was an amalgamation of two or three different<br \/>\nmen, all named Valentine, and all martyred to the Christian<br \/>\ncause; one of them was either martyred or buried in Rome on<br \/>\nFebruary 14. However, a certain amount of \u201cspin\u201d was necessary to<br \/>\nmake St. Valentine fit convincingly as a replacement for the existing<br \/>\npre-Christian Lupercalian excesses. A story was put about that<br \/>\nValentine defied the Emperor Claudius\u2019 decree that fighting men<br \/>\nshould not have sexual relations in case their strength was sapped. The<br \/>\nEmperor was not in favour of the new religion and to be a Christian at<br \/>\nthis time was hazardous to the health, but Valentine continued to<br \/>\nproselytize despite the sentence of death that hung over the heads of<br \/>\nanyone caught doing so. Later, he presided over illicit Christian weddings.<br \/>\nAccording to another legend, prior to his execution, he fell in love<br \/>\nwith the jailer\u2019s daughter and left her a note with the words \u201cfrom<br \/>\nyour Valentine\u201d written on it. Part of the Lupercalian festivities<br \/>\nincluded the young men drawing lots for available young women; these couples<br \/>\nthen spent time together during the festival, with sex the main agenda. The<br \/>\nChurch invented a lottery, too, although it was a slightly tamer version.<br \/>\nPeople pulled the names of various Christian saints out of the hat, and then<br \/>\nattempted to emulate these worthies for the rest of the year. Understandably,<br \/>\nthis custom failed to excite people\u2019s imaginations as much as its saucier<br \/>\nforerunner and drawing lots to put couples together started again in<br \/>\nthe fifteenth century, a sort of medieval version of speed dating,<br \/>\nexcept faster, although its intentions were supposedly more innocent<br \/>\nthan those of the Lupercalia. Despite this, it proved very difficult<br \/>\nto suppress the memory of the Lupercalia, and today the Church<br \/>\nrarely celebrates St. Valentine. However, as a secular celebration<br \/>\nof love and romance Valentine\u2019s Day is a great success. The heart,<br \/>\nas the major symbol of love, is seen everywhere at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Valentine\u2019s Day (This is taken from The Signs and Symbols Sourcebook, Harper Element) The original Valentine was an amalgamation of two or three different men, all named Valentine, and all martyred to the Christian cause; one of them was either martyred or buried in Rome on February 14. However, a certain amount of \u201cspin\u201d was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[48,57,59,66,67],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-events","tag-lupercalia","tag-ritual","tag-sex","tag-tradition","tag-valentines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3oFln-4E","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adelenozedar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}