Lazarus – a symbol of penance

Patristic literature from the 4th and 5th centuries provides us with the richest accounts of the theological and ecclesial significance of the raising of Lazarus. On the one hand, we find an expansion of earlier interpretations, in the sense of the universalisation of the penitential symbolism of Lazarus, and, on the other hand, the major commentaries on the Gospel of John, which reflect the maturity of the Christian tradition in the context of the confrontation with Arianism and the definition of Christological dogma. We shall address the theological exegesis of the Johannine episode in the following chapters, but not before analysing here how the penitential symbolism of the resurrection at Bethany takes shape. There is a view amongst specialists that interpreting Lazarus in a penitential sense has no relevance to early Christian iconography 1. Others consider that this hermeneutical approach represents a development of the original baptismal symbolism 2. If we refer to the earliest sources, then the reading of the episode from the perspective of receiving baptism seems to take precedence, but we must immediately add that this symbolism also has a penitential dimension from the very outset, because Lazarus’s burial shrouds were already understood as signs of his sinful condition prior to conversion. With Origen, as we have seen, we enter into a wide-ranging debate concerning post-baptismal repentance, as well as into the realm of what would become the tradition of spiritual identification with Lazarus. Read as the fulfilment of eschatological prophecy, in accordance with the inner meaning of the biblical text, the episode was received as an image of faith and hope in the Resurrection: Christians identified with Lazarus because they believed they would live after death and that they would be raised bodily at the end of the ages. A silent world of Lazaruses awaited, in the shadow of the tombs, the promised light of the day that never ends. But there was also a world of Lazaruses who, within the visible Church, implored God to raise them from the death of sin. Not all of them remained anonymous. On the contrary, some of them were the most renowned voices of faith of that time.

To be a new Lazarus

Pope Damasus himself (366–384), whose sister was called Martha, left a precious epigraphic testimony. His epitaph in hexameter 3, with allusions to classical authors such as Lucretius and Ovid 4, is not only a document of the early days of Latin Christian poetry, but also the only known inscription evoking the resurrection of Lazarus 5, which, moreover, bears a subtle connection to the Resurrection of Christ:

‘Qui gradiens pelagi fluctus compressit amaros, / Viuere qui prestat morientia semina terrae, / Solvere qui potuit letalia vincula mortis / Post tenebras, fratrem post tertia lumina solis / To grant his sister Martha the path to heaven once more / For I believe he will cause Damasus to rise from the ashes”6.

In his poetry, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus also chooses to identify spiritually with Lazarus 7, sometimes to express his faith in the healing he will receive from God 8, and at other times to compare his return from Constantinople to his homeland with the resurrection at Bethany 9. We thus find, in his work, the full range of meanings: from spiritual rebirth through baptism and repentance to healing and liberation from a constraining and perilous life situation. Blessed Jerome follows suit, adding to this identification the passion and severity that were characteristic of him. Thus, in his letter to the nobleman Florentinus, he praises Rufinus, who has recently been baptised, in whom he sees ‘the signs of holiness’, and contrasts this with a penitential self-portrait: ‘I, however, stained by all the filth of sin, await with fear, day and night, to pay my final tribute. Yet, since the Lord unlocks those bound in chains and comforts the humble and fearful with His words, perhaps He may say to me too, as I lie in the tomb of sins: ‘Jerome, come forth!’10

The same literary device, again by contrast with the spiritual condition of a newly baptised person, appears in the letter to Cromatius, the future Bishop of Aquileia, Iovinus and Eusebius 11: “I, however, lying in the tomb of my wickedness and bound by the chain of sins, await the call from the Gospel: ‘Jerome, come out!’” But also in the letter sent to Marcella, which describes the healing of Paula’s daughter, Blessilla, a young consecrated widow who was still attached to her aristocratic status: ‘I saw our Blesilla burning with fever for nearly thirty days without interruption, so that she might learn that the pleasures of the body must be cast aside, for shortly afterwards it will be gnawed by worms. The Lord Jesus came to her too, touched her hand, and lo, she rose and served Him. A certain indifference was felt in her, and, bound by the snares of riches, she lay in the tomb of this age. But Jesus was stirred, and, deeply moved in His spirit, He called out to her, saying: ‘Belsilla, come out!’ At this call, she rose, and, once she had come out, she fed on the Lord12”.

Weaving together in the background the two resurrections—that of Jairus’s daughter and that of Lazarus—as well as references to the healings performed by Christ (‘she rose and served’), the epistolary text above represents one of the most powerful testimonies to the reception of the Gospel miracles in spiritual life and to the way in which they could relate to one another, as is sometimes seen in catacomb art or in sarcophagus carvings 13.

Like Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Blessed Jerome, Saint Ambrose applies the story of Lazarus to himself in a lengthy and deeply moving prayer: ‘O, if only You would deign, Jesus my Lord, to draw near to this tomb of mine, to wash me with Your tears, for in my eyes, which have grown too hardened, I cannot find enough tears to wash away my sins! If You weep for me, I shall be saved. If I am worthy of Your tears, I shall wipe away the foul stench of all my sins. If I am deemed worthy of Your weeping for me for a little while, You will call me forth from the grave of this body and say: ‘Come forth!’, so that my thoughts may not be confined within the constraints of this body, but may rise up to Christ, returning to the light, so that I may no longer dwell on the things of darkness, but on the things of light. For whoever dwells on sin strives to shut himself away within his own conscience. Call Your servant out, then!’14

The comparison with the raising of Lazarus, throughout the entire passage above, confirms the penitential interpretation in a sense that is no longer baptismal, but post-baptismal and inward. It is not so much a matter of sinful deeds as of the prison of the conscience of sin or of sinful thought. Beyond the Platonic echo of the analogy between the body and the tomb, in fact the deepest tomb is that of the soul which lacks repentance and which implores the mercy of Jesus, His saving tears. Saint Ambrose is credited with developing this spiritual identification with Lazarus, so that the emphasis falls on Christ’s compassion for each of those who find themselves in the same situation as His friend from Bethany: ‘If you weep for me, I shall be saved’.

The Tears of Christ

One of the major questions that runs through the interpretation of the raising of Lazarus concerns precisely Jesus’ weeping, which Saint Basil the Great evokes in a homily as a model of moderation: ‘And tears, like everything else, require moderation: for whom one ought to weep, how much one ought to weep, when and how one ought to weep. The Lord’s weeping was not passionate weeping, but instructive weeping. This is evident from His words: ‘Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep! I shall go and wake him up!’ (…) Why, then, did He who was to perform such a miracle deem Lazarus’s death worthy of tears?”15

Jesus’ teaching involves, at the same time, avoiding indifference as a form of animality (‘savagery’), but also degrading despair. Weeping is inherent to human nature, which is why Saint Basil does not hesitate to offer a medical explanation for the production of tears (a consequence of the ‘vapours of sorrow’ accumulated in the brain) and, at the same time, their liberating psychosomatic effect. However, the expression of pain or compassion must reflect the measure of what it means to be human, and here Saint Basil aligns with the Aristotelian understanding of virtue as the mean between deficiency and excess 16: ‘His tears are not a law for weeping, but a fitting measure and a marvellous rule, according to which we ought to endure afflictions with dignity and propriety, remaining within the bounds of nature’17

Jesus’ tears take on a paradigmatic significance: moderation in the natural expression of grief, but, as we see particularly in the Latin-speaking Church Fathers, also an expression of the affection which the incarnate Son of God did not deny Himself. Weeping for Lazarus becomes, in this second sense, a source of consolation…

Thus, in relation to the witnesses of the miracle and to all those who will believe in Him throughout the centuries, Jesus’ tears take on a paradigmatic significance: moderation in the natural expression of grief, but, as we see particularly in the Latin Church Fathers, also an expression of the affection which the incarnate Son of God did not deny Himself. Weeping for Lazarus becomes, in this second sense, a source of consolation, as illustrated, for example, in the correspondence of Blessed Jerome or Saint Paulinus of Nola.

In Epistle 39 to Paula 18, a veritable funeral oration for Blesilla, her daughter, who had died in the year 384, Jerome evokes Jesus’ weeping as a benchmark of affection and compassion, a weeping springing from love, according to another epistolary testimony 19. At other times, again in a funeral context, the Christ-like model imposes a limit on weeping, for death is nothing but a ‘sleep’. Nevertheless, as Jerome confesses, revealing the tension between faith and affection, ‘though I resist, tears flow involuntarily down my cheeks and, caught between the teachings of virtue and the hope of the Resurrection, my mind, whilst holding fast to the faith, is overcome by the feeling of love’20 This expressive virtue of weeping also appears in Paulinus of Nola, in Epistle 13, addressed in a consolatory tone, in the year 396, to his friend Pammachius following the death of his wife, Paulina: Jesus’ tears for Lazarus show just how permissible weeping out of love is 21.

However, a letter attributed to Saint Cyprian of Carthage, intended to comfort and strengthen Turasius following the loss of his daughter, offers us one of the most original interpretations of Jesus’ tears, which could not have contradicted belief in the Resurrection. It was not Lazarus’s death that was mourned, but rather his resurrection (‘doluit Lazarum non dormientem, sed potius resurgentem’)22. Thus, according to the author of this epistle, the example set by Jesus does not in any way consist in the moderate expression of affection or the pain of parting, but in the incomparable value of eternal life, which His weeping affirms in contrast to the life full of suffering on earth. Knowing that He could and would raise him from the dead, Christ did not weep for Lazarus’s death, but because He had to bring him back into a hostile world (‘ad hostilem vitam’). His love for his friend from Bethany is entirely encapsulated in the regret at having to bring him back to life ‘to save others and to confront those who lack faith’. From this emerges the ‘significance’ of the miracle and, at the same time, the mission that was to fall to Lazarus as a witness, although he left no other trace in New Testament memory apart from the direct link between his resurrection and the condemnation of Jesus.

However, a consolatory text, such as that written by Saint Ambrose on the death of his brother Satyrus, may go beyond the analogy with a parenetic purpose, becoming a true exegesis of the resurrection of Lazarus 23. Here is the passage which corresponds to that in Origen’s commentary on John and which links Ambrose’s theology to the Alexandrian tradition: ‘The Lord shows you (…) how you will be raised. For He raises not only Lazarus, but the faith of all. And your mind, though dead, yet believing as it reads this, is raised to life along with that Lazarus’24’. Ambrose emphasises the prophetic-eschatological dimension of the miracle, which appears throughout the tradition up to his time, and in the Latin-speaking tradition, particularly from Tertullian onwards, including through the meaning attributed to the loud voice that calls Lazarus. But he also answers a question that anyone comparing the three Gospel resurrections might have asked: why is it only in Bethany that the risen man is named at the moment the miracle takes place? The Bishop of Milan’s answer reveals no hesitation: because only Lazarus was called to be raised from the dead. He alone was commanded to return from the dead, but not the others, who, in the absence of this personal summons, would not have been able to withstand the word of God. Resurrection through the power of the word is analogous to the power to create through the word, according to Genesis. We are thus faced with evidence of divine identity, noted from the outset by Christian authors: only the Creator can recreate, and the word, as the vehicle for the manifestation of His effective power, is the most subtle form of presence in His relationship with humankind. However, we shall not dwell now on the Christological significance—which is, in fact, central to the episode—but rather on the interpretation of the miracle as the indwelling of Christ’s power in the risen man.

Saint Ambrose goes on to offer such an exegesis of the miracle which, as he clearly acknowledges, suspended the laws of nature: Lazarus was walking, though he was still bound, and seeing, though his eyes were covered, because, through him, the One whohad raised him from the dead, Jesus Christ, the Power of God, Life, Light, the Resurrection: ‘Power raised him up, Life made him walk, Light restored his sight, the Resurrection renewed his life’. Lazarus illustrates the model of the resurrection as the indwelling of Christ’s power in the one raised from the dead. Spiritual resurrection is not merely the spectacular effect of divine power, but its manifestation in life itself, received miraculously. And just as the one raised from the dead shares in the life of the One who raised him, so too are the witnesses to the miracle made to share in something that will have an effect upon them: ‘I see the signs of death and the evidence of life’; they are taken out of the role of observers and brought into the irresistible proximity of the miracle, invited to unbind Lazarus so that they may ‘believe with their eyes what they cannot believe with their hearts’. Ambrose adds an allegorical interpretation here, saying that the unbinding may signify the liberation of minds or of people, and the command: ‘Let him go!’, the witnesses’ return to Christ: conversion.

Ambrose’s most personal commentary, in which his theology—so receptive to the Greek-speaking tradition—is admirably blended with pastoral wisdom and spiritual sensitivity, is found in the work On Repentance, written in the context of the controversy with the Novatians 25. In his defence of the possibility of forgiveness following genuine repentance, the Bishop of Milan focuses on the resurrection at Bethany as a symbol of spiritual rebirth, partly reflecting Origen’s allegorical interpretation, which he applies to ecclesial life, paving the way for the later transition to individual penance. Saint Ambrose writes at a time when the entire community of the faithful was involved in the penance of each member, which is why the weeping of Martha and, above all, of Mary—a symbol of the Church—becomes a foreshadowing of communal prayers for the forgiveness of those who have sinned. The tears of the sisters and friends are no longer seen as an expression of human grief devoid of a deep faith in the Resurrection, but as penitential participation, imploring divine mercy.

At the sight of this spiritual solidarity, Christ will respond by suffering alongside the Church, ‘His chosen one’, and will come to the penitent as to a new Lazarus, whom He will free from the ‘darkness of conscience’ (“tenebris conscientiae”) as from a “prison of the condemned” (“reorum carcere”)26. The tombstone, a symbol of the weight of sin, will be lifted not ‘by the command of the word’ (‘imperio sermonis’)27—as might have been the case had Christ so willed—but by those to whom He has commanded it. Saint Ambrose here interweaves these two planes, attributing the penitent’s spiritual rebirth to the divine power that raises the dead, whilst also acknowledging the role played by those who carry out the command: ‘Unbind him and let him go!’ He confirms the interpretation that Christ’s command to lift the stone had a pedagogical, persuasive purpose, aimed at those who would not otherwise have believed 28. However, in the spiritual life, the responsibility to ‘lift the burden of sins’29—symbolised by the tombstone—falls to those who bear the burden of the community, that is, the priests 30.

Lazarus’s call is understood, first and foremost, as a manifestation of Christ’s compassion for the spiritual suffering of a member of the Church and, in the Ambrosian view, signifies an invitation to confess one’s sins. The emergence from the darkness of the inner captivity of sin is accompanied by the liberating virtue of confession, which ‘breaks the bonds’ and is perfected, to dispel the heavy stench of death—the trace of sins—by the ‘pouring forth of the fragrance of holy oil’ of forgiveness, foreshadowed by the anointing at Bethany 31. Forgiveness enables the one who receives it to enter into a relationship of truth with the One who grants it, so that the veil of shame covering the face of the spiritually dead no longer serves any purpose and will be removed. The face-to-face encounter with God continues through the participation of the one raised from the death of sin in the ‘feast prepared by the Church’32, where Christ Himself is present: ‘Therefore, what we read about Lazarus we must believe takes place with every sinner who is converted and who, though they may have the foul odour of decay, is nevertheless cleansed with the precious ointment of faith. For so great is the gift of faith that where, the day before, the dead man gave off a foul odour, there the sweet fragrance now fills the whole house’33”.

Ambrose thus incorporated into the penitential symbolism of Lazarus’s resurrection not only the meaning of Christ’s tears, but also that of the tears of the faithful who suffer for their sinful brother and pray that he may be forgiven and welcomed back into the Eucharistic community. The interpretation no longer refers merely to an inner penitential identification, but also to its ecclesial context and its soteriological orientation. An exegetical homily by Chromatius of Aquileia 34 is clearly in harmony with this Ambrosian theology, particularly regarding the spiritual significance of Jesus’ weeping (‘pietatis affectus’), both historically, to convert those who regarded Him with scepticism, and soteriologically: ‘Jesus’ tears wash away the sins of the world’ and are ‘the joy of the world’ (‘gaudia mundi’)35.

Jesus weeps so that those who believe in Him may rejoice.

Jesus weeps to bring joy to those who believe in Him. Somewhat later, for Peter Chrysologus († 450), the Bishop of Ravenna who dedicated three of his 36—out of the 183 sermons preserved to this day—to the raising of Lazarus, the spiritual meaning of the miracle does not concern only those who are baptised and repent, but begins right there in Bethany, with the disciples whose faith ‘was buried with Lazarus so that it might then rise again’37). It had the same effect on Martha, who was otherwise treated harshly because of Eve’s role in the Fall, yet who herself was raised through faith before her brother was brought back to life 38.

Peter Chrysologus’s hermeneutics centres on the relationship between bodily resurrection and resurrection through faith 39, the former making the latter possible both then, in Bethany, and every time God speaks through the biblical text. Spiritual rebirth through repentance 40 is symbolised by the command to remove the stone from the tomb’s entrance. It refers to those called to conversion—beginning with the witnesses to the miracle themselves—to renounce their ‘heart of stone’ (‘cor lapideum’)41, so that ‘they might rejoice not so much that Lazarus had risen, but that they had risen together with Lazarus’42.

In one of the homilies, a comparison appears that irresistibly draws us to the images from the catacombs: between the existence of the Infant in the Virgin’s womb and Lazarus’s dwelling in the tomb. The resurrection of Lazarus is akin to a birth 43, which every penitent experiences. Peter Chrysologus’s originality also concerns the Christological core 44 of the episode: Christ’s tears are not an expression of emotion or sadness, nor of ‘human weakness’45, but of anticipatory joy for the resurrection of all people. The Bishop of Ravenna is, of course, also aware of other meanings behind Jesus’ weeping, amongst which the sadness caused by the crowd’s lack of faith was a recurring theme in his homilies on Lazarus. However, as we have already noted, he prefers to associate penance with the joy of liberation from the burden of sin and draws an original analogy with the tears of the father who welcomes back the prodigal son. Thus, speaking of the fatherly love that Christ manifests by bringing Lazarus back to life, we may go on to draw a comparison between the feast in the parable and the feast in Bethany, at which the resurrected friend will take part, the penitential significance is also confirmed by the bishop’s exhortation that, ‘before God’, Christians should rather lament their sins than mourn ‘like the pagans’ for the dead ‘who cannot hear’46 Another argument in favour of this interpretation is the way in which the preacher understands the question: ‘Where have you laid him?’, the potentially polemical nature of which we shall see in the chapters on theological exegesis. For Peter Chrysologus, this is a ‘rhetorical’ question47 Its purpose is to highlight the fact that ‘death, the tomb, decay, putrefaction, the foul odour’—the condition in which Lazarus found himself—did not represent God’s will, but rather the consequence of ‘man’s sin’48 Lazarus is once again the symbol of the human condition which the Son of God came to restore, offering through the resurrection at Bethany a ‘foretaste’ of the general resurrection 49.

• 1

  Jutta Dresken-Weiland, Image and Word, p. 175.

• 2

  Marine Dulaey, Symboles des Évangiles, pp. 176–178.

• 3

  Epigrammata damasiana. Edited and annotated by A. Ferrua, Sussidi allo studio delle antichità cristiane 2, Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology, Vatican City, 1942, pp. 111–113; Carlo Carletti, Christian Inscriptions of Rome. Testimonies of Christian Life (3rd–7th Centuries), ‘Bibliotheca Patristica’ 7, Nardini, Florence, 1986, pp. 99–101. On Pope Damasus’s contribution to the development of Latin Christian poetry, see in particular Jacques Fontaine, The Birth of Poetry in the Christian West, Études Augustiniennes, Paris, 1981, pp. 111–125.

• 4

  Lucretius, De rerum natura 1, 5 and 989; 2, 108, 162, 654; 5, 462; Ovid, Metamorphoses 1, 135 and 767; 4, 238; Tristia 2, 325, cf. Marta Marchetti, ‘Lazzaro, vieni fuori! La resurrezione di Lazzaro nella poesia cristiana’, in ‘Dulce melos’ II. Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium: Latin and Greek Poetry in Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Era, Vienna, 25–27 November 2010, ed. by Victoria Zimmerl-Panagl, Edizioni ETS, Pisa, 2013, pp. 84–85.

• 5

  Jutta Dresken-Weiland, Image and Word, p. 182.

• 6

  ‘He who trod the bitter waves with his footsteps, / He who gives life to the seeds that die in the earth, / He who was able to break the deadly bonds of death / Beyond the darkness, and to restore to his sister Martha / Her brother, returned to the light of the sun after three days, / After he had been reduced to ashes—I believe he will raise Damasus as well.”

• 7

  See the introduction to this volume: Gregory of Nazianzus, Carm. II, PG 37, col. 1279. See also Marta Marchetti, ‘Lazzaro, vieni fuori! La resurrezione di Lazzaro nella poesia cristiana’, pp. 80–82. On the poetry of Saint Gregory, see the introductions to the editions of Saint Grégoire de Nazianze, Œuvres poétiques, Poèmes personnels II, 1, 1–11, text edited by André Tuilier and Guillaume Bady, translated and annotated by Jean Bernardi, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2004, and Poèmes épistolaires II, 2, 1–8, text edited and translated by R. Michelle Bénin, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2021. Among the overview works: Michele Pellegrino, La poesia di S. Gregorio Nazianzeno, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1932; Fr. Ioan G. Coman, The Melancholy of the Lyric Poetry of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Romanian Institute of Byzantine Studies Press, Bucharest, 1938; Claudio Moreschini, ‘Poetry and Culture in Gregory of Nazianzus’, in Philosophy and Literature in Gregory of Nazianzus, Vita e Pensiero, Milan, 1997, pp. 215–230; Jean Bernardi, Gregory of Nazianzus, translated by Cristian Pop, with a selection of autobiographical poems translated by Deacon Ioan I. Ică Jr, Deisis, Sibiu, 2002, pp. 241–256; Jean Paul Lieggi, The Lyre of Christ: The Theological Motivations of Gregory of Nazianzus’s Poetry, Herder Editrice, Rome, 2009.

• 8

  Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Carm. II, 1, 50.

• 9

  Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Carm. II, 1, 68. The hexameter included amongst the three epigrams (49–51) in the first book of the Palatine Anthology should also be noted. See M.D. Lauxtermann, ‘Byzantine Poetry from Pisides to Geometres. Texts and Contexts’, I, Wiener Byzantinistische Studien 24/1, Vienna, 2003, pp. 89–94, 187–190, 357–361.

• 10

  Jerome, Epistle IV, 2, PSB 9, p. 59. See also Jerome, Commentary on Amos III, IX, 6, PL 25, col. 1090 (tropological interpretation of events in the life of Christ: the raising of Lazarus as a coming forth from the tomb of sins); cf. Jacob Kremer, Lazarus, p. 126.

• 11

  Jerome, Letter VII, 3, PSB 9, p. 65.

• 12

  Jerome, Epistle XXXVIII, 2, PSB 9, p. 260. See also Martine Dulaey, Symboles des Évangiles, p. 168.

• 13

  For the association between the two resurrections, see Giuseppe Wilpert, Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms, Herdersche Verlagshandlung, Freiburg, 1903, no. 123, 2 (cubiculum 25). See also Bertrand Billot, ‘The Resurrection of Lazarus on Early Christian Sarcophagi (3rd–4th centuries): iconography, spatiality, function of the scene’, pp. 69–75.

• 14

  Ambrose of Milan, On Penance, II, VIII, 71–72, ed. Roger Gryson, SC 179, p. 178; On Repentance, translated by Andreea Stănciulescu, Cartea Ortodoxă/Egumenița Publishers, Galați, 2004, p. 194 (slightly revised translation).

• 15

  Saint Basil the Great, ‘On Gratitude’, in Homilies and Sermons, translated from Ancient Greek and annotated by the Reverend Professor Dumitru Fecioru, Published by the Biblical and Missionary Institute of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Bucharest, 2004, p. 61 (slightly amended).

• 16

  See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II, 6, 1107a, with an introduction, translation, commentary and index by Stella Petecel, IRI Publishing House, Bucharest, 1998², p. 55; see also Pierre Aubenque, La prudence chez Aristote, PUF, Paris, 2002³.

• 17

  St Basil the Great, ‘On Gratitude’, p. 63.

• 18

  Jerome, Letter XXXIX, 2, PSB 9, p. 264.

• 19

  Jerome, Letter XLVI, 5, PSB 9, p. 294.

• 20

  Jerome, Letter LX, 2, PSB 10, p. 81. See also Letter 118, 1.

• 21

  See Marta Marchetti, ‘Lazzaro, vieni fuori! La resurrezione di Lazzaro nella poesia cristiana’, pp. 92–93, including the possible Ambrosian influence (De excessu fraris 1, 10). Gianmarco Busca, Holy Week with the Eastern Christians, Lipa, Rome, 2014, p. 37: ‘Jesus’ weeping is not a sentimental prelude to the miracle of Lazarus’ resurrection, but the authentic revelation of the significance of this ‘messianic sign’ through which Jesus reveals God, Who is Love—a love that did not create death and which, being life itself, neither rejoices in nor resigns itself to the destruction of His creatures”.

• 22

  (Pseudo-) Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Ad Turasium, p. 276.

• 23

  Ambrose, De excessu fratris 77, ed. O. Faller, CSEL 73, 1955, pp. 291–293.

• 24

  Ambrose, De excessu fratris 77, p. 291.

• 25

  Ambrose of Milan, Penance, ed. Roger Gryson, SC 179, pp. 18–30. See also Cesare Pasini, Ambrogio di Milano. Azione e pensiero di un vescovo, Edizioni Sao Paolo, Milan, 1996, pp. 178–179. The Novatian Church, founded by Novatianus, a Roman priest, in the third century, as a reaction to the Church’s reception of those who had fallen away from the faith during the persecution of Decius, did not regard the administration of penance as part of its mission. The Novatians regarded themselves as the pure members of a community of the elect, martyrs and prophets, those who had been saved through the Holy Spirit. For Novatian, penance represented merely ‘the shameful confession of sin’ (De bono pudicitiae 13, 4). See Allan Fitzgerald, O.S.A., Conversion through Penance in the Italian Church of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries: New Approaches to the Experience of Conversion from Sin, Edwin Mellen, Lewiston (New York), 1988 (the sections devoted to Ambrosian theology); H.J. Vogt, ‘Novatianism’, R.J. De Simone, ‘The Novatian Schism’, and Cyril Vogel, ‘Penance’, in Dictionnaire encyclopédique du christianisme ancien, edited by Angelo Di Berardino, vol. II, Cerf, Paris, 1990, pp. 1777–1781, 1984–1986; Claudia Rapp, ‘Spiritual Guarantors at Penance, Baptism, and Ordination in the Late Antique East’, in Abigail Firey (ed.), A New History of Penance, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2008, pp. 121–148.

• 26

  Ambrose of Milan, On Penance, II, VII, 57, p. 170.

• 27

  Ambrose of Milan, On Penance, II, VII, 56, p. 168.

• 28

  Also, Ambrose of Milan, Hexaemeron I, 27.

• 29

  Ambrose of Milan, On Penance, II, VII, 56.

• 30

  Here we have an illustration of the Church’s interpretation of the raising of Lazarus; see Martine Dulaey, Symboles des Évangiles, p. 166. It is the teaching on the mystery of repentance, which Saint Ambrose clearly sets against the purist claim of the Novatians, according to which the Church has no role in forgiving in God’s name.

• 31

  Ambrose of Milan, On Penance, II, VII, 58.

• 32

  Ambrose of Milan, La pénitence, II, VII, 60; On Repentance, p. 190.

• 33

  Ambrose of Milan, La pénitence, II, VII, 63; On Repentance, p. 191 (slightly revised).

• 34

  Chromatius of Aquileia, Sermon 27, vol. II, ed. Joseph Lemarié and H. Tardif, SC 164, 1971, pp. 104–113. See also Robert McEachnie, ‘A History of Heresy Past: The Sermons of Chromatius of Aquileia, 388–407’, Church History 83, no. 2, 2014, pp. 273–296.

• 35

  Ibid.

• 36

  Peter Chrysologus, Sermons 63, 64, 65, ed. Dom Alejandro Olivar, CChrSL 24 A, pp. 372–392; St Peter Chrysologus, Sermons [63–124], edited by Gabriele Banterle, Ruggero Benericetti, Giacomo Biffi, Giuseppe Scimè and Carlo Truzzi, Biblioteca Ambroziana – Città Nuova Editrice, Milan–Rome, 1997, pp. 10–31. See also F. Sottocornola, The Liturgical Year in the Sermons of Peter Chrysologus. A Historical-Critical Study of the Liturgy of Ancient Ravenna, Centre for Studies and Research on the Ancient Ecclesiastical Province of Ravenna, Cesena, 1973; Ch. Kannengiesser, ‘Peter of Ravenna, Chrysologus (c. 380–450)’, in Handbook of Patristic Exegesis. The Bible in Ancient Christianity, ed. Ch. Kannengiesser, vol. 2, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2004, pp. 1261–1271; David Vincent Meconi, S.J., Peter Chrysologus, Routledge, London–New York, 2021, pp. 3–36.

• 37

  Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 63, 2. See also B. De Margerie, Introduction to the History of Exegesis, vol. 4, Cerf, Paris, 1990, pp. 90–96 (pp. 75–108); William B. Palardy, ‘Peter Chrysologus’ Interpretation of the Raising of Lazarus’, StPatr XXV, 1993, ed. E.A. Livingstone, pp. 129–133.

• 38

  Pietro Crisologo, Sermon 63, 4.

• 39

  Pietro Crisologo, Sermon 65, 1.

• 40

  Dariusz Kasprzak OFMCap., The Pastors of the 5th Century: A Comparative Study of the Pastoral Works of St Peter Chrysologus and Salvian of Marseilles, The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow Press, Krakow, 2017, pp. 302–305.

• 41

  See Ezekiel 11:19.

• 42

  Pietro Crisologo, Sermon 65, 3. For the anti-Jewish polemic, see also G. Scimè, Giudei e cristiani nei sermoni di san Pietro Crisologo, SEA 89, Institutum Patristicum Augustinianum, Rome, 2003.

• 43

  Pietro Crisologo, Sermon 64, 2.

• 44

  For an overview, see R. Benericetti, La cristologia di s. Pier Crisologo, PUG, Rome, 1995.

• 45

  Pietro Crisologo, p. 64, 3.

• 46

  Pietro Crisologo, p. 65, 2.

• 47

  William B. Palardy, ‘Peter Chrysologus’ Interpretation of the Raising of Lazarus’, p. 131.

• 48

  Pietro Crisologo, p. 64, 4.

• 49

  Pietro Crisologo, p. 65, 9.