Note 2 — Chapter XVII · The Heir of Solomon’s Godhead.
Reading edition
Renan suggested that Jesus and his friends at Bethany arranged a pretended death and resurrection of Lazarus. This seems inconsistent with the absence of any allusion to it or to Lazarus in the Epistles, and also with the evident relation of the narrative to the parable. It looks more as if the parable of Lazarus and the rich man had been dramatized and the return of Lazarus from “Abraham’s bosom” added. At every step in the narrative (John xi.) there is a suggestion of some old “mystery-play” fossilized into prosaic literalism.