Lazarus

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Raising Lazarus from the dead by Michael Pacher , 1471–79

Lazarus ( Hebrew אֶלְעָזָר Elʿāzār , German for 'God has helped' ) is the name of two biblical figures: Lazarus of Bethanien was raised from the dead by Jesus according to the Gospel of John ( John 11  EU ) and is considered a saint in several churches; the poor Lazarus comes in a set of Jesus, in the Gospel of Luke ( Lk 16,19-31  EU ) reported parable before.

Numerous legends go back to the figure of Lazarus of Bethany. His relics are said to be in the cathedral of Autun . He is the patron saint of the gravedigger. The Lazarus effect , the recovery of animal species that were thought to be extinct, and the Lazarus phenomenon (that of an apparent resurrection) were named after the resurrected Lazarus .

Origin of name

The name Lazarus is the Latin form of the Greek word Lazaros , which comes from the Hebrew nameאֶלְעָזָר( Elʿazar , “ God has helped”) goes back. Well-known biblical bearers of the name are the third son of Aaron ( Ex 6.23  EU ) as the progenitor of the Israelite priesthood and the son of Abinadab ( 1 Sam 7.1  EU ) as the guardian of the ark . The Hebrew name also comes in the form in the Torahאֱלִיעֶ֑זֶרbefore ( Eliʿezer , “My God has helped”). Above all, these are the names of Abraham's servant , who should inherit his inheritance in the event of childlessness ( Gen 15.2  EU ), and the son of Moses ( Ex 18.4  EU ), whose mention also includes the etymology of the name.

Lazarus in the Bible

Gospel of John

The Raising of Lazarus by Juan de Flandes , around 1500–1510

According to the Gospel of John ( John 11: 1-45  EU ), Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary are special friends of Jesus. After learning of Lazarus' illness in his absence, he stays in northern Israel near the Sea of ​​Galilee for two days and then travels to Bethany , which is near Jerusalem ( Jn 11:18  EU ). Lazarus has died in the meantime and had been buried in a cave for four days when Jesus arrived. Jesus has the stone rolled away from the grave. When Jesus called “Lazarus, come out!”, He left the grave alive - still wrapped in the grave cloths ( Jn 11 : 41-44  EU ).

In the Gospel of John, the act of Jesus is dramaturgically at the beginning of the Passion of Jesus and is therefore considered a sign (Greek σημεῖον semeion ) for the later resurrection of Jesus himself ( John 11.47  EU ). Here as there, God appears as an active power ( Joh 11,40-42  EU ), the Son as authorized by the Father (cf. Joh 5,21  EU , Joh 10,17f.  EU ).

The same story is told - substantially expanded - in the apocryphal secret Gospel of Mark .

Gospel of Luke

Codex Aureus Epternacensis: Parable of the rich man and the poor Lazarus (about 1035-1040)

The parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus speaks of another Lazarus ( Lk 16 : 19–31  EU ). The sick and poor Lazarus lies at the door of a rich man and only desires the chunks that fall from his rich table while dogs lick his sores. After both men have died, the rich man comes to the underworld ("Hades") and sees Lazarus from there lying "in Abraham's bosom". The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to him to ease his torments. Abraham refuses to do this, pointing out that the rich man has already received his share of the good life in this world. Also the request of the rich man to send Lazarus to his bereaved relatives to warn them of the consequences of a lush life is rejected by Abraham with reference to the instructions of the Torah and the additional reason: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets , they will not be convinced either if someone rises from the dead ”( Lk 16,31  EU ). This is the only recorded parable of Jesus in which either person has a name.

Lazarus in legends

The story of the risen Lazarus has shaped a number of legends:

Death of the resurrected

Some legends let the resurrected Lazarus sleep peacefully under Emperor Claudius , who ruled the Roman Empire from 41 to 54 AD, while other legends tell that Lazarus was threatened under Domitian , who ruled from 81 to 96 AD . This is said to have asked him to make a pagan sacrifice in vain. After Lazarus objected, Domitian had him thrown into dungeon. There Christ appeared to him and encouraged him. After that, Lazarus was beheaded.

Lazarus as bishop

According to another legend, Lazarus' second home was the Kingdom of Kition with its capital, Larnaka, on Cyprus. Lazarus was therefore the first bishop of Larnaka, installed by Paul and Barnabas , when they traveled to Cyprus. In 890 under the reign of Emperor Leo VI. a sarcophagus with the inscription "Lazarus, the friend of Christ" is said to have been found in Larnaka. A church dedicated to Lazarus was built over the site, today the main church of Larnaka . The sarcophagus in the crypt of this church is now empty. Soon after their discovery, the bones were  brought to Byzantium - today's Istanbul. From there, they were taken to Marseille by crusaders in 1204. The legends of Lazarus as Bishop of Marseille are based on this. According to one of these legends, which dates from the High Middle Ages, Lazarus was the son of a duke who renounced all the vanity in the world. He was abandoned by Jews together with his sisters and his friends Maximin and Cedonius on a ship without oars and sails at sea. This ship landed in Marseille, where Lazarus was elected bishop.

Place of death

A tomb of Lazarus was known in Bethany by the first third of the 4th century at the latest. The church historian Eusebius of Caesarea wrote in 330:

“Christ raised Lazarus from the dead. Until now the place of Lazarus is shown. "

Lazarus is said to have been lying there for the four days until his resurrection. According to Jerome's testimony , there seems to have been a church built shortly before around 390.

This place in Bethany was later named "Lazarion" after Lazarus. Today the place is called El-Azarjeh in Arabic and is located in Palestine . The "L" from Lazarus was obviously misunderstood as the article el and a personal name was formed as el-'azar . In any case, the place name preserves the name Lazarus. On the Saturday before Palm Sunday there is an annual procession from Jerusalem to Bethany; In France, Spain and Italy his festival was celebrated earlier on Palm Sunday.

Memorial days

Resurrection of Lazarus as a motif in art

Visual arts

The resurrection of Lazarus is a central theme of the painting, v. a. in the Renaissance . Even in the earliest depictions of catacomb painting and on early Christian sarcophagi , Lazarus and the resurrection were depicted particularly frequently as a symbol for the power to overcome death. The earliest known depiction of the story of Lazarus is a mural from the 3rd century . It is located in room XIII of the Catacombs Santi Pietro e Marcellino in Rome. In addition to paintings, the Lazarus theme has also been depicted in ivory carvings , statues , frescoes, and other types of fine arts . The resurrection of Lazarus is also a common theme in the visual arts of today. Painters such as Alfred Leslie , Ian Pollock , Herbert Falken and Jesus Mafa have taken on this topic.

Movie

Apart from Bible adaptations, the figure or name of Lazarus - always alluding to the resurrected Lazarus in the Gospel of John - is used in many films and series where the motif of resurrection or rebirth is concerned.

  • Lazarus ( Samuel L. Jackson ), the protagonist of the film Black Snake Moan , gives Rae ( Christina Ricci ) a new life.
  • Dr. Marian Lazarus ( Frances Sternhagen ) awakens the fighting spirit and will to live of the protagonist Marshal O'Niel ( Sean Connery ) in the film Outland - Planet of the Damned .
  • The name of the psychological thriller The Lazarus Project (2008) and the utopian government project on which the film is based is derived from the report on the raising of Lazarus.
  • In the fourth season of the mystery series Supernatural , the first episode is called "Lazarus Rises".
  • In the sixth episode of season 29 of the British science fiction series Doctor Who , Professor Lazarus builds a machine that makes it possible to become younger.
  • In the movie Galaxy Quest , the name of the alien doctor and healer Dr. Lazarus.
  • In the science fiction film Interstellar (2014) by Christopher Nolan, the first space explorations before the action around the endurance is called "Lazarus missions".
  • In series of the Arrowverse , u. a. Arrow , Oliver Queen ( Green Arrow ) has his dying sister Thea Queen heal with the help of the Lazarus Pit . Later in the series, the already dead Sara, aka Black Canary , is also brought back to life with the help of the pit.
  • The film Happy Like Lazzaro (2018) describes the resurrection of the main character in the modern world after he died in an anachronistic , feudal island society. The film also plays with motifs from the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus , for example when the nobleman Lazarros' dog sniffs bread.

radio play

  • In the series Revelation 23 , episode 30 (2009) with the title "Lazarus" was published. The plot is about the reappearance of a man who has been declared dead.

literature

The figure of Lazarus was often used or quoted in literature. Lazarus is important as part of Heinrich Heine's cycle of poems Romanzero . Heine chose this biblical figure as the self-portrait of the exiled poet. Even Fyodor Dostoyevsky used the resurrected Lazarus in his novel Crime and Punishment . In addition, the figure appears u. a. in the novella Lobgesang auf Leibowitz by Walter Miller .

comics

In editions of the US publisher DC Comics , the eco-terrorist Ra’s al Ghul procures eternal health and life by bathing in so-called Lararus pits . The procedure can also be carried out on other living things. The pits also appear in corresponding films (see also the film section ).

music

The story of the risen Lazarus was set to music by the romantic composer Carl Loewe as an oratorio ( Die Auferwung des Lazarus ). The action begins with Lazarus who is dying, who is finally awakened by Jesus after his death, and ends with a hymn of praise to the strength and greatness of Jesus, who as God's right hand has power over life and death. Only a version for piano or organ , choir and soloists is preserved as a source, which is sometimes arranged for orchestra in today's performance of this rarely performed work .

In 1820 Franz Schubert wrote his oratorio Lazarus , which has only survived as a fragment. In 1996 the Russian composer Edison Denissow completed Schubert's fragment.

The Spaniard Cristóbal Halffter created an opera called Lázaro , which premiered on May 4, 2008 in the Kiel Opera House.

The chamber oratorio with the title Lazarus was created in 2017 from the collaboration of the composer Michael Starke and the Hamburg director and author Maximilian Ponader. The oratorio goes back to the biblical story of Lazarus, it represents a modern interpretation of the same.

Terry Callier released the song "Lazarus Man" on his album TimePeace in 1998 .

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released the rock album Dig !!! in 2008. Lazarus Dig !!! .

David Bowie released his last single in December 2015, entitled "Lazarus" from the album Blackstar . The video was released on January 7, 2016, three days before Bowie's death.

In the folk , pop and rock music of the 20th and 21st centuries, the figures of Lazarus play a role in numerous works, with the figure of the risen Lazarus also appearing much more frequently, according to its cultural and historical significance.

Others

Especially in the Slavic languages , Lazarus in the form Lazar is a given name that is still used today. The first name Lazarus was also known in Germany and France, but is rare today.

The Order of Lazarus or Order of Saint Lazarus (full name: Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem) was a Christian knightly order that was founded in Jerusalem in the 12th century as a spiritual order of knights and its origins in one of Saint Lazarus of Bethanien has a leprosy house (Leprosorium), which was located outside the city wall, near the New Gate and which had been run by Armenian monks for ages. The seat of the Grand Magisterium was Jerusalem, then Boigny. In the centuries of his work he has become known beyond Jerusalem as the order of nursing. His hospital activities have received their historical recognition in the emergence of the term "Lazarett" and in the green cross of the pharmacists. For centuries the order was involved in the hospital care of mainly lepers. The order carries a green eight-pointed cross as a symbol.

The Catholic male order of the Lazarists takes its name from the church of its first mother house , Saint Lazare in Paris, which is dedicated to St. Lazarus is consecrated.

The name of the Neapolitan Lazzaroni (beggar, dispossessed) goes back to poor Lazarus . Karl Marx writes in his presentation of the impoverishment theory and the industrial reserve army in Das Kapital of the “Lazarus layer of the working class” and thus also refers to the poverty of this person.

In technical contexts, the term Lazarus is occasionally used when it comes to a resurrection in the figurative sense ( e.g. data recovery ): The effect of resuscitating “deaf” particle detectors at low temperatures is called the Lazarus effect . The data recovery program Diskdoctor of the AmigaOS operating system names a data carrier "Lazarus" if it can no longer determine its original name during repairs . A browser extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser , which can restore the content of a web form previously filled out by the user after a crash , was also called Lazarus . Furthermore, Lazarus is a visual development environment for the Pascal programming language.

literature

  • Jacob Kremer: Lazarus. The story of a resurrection. Text, history of effects and message from Jn 11: 1-46. Katholisches Bibelwerk, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-460-32401-5 .
  • Valentin Tomberg: Lazarus come out. Four fonts. Edited by Martin Kriele. Foreword by Robert Spaemann. Herder, Basel 1985, ISBN 3-906371-08-5 .
  • Hermann Rocke: The rich man and Lazarus. Konkordanter Verlag, Pforzheim 1988.
  • Meinolf Schumacher : Doctors with the tongue. Licking dogs in European literature. From the patristic exegesis of the Lazarus parable (Lk 16) to Heinrich Heines' 'Romanzero' (= Aisthesis Essay, 16). Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2003, ISBN 3-89528-310-X .
  • Ursula Hennigfeld (ed.): Lazarus - cultural history of a metaphor. Winter, Heidelberg 2016, ISBN 978-3-8253-6546-2 .

Web links

Commons : Lazarus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ After D. Baldi: Enchiridion Locorum Sanctorum Jerusalem 1955, 571, quoted from Kremer, Lazarus , p. 152.
  2. ^ Kremer: Lazarus , p. 152.
  3. ^ Kremer: Lazarus , p. 153.
  4. ↑ Work information from the music publisher Universal Edition .
  5. ↑ www.vornamen-weltweit.de .
  6. ↑ MEW 23, p. 673.
  7. ↑ "XtC": Lazarus - The World's Amiga emulation resource. In: ExoticA Wiki. May 16, 2006, accessed December 10, 2013 .
  8. ^ Seth Wagoner: Lazarus: Form Recovery. August 4, 2011, accessed December 10, 2013 .
  9. ↑ Lazarus: Free Pascal. Retrieved January 23, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Lazarus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lazarus of Bethany
BRIEF DESCRIPTION biblical-historical man
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century
DATE OF DEATH 1st century