Gerasa

Gerasa.

Today Jerash in Jordan, Gerasa was a city of the Decapolis founded by the Greeks at the foot of Mount Gilead. It was conquered by the Nabataeans then by the Romans under Pompey in 63 BC. They made it an opulent city that became a flourishing trading center of the Roman province of Arabia. Ancient Gerasa, in the suburbs of Jerash, was located by Ulrich Jasper Seetzen in 1806. It was only much later that its ruins gave rise to several excavation campaigns in the 1920s-1930s, but they only really took off in 1982. Today it is the best-known city of the Decapolis, which allows an appreciation of the accuracy of the account by Maria Valtorta.

What Maria Valtorta says

"That walled town is Gerasa, my Lord. A town with a great future. It is now developing, and I don’t think I am wrong in saying that it will soon be competing with Joppa, Ashkelon, with Tyre and many more towns, in beauty, trade and wealth."

This is how the merchant who accompanies Jesus presents the city to Him, which was indeed then surrounded by a wall 3.5 km long. Maria Valtorta then gives a very detailed description. Coming from the south, they enter "through the gate watched over by towers". Later, in 130, Hadrian had an imposing triumphal arch erected at this entrance. Jesus evangelizes the city for three days. Maria Valtorta observes:

"the town in some areas of which the noise of building yards is dreadfully loud. Masons, diggers, stone-cutters, blacksmiths, carpenters are working building, levelling, filling gaps, chiselling stones for walls, working iron for various purposes, sawing, planing, making poles out of strong trunks."

This is accurate because the city, built on a sloping hill, was for nearly two centuries, under Roman rule, a huge building site of which archaeology shows us many traces. It experienced considerable growth under Trajan. One particular detail draws attention:

"a babbling torrent flowing in the middle of the town [...] the town centre, which is divided by the little stream."

The Chrysorrhoas (the Golden River), a tributary of the Yabbok, indeed crosses the city from north to south.

Notable points

Characters

It is the homeland of Mark of Josias, one of the two possessed whose demons were cast out into a herd of swine. The episode takes place at Gamla on a steep shore of the Sea of Galilee about 50 km from Gerasa. In recounting this episode, Marc 5,1 and Luc 8,26 and 8,37, speak of the country of the Gerasenes. They therefore use the possession’s location. But Matthew, an eyewitness, speaks of the country of the Gadarenes. He uses the name of a nearby and better-known spa town than Gamla.

Gospel

It is in Gerasa that Maria Valtorta places the saying:

"He who is not with me is against me; he who does not gather with me scatters."

Jesus preaches that union with God is the weapon that no strong man can overcome. He refers to the expulsion of demons, known to the listeners, and invites them to believe in Him. A useful precaution because Mark of Josias, after having been a zealous evangelist, will fall back into demonic possession and become a fierce enemy of Jesus. This case, which marked minds, will not prevent Gerasa from becoming, in the 4th century, the seat of a bishopric. In the crowd, a woman struck by Jesus' speech and his exorcism powers exclaims:

"Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed."

To which Jesus replies:

"Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Do this, O woman."

A chain of reaction confirmed by the narration of Luke 11,21-28.

For further reading

• Locate on the Valtorta App map
• Place the episode on Carlos Martinez’s infographic
• Search in the Valtorta Index
• Discuss on the Maria Valtorta Forum

Explorer

32° 16’ 50’’ N / 35° 53’ 43’’ E

+530/580m.

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Notes and references

Article partly written based on the Geographical Dictionary of the Gospel, according to Maria Valtorta by Jean-François Lavère.

Kilometres. 1 km = 0.621 miles. 1 mile = 1.609 km.