Valentine’s Day may seem harmless—after all, supposedly it’s just about love. But dangers lurk beneath this pagan feast. It stems from the Roman festival of Lupercalia, held in mid-February. Intended as a celebration of the coming spring, it included fertility rites and the pairing off of women with men by lottery.

Lupercus was the wolf-god of Roman lore—and during this festivity, men would sacrifice a goat, wear its skin, and run around hitting young women with small whips, an act which was supposed to ensure fertility. The names of the women were put into a box and drawn out by the men who required them to submit to be their physical lovers for a certain period of time.

Eventually, Roman Catholicism tried to “Christianize” this sordid event by adapting the pagan celebration of Lupercalia into St. Valentine’s Day. A story was fabricated about a martyred Catholic priest who would sign his letters, “with love from St. Valentine.” The modern result became the merging of a pagan Roman festival with a false story of a patron saint—ultimately topped off by a clever marketing plan.

Today, however, Valentine’s Day is no longer part of the liturgical calendar of any church, so the festivity has completely returned to its original pagan roots of lust.

Let’s start with an interesting record found in Holy Scripture: “Cush [a son of Ham] begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh” (Genesis 10:8–11).

Thus Nimrod, the notorious rebel, defiant against Heaven, is associated with some of the wickedest civilizations recorded in Bible history.

Legend holds that after the death of Nimrod, his widow Semiramis (also known as Venus) had an illegitimate child, Tammuz, whom she said was conceived by the sun and was supposedly Nimrod himself, reborn. Scenes of this mother and baby together are often found as a subject in ancient art.

In one form of this pagan confusion, Venus, claiming to be the “goddess” of immortality, lusted after her son, and their twisted relationship became the object of Valentine’s Day.

Other names for Tammuz include “Adonis,” “Baal,” and “Cupid”—meaning “desire.” Like Nimrod, he, too, was depicted as a mighty hunter with bow and arrows.

The name “Valentine” comes from the Latin valens, which means “strong,” “powerful,” “mighty”—depicting the supposed “hero” of the pagan world who claimed to bring freedom from the rule and government of Heaven. The mysterious occult religion connected with Babylon and the worship of Baal has spread its roots throughout much of ancient and modern culture alike.

“The Chaldean Mysteries can be traced up to the days of Semiramis, who lived only a few centuries after the Flood, and who is known to have impressed upon them the image of her own depraved and polluted mind. That beautiful but abandoned queen of Babylon was not only herself a paragon of unbridled lust and licentiousness, but in the Mysteries which she had a chief hand in forming, she was worshipped as Rhea, the great ‘Mother’ of the gods, with such atrocious rites as identified her with Venus, the Mother of all impurity, and raised the very city where she had reigned to a bad eminence among the nations, as the great seat at once of idolatry and consecrated prostitution.”— Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, p. 5.

The scriptural record found in Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17–19 reveals the popularity of this pagan cult, even among apostate Israelites. In Ezekiel 8:14–18, the prophet was shown the tremendous abomination of men in the temple “weeping for Tammuz” (who was often revered as a supposed god of vegetation—dying annually and then resurrecting—a total mockery of the death-and-life-giving power of Jesus Christ, the true Son of God). These men in Ezekiel’s vision “worshipped the sun toward the east.” We read also in Jeremiah 44:25–27 of God’s final judgment upon those among His professed people who partook of the various rites associated with the false “queen of heaven:”

“Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows. Therefore hear ye the word of the Lord, all Judah that dwell in the land of Egypt; Behold, I have sworn by my great name, saith the Lord, that my name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, The Lord God liveth. Behold, I will watch over them for evil, and not for good: and all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until there be an end of them.”

The “queen of heaven” and her link with Tammuz has historically been the basis for fertility cults throughout the world, including in the worship of her as “Ishtar” during the feast of Easter in Saxon times. During these festivals, immorality ran rampant. As mentioned, valentine cards were simply an invitation to gross violation of the seventh commandment. Nudity was a common site during these festivals—and that is why Cupid is always depicted naked.

The symbol of the heart was also associated with this boy-god who “came to be regarded as the ‘god of the heart,’ in other words, as Cupid, or the god of love. To identify this infant divinity, with his father, ‘the mighty hunter,’ he was equipped with ‘bow and arrows;’ and in the hands of the poets, for the amusement of the profane vulgar, this sportive boy-god was celebrated as taking aim with his gold-tipped shafts at the hearts of mankind.”—Ibid., p. 189.

It’s tragic to consider that in real life, Cupid’s figurative arrows are not aimed by principle or in any fear of God. They are aimed through the blind chemistry of lustful infatuation in the form of a desperate “crush” on someone. Colossians 3:5 warns us against “inordinate affection,” that is, affection that is out of order, a strange, fervent affection that is really not in our best interests.

The Bible makes a sad reference to “silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts” (2 Timothy 3:6) that are “led captive” by evil-minded men, just as the young man in Proverbs chapter 7 was lead astray by an evil-minded woman. The snare can work either way.

Many today—especially the young—are too easily charmed and seduced by certain charismatic people. They don’t investigate the possible history of adultery, immorality, or promiscuity in one whom they find enticing—and ruin and disgrace are the result. Thus, for example, when a woman sends what seems to be a harmless card saying “Be my Valentine,” it is a carry-over from ancient times when women foolishly sought a romantic relationship with “Baal” or “Nimrod,” to receive the counterfeit “blessing” of Cupid’s fanciful charms.

Like faithful Joseph in the face of temptation, the youth must stand firm and declare, “How . . . can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9).

“A fixed principle of truth is the only safeguard for youth. Strong purposes and a resolute will close many an open door to temptation and to influences that are unfavorable to the maintenance of Christian character. . . . The first consideration should be to honor God, and the second, to be faithful to humanity, performing the duties which each day brings, meeting its trials and bearing its burdens with firmness and a resolute heart. Earnest and untiring effort, united with strong purpose and entire trust in God, will help in every emergency, will qualify for a useful life in this world, and give a fitness for the immortal life.”—Testimonies, vol. 3, pp. 194, 195.

“For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: . . . And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:5–11).

“My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not” (Proverbs 1:10).