Lazarus

Lazarus of Bethany is known from the Gospel of John as the brother of Mary and Martha and as the man whom Jesus raised from the dead. The evangelist identifies him with Bethany, a village on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem in first-century Judea, and describes him as one whom Jesus loved. When Lazarus became ill, his sisters sent word to Jesus, who delayed two days before setting out. By the time Jesus reached Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. In the presence of the sisters and a crowd of mourners, Jesus had the stone taken away, prayed, and called Lazarus forth; he emerged still bound in the grave cloths. The Gospel presents the episode as a sign that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and it reports that many of those who had seen what Jesus did believed in him.

The same Gospel states that six days before the Passover Jesus again came to Bethany, that Lazarus was among those at table, that Martha served, and that Mary anointed Jesus with costly ointment. John also records that the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well as Jesus, because on his account many were going away and believing in Jesus. Beyond these scenes the New Testament gives no information about Lazarus’s birth, occupation, marital status, children, or the time and place of his eventual death. No first-century source outside the Fourth Gospel mentions him. All later itineraries therefore rest on ecclesiastical tradition rather than on contemporary documentation, and no historically verified year of birth or of final death can be given.

Eastern Christian tradition, attested in medieval Cyprus and in Byzantine liturgical sources, holds that Lazarus left Judea under pressure from the authorities and settled on Cyprus. He is remembered there as the first bishop of Kition, the ancient city on whose site Larnaca stands. In the late ninth century, during the reign of the emperor Leo VI, a church was erected at Larnaca over a tomb associated with him; an inscription connected with the shrine refers to Lazarus as the friend of Christ who had been four days dead. Relics were translated from Cyprus to Constantinople in the late ninth century, an event commemorated in the East on 17 October. The principal Eastern celebration of the raising itself is Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday. A well-known pious legend in the Orthodox world claims that after his return to life Lazarus never smiled again, save once when he saw someone steal a clay vessel.

Western medieval tradition, especially as developed in Provence and as retold in the Golden Legend, placed Lazarus in a boat with Martha, Mary Magdalene, and other disciples, cast adrift from the Holy Land and landing in southern Gaul. In that narrative he became the first bishop of Marseille, and later relic claims were attached to Marseille and to Autun. Modern historical scholarship regards the Provençal story as a medieval legend, not as a recoverable first-century journey. In the Roman Martyrology Lazarus of Bethany is commemorated on 17 December. He is to be distinguished from the poor man named Lazarus in the parable of Luke 16, a figure in a teaching story rather than a historical biography, although medieval charity, leper hospitals, and the Order of Saint Lazarus frequently blended the two. Lazarus remains, for the historian, a first-century Judean disciple whose later life cannot be reconstructed with certainty, and for the churches a saint whose cult is especially strong at Larnaca and in the liturgies of Holy Week.