Forget Valentine, lovers need Raphael and Monica

ALTHOUGH St Valentine may be up there with Eros, Aphrodite and Venus in the romance stakes, Christian scholars suggest singles are praying to the wrong saint.

St. Augustine and his mother St. Monica. Woodcut engraving after a painting (1854) by Ary Scheffer (French-Dutch painter, 1795 - 1858) in National Galery, London from the book "Die Welt in Bildern (The World in pictures)" by Dr, Chr. G. Hottinger. Published by himself, 1881

Although St Valentine may be up there with Eros, Aphrodite and Venus in the romance stakes, some Christian ­scholars suggest singles are praying to the wrong saint.

They recommend the lovelorn look instead to St Raphael, the ­patron saint of happy meetings and encounters, rather than Valentine, designated as the patron saint for affianced couples, happy marriages, love and lovers, along with beekeepers and epileptics.

Against suggestions that finding ­romantic love is a modern preoccupation are references from 6000BC in Armenia, then Haiastan or the kingdom of Urartu, to desire and sensual love. Astghik/Astlik was the Haiastan goddess of sensual love, beauty and water.

In ancient Babylon and Mesopotamia, love walked hand-in-hand with war under the watch of Inanna or Ishtar, the goddess of love and war. The goddess was present whenever life was conceived through love or ended in battle. Ancient Greeks transferred the powers of Astghik/Astlik to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation.

Greeks also placed love in the hands of Eros. As myths evolved to make Eros the son of Aphrodite, he was blamed for mischievous interventions behind illicit love.

In Roman mythology, Aphrodite’s powers transferred to Venus, while Cupid possessed powers once attributed to Eros.

The origins of St Valentine’s ­ascension to love god date to the imprisonment of a Christian priest or bishop, known as either Valentine of Terni or Valentine of Rome, in about 269. Valentine’s crime was either giving aid to martyrs in prison, or marrying Christian couples in defiance of the law. Despite two explanations, Valentine of Terni and Valentine of Rome are now ­accepted as being the same person.

While interned, Valentine converted his jailer to Christianity by restoring sight to the jailer’s daughter. Then, on the eve of his ­execution, he is said to have signed off a note to his jailer’s daughter with “From your Valentine”.

Although Romans celebrated Lupercalia, a ceremony intended to secure fertility and keep out evil, on February 15, modern associations of February 14 with St Valentine and romance are attributed to ­beliefs held in France and England in the Middle Ages. It was accepted that half way through February birds began to pair, as described in Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century poem The Parlement Of Foules: “For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day, Whan every foul ­cometh ther to choose his mate”.

Over the centuries Christianity has placed the fate of romance with several patron saints, including specialists assigned to difficult ­unions. Contented couples can look to St Joseph, husband of Mary and stepfather of Jesus, as a patron saint of married people; St Monica, mother of St Augustine, is patron saint of married women, and St Priscilla, wife of St Aquila and friend of St Paul, is also a patron saint of good marriages. One of the first female Biblical teachers, St Luke described Priscilla’s interdependent relationship with her ­husband, indicating she was not Aquila’s property, as customary in Greco-Roman society, but his partner in ministry and marriage.

Those in less contented unions can turn to St Gengulphus of Burgundy, St Rita of Cascia and St Thomas More, all designated as patron saint of difficult marriages.

St Gengulphus was an 8th-­century Burgundian knight who returned from buying a new property to draw water from soil at his home after leaving a stick overnight. In his absence, Gengulphus’ wife had committed adultery with a priest, but protested her innocence. Deciding she should be judged by God, Gengulphus had her dip her hand into his new water source. When his wife’s hand was miraculously scalded by the water, he forbade her from his marriage bed and ordered the priest to go abroad. He retreated to live in solitude in his castle in Avallon, where his wife’s lover murdered him in his bed.

St Rita of Cascia, born in Italy in 1381 and also patron saint of impossible causes, had wanted to become a nun but her parents arranged for her to marry at age 12. Despite her violent husband, Rita devoted herself to motherhood and prayed for her husband, who repented only to be killed by an enemy. Rita became a nun at an Augustinian convent.

St Thomas More, who defended Catholic teachings on marriage when Henry VIII wanted to divorce, enjoyed two happy marriages. Convicted of treason by Henry VIII, it was the king’s troubled marriages that earned More his patronage of difficult marriages.

St Monica also endured great unhappiness. Born circa 330 to Christian parents in Tagaste, northern Africa, she was given in marriage at 13 or 14 to a bad-tempered, adulterous older man, Patricius, and bore three children, eventually converting Patricius to Christianity.