Valentine’s Day SVG – a holiday that is celebrated on February 14 in many countries. Presumably named after one of the two early Christian martyrs named Valentine’s Day – Valentine of Interamon and Valentine of Rome.
People celebrating this holiday give their loved ones gifts, flowers, candy, toys, balloons and special cards (often in the form of a heart), with poems, love confessions or wishes of love – Valentine’s Day.
Day SVG History
Ancient Rome’s Luperkalies
The history of Valentine’s Day, as suggested in the 17th century in France by the historian Tillemon, and later in the 18th century in England by Butler and Doose, dates back to the lupercales of Ancient Rome. Lupercalia is a festival of fertility in honor of the goddess of “feverish” love Juno Februata and the god Faunus (Lupercus is one of his nicknames), the patron of herds, which was celebrated annually on February 15.
In the ancient world, child mortality was very high. In 276 B.C. Rome was almost extinct as a result of an epidemic of stillbirths and miscarriages. The oracle has informed that to increase the birth rate it is necessary to perform the rite of corporal punishment (flogging) of women with the help of sacrificial skin. People who, for whatever reason, had few or no children were considered cursed and resorted to mystical rituals in order to be able to give birth. The place where the she-wolf is said to have fed Romulus and Remus (the founders of Rome) was considered holy by the Romans. Every year, on February 15, a holiday called “Lupercalia” was held here, during which animals were sacrificed. Whips were made of their skins. After the feast, the young men took the whips and fled the city naked, hitting the women they met with the whips. The women willingly framed themselves, believing that these blows would give them fecundity and easy delivery. This became a very common ritual in Rome, in which even members of noble families participated. There is evidence that even Mark Antony was a magnifying glass.
At the end of the celebrations, women also undressed naked. These festivals became so popular that even when many other pagan festivals were canceled with the spread of Christianity, this still existed for a long time.
After the advent of Christianity
In 494, Pope Gelasius I tried to ban Lupercalia.
In the Orthodox Encyclopedia it is noted that “it seems more likely that the celebration of this day has replaced the magnificence – the ancient Roman festival of female fertility, which took place in mid-February.
At the same time, historians William Friend and Jack Orruch (which was published in 1967-1981) argue that the idea that there was an ordinary replacement of the pagan cult of the Christian celebration, is no more than a guesswork that arose in the XVIII century at the antique dealers Alban Butler, who compiled The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints, and Francis of Salsky on the basis of a complete lack of reliable data on Valentine, so an attempt was made to artificially link the works of the 14th century with events that took place in the 3rd century. Scientists Michael Kaylor and Henry Kelly also believe that there is no evidence of a link between contemporary romantic narratives and the Roman festival.
Legends of St. Valentine’s Day SVG
In the late Middle Ages in France and England, the life of St. Valentine’s gradually began to grow into legends associated with the secret marriage of couples in love. According to the Golden Legend, in those distant and dark times, the powerful and cruel Roman Emperor Claudius II came to the idea that a lonely man, not burdened with wife and family, would better fight on the battlefield for the glory of Caesar, and forbade men to marry, and women and girls – to marry their favorite men. And St. Valentine was an ordinary field doctor and priest, who sympathized with the unhappy lover and secretly from everyone, under the cover of the night sanctified the marriage of loving men and women. Soon the activity of St. Valentine became known to the authorities, and he was put in prison, having sentenced to death. In conclusion, St. Valentine met with the beautiful daughter of the warden – Julia. Before his death, the loving priest wrote to his beloved girl a declaration of love, a Valentine’s note, where he told her about his love and signed it “Your Valentine”. It was read after he was executed, and the execution itself took place on February 14, 269.
According to another legend, the Roman patrician Valentine, who was a secret Christian and also converted his servants, once held a wedding rite for two of them. By denunciation or coincidence, all three were detained. Valentine, as a member of the highest class, could have avoided death, but not his servant. Then, wishing to encourage the doomed believers, Valentine wrote them letters in the form of red hearts, meaning Christian love. A blind girl was to deliver the letters to the newlyweds, but suddenly Valentine himself came to the dungeon and persuaded the guards to let his servants go in return for his life. Before entering the arena of death, Valentine handed over the last letter, sanctified by faith and kindness, to the blind girl, who then became a beauty.