The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me
 Cover page of the 2nd French edition (2016)
| |
| Work Details | |
|---|---|
| Author | Maria Valtorta |
| Writing Period | From January 16, 1944 to April 28, 1947 |
| Visions | 652 |
| Manuscript pages | Approximately 9,000 |
| Volumes | 10 |
| Pages | More than 5,300 |
| Distribution | |
| Translations | 30 languages, including Italian |
| Authorized resellers | List by country |
| Read the work online | maria-valtorta.org valtorta.fr |
| First edition in Italian | |
| Title | Il poema dell’Uomo-Dio |
| Publication | 1956-1959 |
| Publisher | Tipografia editrice M. Pisani |
| French translation 1st edition | |
| Title | The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me |
| Translator | Félix Sauvage |
| Publication | 1979 |
| Publisher | Valtortian Editorial Center |
| French translation 2nd edition | |
| Translator | Yves d'Horrer |
| Publication | From December 2016 to January 2017 |
| Publisher | Valtortian Editorial Center |
The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me is a literary work considered inspired[1] and constitutes the principal writing of the mystic Maria Valtorta. It consists of « dictations » and « visions » received over approximately three years, faithfully handwritten in simple school notebooks of the era between 1944 and 1947.
These « visions » and « dictations » concern scenes from the life of Jesus 2,000 years ago. They were first published in 1956 under the title The Poem of the Man-God and, from 1993 onwards, under the title The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me.
Originally, this life of Jesus circulated in typed copies by Father Migliorini, her confessor: a huge task. It was in this form that, in 1947, Pius XII personally became acquainted with it. He then encouraged its publication in these terms:"Publish the work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion as to its origin, whether extraordinary or not. Those who read it will understand."
This life of Jesus was published in 1956 in a poor edition in four volumes and anonymously, which was Maria Valtorta’s wish and Jesus’ request: it was to remain anonymous until her death.
This narration sparked controversy and was placed for some time on the Index of Forbidden Books for lack of imprimatur, but only after the death of the Sovereign Pontiff[2].
Scope and Organization of Content
The entirety of Maria Valtorta’s transcriptions fits into 122 school notebooks, totaling 13,193 manuscript pages.
Among these, about 9,000 manuscript pages compose The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me. In Italian, this collection comprises 10,800,000 characters (including spaces), making it the longest biography of Jesus in history. Maria Valtorta wrote it between January 16, 1944 (vision of the Wedding at Cana) and April 28, 1947 (at a cumulative daily pace of 3 years and 3 months, exactly matching the duration of Jesus’ public life), with an estimated total working time of some 6,000 hours. She transcribed quickly to be as faithful as possible to the dialogues she heard. She sometimes wrote for 18 continuous hours, with constant attention, without any drop in quality either in content or form. This fact alone constitutes an unprecedented productive performance in literary history.
Out of all the visions received by Maria Valtorta, 166 visions (26% of the content) were received non-chronologically. They were then arranged in order by the publisher, with Jesus himself giving instructions for classification during dictations[3]. Jesus said about this:
"Out of necessities of comfort and instruction for you, my beloved, and for others, I was forced to follow a special order to give the visions and the related dictations. But I will indicate to you, when the time comes, how to arrange the episodes of the three years of public life. The order of the Gospels is good but not perfect chronologically. A careful observer notices this. The one who could have given the exact order of events—since he stayed with me from the beginning of evangelization until my ascension—did not do so. Indeed, John, a true son of the Light, was concerned with making the Light shine through his garment of flesh to the eyes of heretics who attacked the reality of Divinity enclosed in human flesh. The sublime Gospel of John achieved its supernatural purpose, but the chronicle of my public life was not helped by it. The three other evangelists are similar concerning the facts but they alter the order of time, since only one of the three was present during almost my entire public life: Matthew, and he wrote it down only fifteen years later. As for the others, they did it even later, after hearing the account from my Mother, Peter, and other apostles and disciples. I want to guide you to gather the facts of the three years, year by year. […] If you make a book, it will be better to put the events in a row, in chronological order rather than by categories, limiting yourself to specify at the beginning or in a note to which category each episode belongs." (EMV 468.1-7).
It should also be noted that she transcribed in parallel other dictations and visions which would compose other important works: The Notebooks, The Book of Azarias, The Journals, etc.
French translation of 2016, navigation by the contemporary calendar: valtorta.fr
Notable Points
By comparison, In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust—9,609,000 characters (including spaces)—is listed in the Guinness World Records as the longest novel in history. Marcel Proust wrote it in 16 years and died of exhaustion. The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me is longer (10,800,000 characters) and was written in five times less time (3 years and 3 months).
As extensive as it is, Maria Valtorta's work as a whole remains within the practices of Heaven if not of Earth: her 13,193 autograph pages are comparable to the 10,000 pages of the venerable Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947), the 22,000 pages of Saint Veronica Giuliani (1660-1727), and very far from the 65,000 pages of Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida or Conchita (1862-1937).
Conformity with the Canonical Gospel
Original and Evangelical Expansions
This private revelation reports previously unknown facts or those only briefly mentioned in the Gospel. For example, we find in the Work:
- 179 detailed miracles performed by Jesus (30 in the New Testament);
- 97 complete parables (39 summarized in the New Testament);
- 77 printed pages for the Sermon on the Mount, from EMV 169 to EMV 174 and EMV 176 (6 printed pages in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7);
- The 9 Beatitudes points are elaborated one by one over 7 pages (EMV 170);
- About 200 printed pages for the Passion.
According to Jesus' statements in the work, this elaboration serves the authenticity of the eternal Gospel as Tradition has handed down by confirming its historical and doctrinal foundations (EMV 652). To support this coherence, this encyclopedia links the reader, whenever possible, to Gospel quotations and Magisterium texts.
Episodes referenced to the Gospel and original
The four Gospels differ greatly in episode selection: 111 pericopes[4] of 373 are unique to a single Gospel (4 for Mark, 30 for Matthew, 36 for Luke, 41 for John), the other 262 being common to two or three evangelists (sometimes all four, notably for the Passion). The two infancy Gospels (Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2) do not share a single episode.
Maria Valtorta’s visions cover all of them, but sometimes they distinguish episodes typically united by exegesis.
| Distribution of episodes across the 10 volumes | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume | Referenced in the Gospels[5] | Entirely devoted to commentary[6] | Evangelical originals[7] |
| Volume 1 | 31 | 5 | 42 |
| Volume 2 | 13 | - | 68 |
| Volume 3 | 25 | - | 41 |
| Volume 4 | 25 | - | 45 |
| Volume 5 | 20 | - | 48 |
| Volume 6 | 11 | - | 58 |
| Volume 7 | 9 | - | 59 |
| Volume 8 | 11 | - | 43 |
| Volume 9 | 13 | - | 33 |
| Volume 10 | 17+5[8] | 6 | 24 |
| TOTAL | 175+5[9] | 11 | 461 |
| % | 27.6% | 1.7% | 70.7% |
Publication
Work Timeline
Beginning on Sunday evening, January 16, 1944, the visions constituting the life of Jesus concluded on Monday, April 28, 1947[10]. Maria Valtorta then wrote a certification asserting that the gift from Heaven she received is untouchable.
This is a genuine certification as she confided to Mother Teresa Maria di San Giuseppe, her spiritual mother. She was thus assured "that the work will remain in the form dictated and enlightened by God, without any of the human revisions that a writer generally uses to perfect his own writings before printing[11]."
This certification was countersigned by Father Sostegno M. Benedetti who visited Maria Valtorta that day. He was the Prior of the Servites of Pisa, near Viareggio, and believed in the supernatural nature of the work, which is why he insisted, with Maria Valtorta’s agreement, on countersigning the page.
Early Translations and the French Translation
Complete translations of the work were released (date of first volume) respectively in:
- 1976: Spanish
- 1979: French
- 1983: German
- 1986: English
Félix Sauvage, a self-taught retired teacher, generously carried out the first French translation of The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me in the last years of his life. It was the first time the Work was fully translated into a foreign language. This translation was published in 1979, one year after his death at age 87, by the Valtortian Editorial Center (CEV). The second and latest French translation, made by Yves d’Horrer and published by CEV starting March 23, 2017, took ten years of work.
Summary
This Work consists of 652 visions divided into 7 parts, spanning 10 volumes and over 5,300 pages.
- Proto-gospel (birth and hidden life of Mary and Jesus): visions 1 to 43.
- First year of Jesus' public life: visions 44 to 140.
- Second year of Jesus' public life: visions 141 to 312.
- Third year of Jesus' public life: visions 313 to 540.
- Preparation for the Passion of Jesus: visions 541 to 600.
- The Passion and death of Jesus: visions 601 to 615.
- From Resurrection to Pentecost (Glorification of Jesus and Mary): visions 616 to 651.
- Farewell to the Work: vision 652.
Style Characteristics
Literary Quality
Maria Valtorta’s pages, especially in Italian, stand out for their very good literary level. All the more so since they were written:
- without outlines, drafts, notes, or preparatory research,
- by hand, in a single flow, very quickly,
- while she was in a very challenging context (extreme physical suffering, Second World War, civil war),
- and almost without corrections.
She sometimes added a few clarifications and comments at the bottom of pages or on attached sheets. These personal additions, distinct from the visions, were generally made on separate sheets when reading the typed pages by Father Migliorini. They were not meant to "correct" the original narrative, which she forbid herself, but to highlight particularly striking features. While these comments should be considered as those of Maria Valtorta, they nevertheless benefit from Heavenly assistance, which explains their high theological standard:
"In these cases (the visions), I am always assisted by Our Lord, by Mary or by the Holy Spirit, who help my memory’s weaknesses by repeating what I must say or suggesting how to say it, whether it concerns heard words or contemplative visions […]. That is why it must be considered certain that what I wrote in the notebooks exactly corresponds to the truth. The same applies to corrections made to typed copies: I have the assistance of Our Lord regarding the Gospel[13], and that of the Holy Spirit for other lessons (the Masses of Angels (Azarias) and St. Paul’s epistles, or other lessons about the Bible)[14]."
The comment on "Mary’s soul remembered God" (EMV 10.8) extends over nine pages. It alone would justify Father Roschini's statement: "Whoever wants to know the Holy Virgin (a Virgin in perfect harmony with the ecclesial magisterium, especially with Vatican II council, the Holy Scriptures, and the Church Tradition) must draw from Valtortian Mariology!"
It is customary in the editorial world to say that a 300-page book, well proofread and corrected, contains on average seven spelling or grammar errors. Maria Valtorta's 13,193 manuscript pages—uncorrected—contain none.
Attention to Details
Maria Valtorta often transcribed proper names phonetically, not hesitating to use four or five different forms for the same proper name to remain as faithful as possible to what she heard at the moment (e.g., EMV 41.3).
This precision in details was explicitly requested by Jesus, who ensures that Maria Valtorta notes scrupulously everything she sees:
"Remember to be very scrupulous in repeating what you see. Even a trifle has value and it is not yours but Mine. Therefore, you are not allowed to omit it. It would be dishonest and selfish. Remember that you are the cistern of divine water where the water flows for all to have access. Regarding the dictations, you have reached the utmost fidelity. In contemplations, you observe attentively, but in the rush to write, and because of your particular health condition and the atmosphere you are in, you sometimes omit some details. This must be avoided; put them at the bottom of the pages but indicate them all[15]."
Jesus sums up this directive as follows:
"The more meticulous and precise you are, the more those who come to me will be numerous[16]."
This fidelity in transmitting the visions guarantees the greatest possible conformity to the original source. Moreover, first-time readers show strong interest in these material details which open them to a deeper and immediate understanding of episodes of the canonical Gospel. They become alive and current.
Indeed, Maria Valtorta’s narratives primarily aim to be the testimony of a lived experience. Their narrative structure closely resembles testimony: the text adopts the smooth sequence of a visual report of what unfolds before her eyes: one scene after another.
Maria Valtorta’s descriptions are rich, precise, detailed, and immersive. They anchor the scenes in tangible reality. They faithfully transcribe the vision authentically, vividly, and evocatively. Maria Valtorta seeks to convey what she has seen, hence this profusion of visual details and sometimes the mention of uncertainties or approximations which authenticate the witness posture rather than that of an author. The text is not composed; it is transcribed.
This immersive approach to the Gospel sometimes puzzles readers accustomed to scrutinizing every word of Scripture, but it recalls the early advice of Saint Ignatius in his exercises: first imagine the Gospel scene before meditating on it.
See also
- The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me – Volume 1
- The Work of Maria Valtorta and the Church
- Analysis of the teachings of the work
- Analysis of data of the work
- Characters from The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me
- Themes addressed in The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me
Notes and references
- ↑ In a dictation on January 28, 1947, Jesus clarifies the nature of the work entrusted to Maria Valtorta: "The work delivered to men through little John [=Maria Valtorta] is not a canonical book. Nevertheless, it is an inspired book that I grant you to help you understand certain passages of the canonical books [...]" (The Notebooks from 1945 to 1950, CEV, p. 330). This passage establishes without ambiguity that The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me does not present itself as a new gospel but as an inspired work, intended to illuminate the Revelation already given and to foster a living knowledge of Christ.
- ↑ The article from the Osservatore Romano justifies the placing on the Index by references to volumes I and II published in 1956 and 1957 while Pius XII was alive. The reasons for condemnation, according to the censors of the Holy Office, therefore existed from those dates. The fact that they waited until 1959 and the release of the last volume to act provides further proof of the protection by Pius XII, who was favorable to the Work he had read. The censors should have acted as soon as the faults were noticed.
- ↑ Example: EMV 174.10; EMV 182.6; EMV 229.4; EMV 273.8; EMV 298.1; EMV 336.1; EMV 352.4; EMV 352.17; EMV 360.16; EMV 378.1; EMV 410.7; EMV 415.7; EMV 418.8; EMV 429.4; EMV 467.12; EMV 468.1; etc.
- ↑ A pericope denotes a passage forming a literary unit or coherent thought, usually in a sacred text.
- ↑ Corresponding to a precise Gospel reference
- ↑ Besides comments included within certain episodes
- ↑ Not mentioned in the Gospels or corresponding to a mere mention
- ↑ Three episodes referred only to the Acts of the Apostles.
- ↑ The difference with the 373 narrative units of the Gospel (pericopes) is explained by the fact that several evangelists may report the same fact. Only the fact is counted here.
- ↑ Feast of St. Zita of Lucca (the diocese of Viareggio) and day of the beatification of Maria Goretti, notes Maria Valtorta in her correspondence (Letters to Mother Teresa Maria, volume 2, April 30, 1947, p. 99). On April 28, she received the vision of Pentecost which closes the Messianic cycle to open that of the Church. Jesus mentions St. Zita (EMV 640).
- ↑ Letters to Mother Teresa Maria, volume 2, April 28, 1947, p. 97.
- ↑ Letters to Mother Teresa Maria, volume 2, April 30, 1947, p. 102. "Silence from Rome. It has now been thirty-three days since Father Berti wrote to announce that the dossier was on the Holy Father's desk... but I believe this is another lie."
- ↑ This refers to The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me.
- ↑ The Journals, July 2, 1948, p.139.
- ↑ EMV 236.12.
- ↑ The Notebooks from 1944, January 25, p. 95. Recalled in the dictation of February 4, p. 112.