Nahum, counsellor of the High Priest
Nahum or Nahoum is the trusted man of Anna (Hanne), the Former High Priest. This acquaintance of Judas, is part of the delegation that, with the scribes Samuel and Sadoc, comes to admonish Jesus at Belle-Water because of the Presence of Aglae[1] and pursues him with his vindictiveness.[2]
Influential in the Sanhedrin, he is among those who lead the first banishment of Jesus at the end of the 1st year of his public life and his departure from Belle Water.[3]
He is found towards the end of the Public Life of Jesus, leading a delegation that chases Jesus in the Temple. Andrew the Apostle, frightened, sees the demon expelled from a little girl flare up against Nahum:"Yes. And you didn't see because you had your back turned, he said to Thomas, but the Fire opened right above his head. I was near him, and I was afraid!..."The demon had sneered: "I'm not going far..."[4] Jesus however brings his Apostles back to reason. Nahum is the grandfather of Shalem, this deformed child of his son Anna (or Hanne). Shalem seeks Jesus to ask him to die, but Jesus heals him.
- "What an ill-timed miracle! They only wished for the death of this child, the fruit of an unhappy marriage, comments Judas of Kerioth. Nahum will take your act as vengeance."On the day of the death of the Christ, he is a victim, with his son, of a landslide. He emerges crippled and dazed. His son dies. Immediately Nahum turns Against his "master" Anna, grabbing him by the throat: “Because of you! Because of you!”[6]
- "I will face Nahum... I will not be hated more. His hatred cannot grow. It is impossible: it is already at its peak."[5]
His name
Nahum means "one who has compassion" - Historical reference: the prophet.
Where is he mentioned in the work?
EMV 123 EMV 135 EMV 137
EMV 309
EMV 529 EMV 537 EMV 546 EMV 584 EMV 598
EMV 604 EMV 630 EMV 636
Learn more about this character
Works of the Lemann brothers
Mgr Augustin Lemann, 1836-1909 and Mgr Joseph Lemann, 1836-1915, converted Jews, in "Value of the assembly that pronounced the death sentence Against Jesus-Christ" (1877), present a certain "Nachum Halbalar" as follows: Rabbinical books name him as part of the Sanhedrin, in the year 28 of Jesus Christ; but they mention nothing remarkable about him.
Remarkable points
In his note no. 1 written for the site Valtorta.fr, Jean-François Lavère notes:Nahum, a "crippled" SanhedristThis "trusted man of the high priest Hanne" is presented in the work of Maria Valtorta as one of the most relentless Enemies of Jesus. Judas prides himself that he is one of his friends… When in the last days of his public life, Jesus proclaims on the Temple forecourt: "I and the Father are one"[7], this solemn statement is felt as blasphemy by the Sanhedrists, and Nahum, at their head, drives Jesus away with stones.
Just after the earthquake following the Passion, Maria Valtorta gives us this surprising dialogue: "You know that Nahum is crippled… Nahum was with the others like him and I do not know what happened to him, whether it was a stone or a blow. I know that he is broken and understands nothing anymore. He looks like a beast, he drools and moans, and yesterday, with his only healthy hand, he grabbed by the throat his… master who had come to his home and he shouted, shouted: Because of you! Because of you![8]"..
How Maria Valtorta, bedridden and without documentation, could have known of this fact, if not by an authentic revelation? A document of the Talmudic tradition indeed mentions that "in his old age, Nahum was paralyzed in the hands and feet, and suffered various troubles"?[9]