How Long Did Lazarus Live Before He Died a Second Time?

I personally believe the Western tradition that he and his sisters landed in France and that he became the first Bishop of Marseille.

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

While the New Testament is silent about the second death of Lazarus, various traditions paint a legendary picture of his life after being raised from the dead.

Lazarus of Bethany had a unique life on earth, as he died from natural causes and was dead for a total of four days, as the Gospel of John narrates, "Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days" (John 11:17).

Then something happened that was very unusual and unnatural: Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.

When [Jesus] had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with bandages, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” (John 11:43-44)

This event served as a foreshadowing of what would happen to Jesus and what will happen to all of us at the end of time.

However, Lazarus' resurrection was only temporary. He didn't live forever on earth and his body continued to age until he died a second time.

How long did he live this "second life"?

St. Lazarus the Bishop

The New Testament does not mention Lazarus again and so we do not have a reliable source of information regarding his extended life. There does exist a wealth of traditions that provide a story of what might have happened.

In Butler's Lives of the Saints, Fr. Butler explains that, "The pseudo-Clementine writings say that Lazarus followed St. Peter into Syria. The Eastern Church had a story that he and his sisters and some other Christians were put into a leaking boat by the Jews at Jaffa but survived and landed in Cyprus. There Lazarus became bishop of Kition and died peacefully about 30 years later."

A French tradition provides a very different picture, claiming that the same boat drifted across the Mediterranean and landed on the coast of modern-day France.

Lazarus then preached the Gospel in Marseille and became the first bishop of Marseille. He later became a martyr in the late 1st century and is still venerated in southern France.

The Eastern Church's tradition dates to the 3rd century and is earlier than the French tradition, though both have centuries of belief by local Christians.

Neither tradition can be definitively authenticated, as there does not exist any documentation from the 1st century or any further mention of Lazarus in the New Testament.

Whatever happened to Lazarus, he is venerated as a saint in both East (on 17 October) and West.