Lazarus of Bethany

LAZARUS OF BETHANY. - Brother of Martha (v.) and of Mary, friend and table companion of Jesus (Jn 11:5, 36; Mt 21:17; Mk 11:11) and raised by him. The resurrection of L. is narrated with many details in Jn 11.

To the rationalists who claim to discern in this account a mere symbol of the spiritual resurrection of the sinner, one may point out the precision of these details which, in the evangelist's intention, were meant to serve as means of verification for the historical truth of his account. Note the circumstances of place (at Bethany, about 15 stadia from Jerusalem: 11:17), of time (dead for 4 days), the fear of the stench, the minute description of the tomb, of the burial cloths, the indication of friends and adversaries, the consequences of hatred that arose in the latter, Sadducean chief priests (who denied the resurrection) and who later wished to kill Jesus (Jn 11:53) and L. himself (12:10). Some details even seem counterproductive for John's purpose, which is to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus. To what end would he have invented the weeping, his human prayer?

To the objection drawn from the silence of the Synoptics, it is observed that they had already sufficiently demonstrated that Jesus had the power to raise the dead (the daughter of Jairus: Mk 5:21-34 and parallels; Mt 11:5; the son of the widow of Nain: Lk 7:22); in their compositional plan they intended to limit themselves to the ministry of Jesus in Galilee and in Perea, reserving the discussion of that carried out in Judea proper until after describing Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

The objections that speak of an awakening from apparent death (it is enough to think of the 4 days!), or of an amplification of the accounts about the beggar Lazarus (Lk 16:20-31) or about Martha and Mary (Lk 10:38-42), have no substance.

The legend that L. evangelized Provence and was bishop of Marseilles dates back to the 11th-12th century. More reliable are the Eastern reports that show the relics of L. at Kition (Larnaca, Cyprus). In the Roman Martyrology L. is commemorated on 17 Dec. In the Ambrosian rite the fifth Sunday of Lent is called "of L."

Pietro De Ambroggi

ICONOGRAPHY

It soon drew from the Gospel of St. John the representation of the miracle of the resurrection of L. to demonstrate faith in the omnipotence of Jesus Christ, in death and in the certainty of the resurrection (I Cor. 15:13 ff.). The frequency of this scene in both the paintings and the cemetery sculptures truly attests to this certainty, according to the expression of Tertullian "fiducia christianorum resurrectio mortuorum" (De Resurr. carnis: PL 2, 841).

G. Wilpert has listed over 50 examples in paintings (Pitture, p. 208); in sarcophagi too there are at least as many examples, both in Rome and in Ravenna, Terni, Auch, Arles, Cahors, Clermont-Ferrand, Le Mas d'Aire, Luci de Béarn, Tarascon, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Istanbul.

In some sarcophagi intended to contain a deceased woman, the figure of L. according to Wilpert took on a female face (Sarcofagi, II, pp. 202-203 and plates 139 and 212, 2).

The representation of the miracle was also scratched into marble slabs containing inscriptions (examples in O. Marucchi, I monumenti del Museo Pio-Lateranense, Milan 1910, plates 35, 5; 57, 10, 15; G. Schneider-Graziosi, Il labaro costantiniano e la risurrezione di L. sopra due marmi del cimitero di Priscilla, in Nuovo bull. di arch. crist., 19 [1913], p. 137, fig. 3). The resurrection of L. is recalled by Damasus in the profession of faith dictated for his epitaph (A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, n. 43, Vatican City 1942) and two hexameters from it were repeated in the epitaph of a certain Seberianus (O. Marucchi, op. cit., plate 52, n. 37).

In non-cemetery art the scene existed in biblical cycles, as attested by the distich dictated by Prudentius for a basilica of Zaragoza (PL 60, 106); the mosaic scene existing in S. Martino in caelo aureo (493-526), today S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 798). It was also depicted on terracotta lamps, both from Carthage (A. Héron de Villefosse, Lampe chrétienne figurant la résurrection de L. trouvée à Carthage, in Bulletin de la Société des antiquaires de France, 1917, pp. 136-39); and in Alexandria in Egypt (R. Pagenstecher, Die Auferwechung des Lazarus auf einer römischen Lampe, in Bulletin de la Société archéol. d'Alexandrie, new series, 2 [1909], pp. 267-72). The scene was also woven into fabrics, as testified by St. Asterius, bishop of Amasea (PG 40, 166); it is often found in gilded glass (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana, Prato 1881, plates 177, 6-8; 178, 3). It is also found in the silver capsella of Brivio from the 5th century (Venturi, I, p. 521, fig. 450). In ivories, as in the diptych of Palermo, from the 5th century (Venturi, I, fig. 382); in the capsella of Brescia (J. Kollwitz, Die Lipsonothek von Brescia, Berlin 1933), and on the reverse of the diptych of Boethius in the same city (A. Muñoz, Le pitture del dittico di Boezio nel Museo cristiano di Brescia, in Nuovo bull. di arch. crist., 13 [1907], pp. 5-14); in a covering of an Evangelary from the Treasury of the cathedral of Milan; in the ivory capsellae of the Museo civico of Bologna and of Darmstadt (G. Stuhlfauth, Die altchristliche Elfenbeoplastik, Freiburg im Br. 1896, pp. 30 and 118); in a tablet of the Museum of Strasbourg (id., op. cit., p. 165). The scene is also found on a thin bronze sheet discovered at Vermand, near St-Quentin (A. Danicourt, Etude sur quelques antiquités trouvées en Picardie, in Revue archéol., 1 [1886], pp. 92-93).

In all the monuments mentioned, the tomb of L. is always represented by a Roman sepulchral monument with a roof and a pediment. This style is maintained also in late frescoes, as in S. Giovanni a Porta Latina, or on the doors of Benevento, Pisa and Monreale. In the purple codex of Rossano, however, L. emerges from a cavern (A. Muñoz, Codex purpureus Rossanensis, Rome 1907, plate 1). From this type depend the scenes of the resurrection of L. that are seen in the Coptic Gospel of the National Library of Paris (ms. copt. n. 13, fol. 253), the frescoes in the biblical cycles of S. Urbano alle Caffarelle and of S. Angelo in Formis, and in mosaic at Monreale; the small mosaic scene with a gold background in a binding of a liturgical book in the Opera del Duomo in Florence, etc. Also in Giotto's fresco, in the Scrovegni chapel (Padua), L. emerges from a cavern.

As has already been said, the legend that Provence was evangelized by L. and his sisters Martha and Magdalene is no older than the 11th century and comes from the abbey of Vézelay at the time of Abbot Geoffrey. (L. Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, I, 2nd ed., Paris 1907, pp. 321-59). The legend that L. was bishop of Marseille may have been facilitated by the tomb of the bishop Lazarus of Aix in the 5th century deposited in the crypt of S. Vittore in Marseille (G. Morin, St Lazare et st Maximin, Paris 1897). But in reality St. Jerome attests that Paula saw near Bethany the sepulchrum Lazari (Ep. 108; PL 22, 887).

Ado in his Martyrology indicates him on 17 September without mention of place. A monk Bernard gives him as bishop of Ephesus for 40 years; in the Greek Synaxaria the commemoration of the translation to Constantinople from Cyprus in the year 899 by order of the emperor Leo VI is found under different days (H. Delehaye, Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopol., coll. 144, 146, 544, 548, 658, 660; Saints de Chypre, in Anal. Boll., 26 [1907], pp. 257-58).

The cathedral of Autun, dedicated to St. Nazarius until the beginning of the 12th century, changed its name to S. L. when around 1147 it was believed to possess the relics of St. L. the risen. Marseille, however, did not claim these relics, which it supposed had been put in safety at Autun from the raids of the Saracens. Behind the altar of the cathedral of Autun stood the monument erected by a monk named Martin at the time of bishop Stephen II (1170-89) in the form of a small church in white, red and black marble with a small lower vaulted space containing in the middle a sarcophagus with the inscription on the lid Lazare veni foras and the four statues of St. Peter, St. Andrew, St. Martha and St. Magdalene (fragments today in the Museum of Autun). - See plate LXIII.

Enrico Josi