What does this have to do with a martyred bishop?

Everyone’s heard the sweet story of St. Valentine, a Christian martyr imprisoned by the Romans, who encouraged his followers while he waited for the chop by writing them messages on heart-shaped leaves. From this supposedly we get the whole Valentine’s Day thing. What the saint had to do with Cupid however, has never been really explained, except that in mid-February birds in England and France began to court. Of course, it doesn’t really matter as long as it gets the job done.

In any case, as with most pious myths, it ain’t necessarily so.

In the first place, there are three different St. Valentines, whose feasts are celebrated on February 14. But none of them may be the actual source of the celebration.

There was another, more influential Christian teacher named Valentine back then. This one came to Rome from Alexandria in the early mid-Second Century. Valentinus (or Valentinius), however, claimed his teacher Theudas had given him the secret mystical teachings which he got from St. Paul. Valentinus and his disciples constructed huge, elaborate cosmologies with generation upon generation of paired heavenly powers like some kind of confused comic-book universe. Yet it all breathes with the calm compassion of a caring teacher:

“That is the gospel of him whom they seek, which he has revealed to the perfect through the mercies of the Father as the hidden mystery, Jesus the Christ. Through him he enlightened those who were in darkness because of forgetfulness. He enlightened them and gave them a path. And that path is the truth which he taught them. For this reason error was angry with him, so it persecuted him. It was distressed by him, so it made him powerless. He was nailed to a cross. He became a fruit of the knowledge of the Father. He did not, however, destroy them because they ate of it. He rather caused those who ate of it to be joyful because of this discovery.”

– Valentinus, The Gospel of Truth

Much of his system is quite incomprehensible with hypostases, aeons, and all the rest, and not just to us moderns, either. Ancient critics were often also baffled. Yet, Valentinus was quite the popular thinker in his day. He eventually left Rome for Cyprus, where he continued to teach his disciples. His movement became a church of its own that rivaled the orthodox, and eventually split into eastern and western branches.

Of course, all this was too much for many less-imaginative Christians. Tertullian said that Valentinus turned to heresy out of spite after being defeated in an election for bishop, another claimed that he had gone mad after a shipwreck. Yet the actual practices of his cult were fairly moderate — for Gnostics, anyway. But since he too claimed “apostolic succession” and secret teachings it was still too much a threat for the young Catholic Church.

Yet, Valentine’s teachings had quite an impact, too. He was apparently the originator of the Christian version of the Holy Trinity – One God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though in his system, the latter is often identified with Sophia, Wisdom, and feminine in nature.

In some kind of cosmic irony, it is quite possible that the whole Valentine’s Day tradition, like so many other, was taken over by the Church. The sacred feminine was thrown out of the godhead. The all-male God and his women-fearing monks and priests dominated, slowly shrinking Cosmic Wisdom until little was left but the human figure of Jesus’ mother Mary.

Little more remained of Valentine except his name and the rants against him for over a millennium and a half. Only a hint remained of his teachings, in that the stolen day of his remembrance was still dedicated to honoring women and their life-creating love.

Then, in 1945, in Egypt, at a place called Nag Hammadi, a jar was found hidden near the ruins of an ancient monastery. It contained books banned by the Church that some monk could not bear to burn. This trove contained Valentine’s Gospel of Truth, and other books extolling the Divine feminine. And so, ageless Wisdom returned to the Earth yet again.

So, this weekend, whatever your romantic plans, give a thought to She Who is really celebrated with flowers and sweets.

Do not be ignorant of me.
For I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the mother and the daughter…

For I am the one who alone exists,
and I have no one who will judge me.
For many are the pleasant forms which exist in numerous sins,
and incontinencies,
and disgraceful passions,
and fleeting pleasures,
which men embrace until they become sober
and go up to their resting place.
And they will find me there,
and they will live,
and they will not die again.

– The Thunder, Perfect Mind

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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