Who was Saint Valentine, and what did he have to do with romance and marriage?
Revisionist theory tells it this way: Turn the clock forward several hundreds of years to 270 A.D. Claudius II was the Emperor of Rome, which had seen its “glory days” and was now being threatened on its borders by the Goths and within its borders by the Christians. Claudius definitely needed his army to be at full-strength, and for some reason felt that married men did not make good soldiers (perhaps they were going AWOL for conjugal visits). He used his authority as Emperor to “ban” the practice of marriage and the Festival of Lupercalia as well (since it was contributing to the high incidence of marriage that was destroying his militia). Interestingly the Emperor Claudius and the Christian (Catholic) Church found themselves on the same side on this argument for the Church was also opposed to the pagan festivities, but on grounds related to its lustfulness and especially the practice of the “lottery”. Obviously it was a dangerous time to be a Christian, not to mention a priest. Valen
