ACC ~ John 11 v17

AN ACCOUNTING OF THE FOUR DAYS

CHRYSOSTOM Our Lord had stayed two days, and the messenger had come the day before—the very day on which Lazarus died. This brings us to the fourth day. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 62.2. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 14:228**. Augustine provides an allegorical understanding of the four days of death that the law brings; Tractates on the Gospel of John 49.12.

THE CORRUPTION OF LAZARUS’S BODY IN THE TOMB

POTAMIUS OF LISBON Here indeed, throughout the gloomy spheres of darkness and the shades of black horror, that is, throughout the course of four days that are renewed in accordance with the alternate interchange of increase and diminution—throughout eight days, we may say, by including also the dark nights—he lay with his jaws gaping and hanging down, the teeth in his mouth dropping, his mouth obstructed since he was really putrefying like a crumbly clod, consumed by earthly destruction, and his unhappy burial condemned his nerve bundles with the essence of his body to a miserable corruption. Thus, with the contraction of his limbs, his blackened skin is stretched over the dry and easy-to-count ribs, and a stream of bodily fluid, which is released from the cavity of the entrails, an already foul-smelling sewer, flowed filthy and dark to the feet of the corpse. ON LAZARUS. [1]

[1] CCL 69A:166. While this detail is rather gruesome, it was a staple description in many patristic homilies emphasizing the power and finality of death that was overcome by Jesus.