The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
Ver. 7. — Then after that saith He to His disciples , Let us go into Judea again. By thus forewarning, Christ calms the fears of His timid disciples ; for they feared to return with Him into Judea, because the Jews had a little before sought to stone Him (x. 31). So S. Chrysostom : “ Never at any other time did the Lord announce to His disciples whither He was about to go; but here they were greatly afraid of being harassed should He set out without warning. They feared both for Him and for themselves, for they were not strong in the faith.” S. Augustine says : “ Christ departed, as a man, from Judea, that He might not be stoned : but in returning, forgetful of His weakness, He showed His power.”
Ver. 8 . — His disciples say, &c. The disciples say this, because they feared the Jews on account of Christ, and still more for themselves .
Ver. 9. — Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? MEANING OF THE “TWELVE HOURS.” 391
Lyra and those who follow him expound thus, as if it were “ As the twelve hours change through the day, and the breezes change with them, so the minds of the Jews may easily be changed, that those who before hated Me may now love and receive Me!”
Secondly, S. Augustine, Bede, and Rupertus : “As the twelve hours follow the day, that is, the course of the sun, so that they succeed each other in turn, so it is your duty to follow Me ; for I am as it were your sun and day, but ye accompany Me as the twelve hours.” And the Gloss: “Christ calls Himself the day , in which they ought to walk, that they may not stumble, and without whom if they walk they stumble; as the disciples just now did in being unwilling that He should die, who came to die for men; but them He calls hours, because these follow the day.”
Thirdly, S. Cyril, as if : “ Some hours of My day, that is, of My life, shall remain, in which it behoves Me to preach and to benefit the Jews : the night will come, that is, My Passion and Death ; because of which I shall encompass them in the shades of slaughter and calamity : for night is the symbol of wrath and calamities.”
Fourthly and rightly : Certain and fixed is the period of day, that is, of twelve hours, within which any one may walk without stumbling, because he has the light by which he sees and avoids obstacles : so and with equal certainty the time of My life is fixed by God the Father, in which I have to live and do the works which I have been sent to perform. This therefore I call the day ; and in this I have no danger to fear from the Jews for Myself or for you, nor can I be slain before the time foreordained for Me by My Father ; that is, before the setting and night of My life shall come.
If any man walk, &c.
Ver. 10. — But if a man walk in the night, &c. While it is day , that is, while the time of life remains to Me, ye will not stumble, O disciples, while following Me into Judea; but when the night shall have come, that is, death and the close of My life, then the Jews will persecute and kill you as My disciples, as they have persecuted and killed Me. So Rupertus. Mystically, he who follows the day, that is, the sun and light of faith and grace, does not stumble, does not fall into offences ; but he who walks in the night, that is, in the darkness of ignorance and concupiscence, he falls into various faults and penalties. Eph. v. 8.
Ver. 11. — These things said He, &c. He calls death sleep, because Lazarus was soon to be aroused and awakened from it. Hear S. Augustine : To the Lord, who called him from the sepulchre with as much ease as thou callest one sleeping from his bed, he was merely asleep ; to men, who were not able to raise him up, he was dead. So Paul calls the dead who are to rise again, sleepers (1 Thess. iv. 14).
Ver. 12. — Then said His disciples. Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. For in the sick sleep is usually the sign and forerunner, and often the cause, of health. The sense is as if it were said, Let us suffer him to sleep, that he may the more quickly recover : wherefore there is no reason that we should go to him. So S. Augustine and Cyril.
Ver. 13. — Howbeit Jesus spake of his death, &c. Because they took the “ sleepeth ” simply, not symbolically, of death, as Christ meant it.
Ver. 14. — Then said Jesus unto them plainly , Lazarus is dead. He showed Himself to be a prophet, yea, the Son of God, inasmuch as He reveals things secret and distant : for such was this death of Lazarus, which He here clearly declares, to take away the disciples’ error as to his sleep. For the messenger had announced to Christ only his sickness, not his death.
Ver. 15. — And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there. Christ therefore declaring his death, showed that He knew it not in a human manner, but in a Divine. For how, says Augustine, should the thing be hidden from Him who had created the man who was dying ? and into whose hands his soul had gone forth ? Nevertheless let us go unto him. Christ speaks of the dead as though he were living, because He was about to make him so, by raising him from the dead. So Cyril.
Ver. 16. — Then said Thomas, &c. Thomas was not doubly named, as if his first name had been Thomas, his second Didymus ; but they were one and the same : for the Hebrew word Thomas is the same as the Greek Didymus, that is, a twin.
Let us also go, that we may die with Him. Not with Lazarus, as some will have it, for this seems foolish ; but with Christ, who a little before had said, Let us go to him. Thomas, says Bede, exhorts his companions beyond all, that they should go and die with Christ, in which his great constancy appears. (And the Interim.) Behold the true disposition of loving souls, either to live with Him or to die with Him ; such as were the Soldurii among the Gauls, whose law and covenant in war was, either to conquer together or to die together, as Julius Caesar bears witness in his Commentaries (De Bell. Gall. III. 22), whom S. Paul seems to have alluded to when he says, in 2 Cor. vii. 3, Ye are in our hearts to live and to die with you. Furthermore, that which S. Thomas says, Let us also go, that we may die with Him, is as if he had said, “ If we go with Jesus, we must die with Him, because of the violent hatred of the Jews towards Him. If then He goes, let us also go, as brave disciples and soldiers, and die with Him courageously as our Leader ;
if He disregards death, and even advances to meet it, let us also disregard it and meet it.” For he had not sufficiently understood what
Christ (ver. 9) intimates, that no danger threatened Him yet from the Jews. So Cyril. Therefore he offers himself for Christ to certain death, for he considered it was impending ; which was a remarkable proof of his great bravery, and singular love for Christ.
Ver. 17. — Then when Jesus came [to Bethany, as some Greek Codices add] He found that he had lain in the grave four days already. That is, he had been buried four days ago. For the messenger respecting the illness of Lazarus came from the sisters to Jesus (says Chrysostom) on the day on which Lazarus died ; the two following days Jesus remained in Bethabara; on the fourth day He went at length to Bethany. Therefore Lazarus seems to have died and been buried on the same day on which the sisters sent a messenger to Jesus ; for otherwise Lazarus would not have been four days dead and buried when Christ came, as is here said.
More probably, Euthymius and Maldonatus think that Lazarus died indeed on the day on which the messenger came to Christ, but was buried on the following day, lest perhaps there might remain in him some signs of hidden life ; that Christ remained two days in
Bethabara, and on the fourth day departed thence towards Bethany ; but because this journey was one of about ten hours, it could scarcely have been traversed by Christ and the apostles in one day on foot ; hence Christ reached Bethany on the following morning, which was the fifth from the burial of Lazarus and then raised him from the dead ; for neither was it becoming that he should be raised in the evening (lest it might seem a fancied and illusive raising), but in the morning, or in full day. Wherefore Lazarus had already been four complete days in the tomb or sepulchre, and the fifth from his burial was begun ; so that it might well appear to all that he was not only dead, but decaying and devoured by worms. Hence the raising of Lazarus performed by Christ was a most certain and wonderful miracle, which could in no way be hidden, or carped at by the scribes.