I. LAZARUS, or Eleazer, Brother to Martha and Mary, dwelt at Bethany with his Sisters, near Jerusalem; and Jesus Christ did him the Honour sometime to go and lodge with him, when he came into this City. One Day while Jesus was beyond Jordan with his Apostles, Lazarus fell sick;1 and his Sisters sent Information of this Accident to our Saviour, telling him, that he whom he loved was ill. Jesus upon receiving Notice of it said, This Sickness is not unto Death, but for the Glory of God and his Son. He abode two Days longer in the same Place, and then said to his Disciples, that Lazarus was asleep, but that he would go and awake him. He meant that he was dead, and he would restore him to Life. Jesus upon his Arrival found, that he had been already four Days in the Grave. Martha having got Intelligence that he was coming, went to meet him, and said; Lord, if thou hadst been here, my Brother had not now been dead. Jesus replied to her, Thy Brother shall rise again. Martha answered, I know that he will rise again at the last Day. Hereupon Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life: He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
Within a little Time after Mary likewise went to meet Jesus, who was not as yet come into the Town; and he seeing her weeping, groaned in the Spirit, and was himself troubled. Then he asked, Where have ye laid him? They carried him to his Grave, and Jesus wept. When he was come thither, he said: Take away the Stone, which closes the Mouth of the Sepulchre. Lord, said Martha, by this Time he stinketh, for he hath lain there these four Days. Did I not tell you, said Jesus in Reply, that if you believed you should see the Glory of God? The Stone therefore was removed; and Jesus having returned Thanks unto his Father for that he had always heard him, he cried with a loud Voice, Lazarus, come forth. At that very Instant he who was dead came forth bound Hand and Foot, with Grave-Clothes, and his Face wrapped up with a Napkin. Then Jesus said unto them; loose him, and let him go. This Miracle which was wrought, as we may say, at the very Gates of Jerusalem, made a great Noise; and the Priests resolved upon the Death of Jesus, who knowing their evil Dispositions, retired to Ephraim upon the River Jordan, waiting the Time appointed by the Decrees of his heavenly Father.
Six Days before the Passover2, Jesus came again to Bethany, where he had raised Lazarus from the Dead. A Supper was provided for him, and Martha waited. Lazarus was one of those who were at Table with him; and Mary anointed our Lord’s Feet with a very costly Perfume. The Jews observing, that the Resurrection of Lazarus had made a great Impression upon the Peoples Minds, took a foolish Resolution to procure the Death of both; as if our Saviour, who had restored him to Life, when he was dead, was not able likewise to raise him, when he was killed. That Part of their wicked Design, which related to our Saviour, they executed; but holy Scripture does not tell us what became of Lazarus. Saint Epiphanius says3, that there was a Tradition of Lazarus’s being thirty Years of Age, when Jesus Christ raised him from the Dead, and that he lived still thirty Years longer. So that he died by this Account in the 63 Year of the Vulgar Æra. The Greeks say, that he died at Citium, a Town in Cyprus4, where his Sepulchre was to be seen near the Walls of the City; and that there were some Churches in the same Island dedicated to his Honour. The Emperor Leo the Wise5, having built a Church at Constantinople in Honour of S. Lazarus, about the Year 890, sent to Cyprus, when his Body was found near the Town of Citium, in a Marble Tomb, the Inscription whereof imported, that this was Lazarus beloved by Jesus Christ, and raised again by him the fourth Day.
Others will have it, that after our Lord’s Death, the Jews took Lazarus, Mary and Martha his Sisters, Joseph of Arimathea, and some others; put them on Board a Vessel without Masts, all over rotten, and ready to sink, and so exposed them to the Mercy of the Waves upon the Mediterranean; but that by the particular Conduct of Providence their Ship came to Harbour at Marseilles, where Lazarus and his Sisters disembarked, and then began to spread the Light of the Gospel: That Lazarus having been made Bishop of Marseilles, ended his Life there by Martyrdom, after having governed this Church fifty Years. But the Learned reject this Story as having been unknown to all the Ancients, and being without any Marks of Truth sufficient to make Way for its Reception.
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