They decide to erase him from the record. He appears in none of the gospels written while the majority of the disciples are alive. Nor does he feature in the letters of Paul, who is equally sensitive to the inconvenient fact of Lazarus.
Jesus himself had predicted they would have to act: ‘If anyone says to you at that time, “Look! Here is the Messiah! Or Look! There he is!” — do not believe it. False Messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, the elect’ (Mark 13: 21–22).
There is only one true messiah. Jesus is the son of god and he ascends into heaven. Lazarus stays behind. He increasingly resembles a fake, a trick, an ordinary man. He must be shifted aside. None of his words will be remembered, and if the disciples have their way then like the son of the widow of Nain even his name will be lost. The disciples influence Mark and Matthew and Luke — no one will touch the incredible story of Lazarus. It gives off an objectionable smell.
Besides, Lazarus can be difficult. He knows more than he should, and not just the Nazareth fact that Jesus casts a shadow. The story of Jesus is finding a durable shape. Surprise revelations from his childhood, or from their friendship, are unlikely to be welcomed with joy.
7
Lazarus, however, is not so easy to finish off. He refuses to be first of the martyrs, his life ruined by Jesus, and knowing what we do about the rest of his days, this never appears to be what Jesus intended.
The story of Lazarus will not stay buried. That’s a pattern with Lazarus, and it is no coincidence that John, the only gospel in which Lazarus features, is the last to be written (85–10 °CE). By this time the other disciples are dead. John can’t quite remember why they wanted Lazarus suppressed, and his story is faithfully revived.
Over the centuries, this process has continued, with information about Lazarus resurfacing at regular intervals. In the oral tradition of the Middle Ages, as preserved by Jacobus de Voragine in The Golden Legend (1260), Lazarus and his sisters are ‘thrown by infidels into a ship without a rudder and launched into the deep, in the hope that in this way they would all be drowned at once’.
The infidels could be Pharisees, or possibly Romans. The powers-that-be are reluctant to keep the conundrum of Lazarus in sight, and they reach the same conclusion as the disciples: no-one wants this story told. Lazarus is pushed out to sea along with the primary witnesses, Mary and Martha.
Reading between the lines, it becomes clear that after the ascension of Jesus, Lazarus lacks direction. He has no rudder, no means of steering the boat, and de Voragine adds that they are also ‘without sails or food’. They do have Mary, with faith enough for three, and she trusts that Jesus is watching. He will not allow Lazarus to perish at sea, by water, not after the fate he sent for Amos.
The ship lands safely on the far side of the Mediterranean, on the coast of southern France. Lazarus has a series of adventures involving the gift of fertility, typically a consolation of the gods, and perhaps a coded affirmation that Lydia has travelled with him. According to Catholic legend, Lazarus saves several mothers and children, before settling in the region as the inaugural Bishop of Marseilles.
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Alternatively, he is buried in the town of Larnaca on the island of Cyprus. This is more likely, as the south-east coast of Cyprus is closer to Israel than Marseilles, and the rudderless ship may have drifted towards land on the island’s volcanic currents.
In 89 °CE a tomb was discovered with the inscription Lazarus, Bishop of Larnaca. Four days dead. Friend of Jesus. Ever since, the succeeding Larnacan bishops have kept the bones of Lazarus safe beneath their magnificent Agios Lazaros Orthodox Church. The Lazarus icon in the church is beardless, incidentally, though his cropped hair is turning grey.
Wherever Lazarus goes, he never escapes his friendship with Jesus, but there is no suggestion in any of the records that Jesus ever appears to him. Lazarus is like everybody else — he simply has to believe.
In Cyprus he settles with his sisters and Lydia in a house fronting the sea. At night, the foreign smell of thyme from the inland bushes can wake him, and he sits up until sunrise for the view across the ocean to Palestine.
Lazarus occasionally receives visitors from Judaea. At first they ask what is beyond, but as time goes by they travel from greater distances and show more of an interest in Jesus.
‘What was he like?’
Lazarus describes Jesus on the shore, watching Amos drown. The pilgrims want Jesus on the cross.
‘There was no cross,’ Lazarus corrects them. ‘He died nailed to an olive tree.’
They prefer the cross, and Lazarus is old and forgetful. Christians everywhere can picture the Roman cross. It is a shared image that unites the oppressed across the empire.
‘Tell us about the sign above his head.’
‘There was no sign.’
On the island of Cyprus, in the town of Larnaca, the local tradition has a story about Lazarus smiling. He lives here for thirty years, until one day in the market he sees an urchin stealing a pot. He reputedly says: ‘the clay steals the clay’, and he smiles.
The nature of this smile is not known.
In other Larnaca traditions Lazarus works miracles, including transforming a vineyard into a salt lake. What is certain, because it is preserved in the architecture of the island even today, is that the episcopal thrones in every church of the town bear the icon of St Lazarus, and none of them the image of Jesus.
The early Jesus Christians failed to erase Lazarus from their Church. In addition to the Gospel of John, and the architectural remains on the island of Cyprus, and the persistent imaginative revivals, Lazarus is embedded in the Christian liturgy.
The followers of Jesus repeatedly insist that Jesus is the son of god.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only son of God.
Centuries of theological exposition have misunderstood the emphasis in this memorable line of the creed. Clearly, no one doubted the arrival of a messiah, and in the Gloria there is the same insistence on identity, on who and not what: For you alone are the holy One, you alone are the lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ.
Lazarus haunts the insistent and foundational words of Christianity. Jesus is the son of god, not Lazarus. Once upon a time it was necessary to insist that this was so. Think back to the pictures, and the images that survive of onlookers bowing down to Lazarus.
The story of Lazarus resists the pressure of the early Church, and miraculously Lazarus survives. He comes back to life in mosaics and sculptures, on recovered crockery and early decorative lamp covers. He is gilded on countless icons, and carved into the monuments of the necropoli of ancient Rome. All anyone has to do is look.
Lazarus is indestructible.
He may even have been happy.
The Larnaca fragment that made Lazarus smile is less convincing than another story offered by the Chinese mystic Wei Wu Wei, in The Tenth Man (1966). Wei claims to know the joke sent by god to make Lazarus laugh.
Ten theology students are travelling from one Master to another. They cross a river in spate, but are separated by the strength of the current. When they reassemble on the other side, the students count each other to check everyone has made it safely across. Each holy man counts nine other students of theology. Alas, they bewail their poor drowned brother.
A passing traveller asks them why they’re weeping. He counts the students and assures them that all ten are alive and well. The students count again, and call the stranger a fool. They refuse to be consoled.