Freethought & Rationalism Archive

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 12:41 PM

I have always been interested in the antiquity of Valentine's day - especially considering the fact that (a) Valentinus is an important Roman heretic and (b) Basilides is identified by Clement as being intimately associated with Epiphany. How can it be considered to be coincidence that:

1. Valentine's day falls exactly forty days after Epiphany
2. Epiphany is associated with the forty day fast
3. the Marcionites (and Valentinians presumably) did not accept the temptation narrative

Clearly then it is at least plausible that 'Valentinus day' was associated with the start of the gospel narrative in the same way that the Epiphany was among the Basilideans. The love mission of Christ becomes associated with a day of love and preserved in some superstition (= still left standing) in Rome.

But why memorialize the fourteenth of February? Could it be that it marked a set number of days before the Passion? Consider for a moment that the Montanists (often connected or confused with the Marcionites) celebrated the Passion on the fourteenth day of the seventh solar month - http://books.google.com/books?id=j2d...teenth&f=false

Is it possible that Valentine's day was 49 or fifty days from the Passion or the Resurrection? I can't make that quite work yet but there is an approximate correspondence.

Consider this year for example. There are forty nine days between February 14 and April 4 and fifty days between February 14 and April 5. The Montanist Passion is understood to have commenced on April 6. Surely there is a way to reconcile this. What this also would do is - with Clement's identification of the counting of the Omer beginning on a closely related day, it would connect - I think - the early Christian calendar with the 364 day calendar of the Therapeutai and other Jewish groups. I just need to fix the numbers properly.

Indeed if Valentine's day was forty nine plus one days before the Resurrection and then Pentecost was fixed forty nine plus one days after, we can see that the original Christian community did not venerate every Sunday but - like the Therapeutai and other sects even into the modern age (= Ethiopia) every seventh Sunday. This might be useful for understanding the Quartodeciman controversy and indeed Christianity's original relation to Judaism. The problem is fixing the numbers exactly.

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 01:42 PM

Here is the account of Sozomen:

Quote:

They follow the custom of the Jews and the Quartodecimani, except when the fourteenth day of the moon falls upon the first day of the week, in which case they celebrate the feast so many days after the Jews, as there are intervening days between the fourteenth day of the moon and the following Lord’s day. The Montanists, who are called Pepuzites and Phrygians, celebrate the Passover according to a strange fashion which they introduced. They blame those who regulate the time of observing the feast according to the course of the moon, and affirm that it is right to attend exclusively to the cycles of the sun. They reckon each month to consist of thirty days, and account the day after the vernal equinox as the first day of the year, which, according to the Roman method of computation, would be called the ninth day before the calends of April. It was on this day, they say, that the two great luminaries appointed for the indication of times and of years were created. This they prove by the fact that every eight years the sun and the moon meet together in the same point of the heavens. The moon’s cycle of eight years is accomplished in ninety-nine months, and in two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two days; and during that time there are eight revolutions made by the sun, each comprising three hundred and sixty-five days, and the fourth part of a day. For they compute the day of the creation of the sun, mentioned in Sacred Writ, to have been the fourteenth day of the moon, occurring after the ninth day before the calends of the month of April, and answering to the eighth day prior to ides of the same month. They always celebrate the Passover on this day, when it falls on the day of the resurrection; otherwise they celebrate it on the following Lord’s day; for it is written according to their assertion that the feast may be held on any day between the fourteenth and twenty-first. [Church History 7.18]

Tabernee also cites Pseudo-Chrysostom's account which is independent of Sozomen arguing for the similarity between Montanist practice and that of the Quartodecimans:

Quote:

There is another heresy, that of the Montanists, which still continues to celebrate Easter with the Jews which simultaneously broke with the church to its own detriment. It observes, in fact, the fourteenth day of the first month (i.e., the seventh month according to the Asiatics) but not the fourteenth day of the lunar month. I do not know from where they derived this rule, for the Passover of the Jews is held on the fourteenth day of the moon of the first month and it was on this fourteenth day, on the Passover of the Jews, that Christ suffered. From whence then comes this detestable heresy which has thrust into prominence the fourteenth day of the solar month and not that of the lunar month? Is it not evident that it is due to the deceit of a demon? (Serm. pasch. 7)

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 02:00 PM

So if the reader is with me so far, we have a most primitive form of Christianity (= Montanism) establishing the date of the Resurrection as April 6. Now if we think about matters in our surviving tradition the dates of Jesus’ conception and death are linked. So Jesus was conceived and crucified on March 25th and born on December 25th. In the same way we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world.” Even today, the Armenian Church celebrates the Annunciation in early April (on the 7th, not the 6th) and Christmas on January 6.

Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6). http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/d...ame-christmas/

It is also worth noting that January 6 is explicitly associated with several events that actually appeared in the earliest gospels (= the baptism of Jesus, turning water into wine etc). The same cannot be said for December 25th. So let's take April 6 as the day of the crucifixion. We have exactly ninety days between Epiphany and the Passion (because the Montanists used a thirty day calendar). If the Montanists retained the forty day fast after January 6 then April 6 is forty nine days later and the next day April 7 is the fiftieth or the first day of the next cycle of 49 + 1 which according to Clement was Pentecost.

It is hard to argue against the idea that the 364 day calendar of the Jewish sectarian groups including the Therapeutai is behind the early Christian liturgical year. Indeed instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the Christians calculated it according to a solar calendar which was later identified by Sozomen as the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in his local Greek calendar—April 6 to us.

andrewcriddle · 02-17-2013, 02:13 PM

Hi Stephan

One problem with your argument is that it assumes IIUC that the association of romantic love with February 14th is reasonably ancient.

Some scholars would argue that the association of Valentine's day with lovers is medieval possibly invented by Chaucer.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 02:17 PM

So maybe there is no romantic association with Valentine's day originally. It's not important to the argument.

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 02:24 PM

So let's assume the existence of three 30 day months:

Month 4 day 14 (= Epiphany) to end of the month = 16 days
Month 5 30 days = 30 days
Month 6 30 days = 30 days
Month 7 day 14 = (Crucifixion) = 14 days

Total 90 days

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 02:51 PM

Clement's reference to the resurrection being the first day of the Sheaf offering:

Quote:

Suitably, therefore, to the fourteenth day, on which He also suffered, in the morning, the chief priests and the scribes, who brought Him to Pilate, did not enter the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might freely eat the passover in the evening. With this precise determination of the days both the whole Scriptures agree, and the Gospels harmonize. The resurrection also attests it. He certainly rose on the third day, which fell on the first day of the weeks of harvest, on which the law prescribed that the priest should offer up the sheaf.

As such the original Christian liturgical calendar must have resembled the Samaritan one as the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, always falls on the Sunday of the eighth week after Passover since the Samaritans count the fifty days of the omer from the first Sunday after the Sabbath of the week of Unleavened Bread. Clement's gospel like our gospel of John has Jesus crucified on the "day of preparation" (John 19:31). That would seem to make Friday, the fourteenth of Nisan, the day of preparation. Saturday would then have been both the Sabbath and the Passover. Sunday the resurrection and the first day of counting. 49 days later was Pentecost. But 49 days earlier would have been Valentine's day (= fourteenth of the tenth month or fourth month according to the Macedonian calendar).

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 03:56 PM

Here is Bainton's much cited article on this subject. His calculation that the Marcionites held Jesus came down from heaven at the beginning of January is interesting. Citing a famous passage from Against Marcion Book One he notes:

Quote:

Marcion was blown from Pontus by the wind of the dog-star, which rose about the end of July. If then we add 115 years to 29 a.d. we get the year 144 a.d. for Marcion. And if from the end of July, 144 a.d., we subtract 115 years, six months and a half, we are thrown back to the first week of January a. d. 29. Marcion, as an Adoptionist, will have reckoned the descent of Christ from the baptism, so this is the event which fell in the first week of January. What can that be but Epiphany on January 6 th? The Marcionites as well as the Montanists recognized the day.

http://books.google.com/books?id=kg0...tanist&f=false

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 04:15 PM

I think I can further tweak the original understanding. The baptism/Epiphany took place on the 15 of Tybi according to Clement and the Pistis Sophia. Clement writes:

Quote:

And there are those who have determined not only the year of our Lord's birth, but also the day; and they say that it took place in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus, and in the twenty-fifth day of Pachon. And the followers of Basilides hold the day of his baptism as a festival, spending the night before in readings. And they say that it was the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, the fifteenth day of the month Tybi; and some that it was the eleventh of the same month. And treating of his passion, with very great accuracy, some say that it took place in the sixteenth year of Tiberius, on the twenty-fifth of Phamenoth; and others the twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi and others say that on the ninetheeth of Pharmuthi the Saviour suffered. Further, others say that he was born on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi."

According to Jack Finegan (Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Hendrickson, 1998), p. 62, table 29) Tubi 1-30 = Dec. 27-Jan. 25. The date of 11 Tybi:

1 Tybi Dec 27
2 Tybi Dec 28
3 Tybi Dec 29
4 Tybi Dec 30
5 Tybi Dec 31
6 Tybi Jan 1
7 Tybi Jan 2
8 Tybi Jan 3
9 Tybi Jan 4
10 Tybi Jan 5
11 Tybi Jan 6

Interestingly none of the dates of Jesus's suffering given by Clement match any of our familiar traditions.

stephan huller · 02-17-2013, 04:26 PM

This tends to support the dating given by Finegan:

http://www.trismegistos.org/tm/detail.php?tm=100239

02-17-2013, 12:41 PM	#1
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	Valentinus Day - the Oldest Christian Holy Day? I have always been interested in the antiquity of Valentine's day - especially considering the fact that (a) Valentinus is an important Roman heretic and (b) Basilides is identified by Clement as being intimately associated with Epiphany. How can it be considered to be coincidence that: 1. Valentine's day falls exactly forty days after Epiphany 2. Epiphany is associated with the forty day fast 3. the Marcionites (and Valentinians presumably) did not accept the temptation narrative Clearly then it is at least plausible that 'Valentinus day' was associated with the start of the gospel narrative in the same way that the Epiphany was among the Basilideans. The love mission of Christ becomes associated with a day of love and preserved in some superstition (= still left standing) in Rome. But why memorialize the fourteenth of February? Could it be that it marked a set number of days before the Passion? Consider for a moment that the Montanists (often connected or confused with the Marcionites) celebrated the Passion on the fourteenth day of the seventh solar month - http://books.google.com/books?id=j2d...teenth&f=false Is it possible that Valentine's day was 49 or fifty days from the Passion or the Resurrection? I can't make that quite work yet but there is an approximate correspondence. Consider this year for example. There are forty nine days between February 14 and April 4 and fifty days between February 14 and April 5. The Montanist Passion is understood to have commenced on April 6. Surely there is a way to reconcile this. What this also would do is - with Clement's identification of the counting of the Omer beginning on a closely related day, it would connect - I think - the early Christian calendar with the 364 day calendar of the Therapeutai and other Jewish groups. I just need to fix the numbers properly. Indeed if Valentine's day was forty nine plus one days before the Resurrection and then Pentecost was fixed forty nine plus one days after, we can see that the original Christian community did not venerate every Sunday but - like the Therapeutai and other sects even into the modern age (= Ethiopia) every seventh Sunday. This might be useful for understanding the Quartodeciman controversy and indeed Christianity's original relation to Judaism. The problem is fixing the numbers exactly.

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02-17-2013, 02:00 PM	#3
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	So if the reader is with me so far, we have a most primitive form of Christianity (= Montanism) establishing the date of the Resurrection as April 6. Now if we think about matters in our surviving tradition the dates of Jesus’ conception and death are linked. So Jesus was conceived and crucified on March 25th and born on December 25th. In the same way we have evidence that April was associated with Jesus’ conception and crucifixion. Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis writes that on April 6, “The lamb was shut up in the spotless womb of the holy virgin, he who took away and takes away in perpetual sacrifice the sins of the world.” Even today, the Armenian Church celebrates the Annunciation in early April (on the 7th, not the 6th) and Christmas on January 6. Thus, we have Christians in two parts of the world calculating Jesus’ birth on the basis that his death and conception took place on the same day (March 25 or April 6) and coming up with two close but different results (December 25 and January 6). http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/d...ame-christmas/ It is also worth noting that January 6 is explicitly associated with several events that actually appeared in the earliest gospels (= the baptism of Jesus, turning water into wine etc). The same cannot be said for December 25th. So let's take April 6 as the day of the crucifixion. We have exactly ninety days between Epiphany and the Passion (because the Montanists used a thirty day calendar). If the Montanists retained the forty day fast after January 6 then April 6 is forty nine days later and the next day April 7 is the fiftieth or the first day of the next cycle of 49 + 1 which according to Clement was Pentecost. It is hard to argue against the idea that the 364 day calendar of the Jewish sectarian groups including the Therapeutai is behind the early Christian liturgical year. Indeed instead of working from the 14th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, the Christians calculated it according to a solar calendar which was later identified by Sozomen as the 14th of the first spring month (Artemisios) in his local Greek calendar—April 6 to us.

02-17-2013, 02:13 PM	#4
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	Hi Stephan One problem with your argument is that it assumes IIUC that the association of romantic love with February 14th is reasonably ancient. Some scholars would argue that the association of Valentine's day with lovers is medieval possibly invented by Chaucer. Andrew Criddle

02-17-2013, 02:17 PM	#5
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	So maybe there is no romantic association with Valentine's day originally. It's not important to the argument.

02-17-2013, 02:24 PM	#6
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	So let's assume the existence of three 30 day months: Month 4 day 14 (= Epiphany) to end of the month = 16 days Month 5 30 days = 30 days Month 6 30 days = 30 days Month 7 day 14 = (Crucifixion) = 14 days Total 90 days

02-17-2013, 04:26 PM	#10
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	This tends to support the dating given by Finegan: http://www.trismegistos.org/tm/detail.php?tm=100239

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