- W Boga - wierze. Natomiast nie bardzo wierzę w to, co ludzie mówią o Bogu.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]Valentine by Jamieson Wolf
Valentine
By
Jamieson Wolf
2
Valentine by Jamieson Wolf
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to
be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Valentine
Copyright© 2008 Jamieson Wolf
ISBN: 978‐1‐60088‐220‐3
Cover Artist: Croco Designs
Editor: Leanne Salter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in reviews.
Cobblestone Press, LLC
3
Valentine by Jamieson Wolf
Dedication
For Robert, who fills my nights with warmth and fire.
4
Valentine by Jamieson Wolf
Authors Note
According to legend, as early as the fourth century B.C., the
Romans engaged in an annual young man’s rite to passage to the god
Lupercus. The names of the teenage women were placed in a box and
drawn at random by adolescent men; thus, a man was assigned a woman
companion for the duration of the year, after which another lottery was
staged.
After eight hundred years of this, the early church fathers sought to
end this practice and promote monogamy. They found an answer in
Valentine, a bishop who had been martyred some two hundred years
earlier. According to church tradition, St. Valentine was a priest near
Rome in about the year 270 A.D. At that time, the Roman Emperor,
Claudius II, had issued an edict forbidding marriage. This was around
when the heyday of Roman Empire had almost come to an end.
When Claudius became the emperor, he discerned that married
men were more emotionally attached to their families, and thus, would
not make good soldiers. So to assure quality soldiers, he banned marriage.
Valentine, a bishop who witnessed the trauma of young lovers, met
them in a secret place and joined them in the sacrament of matrimony.
Claudius learned of this “friend of lovers,” and had him arrested. The
emperor, impressed with the young priest’s dignity and conviction,
attempted to convert him to the Roman gods, to save him from certain
execution. Valentine refused to recognize Roman gods and even
attempted to convert the emperor, knowing the consequences fully.
On February 24, 270, Valentine was executed.
While Valentine was in prison awaiting his fate, he came in contact
with his jailor, Asterius. The jailor had a blind daughter. Asterius
requested him to heal his daughter. Through his faith, he miraculously
5
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plslaveofficial.keep.pl