The Second-First Sabbath

The Disciples pluck ears of grain on the Sabbath day, James Tissot, Brooklyn Museum

The episode of the ears plucked by the Apostles The Hungry is reported in Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 2:23-28 and Luke 6:1-5. In the original Vulgate, Luke mentions a detail unique to him: "The second-first Sabbath". This mention quickly disappeared from Catholic Bibles as it seemed anecdotal, incomprehensible and obscure. Only Protestant Bibles have preserved it without really explaining it.

• Clementine Vulgate (Catholic - 1592): Factum est autem in Sabbatho secundo, primo, cum transiret per sata
• Louis Segond Bible (Protestant - 1910): It happened on a Sabbath called second-first, that Jesus was passing through grain fields
• Crampon Bible (Catholic - 1923): It happened on a Sabbath that he was passing through the harvests
• AELF (Catholic - 2013): On a Sabbath day, Jesus was passing through grain fields

Perhaps this brief mention wasn’t essential, yet Scripture lost a detail intended by the evangelist. This is not the only passage where the 1979 Nova Vulgata has cut portions present in previous editions according to specialists.

Maria Valtorta was not a specialist, especially since she received her first Bible only at the beginning of the visions, in 1942, in a popular edition. Before that, she only had the Gospel which she knew by Heart. The passage in question is part of it. Her vision confirms the relevance of previous Vulgate editions and allows explaining this enigmatic mention.

The Lost Mention is Found Again in Maria Valtorta

Maria Valtorta only reports what she sees and hears. She does not explicitly explain what she transcribes as a specialist would. It was Jean-François Lavère who, studying the episode, realized that the "second-first Sabbath" naturally meant the first Sabbath after the second Passover. He formulated his hypothesis in one of his books:

'"The “Second-First” Sabbath. Maria Valtorta does not give a direct explanation of Luke’s phrase, “a second-first Sabbath” (Luke 6:1), which has puzzled biblical scholars for twenty centuries. Saint Jerome reported that when he asked Gregory of Nazianzus about it, he admitted “that he had nothing to answer that could satisfy him.” This expression ‘second-first Sabbath’ seems to indicate a specific time in the liturgical year, and many have thought it related to Passover. But then, why not with the additional Passover? The Valtortian chronology seems to provide a decisive clue: according to the mystic’s descriptions, this episode of the stolen ears without doubt takes place on Saturday, May 6, AD 28, that is two weeks before Pentecost (or the Feast of Harvest, also called the Feast of Weeks – Shavuot), which was on Saturday, May 20 that year. Now, this Saturday, May 6, AD 28 is the first Sabbath after the second Passover. To me, the interpretation is therefore obvious here. But let the exegetes discuss and conclude...”

The explanation indeed seems obvious. Here are the reasons.

Reasons Validating the Hypothesis

• 1 – The hypothesis is grounded in Scripture: the second Passover (Pessa'h Sheni - פסח שני) is indeed codified by the book of Numbers 9:10-12:

“Speak to the Israelites. You shall say: Whoever among you or in future generations becomes unclean by contact with a dead body or is on a distant journey shall still keep the Passover to the Lord. They shall celebrate it on the fourteenth day of the second month at sunset.”

• 2 – It is grounded liturgically: with Shavuot (Pentecost - חג השבועות) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles – סוכות), Passover (Pessah - פסח) is one of the three Pilgrimage festivals of the Jews to the Temple in Jerusalem and the first among them (Cf. Exodus 23:14-17 and Deuteronomy 16:1-16).

• 3 – It is grounded historically: with the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the second Passover logically fell out of use, so much that in the 4th century, when Jerome of Stridon (347-420) questioned his master Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390), the latter replied jokingly that he didn’t know, as Jean-François Lavère recalls in his article:

“One day,” Jerome wrote, “I asked Gregory of Nazianzus, who was my master, what Saint Luke meant by these words: ‘a second-first feast.’ — ‘I will teach you in Church,’ he replied jokingly; ‘because among the acclamations of everyone, if you remain silent alone, at least you will pass alone for an ignorant.’ It is indeed very easy to deceive a simple people by a facility of language who admire what they do not hear.”

• 4 – It is intellectually grounded: many hypotheses have indeed sprung up trying to explain the incomprehensible “second-first Sabbath.” Almost all rely on an explanation inconsistent with Hebrew liturgy or its calendar, the only valid ones at the time this episode took place.

• 5 – It invokes a liturgical calling consistent with the practices of great Religions. We know “the third Sunday after Easter.” Here, the liturgical calling designates the first Sabbath after the second Passover.

• 6 – The calendar matches: the second Passover generally took place in May, which is the case here (May 6, 28 AD).

• 7 – The scene fits perfectly with the hypothesis. Five weeks separate it from Passover and two weeks remain until the Feast of Harvest (Shavuot or Pentecost). This explains why the wheat was still standing but sufficiently ripe to be eaten.

Other Details Support the Authenticity of the Scene

• If the Apostles are The Hungry, it is because they are driven away everywhere contrary to the hospitality duty prevailing in Palestine. Despite the Pharisees who chase them away, the Apostles should have found popular hospitality. But Maria Valtorta explains why this is not the case. The scene takes place in Philistine territory where a visceral hostility reigns since the Wars where the Jewish David faced the Philistine Goliath and where the Jew Samson was betrayed by Delilah bribed by the Philistines, a people now defeated and subjugated.

• Moreover, one cannot fail to notice the dialogue opposing Jesus to the Pharisees (EMV 217.3). It rings true to those who ever faced, in good faith, an argument in bad faith. It is the terrible dialectic of Satan against which only God can struggle, says Jesus in another writing of Maria Valtorta. This is why Jesus replies to the accusations of theft and Sabbath violation only with his divinity: Jesus, merciful God, is master of the Sabbath and of Creation.

Conclusion

Certainly, it is a detail, but it is part of the multiple iota intended by the Spirit who presided over the Gospels. The visions of Maria Valtorta have restored a portion of the public Revelation scratched by time. They highlight its historicity and truthfulness, which Luke cared about.

This reinforces the hypothesis that the vocation of the visions received by Maria Valtorta is precisely to confirm the eternal Gospel, so that none of these Scriptural details be omitted. That is what Jesus declares in the conclusion of the work.

Pius XII, in his encyclical Divino afflante spiritu on biblical studies dated September 30, 1943, § 26, in a way recalls the usefulness of small details:

“That is why the authority of the Vulgate concerning Doctrine does not prevent today — indeed it rather invites — that this Doctrine be also justified and confirmed by the original texts themselves and that these texts be commonly consulted to better explain and show the exact meaning of the Holy Scriptures.”

People who analyze the historical, cultural, and literary context of Biblical texts to better understand what they meant at the time they were written and how they can be interpreted today.