What About the Soul?

"Humankind are creatures in which spirit and material meet together and are unified in a single whole."-- Ratzinger

The word soul conjures for most things like: immutable, essence, animating, spiritual; also leader, fervor, exemplification or personification. Some say there is no such thing while others say it is as the wind--known by feeling, not by sight.
and while a majority of the world's people may admit themselves to the notion of an afterlife or an idea of reincarnation, what about the soul?

In the west, the soul is given often as a separate entity from the body. However within some of the great religions (great in terms of world wide adherence), be it Judeo-Christian, Muslim or Zoroastrian, some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism and others, there not only is a well developed sense of reincarnation but also of the corresponding soul, which ascends.

In recent times there is increasingly talk about a soul but a clear confusion, even avoidance of what it means. It seems more frequent that people wish to talk around it whenever possible. Ratzinger writes: Some Christian denominations try to persuade that it is actually a Pagan conception and somehow not within the Christian realm. This thinking is indeed at odds with the basics of Christian thought for it involves the splitting of the body from its spirit; in this way there cannot be unity for all manifestations of creation joined with the Creator for which we may take part.  Paraphrased

While the concept of the soul may be present in many, many cultures, within the Christian tradition, it is a part of faith, a part of the way of the Christ. He who has come into the world, has come both in a body and a spirit so that we may know the Creator and our part in the creation. Humankind are creatures in which spirit and material meet together and are unified in a single whole.

And if we are to set aside the notion of soul as some would do, then the body is alone, robbed of its dignity and without exaltation as both a creator and the product of Creation itself. It bears no part in the Creation of the world.
Many times people have fallen to speculation that a body has indeed fallen from its spirit, that the spirit roams about unattached. Indeed in Chinese folklore, for example, these spirits are often referred to as hungry ghosts who roam about looking to attach them self to matter. Many times as a result, the living are abhorrent to enter a cemetery for fear of possible entrapment by these spirits. And for those who say the disembodied soul is an absurdity, perhaps they have not understood the teachings on the matter of faith, as it were.

In at least the Christian tradition, the people of the Lord are known as the Body of the Christ; within this body there is the one Lord, whole and unified.  They are the people of the Christ; believers who cannot be lost as spirits, for theirs is contained within the greater body of this Christ!

The Origin of Satan

"All converts understood that baptism washes away sins and expels evil spirits[from the body], and conveys to the recipient the spirit of God." The Origin of Satan by Elaine Pagels

In her book, published in 1995, The Origin of Satan, famed historian and author Elaine Pagels, perhaps best known for her work on The Gnostic Gospels, writes of a history in the West, of the developing idea of the 'Evil One,' the Satan. Exploring the solidifying development of the spirit, Satan, and his ways, Pagels delves into the Roman and Greek era and traces their thought to the more modern, current. Of Satan, she writes in the chapter, The Enemy Within, that for nearly two thousand years, most Christians have taken Saint Irenaeus at his word..." Saint Irenaeus is best remembered for his exhortations against the mockeries of the Devil, Satan.

Pagels examines in this chapter a text called, the Testimony of Truth which direct believers to asceticism. They are according to the Testimony to renounce all worldliness. "No one knows the God of Truth, except the one alone who renounces all the things of the world." She writes early Christians like Saint Justin Martyr was one who shared this view of self mastery; he wholeheartedly admired those who renounced the world and practiced celibacy. Today this tradition most clearly survives in monasticism.

Another text examined by Pagels here is called, Reality of the Rulers,"In this universe... there is no devil, and no need for one, for the 'Lord,' the God of the Jews and most Christians alike, himself acts a chief of the fallen angels who seduce and enslave human beings." According to this interpretation of the 'Truth,' written in the Testimony and the Reality of the Rulers the "human condition involving work, marriage, and procreation do not reflect divine blessing, but demonstrate enslavement to cosmic forces that want to blind human beings to their capacity for spiritual enlightenment... most Christians have fallen prey to the rulers of darkness and so, like most Jews and Pagans, remain entangled in social, sexual and economic bondage." It is through understanding that truth belongs not to the darker powers but to wisdom and the Father of the whole; the spirit of the truth resides within them. They remain free to devote themselves to the dominions of the Holy Spirit.

These texts and others discovered at Nag Hamadi, as known in the ancient world by the majority of Jewish-Christians who responded to these texts with the term 'heretic.' Heretic, Pagel points out means to make a choice. The ancient, Tertullian wrote that it was actually a matter of pride to be heretical for some; they regarded their own, deeper insight as a 'spiritual gift.' He further observed that Heretics would object to any creed, saying that Jesus himself encouraged questioning, saying, "Ask, and you shall receive, knock and it shall be opened to you." For Tertullian the question and the answer resided in one simple, clear place: upon the cross of the crucifixion and resurrection of the Christ. Looking further was no longer necessary.

It was Satan, after all who invented all sorts of arts of spiritual warfare; the devil of course, is attached to the wiles that distort the truth, wrote Tertullian. In the last word on the subject of this chapter, Pagels returns to the thoughts of Saint Irenaeus with whom she started: "the structure that has sustained orthodox Christianity ever since, claims access to the apostles, the manifestation of the Church throughout the world and the body of the Christ, with the succession of bishops together forms a very complete system of doctrine." Finally she writes of her own thought that in writing this book, she hopes that the modern struggle against otherness as evil and the group as solid, secure and good, will more clearly come to light. This she does do in a most complex way.

Valentine

This article appeared here previously on Feb. 12, 2009

At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under the date of 14 February. One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city.

Of both these St. Valentines, some sort of Acta are preserved, but they are of relatively late date and of no historical value. Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known.

~excerpt from The Catholic Encyclopedia

The name "Valentine", derived from valens (worthy), was popular in late antiquity.
Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing factual is known except his name and that he was buried at the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name.

The feast day of Saint Valentine, priest and martyr, was included in the Tridentine Calendar, with the rank of Simple, on February 14. In 1955, Pope Pius XII reduced the celebration to a commemoration within the celebration of the occurring weekday. In 1969, this commemoration was removed from the General Roman Calendar. However, it remains one of the Catholic saint days.

The full history of St. Valentine's Day:
it's blurry and nobody really knows exactly who the real St. Valentine was. There are many stories and myths, and there were three different Valentines who were martyred. One was a priest who lived in Rome and was recorded martyred in 269 A.D. The second, a bishop, lived in Interamna (modern-day Treni) in Italy. There was a very obscure third Valentine who met his fate in Africa. The first Valentine, a priest from Rome, is generally considered the right person and is associated with a charming, but also gruesome, story.

During the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius II
from 268 to 270 A.D., it became important to recruit young men to the army, but the response was low because men didn’t want to leave their wives and families. In reaction to the low interest, the emperor decided to prohibit marriages. But Valentine didn’t accept this and secretly performed marriages between young Christian men and women. He was eventually caught and sentenced to death.

The Roman emperors were firmly against the Christians
until the fourth century A.D. and persecuted them because they were considered a subversive group. One of the major stumbling blocks to acceptance of the Christian church by the Roman population was the many Roman holidays in celebration of the pagan gods. For instance, the Apostle Paul founded an altar in Athens to the deity who was called "Unknown God," and he immediately used this unknown God to introduce Christianity into that community. By this means the faith came to be accepted.

How Valentine's path to Sainthood began
The future saint’s jailer may or may not have had a young daughter, but in any case a young girl began to visit Valentine. He may have fallen in love with her or maybe not, but they met frequently. On February 14, the day that he was to be executed, he wrote her a note and signed it, "From your Valentine." And that is supposedly the origin of the custom of writing one’s beloved a note and signing it with that well-known phrase.
~excerpt from hurriyet.com

Here's the gruesome part of the story: Valentine was beaten to death and decapitated. In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside Feb. 14 to honor St. Valentine, possibly to turn Roman minds from the licentious behavior associated with the pagan holiday, Lupercalia.
~excerpt from hurriyet.com

The day is kept as a commemoration by Traditionalist Roman Catholics who, in accordance with the authorization given by Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007, use the General Roman Calendar of 1962, and the liturgy of Pope John XXIII's 1962 edition of the Roman Missal. The day is observed as a Simple Feast by Traditionalists, such as the Society of St. Pius X who are Roman Catholics most wholly opposed to the Vatican II reforms ( Vatican council convened 1962-1964; these reforms are wide sweeping and have transformed the face and practice of the modern Church worldwide) of the Catholic Church in current use today; they continue to use the General Roman Calendar of 1954.

Saint Valentine continues to be recognized as a saint we know because he is included in the Roman Martyrology, the Catholic Church's official list of saints. The feast day of Saint Valentine also continues to be included in local calendars of places such as Balzan and Malta, where relics of the saint are claimed to be found.
~excerpt from Wikipedia