There is a lot of mystery surrounding Valentine’s Day and its origin. What is known is that February has always been viewed as a month of romance. St. Valentine’s Day as we know it today contains elements of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine and why is he important to this holiday?

Saint Valentine was said to be a Roman priest who performed secret weddings behind the backs of the authorities in the third century. He was imprisoned in the home of a noble, and healed his captor’s blind daughter. This caused the whole household to convert to Christianity and seal his fate as a martyr. Before being tortured and decapitated on February 14, he sent the girl a note signed “Your Valentine.” 

Some accounts say another saint named Valentine during the same period was the Bishop of Terni. He also performed secret weddings and died via beheading on February 14. Valentine was a popular name in ancient Rome, and there are at least 50 stories of different saints by that name. The earliest surviving accounts of the two February 14 Valentines were written starting in the 500s. They have a whole lot in common– almost too much in common. Both were said to have healed a child while imprisoned, leading to a household-wide religious conversion. They were also executed on the same day of the year and buried along the same highway.

While most believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14 to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial, others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. 

Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity but was outlawed, as it was deemed “un-Christian.” At the end of the 5th century, Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as St. Valentine’s Day. However, it was not until much later that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which contributed to the idea that Valentine’s Day should be a day of romance. 

Another staple of Valentine’s day is Cupid, usually represented by a cherubic infant wielding a bow and arrow. But Cupid wasn’t always depicted this way. Long before the Romans adopted and renamed him, Cupid was known to the Greeks as Eros, the handsome god of love. One of the first authors to mention Eros was Hesiod. He described him in “Theogony” as one of the primeval cosmogonic deities born of the world egg. But later depictions of the lineage of Eros vary. They describe him as the son of Nyx and Erebus; or Aphrodite and Ares; or Iris and Zephyrus; or even Aphrodite and Zeus. Eros was armed with a bow filled with golden arrows to arouse desire, and leaden arrows to ignite aversion. 

Eros struck at the hearts of gods and mortals and played with their emotions. In one story from ancient Greek mythology, which was later retold by Roman authors, Eros shot a golden arrow at Apollo. He fell madly in love with the nymph Daphne, but Eros then launched a leaden arrow at Daphne so she would be repulsed by him. 

While Valentine’s Day is now a widely celebrated commercial holiday, it was once a Roman tale and considered controversial by the Christian church.