Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Commercialism gone mad, preying on the young lovers of the world, or the Feast Day of St Valentine who lived in the 3rd Century.
How about both?
Busy guy, too. Aside from his caring for the poor and weak during his brief time on the planet, he’s also got himself a number of sponsorship deals Patronages. in the afterlife. He does Terni – a somewhat nondescript city in Southern Umbria in Italy. And he does Lesvos – the Greek island famed for featuring a diverse, mountainous landscape with olive groves, medieval castles, and a rich, traditional culture, and offering a quieter, non-commercialized alternative to popular Greek destinations.
His other gigs? Well, happy marriages and affianced couples, obviously.
And then… Epilepsy, Beekeepers, Plague and “against fainting”.
I never knew that you could have a Patron Saint “against” a bad thing. And if you can – and you clearly can, because he is – then why not add (in this case, at least) “against” Epilepsy and “against” Plague to the list? Because this dichotomy does make it look like he’s actively supporting those two afflictions.
And while we’re at the whole “religion is a bit weird” thing, how is St Valentine depicted? What are his Attributes? As in – when you see an image of him, how can you identify that it’s him and not some other random 3rd Century clergyman/martyr?
The list starts off fairly routinely: Birds. Roses. A priest giving sight to a blind girl.
We move on to more specific things: A bishop with a crippled person or a child with epilepsy at his feet
Some modern day social media stuff: A priest holding a sun.
And then (perhaps somewhat predictably), it goes a bit nuts:
A bishop with a rooster nearby.
What sort of radius are we looking at here. Is it a small rooster, or is it far away?
A bishop refusing to adore an idol.
How do you even begin to depict that?
Is looking away really the same as “refusing to adore”?
Or does the audience have to do a lot of hard work connecting the dots?
A bishop being beheaded.
A priest bearing a sword.
I feel that we need to know if these two are connected. Is this some sort of Christian coup?
And if it is related to his actual martyrdom, well, they’ve missed a bit:
Valentine was arrested and dragged before the prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. The sentence was carried out on February 14, on or about the year 270.
Yeah. Probably not something you want to see at your local art gallery.