Hug a Democrat!
A country of brotherly love.

Mr. Novak is the George F. Jewett scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
February 14, 2001 9:35 a.m.

t. Valentine's Day is a good day on which to reflect that this nation was founded as a country of brotherly love, and in that spirit its capital city was named Philadelphia.

Halfway through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair in England, and thus Chaucer wrote of a note of love:

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's Day Whan every fowl cometh ther to choose his mate.

By the fourteenth century both in England and France, St. Valentine's Day came to be consecrated to lovers, a day for choosing mates, a day for honoring mates, a day for expressing affection, esteem, and love for mates.

Thus, maybe it was only a coincidence that "halfway through the second month of the year" fell on the feast of St. Valentine, February 14, a feast day that had been celebrated since at least the year 496 AD. For centuries in Rome, the gate at today's Piazza del Popolo was known as the Saint Valentine's Gate, on account of a little church nearby, St. Valentine's.

But who was Saint Valentine? By one account, he was a Roman priest tortured and put to death under the reign of Emperor Claudius in 269 AD; put to death for two reasons: as a Christian priest, he violated the order of Emperor Claudius by continuing to celebrate the sacrament of matrimony, even though the Emperor had forbidden all marriages in Rome (in order to keep his soldiers single and make them tougher). Secondly, the good priest refused to recant and denounce his faith, and went to his death in good spirit.

For the daughter of his jailer, who like other young people looked up to the "marriage priest" with great esteem, he left behind a note, signing it (the legend continues) "from your Valentine." That young couples should have been enamored of this particular saint for the last 1700-plus years seems altogether fitting.

Yet if Valentine's Day is the day of love, what on earth is love? In English we are penalized by having only one word for the phenomenon, whereas Latin has at least five.

First, there is amor, that most generalized attraction, which draws even rocks thrown into the air back to the earth, drives birds toward their mates, and has been known to move a man and a woman from "across a crowded room." This amor, in medieval eyes, moved even the stars and planets in their orbits, so that Dante could write of "The Amor that moves the sun and other stars."

A little more specific is affectus, that emotion, passion, sentiment, that makes us warm, comfortable, snuggly, drawing us into the arms of the other. As the Latin word suggests, this love arises more from being moved, being comforted, than from choosing or acting by will.

This latter aspect is taken care of by dilectio, which is the sort of love that arises when you single out one person for your love, choose that person, offer your love as a gift to that single chosen one. (The root of the word comes from the Latin electio, choice.) Humans share amor and affectus with the other animals; but dilectio is a specific human love, the long-term choice required for years of human child-rearing and lifelong union.

Of course, it is always possible for one person to choose another, while the other person fails to reciprocate. Love is a free gift, and cannot be forced. Thus, the love of amicitia is an especially precious love, the love of two persons who freely choose each other, the love of friendship. Thomas Aquinas writes that the most beautiful reality in the world is the love of man and woman in matrimony. That this was the opinion of St. Valentine, too, is obvious. He was willing to die for it.

Finally, Christians use the Latin term caritas, to signify the love that the Father has for the Son, and the Son for the Father, a love so powerful that it is best expressed as an equal to the Father and the Son, and named separately the Holy Spirit. The Christian teaching about the Trinity suggests that, although nobody sees God, and no human knows what God is really like, the part of human experience that is most like God is the communion of two become one, like the love between a man and woman in matrimony. The Christian God does not live in icy solitude like Aristotle's God. We should think of Him, rather, through the best experiences we have of human communion, one with another. The One God, to follow the Latin phrase, is a singular "communion of divine Persons," divinarum personarum communio.

It is in this context that St. Augustine, who was born exactly 1600 years before the Cleveland Indians first lost the World Series (in 1954), described "the shining city of the hill" of the Scriptures as "the City of God," that is, the "City of Love." He did not mean "love" in its sillier senses, but in this sense: Humans sharing in the love that characterizes the inner life of God, which God offers human beings.

As many in the first generation of Americans often reminded themselves after war broke out in 1775, they would die singly if they did not bind themselves together in friendship. Their salvation depended upon the strength of their Union. For this reason, they stressed brotherly love for one another. This principle still animated Lincoln in the terrible days of the Civil War of 1861-65. Apart from the Union, he did not believe that liberty could survive.

It is good to have St. Valentine's Day once a year. We need to be reminded that there are higher forces and more powerful currents afoot among us, while we struggle against the obvious division and incivility of recent times. We need again to forge a common Union. We need again the warming spirit of St. Valentine.

Learning how to overcome domestic quarrels, heal divisions, admit one's own mistakes and forgive the other, are almost as important for citizens of a republic in their life together, as for two mates in a long-term marriage.

On February 14, hug a Democrat!