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“They attained to know…the time that was at hand,
in which no longer should the bullock of the herd be a sacrifice
to God, nor the ram of the flock, nor the he-goat, but all these
things should be fulfilled in a purely spiritual manner.”
(Athanasius, Festal Letters 19.3-4)
Pope Gelasius I (492–496) opposed the rituals of Lupercalia.
Saint Valentine's Day, February 14, was thus elevated as
a feast day for young lovers. Fertility rituals of purification,
ordeal, sexual extravagance and sacrifice central to Lupercalia
were challenged by the emerging ideas of Christian love under the
patronage of a priest and martyr who had lived a short distance
from the Palatine hill in Rome and met his death defending the
right of lovers to marry. Lupercalia slowly became a feast for
Saint Valentine, commemorating the gift of love beyond fertility.
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Capitoline She-wolf
5th
century B.C.E. Bronze. Roma, Musei Capitolini, Archivio Fotografico
dei Musei Capitolini:
MC1181.
75 cm.
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