On the Four-Day Lazarus — English

John Chrysostom · PG 50 · cols 641–644 · machine translation (AI, from the page scans)

ADMONITION ON THE HOLY MARTYRS DOMNINA, BERNICE, AND PROSDOCE.

^A ...remaining as virgins, which, though it may be passed over in silence in the former account, yet agrees with what is said: where Chrysostom, inquiring why Domnina anticipated the trial, and cast herself into the river with her daughters before standing before the judge, answers that she did so that no one might corrupt the virginity of the daughters: by which it is insinuated that the judge or tyrant had cast eyes of desire upon the daughters of Domnina. Of the year of this delivered homily we have been able to discover nothing as yet.

To this sermon on the holy women, Chrysostom prefixes the remainder of the previous discourse, where it had been asked why John alone of the Evangelists had spoken of the four-day Lazarus: but after he brought forward the reason, he discoursed on Lazarus not a little in his accustomed style and mode of oratory. However, this homily appears to have been pronounced extempore, like many others which are of equal brevity.

ON THE FOUR-DAY LAZARUS, AND ON THE HOLY MARTYRS DOMNINA, BERNICE, AND PROSDOCE.

^B Why do the Evangelists not always describe the same things? The resurrection of Lazarus gives credence to the resurrection of Christ. — Formerly, beloved, in weaving for you the multi-colored crown of spring, and portraying the season of the year as if on a tablet of discourse, we showed not only groves flourishing and meadows budding and breezes hastening toward revival; but we also declared our own nature to be receiving, at this same time, the symbols of the resurrection; and seeking an argument suitable to the season, we brought forward the revived Lazarus. But, unable to complete our promise in the first attempt of the discourse, we concluded the speech; and having, before all, inquired for what reason Lazarus, while omitted by the other Evangelists, was recorded by John alone, we said that the Holy Spirit, anticipating suspicion of fiction, permitted the Evangelists not to describe the miracles of the Savior by assembly and agreement, but enabled one to leave something for another, making it a clear proof that the Gospels were not written by them basely, nor by preparation, nor by signal, nor for the sake of favor, and so that all things, when the manifest appears to be lacking, might clarify the uncurious truth. But these matters having been sufficiently prepared for us then, let us consider what is the opportune need for the miracle of Lazarus among the Evangelists. For the Savior, having often spoken to the disciples concerning the passion, and observing them shuddering at such a report, and suspecting it to be of weakness rather than of economy, and trembling as if agitated by human reasonings, therefore, as the passion was already approaching, and the cross was about to be fixed, he raised Lazarus who had died, that he might teach them by deed that the passion and the cross were not of weakness, but that he might persuade those present that he commands even death, and calls back the soul released from earthly bonds. And by a certain design he undergoes the voluntary death, perhaps also prefiguring in Lazarus the resurrection after three days, and by the short term of the stay under the earth comforting the fainthearted, and necessarily loosening the fear of the disciples at the threshold of the cross, and showing that what was granted by him to another would easily exist for himself also, through these very works refuting those who doubted, and in such a way attaching voices to events, and speaking almost through the things he did: "I have nowhere left the assumed humanity unmixed with divine action, but now as man, and now as God I [act], in one way showing the nature, in another confirming the economy, and teaching to attribute the humbler things to the humanity... ^C ...to the disciples, to the Evangelist.

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this is, and by the power over passions, declaring that the passions were voluntary. As God, through the fast and abstinence of forty days, I restrained nature; but afterwards, as man, I hungered and grew weary. As God, I calmed the raging sea; as man, I was tempted by the devil. As God, I cast out demons; as man, I am to suffer for men. But lest you suspect that this happens through infirmity, before death arrives, I call back the one held by death to life; and after I have declared the power and operation of the divinity, then I lay down the ancient debt of humanity; after I have loosed the bonds, then I am bound by bonds; and by the very things themselves I demonstrate that I have the power to lay down my life, and that I have the power to take it up again ^A (John 10:18). This is the Savior's doctrine exhibited by the works themselves; for if it were not this, and if He had not in a certain way concerted His miracle at the tomb of Lazarus, He would by no means, after the infirmity of Lazarus had been announced to Him while He was on His journey—for, He says, His sisters sent to the Lord, saying, "Behold, he whom you love is sick" (John 11:3)—would by no means have delayed after such a message. But just as He acted toward the centurion and the Syrophoenician woman, when He healed the son of the former though absent, and the daughter of the latter likewise absent, so He would have acted toward Martha, who was indicating the sickness of her brother. But now, of set purpose, He waits until ^B he dies; the delay is made longer, and He defers His coming out of providence, so that He might display the victory won over death even before the contest of death; and He stays for three days, so that the reality of death might be manifest. And while the Jews are present, He commands the tomb to be opened, so that He might render them, who were pushing Him, witnesses of the miracle; and through prayer and the invocation of the Father, He raises Lazarus, so that He might not seem to be acting against the laws of the Creator. And look at the thing as altogether stupendous: He did not say, "Lazarus, revive," but what? "Lazarus, come forth" (John 11:43), speaking to things that are not as though they were, so as to show to those present that He Himself is the God of the living and not of the dead; so as to demonstrate that the divine command can be delayed by no obstacle, and at the same time to call back to the memory of those present Him who said: "Let there be a firmament," ^C and "Let the waters be gathered into one collection," and "Let the earth bring forth the herb of hay," and "Let the waters bring forth the creeping things of living souls" (Gen. 1:6, 9, 11, 20). "Lazarus, come forth": and this for the greater and firmer faith of those gathered, so that the wrappings and the bandages might testify to the death, and the obedience without delay, and the fear restrained by nothing, might preach the Lord's authority. "Lazarus, come forth": and he who was bound arose, and the corpse felt, and the dead man obeyed, and the bound man ran, and the one who was lamented leaped. Why does the Savior now make use of a loud cry? For the evangelist says: "When He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth'" (John 11:43). Perhaps by the cry He indicated the future resurrection; for "The trumpet shall sound," he says, "and the dead shall rise" (1 Cor. 15:52). While many ^D things abound for me to say upon this argument, I am dragged to another, and I am compelled to come from tomb to tomb.

On the holy martyrs Domnina, Bernice, and Prosdoce.

It is fitting that the tomb of Lazarus be compared with other tombs; nor, as it seems to me, is the death of the women celebrated at the tomb itself inopportune. There is the tomb, and here also is the tomb; but the open tomb of Lazarus declares the power of Christ, while the tomb of the women, though closed and yet working, preaches the grace of Christ. There, the dead man runs from the tomb above nature; here, the women run to the tombs beyond nature. There is a sign of divine power; here, proof of a noble soul. There, Lazarus exits the gates of death; here, the female race boldly approaches the gates of death. There, after death is the resurrection; here, it is life. There, death is violently plundered; here, death is openly trampled. Him, death hurriedly restored, having taken the loan of life; or rather, as it says, "Women received their dead from the resurrection" (Heb. 11:35), so God commanded; these, however, passed from a temporary life to perpetual life, the mother and daughters, who have gathered us today: the mother, pious, who bore the child, and the daughters, free from birth-pangs; the mother who loosed virginity toward the birth of virgins, the mother who bore chastity, the mother who brought forth virgins according to the natural law. The tyrant who everywhere brings war upon the pious, who turns the sword to the blood of his fellow-tribesmen in barbarian slaughter; that tyrant who persecutes Christ, whom he cannot see; the tyrant who trusts that through the sheepfold he can plunder the Shepherd Himself; the tyrant who attempts to shoot at heaven, who envies the kingdom of Christ being extended—was this, who was persecuting and celibate, and those inaccessible virgins, who were struggling. Money was being plundered; the fatherland was being left behind. Soldiers—breakers of walls, who were compelling men to adore the image of Nebuchadnezzar according to the interpretation of the mind—were dragging these lovers of modesty and decorum (Dan. 3). But what the Babylonian furnace did for that triad of martyrs, here also, loosening the bonds of body and soul, He dismissed the souls free so that they might fly to heaven. That serpent undertook the matter, who pursued Eve in paradise, who circumvented simple and innocent manners; he, when he saw the river turned into a pool of the bath, and the channel imbued with the divine Spirit, pursuing those blessed ones even to that river, was repulsed by those waters mingled with spiritual fire; and revolving his pride in his mind, he was lamenting the fall of his old engines. He was beholding women, once opportune and fearsome for his deceits, now boldly struggling against death, and the heel, which he wished to supplant, he was watching jumping from earth to heaven. But after we have sufficiently pursued the praises of the trophy-bearing women, and have added what is useful to the argument, and have adorned the old tomb with the new tomb, and have joined the wondrous resurrection with the abiding death, and have proposed examples to men and women for virtue and piety, after we have shown the famous passing and the desired resurrection, let us give thanks to Christ, who has the power of life and death; to whom be glory and empire, together with the Father and the holy and life-giving Spirit, unto the ages of ages. Amen.