Lazarus of Bethany (1st century), brother of Martha and Mary. The account of his being raised from the dead by Jesus (John 11: 1–44) was the reason for widespread veneration in Jerusalem (witnessed by the Spanish pilgrim Etheria in c.390) and elsewhere. The New Testament writings say nothing about his life after the Resurrection. An Eastern tradition relates that he was placed in a leaky boat with his sisters by the Jews at Jaffa and that they all landed safely at Cyprus, where Lazarus became bishop and died peacefully thirty years later. His relics were translated to Constantinople in 890.
The famous legend connecting him with France originated in the 11th century. According to this, Lazarus and his sisters were placed in a boat without oars or rudder, from which they landed in the south-east of Gaul. They made many converts at and around Marseilles, where Lazarus became bishop and was eventually martyred under Domitian (81–96). It was believed that he was buried in a cave, over which the abbey church of St. Victor was later built: this may be due to confusion with a 5th-century bishop of Aix, also called Lazarus, who was buried in the crypt of this church. Later in the Middle Ages an account of a vision of the next world was attributed to Lazarus.
Both the military Order of Knights Hospitallers and many medieval lepers and leper-hospitals claimed Lazarus as their patron, but this was the fictitious Lazarus in Christ's parable of Dives and Lazarus recounted by Luke (16: 19–31).
The more recent Order of Lazarists, founded by Vincent de Paul, took its name from the Paris church dedicated to Saint-Lazare.
Feast: 29 July; but 4 May in the East for the translation to Constantinople. Chichester cathedral has a fine 11th-century sculpture of the Raising of Lazarus.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- Bibl. SS., vii. 1135–52; H. Thurston in Studies, xxiii (1934), 110–23; G. Morin, ‘Saint Lazare et saint Maximin’, Mémoires de la Soc. des Antiquaires de France, lvi (1897), 27–51; M. Voigt, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Visionenliteratur in M.A., ii (1924); B.L.S., vii. 235–8
