Sceva
This Herodian is a former lover of Mary of Magdala. When she meets him again, after her conversion, the confrontation is a trial: he reminds her of a past she wants to forget.[1]
Out of a remnant of love or jealousy, she does not know which, he warns her of a trap laid by the authorities to capture Jesus.[2] He is well placed for this: he is part of the priestly class of the Sanhedrin.
He becomes seriously ill. His woman, worried, comes to beg Jesus to heal him. She is accompanied by sumptuously dressed figures. The woman is ashamed to speak in front of them. Jesus takes her aside. She confides: she is the wife of an influential person at the court of Herod, a Sadducee. He is sick.
" What is the matter with your husband? Why did he not come? And why do you not want Me to go to him?"[3]
She is certain that Jesus knows everything about her unhappy life: her home is "'a hell'" but she still loves her husband.
"«I ask You to cure him to give him time to recover.» The woman is weeping distressingly.
«Poor woman! I cannot cure him.»
«Why, Lord?»
«Because he does not want it.»
«Yes. He is afraid of death. Of course he wants.»
«He does not want. He is not insane, he is not a man possessed unaware of his state, who does not ask to be freed because he cannot think freely. He is not a man with inhibited will. He is one who wants to be what he is. He knows that what he does is forbidden. He is aware that he is cursed by the God of Israel. But he persists. Even if I cured him, and I would begin from his soul, he would revert to his satanic enjoyment. His will is corrupted. He is a rebel. I cannot.»"[4]
The Sadducees who accompany the wife approach and challenge Jesus:
"Are You not satisfying her, Master?"[5]
Jesus responds with passages from the Bible condemning necromancy.[6] He rebukes them vehemently: they wanted to trap him using this woman's misfortune.[7]
The restored Sadducee comes to mock his former mistress, Mary of Magdala (Magdalene), when the death of Lazarus seems inevitable: the power of Jesus, whom she preferred to him, is useless. He savors his revenge.[8]
Where is this mentioned in the work?
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Sceva is known from the Acts of the Apostles.[9] They call him "'chief of the Jewish priests'". With his seven sons, he had become a wandering exorcist. At Ephesus, these exorcists try, in vain, to profit from the name of Jesus: the demons mock them because they have no power, then they attack them. The exorcists must flee naked and covered with wounds.
In Maria Valtorta, the Sadducees allude to the power that is given by the "'sciemanflorasc'". This is a phonetic translation of "'Schem Hammephoras'". This magical practice consisted of invoking the secret name of God: the one the High Priest pronounced once a year in the secret of the Sanctuary. By doing this, the necromancers thought they could bend God to their will (Abbé Bullet, History of the Establishment of Christianity, reprint of 1825, page 140). Nowadays the schemhamphoras has become a magic item, sold as a talisman in specialty shops.