Original sin: the Serpent seduces Eve then Adam

Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise, Domenichino (1581-1641)

L’Osservatore Romano commenting on the placing of the work of Maria Valtorta on the Index, retained this criticism, one of four of theological nature:

"Amid such a great display of theological knowledge, one can pick a few... pearls that certainly do not shine for their Catholic orthodoxy. Here and there is expressed, regarding the sin of Adam and Eve, a rather extravagant and inaccurate opinion."

This rather vague accusation finds its origin in a report by Alberto Vaccari from 1949. This report, long buried in the Holy Office file, was only made public with the opening of the archives of the pontificate of Pius XII (2020).

Alberto Vaccari, author or at least inspirer of the L’Osservatore Romano article, accuses Maria Valtorta of reducing original sin to the sexual act, echoing theories that were emerging at his time. Here is the allegedly incriminated text:

"Satan wanted to remove from Man this intellectual virginity, and with his serpentine tongue he flattered and caressed Eve's members and eyes, prompting reflexes and sensitivities which they formerly lacked, for Malice had intoxicated them. [...] That sensation was sweet for her. 'On seeing that the fruit of the tree was good to eat and lovely to look at and pleasing in appearance, she took it and ate it.' "And 'she understood.' Malice had now descended to gnaw at her innards. She saw with new eyes and heard with new ears the habits and voices of the beasts. And she longed for them with a mad longing. "She began sin by herself. She carried it out with her companion. [...] . It is because of her that man has become rebellious towards God and has known lust and death. It is because of her that he has no longer been able to master his three realms: of the spirit, for he allowed the spirit to disobey God; of the moral sphere, for he allowed the passions to rule over him; of the flesh, for he degraded it to the instinctive laws of the beasts. [...] And since then the threefold concupiscence has gripped the three realms of man."

Disorder of the senses leads to the triple concupiscence

Maria Valtorta describes a disorder of the senses leading to the triple concupiscence as explained by the Catechism of the Catholic Church forty-seven years after Maria Valtorta’s dictation.

• § 377: "The 'mastery' of the world that God gave to man from the beginning was realized above all in man himself as mastery over himself. Man was whole and ordered in his entire being because he was free from the triple concupiscence (cf. 1 John 2:16) that subjects him to the pleasures of the senses, to the desire for earthly goods, and to self-affirmation against the demands of reason."
• § 379: "It was this whole harmony of original justice, willed by God for man, that was lost through the sin of our first parents."

In the same work, the Church develops this notion of concupiscence and relates it to original sin:

• § 2515 – In its etymological sense, "concupiscence" can mean any vehement form of human desire. Christian theology gives it the particular meaning of the movement of the sensitive appetite that opposes the work of human reason. The Apostle Saint Paul identifies it with the revolt that "the flesh" wages against "The Spirit". It comes from the disobedience of the first sin. It disorders man's moral faculties and, without being a sin itself, inclines him to commit sins (cf. Council of Trent: Denzinger-Schönmetzer 1515).

• § 2516 – Already in man, because he is a composite being, spirit and body, there exists a certain tension; a certain struggle of tendencies occurs between "the spirit" and "the flesh." But this struggle, in fact, belongs to the heritage of sin, is its consequence, and at the same time a confirmation. It is part of the daily experience of spiritual combat."

Contrary to the opinions of the Holy Office censors (1960) and the Alberto Vaccari report (1949), the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) demonstrated that the opinion expressed by Maria Valtorta was neither "extravagant" nor "inaccurate." Moreover, far from Alberto Vaccari's words, it would have been sufficient to condemn the work.

The theological development by Maria Valtorta

This theological conformity is developed by Jesus in another passage and by the commentary Maria Valtorta makes on it:

In GRM 174.8/9, Jesus says:

"Senses light up in corrupt people and other lusts follow senses.You already know how Eve was corrupted and how Adam became corrupt through her. Satan kissed the woman’s eyes and bewitched them, so that every aspect, so far pure, became impure for her and aroused strange curiosities. Then Satan kissed her ears and opened them to the words of a new science: his own. Eve’s mind also wanted to know what was not necessary. Then Satan showed her eyes and mind, now awake to Evil, things that previously they had not seen or understood, and everything in Eve became sharp and corrupt. And the woman went to the Man, revealed her secret and persuaded Adam to taste the new fruit, so beautiful to the eye and so strictly forbidden so far. And she kissed him and looked at him with mouth and eyes already fouled by Satan’s gloomy disorder. And corruption penetrated Adam who saw, and through his eyes he craved for what was forbidden and he bit it with his helpmate and fell from such height into mud."

In a long note occupying four pages of a folded leaflet inserted in a typed copy, Maria Valtorta explains what the corruption of Eve’s eye and ear consists of. After describing Eve’s original condition "who knew God with justice, saw herself and knew herself in her upper part as daughter of God," but was ignorant of her lower part as animal creature, the note continues:

"Satan, under the appearance of a serpent, attracted the imprudent one, fascinated her as is proper to a serpent, turned his cunning charm into a deadly poison that darkened the woman’s spiritual sight and intelligence; then, with lustfulness and all sorts of insinuations, he revealed the woman to herself. Then Eve saw herself as powerful as God, as if she had freed herself from the mark of every creature: having to obey all that God commands and being limited to doing what God permits. After she had rejected this mark to be 'like God,' the spiritual lust for the 'power to do everything' entered her. This gave rise to the intellectual lust for 'knowing everything': the Good and especially the evil God forbade her to know. On the contrary, the Serpent encouraged her, because it is only by full knowledge of Good and evil that Adam and she would become “like gods,” making their blood and their descendants immortal through their own power; he even proposed himself as master to enable them to know everything. And Eve took him as master. Intellectual lust, daughter of spiritual lust, gave rise to carnal lust. And Eve, who had already misused her sight and hearing for evil, also wanted to misuse touch by taking knowledge of the mysterious fruit, smell by inhaling its intoxicating essence, and taste by biting the bark of a new knowledge to savor its unknown confession. It was then that a concupiscent appetite arose in her to completely consume what she had barely tried: indeed, now deprived of Grace, of her innocence and integrity, what was bad appeared good to her, and she could no longer keep her sensuality under the subjection of reason. She knew herself, knew and wanted her companion to know: she went to him with a bad intention, led him to despise God’s command, tempted him to bite what she had bitten first. After thus making him like herself in lust and malice, she persuaded him to consume what was forbidden because it procured a new immediate sweetness and a future power to be like God by creating by themselves new men on earth under natural laws common to animals and different from those God had established."

The note concludes:

"The two ladders of Satan aim to make man, this child of God, an animal, and the only Son of God become man a sinner. The first descends from spirit to flesh and has 'succeeded' by the fatal fall. The second rises from flesh to spirit and has 'failed' for the following reason: Satan’s design to induce the Messiah to sin and therefore to destroy forever any possibility of man's regeneration to his condition as child of God served, thanks to the perfection of the Man-God, to confirm Christ in his grace as man and thus in his power as Messiah, cause of eternal salvation for the redeemed descendants of Adam."

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