The Love of Valentine
by Paul Tyson, former Chaplain Brisbane State High School
Valentinus was a Roman Christian who was executed on the 14th of February 270
AD, at the order of the Emperor. Saint Valentine's Day has a fascinating origin,
yet at first it is not at all clear how the remembrance of an execution came to
be associated with bouquets of flowers, notes of admiration and pledges of
devotion.
Let me take you back to the third century, to Imperial Rome. At this time, the
Christian Church was growing rapidly throughout the Roman Empire, but it was
seriously at odds with the status quo. The ruling elites had a very practical
approach to religion where you could believe whatever you wanted, provided you
worshiped the Emperor. That is, the only type of religion which would not be
tolerated was a religion which demanded exclusive loyalty to its god. Such
loyalty was seen to exclude loyalty to Caesar and threaten the cohesion of the
vast Roman Empire.
To Roman eyes, Judaism, with its insistence on worshiping their God alone, was a
good example of dangerous religion. Several hundred years before Valentinus, the
Jews had gained a concession from Rome that they could pray for Caesar rather
than have to worship Caesar by praying to Caesar. Yet because their first
loyalty was not to Rome, peace between Jerusalem and Rome did not endure. In 70
AD, Rome totally destroyed Jerusalem, and later set up an alter to Zeus on the
Hebrew temple site (now where the Dome of the Rock is), and forbade Jews to live
in Jerusalem on the pain of death. Jews living in the Empire outside of
Palestine were still allowed their concession of praying for Caesar, because
without the Temple, and without a home land, they were considered no threat.
Christians, however, were given no such concession regarding worshipping Caesar.
Yet Christianity arises directly out of the soil of Judaism, for Jesus and all
the Apostles were Jews. The first of the 10 commandments "You shall have no
other gods before Me" is as vital to the Christians as it is to the Jews. The
Roman elites watched Christianity spread rapidly across racial, class and
cultural boundaries in the Empire, and by the 3rd century, they saw Christianity
as a larger and more pervasive threat to loyalty to Caesar than Judaism had ever
been. In this context Christians were asked to worship Caesar and were subjected
to the most horrible deaths if they refused. The Greek word martus (from which
we get the word martyr) simply means "to bear witness." Christians who publicly
bore witness to their loyalty to Jesus and refused to swear ultimate allegiance
to Caesar, were, as a matter of course, killed. So that is how we come to
associate the word "martyr" with dying for one's beliefs.
Valentinus, as a noble born Roman and a Christian whose loyalty was to Jesus
above Caesar, could not be tolerated by the Roman elites, and so it was par for
the course that he should be called upon to be a martyr. Personally, he was well
liked by many of his high born Roman associates, so they tried to save him,
imprisoning him for several years to see if he would relent. True to his name -
derived from the Latin word for courage - he did not relent. During this time he
came to know his jailer and the jailer's daughter very well. Believing the truth
of his faith as witnessed to by his courage in the face of persecution, the
jailer's family converted to Christianity, though they knew it would lead to
their deaths.
On the eve of Valentinus' execution he wrote a beautiful and impassioned letter
to the jailer's daughter about love, faithfulness and courage, and she was
encouraged by this letter to follow his example when it came to her own time to
bear witness to the love of God and her faithfulness to Him above all earthly
powers and threats. And it is the tragic, noble and moving power of that letter
which echoes on, down through the centuries, even to us, through gifts of
flowers and expressions of faithfulness and devotion on Saint Valentine's Day.
Yet what Valentinus meant by love may be very different to our modern notion of
romance. The language of the Christian Scriptures is Greek, and this language
has four different words for love; family love, friendship love, erotic love and
selfless love (agape). In the first three loves, there is always a reciprocity
involved, and a certain level of need and self interest expressed in those
loves. But in agape - the total giving of the self to the other without thought
of return - the highest love and the highest courage is expressed. This is the
love and courage that Jesus showed to all humanity, and the type of love and
courage that Christians should seek to emulate.
In this context the Christian concept of romance, though it is a rich mingling
of all four loves, is at core about agape. And it is this quality of love which
provides us with the courage to risk the enormous pain which love so often
brings. I have known no pain like the sorrow of the protracted suffering and
death of my son. If my wife and I had not loved each other, and had not loved
Daniel, we would not know sorrow. Love alone brings sorrow. But this is our
choice; courage, love and sorrow on the one hand, or fear, self protection and
safety on the other hand. Courage, dear hearts, pursue love! and find life, even
through sorrow and pain. But be wise; understand the difference between the
thrill of eros and our needs for family and friendship on the one hand, and the
heart of true love, which is agape on the other. Do not give your heart to aught
but agape, nor through aught but agape. As a Christian I believe that God alone
enables us to truly love; and He - being Love - will help all who so call on
Him.
May God bless you.
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