The Healing Power of St. Valentine

A survey of health care’s history underscores how far the practice of medicine has come. With a dark, bloody, and confusing origin, health care and Valentine’s Day share this historical bond.

There is some evidence tracing Valentine’s Day back to February 14, in the year 270, the date St. Valentine (the word “valentine” is derived from the Latin valens, meaning worthy, strong, powerful) was executed for not renouncing Christianity. Before he was put to death, St. Valentine supposedly sent a note, signed “from your Valentine.”

Emperor Claudius II actually executed two men (both with the name Valentine) on February 14, although in different years of the third century.Claudius II persecuted one of the St. Valentines as a Christian. In some historical doctrine Claudius attempted to encourage this St. Valentine to convert to Roman paganism.  Instead, St. Valentine tried to persuade Claudius to convert to Christianity.  As a result, St. Valentine was executed, but before his execution, he was reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.

These martyrs were later honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine’s Day. Pope Gelasius I did eventually mix Valentine’s Day with Lupercalia in the fifth century.

Between February 13 and 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, which may have actually originated as a pre-Roman pastoral festival. Lupercalia was designed to ward off evil spirits and purify the town, bringing health and fertility for all. Lupercalia has some historical connection in antiquity with the Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia. This may also bear some historical nexus to the Lupercal, the cave where Romulus and Remus (the founders of Rome) were supposedly raised by a wolf.

About fifteen hundred years later, in 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Missouri began to manufacture valentine cards.  The rest is history, and an $18 billion annual business.