That’ll Learn Them

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Sir, – Your correspondent Paul Kokoski (February 14th) invokes the legend of St Valentine, “a tale of true love that . . . should inspire everyone in this new time of religious persecution to be equally vigilant and heroic in upholding and defending the traditional definition of marriage currently under assault from secular humanists.” What bunk! He retells a legend that is already full of historical implausibilities (it has the emperor Claudius II, reigned 268-270, as a contemporary of Pope Calixtus I, bishop from 217 to 222; and Claudius never persecuted the Christians), introduces several new errors of his own (Claudius II was not a Goth: he earned his epithet “Gothicus” from defeating that people; there is no evidence that Gelasius I fostered the cult), and conflates several different versions of the legend (marrying lovers does not appear in versions of the legend before the late middle ages). It may be all very well to call for a defence against secular humanism: but invoking a saint whose legend is an absurd fiction from beginning to end is hardly the way to go about it. – Yours, etc,

Thanks Ender!
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