Christian fiction; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 -- Fiction
Scaurus proceeded to the account of the raising of Lazarus. “This
narrative,” he said, “is extremely beautiful and may perhaps have had
some basis of historical fact. Luke speaks of a Lazarus, who dies, and
is carried after death into Abraham’s bosom. Some Christians might take
this Lazarus for a historical character. But I do not think any confusion
arising from that story can have had very much to do with the story in
John. The latter seems to me to have been thrown into allegorical form,
so that Lazarus may represent humanity, first, corrupt, mere ‘_flesh
and blood_’; secondly, raised up by ‘_the help of God_.’ ‘My God helps’
is the meaning of Eliezer or Lazarus. Philo sees in the name these two
associations. Also a Christian writer named Barnabas has some curious
traditions that may bear on this name; and so have the Jews. Possibly
John may mean—over and above the man Lazarus—the human race, raised up to
life by the Messiah at the intercession of two sisters, representing the
Jewish and the Gentile Churches of the Christians. Similarly I am told
that Christians describe the two sisters Leah and Rachel as representing
the Synagogue and the Church.
“For my part, having spoken to many physicians, and having investigated
some instances of revivification, I have come to the conclusion that
Jesus possessed a remarkable power of healing the sick and even perhaps
of restoring life to those from whom (to all appearance) life had
recently departed. Nay, I am dreamer enough to go beyond anything that
physicians would allow, and to suppose that Christ may have had a certain
power of what I called above _teliatreia_, ‘healing at a distance,’
producing a corresponding _telepatheia_, or ‘being healed at a distance.’
But there is against this particular narrative the objection—not to be
overcome except by very strong evidence indeed—that the other evangelists
say nothing about this stupendous miracle. Having in view Christ’s
precept to the disciples, ‘Raise the dead,’ I see how easily honest
Christians might be led to take metaphor for fact. It is much more easy
to explain how the narratives of the widow’s son and of Lazarus may have
arisen from misunderstanding in the two latest gospels, than to explain
how, though true, they were omitted in the two earliest.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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