Saint Lawrence of Rome (c. 225 – 10 August 258) is one of the most venerated martyrs in the whole history of the Church. Archdeacon of Rome under Pope Sixtus II, he was put to death during the persecution of Emperor Valerian, on 10 August, four days after his bishop, in the heart of the Christian 3rd century.
His figure rests on two unforgettable scenes. Ordered by the prefect of Rome to hand over the "treasures of the Church", Lawrence gathers the poor, the infirm and the widows he assisted, and presents them, saying: "Here are the treasures of the Church." For this evangelical insolence, tradition reports that he was burned alive on a gridiron — a torment whose cruelty he is said to have defied with a word that has remained famous: "It is roasted on this side, turn me over."
Four of the greatest voices of the early Church — Saint Ambrose of Milan, the poet Prudentius, Saint Augustine and Pope Saint Leo the Great — sang his glory less than two centuries after his death. Leo compared him to Stephen: what the first deacon was for Jerusalem, Lawrence was for Rome — and Roman piety holds the deacon as its third patron, after Peter and Paul.
This article retraces what is historically known of the deacon, the context of his martyrdom, the scholarly debate on the gridiron, the birth of his cult and the immense spiritual posterity of a saint who became the very face of Christian charity and of the diaconate.
Who is Saint Lawrence of Rome?
A Roman deacon in the heart of the 3rd century
Lawrence — Laurentius in Latin, "he who is crowned with laurel" — belongs to the generation of Christians who, in the middle of the 3rd century, lived the Church in hiding while watching her grow within the very capital of the Empire. Under Pope Sixtus II (257–258), he exercises the office of deacon, and more precisely of archdeacon: the first of the seven deacons attached to the Church of Rome[1]. This office is anything but honorary. The Roman deacon administers the goods of the community, organizes assistance to the poor, distributes alms and keeps the archives of the local Church[2].
The martyrdom of Lawrence is one of the earliest and most universally attested in the Christian calendar. From the year 354, the Depositio Martyrum — the oldest preserved Roman liturgical calendar — inscribes his feast on 10 August[3]. No discordant voice, in antiquity, contests the reality of his death for Christ; the debates, as we shall see, concern only the manner of the torment.
Spanish origins: between tradition and history
Tradition has Lawrence born around 225 at Osca — present-day Huesca, in Aragon —, in that Roman Spain which gave so many martyrs to the Church. According to this account, the young Lawrence is said to have met the future Pope Sixtus at Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza), before following him to Rome[4]. Historical honesty nevertheless requires a nuance: this Hispanic origin, popularized in the Middle Ages, is not attested by the sources of the 3rd or 4th century.
It rests on an ancient but indirect clue: the poet Prudentius, himself Hispano-Roman, celebrates Lawrence as a glory which Rome shares with Spain[5]. From there to concluding that Lawrence was born in Aragon, there is a step which cautious criticism only takes with reserve. What is certain is that Lawrence was a deacon of the Church of Rome; his possible Spanish homeland belongs to a venerable but undemonstrated tradition. Recognizing this in no way diminishes the martyr: it simply situates, with exactness, the boundary between established fact and pious memory.
Archdeacon: the first of the seven deacons of Rome
To understand Lawrence, one must understand what a deacon was in the Rome of the 3rd century. In imitation of the seven instituted by the Apostles in the Acts — the first of whom was the protomartyr Saint Stephen —, the Church of Rome counted seven deacons sharing among them the service of the seven ecclesiastical regions of the City[6]. The archdeacon, their head, was the bishop's right hand for temporal government: he managed the patrimony of the Church, organized relief for the poor — what would later be called the deaconries — and watched over the registers of the baptized, the dead and the poor assisted.
It is this office which explains both the death of Lawrence and the richness of his patronage. Guardian of the treasure, he will be ordered to hand it over; guardian of the archives, he will become the patron of librarians and archivists; organizer of charity, he will remain forever the patron of the poor and the model of diaconal service. The office is not decoration: it is the key to the whole scene.
The context: the persecution of Valerian (257–258)
Why does Valerian attack the Church?
The martyrdom of Lawrence is not an isolated news item: it belongs to one of the most systematic persecutions the early Church knew. The emperor Valerian (253–260), at first rather benevolent toward Christians, radically changes policy in 257. The Empire is going through an acute military and financial crisis; power looks for culprits and wants to recover resources. The Christian community, now numerous and organized, rich in places of worship, cemeteries and funds destined for the poor, becomes a logical target[7].
Valerian's persecution presents a new trait: it deliberately targets the hierarchy and the goods of the Church, rather than the mass of the faithful. Strike the bishops and confiscate ecclesiastical treasures: such is the strategy. It is precisely this which places an archdeacon like Lawrence in the front line.
The two edicts: exile then execution
The persecution unfolds in two stages, which we know thanks notably to the correspondence of Saint Cyprian of Carthage, himself a martyr of this same wave.
A first edict, in 257, orders clerics to sacrifice to the gods of the Empire on pain of exile, and forbids Christian assemblies as well as access to cemeteries[8]. Faced with resistance, a second edict, in the summer of 258, considerably hardens the repression: it prescribes that bishops, priests and deacons be executed on the spot, that Christian senators and knights lose their rank and goods, and that imperial officials be reduced to slavery[9].
It is this second edict which seals the fate of Sixtus II and Lawrence. It must be stressed, for it lies at the heart of the historical debate: the letter of the law prescribed the immediate putting to death of deacons — which, as we shall see, would later nourish discussion on the torment truly suffered by Lawrence.
The martyrdom of Pope Sixtus II (6 August 258)
On 6 August 258, Pope Sixtus II is surprised by the authorities while celebrating the liturgy in the cemetery of Praetextatus, on the Via Appia. Arrested with four of his deacons, he is beheaded on the spot[10]. The Liber Pontificalis and the Depositio confirm this date, and the Church has kept it: Sixtus II is, he too, named in the Roman Canon of the Mass.
It is here that the tenderest episode of Lawrence's story belongs. Saint Ambrose reports the heart-rending dialogue between the bishop being led to death and the deacon who would wish to follow him:
"Where are you going, father, without your son? Where are you hastening, holy priest, without your deacon? Never were you accustomed to offer the sacrifice without your minister." — Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Duties, Book I[11]
To this Sixtus answers, prophetically, that Lawrence will not be deprived of the palm: he will follow him closely, and the trial awaiting him will be greater still than his bishop's. According to Ambrose's account, the announced delay is three days (post triduum); the liturgical calendar, for its part, places Lawrence's martyrdom on 10 August, four days after Sixtus's (6 August). The prophecy is fulfilled: Lawrence follows his bishop into martyrdom.
"Here are the treasures of the Church"
The treasure entrusted to the deacon
Before dying, Sixtus is said to have entrusted to his archdeacon the keeping and distribution of the Church's goods — a gesture of prudence as much as of charity, to shield this patrimony from imperial greed. The prefect of Rome, informed that the Church possessed "treasures", summons Lawrence and orders him to hand them over to the treasury. This is the mainspring of the whole scene: in the eyes of power, the treasure is gold; in the deacon's eyes, it is something else entirely.
Lawrence asks for a delay of three days to gather the riches. He spends it not hiding the gold, but distributing it entirely to the poor, the widows and the sick of the community[12].
The poor presented to the prefect
The delay elapsed, Lawrence presents himself before the magistrate — followed, tradition says, by a procession of needy, blind, lame and infirm. Ordered to show the promised treasure, he points to this miserable crowd and speaks the word which has crossed the centuries:
"Here are the treasures of the Church." — Tradition reported from the 4th century[13]
The word is not bravado: it is a profession of faith. It affirms that the Church's wealth lies not in her goods but in her suffering members, living image of Christ. This word transforms the trial of a deacon into a manifesto of Christian charity — and signs his condemnation, for the prefect sees in it a deliberate insult.
A theology of charity
The episode goes far beyond the heroic anecdote. Saint Ambrose, first of all, draws from it the doctrinal lesson: the Church's gold is destined for the poor, and the minister's duty is to spend it for them, not to hoard it[14]. Lawrence's gesture illustrates what the Church will always affirm: ecclesiastical goods have a social purpose, and the poor man has over them a right which the magisterium would later call the "social mortgage" on property.
"The Church does not possess gold to keep it, but to distribute it and help those in need." — Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Duties, Book II[15]
In presenting the poor as the treasure of the Church, Lawrence anticipates in a single word the whole of Christian social doctrine. It is no accident that the Church still sees in him the patron of the poor and the model of charity.
The martyrdom of the gridiron (10 August 258)
The torment of slow fire
Condemned, Lawrence undergoes, according to the most constant tradition, a torment of calculated cruelty: he is stretched out on an iron gridiron, beneath which half-lit embers are placed, so that the fire slowly consumes his flesh without shortening his life[16]. The executioner seeks less to execute than to break: it is a putting to death designed to produce apostasy through pain. Martyrdom, the Catechism recalls, is "the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith"[17] — and Lawrence offers one of its purest images.
The scene marked Christian iconography to the point that the gridiron became Saint Lawrence's universal attribute: he is almost never depicted without this instrument of his triumph.
"It is roasted on this side, turn me over"
At the heart of the atrocity, tradition places a word of stunning boldness. Saint Ambrose — the earliest and most authoritative source — reports that Lawrence, on the brazier, hurled at his executioners:
"It is roasted on this side: turn me over, and eat." — Saint Lawrence, quoted by Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Duties, Book II[18]
This trait of heroism — where faith triumphs even in irony — was taken up by Prudentius, Augustine, Saint Maximus of Turin, Saint Peter Chrysologus and Saint Leo the Great[19]. It says the essential: torture does not possess the martyr; it is he who, to the end, remains free. Pain wrings from him neither denial nor complaint, but a word of victory.
The prayer for the conversion of Rome
The poet Prudentius, at the end of the 4th century, dedicates to Lawrence one of the longest and most beautiful poems of his collection on the martyrs, the Peristephanon. In it he places in the mouth of the dying deacon a prayer for Rome: that the idolatrous City turn at last to Christ, that the pagan senators come to the faith, that the capital of the Empire become the capital of Christendom[20].
"Hear, O Christ, your seven-hilled city: may it be consecrated to you, it who reigned over the nations." — Prudentius, Peristephanon, Hymn II[21]
For Prudentius, Lawrence's death is not a defeat but the beginning of Rome's conversion. The deacon's blood is the seed which will one day make Christian Rome the mother of the Churches. History, in the poet's eyes, proved him right.
The gridiron or beheading? The historical debate
The objection: the edict prescribed beheading
Encyclopedic rigor requires frankly addressing a question debated by historians: did Lawrence truly die on a gridiron, or was he beheaded like the other clerics?
The objection is serious. Valerian's second edict ordered, as we have seen, the immediate execution of bishops, priests and deacons. The term used (animadvertantur) ordinarily designated beheading[22]. Sixtus II and his deacons were beheaded on 6 August; it would be consistent for Lawrence, a deacon too, to have suffered the same fate four days later. A long and spectacular torment like the gridiron would fit poorly, it is said, with the letter of an edict which wanted swift executions. The historian Patrick Healy thus judged the gridiron account "unworthy of credence"[23].
The copyist-error hypothesis
The Bollandist scholar Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri proposed, in 1900, an ingenious explanation for the birth of the legend. In his view, the consecrated liturgical formula for announcing a martyrdom was passus est — "he suffered". The accidental omission of a single "p" by a copyist is said to have turned passus est into assus est — "he was roasted". From this slip of the pen, by misunderstanding, the whole gridiron narrative is said to have been born[24].
The hypothesis is seductive in its elegance. It has, however, its limits, which must be named with the same honesty: it is conjectural and is attested by no manuscript; no known copy bears the trace of this supposed confusion. It supposes moreover that Fathers as rigorous as Ambrose — a bishop close to Rome, writing about a hundred and thirty years after the events — built an entire moral development on a mere scribe's slip, without ever noticing it.
Why the gridiron tradition remains defensible
The Catholic reader is bound to nothing on this point of detail: the Church does not define a martyr's mode of execution. But reducing the gridiron to a copyist's blunder is far from an acquired certainty, and several solid arguments invite holding the tradition defensible, even probable.
First, the convergence of witnesses is remarkable. The gridiron account is not the work of a late and isolated source: it is attested, from the 4th century, by geographically scattered authors — Ambrose at Milan, Prudentius in Spain, Augustine in Africa —, soon relayed by Maximus of Turin, Peter Chrysologus and Leo the Great. Such a diffusion, less than two centuries after the events, in distinct regions of Christendom, is hard to explain by a mere scribal error which should have remained local.
Next, the objection drawn from the edict is not conclusive. The Roman authorities did not hesitate, in cases judged exemplary — and Lawrence's public provocation was one —, to resort to aggravated torments to terrorize the community and obtain apostasies. A deacon who had just ridiculed the prefect by presenting him with beggars was a prime candidate for exemplary punishment. The letter of the edict set a minimum, not a maximum.
Finally, the silence of the manuscripts on the alleged passus / assus error deprives the hypothesis of any positive documentary basis. By sound method, an unattested conjecture cannot prevail over a body of ancient and concordant testimonies. Historical prudence therefore leads to recognizing the possibility of beheading without abandoning the gridiron tradition, which remains the earliest and best attested.
| Position | Main argument | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Beheading | Valerian's edict prescribed immediate execution (animadvertantur) | Does not account for the exemplary and provocative character of Lawrence's case |
| Copyist error (Franchi de' Cavalieri) | passus est → assus est by omission of a "p" | Conjectural, attested by no manuscript |
| Gridiron (tradition) | Several ancient and scattered witnesses from the 4th century | A longer torment than the ordinary execution provided by the edict |
Burial and birth of the cult
Via Tiburtina: the ager Veranus
Lawrence's body was buried on the Via Tiburtina, in an estate called ager Veranus, within a Christian cemetery (the catacomb of Cyriaca). Tradition attributes this burial to Saint Hippolytus and the priest Justin[25]. The tomb at once became a place of veneration: Romans flocked to the deacon's tomb, and the martyr's memory took root to the point of becoming one of the most solid in the City.
The Basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls
In the 4th century, the emperor Constantine had a sanctuary raised over the tomb. Enlarged and rebuilt by Pope Pelagius II in the 6th century, then remodeled in the 13th century, the church became the great Basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls (San Lorenzo fuori le mura) — one of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome and a minor basilica[26]. Its prestige says enough about the place Lawrence held in Roman devotion.
The history of this sanctuary — its architecture, its vicissitudes down to the bombings of 1943 and its restoration — goes beyond the scope of the present article, which is devoted to the figure of the saint.
An immemorial cult: the Depositio Martyrum and the Roman Canon
Saint Lawrence belongs to that category of saints whose cult needed no canonization process: it is immemorial, that is, recognized by the Church from the origins, through the continuous veneration of the Christian people and the confirmation of pastors. Two facts manifest it.
The first is the inscription of his feast on 10 August in the Depositio Martyrum of 354, one of the oldest liturgical documents of the West[27]. The second, more eloquent still, is the presence of his name in the Roman Canon of the Mass: in the Communicantes prayer, the Church names, after the Apostles and the first popes, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence[28]. To be quoted each day, at the altar, in the eucharistic prayer of the universal Church: there is no higher canonization.
The voice of the Fathers: Lawrence in Christian preaching
Saint Ambrose of Milan
Our most precious source is Saint Ambrose (c. 339–397). In his treatise On the Duties of Ministers (De officiis ministrorum), written around 388–390 for the formation of his clergy, he proposes Lawrence as a model for deacons. It is he who hands down to us the dialogue with Sixtus, the distribution of the treasure to the poor, the word of the "treasures of the Church" and the defiance of the gridiron[29]. Ambrose does not write a marvelous tale: he gives catechesis, and the sobriety of his words strengthens the credit of the testimony.
Prudentius and the martyr's epic
The Hispano-Roman poet Prudentius (348 – c. 405) gives Lawrence, in his Peristephanon ("The Book of Crowns"), a poem of more than five hundred verses. It is one of the summits of Latin Christian poetry. Prudentius unfolds in it the account of the trial, the torment and the prayer for Rome, transforming the martyrdom into a spiritual epic[30]. His hymn durably fixed the saint's image in Christian culture.
Saint Augustine and Saint Leo the Great
Saint Augustine (354–430) preached several times for the feast of 10 August. His sermons on Lawrence stress the meaning of martyrdom: imitating Christ unto the gift of blood, and loving to the point of giving all[31]. For the bishop of Hippo, Lawrence is proof that grace makes man stronger than fire.
It is however Pope Saint Leo the Great (c. 390–461) who stated the most striking formula. In a sermon for the martyr's feast, he establishes a bold parallel: what Saint Stephen, the first deacon, was for Jerusalem, Lawrence was for Rome:
"As Jerusalem was glorified by Stephen, so Rome is made illustrious by Lawrence." — Saint Leo the Great, Sermon for the feast of Saint Lawrence[32]
Roman piety went further: it holds Lawrence, with Peter and Paul, as one of the three great patrons of Rome. The City which had condemned the deacon raised him to the rank of her heavenly protectors — the fulfillment, in short, of the prayer Prudentius lent him on the gridiron.
Heritage and patronages
Patron of deacons, of the poor and of charity
Lawrence's first heritage is diaconal. He remains, for the whole Church, the model of the deacon: a man wholly given to the service of the altar and to the service of the poor, unto martyrdom. The restoration of the permanent diaconate after the Second Vatican Council gave his figure renewed relevance: today's deacons, ordained "not for the priesthood but for service"[33], recognize themselves in him.
From this service of charity flows a second patronage, perhaps the deepest: Lawrence is the patron of the poor and of works of mercy. His word — "here are the treasures of the Church" — became the permanent program of Christian charity. Wherever the Church aids the needy, she remembers the Roman deacon.
Patron of cooks, librarians and archivists
Other patronages, more unexpected, are rooted in his story. The gridiron naturally made him the patron of cooks, roasters and all crafts of fire — a smiling patronage, born of the very word lent him on the brazier. Firefighters, who face the flames, have likewise taken him as protector.
Nobler still is his patronage of librarians and archivists: not because of the gridiron, but because of his office of archdeacon, guardian of the registers and records of the Church of Rome. The Apostolic Archives and many ecclesiastical libraries honor him under this title. The saint of fire is also, paradoxically, the saint of written memory.
The Escorial and the "tears of Saint Lawrence"
Lawrence's glory marked even geography and the sky. King Philip II of Spain, victor at the battle of Saint-Quentin on 10 August 1557 — the saint's feast day —, had the immense monastery-palace of San Lorenzo de El Escorial erected in thanksgiving, whose plan is said to evoke the shape of a gridiron[34].
The sky itself seems to pay him homage. Each year, around 10 August, the Earth crosses the meteor shower of the Perseids: these summer shooting stars, which popular piety baptized the "tears of Saint Lawrence", recall the fire of his martyrdom and the deacon's prayer rising to God[35]. Few saints left so vast an imprint — from the Roman altar to the August firmament.
Further reading
- Saint Stephen — the first deacon and first martyr, of whom Leo the Great makes the counterpart of Lawrence: Stephen for Jerusalem, Lawrence for Rome.
- Saint Cyprian of Carthage — martyr of the same Valerian persecution, whose letters inform us about the edicts of 257–258.
- Saint Ambrose of Milan — our principal source on Lawrence, who made him the model of deacons in his Duties.
- Saint Leo the Great — the author of the parallel between Stephen and Lawrence.
- Saint Hippolytus of Rome — associated by tradition with Lawrence's burial on the Via Tiburtina.
- Saint Sebastian — another great Roman martyr whose cult radiated over the City.
Notes and References
Liber Pontificalis, entry on Sixtus II, ed. L. Duchesne, Paris, 1886–1892. Sixtus II, pope from 257 to 258, was arrested and beheaded on 6 August 258 in the cemetery of Praetextatus with four of his deacons. Lawrence's office of archdeacon is recorded there.
1 10Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1569–1571, on the diaconate: deacons receive the imposition of hands "not for the priesthood, but for service" — service of the liturgy, the Word and charity.
2 33Depositio Martyrum, in the Chronograph of 354 (Calendar of Philocalus), section of martyrs' feasts: "IIII idus Aug. Laurenti in Tiburtina" (10 August, Lawrence on the Via Tiburtina). It is the oldest liturgical testimony to Lawrence's cult.
3 27Medieval tradition reported notably by the Hispanic breviaries: Lawrence is said to have been born at Osca (Huesca, Aragon) and to have met the future Pope Sixtus at Caesaraugusta (Zaragoza). This origin is not attested by the sources of the 3rd–4th centuries and belongs to pious memory.
4Prudentius, Peristephanon, Hymn II, where the Hispano-Roman poet associates Lawrence's glory with the bond between Rome and Spain. This literary clue is at the origin of the tradition of the Aragonese origin, without demonstrating it. Ed. M. Lavarenne, Prudence, Le Livre des couronnes, Les Belles Lettres, Paris.
5On the model of the seven deacons instituted by the Apostles (Acts 6:1–6), the first of whom is Stephen, the Church of Rome organized seven deacons for the seven ecclesiastical regions of the City. The archdeacon was their head and the administrator of the patrimony.
6On Valerian's persecution (257–260) and its targeting of the hierarchy and ecclesiastical goods: P. Healy, The Valerian Persecution, Boston, 1905; and J. Moreau, La persécution du christianisme dans l'Empire romain, PUF, Paris, 1956.
7Saint Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 80 (to Successus), which summarizes the content of Valerian's second edict (summer 258): immediate execution of bishops, priests and deacons; degradation and confiscation for Christian senators and knights. Ed. in Saint Cyprien, Correspondance, text established by L. Bayard, Les Belles Lettres, Paris.
8 9Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Duties (De officiis ministrorum), Book I, ch. 41, § 205–207, where Ambrose reports the dialogue between Sixtus II led to martyrdom and Lawrence. Ed. M. Testard, Ambroise de Milan, Les Devoirs, Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1984–1992. Original text: "Quo progrederis sine filio, pater? quo, sacerdos sancte, sine diacono properas?"
11 29Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Duties, Book II, ch. 28, § 140–141: the distribution of the treasure to the poor and the doctrine of the social purpose of the Church's gold. Ed. M. Testard, Les Belles Lettres.
12 14 15Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Duties (De officiis ministrorum), Book II, ch. 28: ordered to hand over the treasures of the Church, Lawrence promises to show them, brings the poor the next day and, questioned, "ostendit pauperes dicens: Hi sunt thesauri Ecclesiae" ("he showed the poor, saying: These are the treasures of the Church"). Ed. M. Testard, Les Belles Lettres. The Passio Laurentii develops the same scene; see also Vatican News, "Saint Laurent : les pauvres sont les trésors de l'Église", 10 August 2021.
13Prudentius, Peristephanon, Hymn II (Passio sancti Laurentii), a poem of more than 500 verses describing the trial, the torment of the gridiron over a slow fire and the final prayer for Rome's conversion. Ed. M. Lavarenne, Les Belles Lettres.
16 20 30Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2473: "Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith; it designates a witness unto death." Lawrence's figure is one of its purest illustrations.
17Saint Ambrose of Milan, On Duties, Book II, ch. 28, § 141. Original Latin text: "Assum est, versa et manduca" — "It is roasted, turn me over and eat". It is the earliest attestation of the word lent to Lawrence on the gridiron.
18The gridiron word, handed down by Ambrose, is taken up by Prudentius (Peristephanon II), Saint Augustine (sermons on Lawrence), Saint Maximus of Turin, Saint Peter Chrysologus and Saint Leo the Great — proof of the rapid and wide diffusion of the tradition.
19Prudentius, Peristephanon, Hymn II: prayer of the dying deacon that Rome, mistress of nations, be converted to Christ. Ed. M. Lavarenne, Les Belles Lettres. The English translation is given in the body; the Latin develops the image of Roma septicollis consecrated to Christ.
21P. J. Healy, The Valerian Persecution, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1905, p. 184 ("The traditions on which this story rests are not worthy of credence"), judging the gridiron account "unworthy of credence" on the grounds that Valerian's edict prescribed the immediate execution (animadvertantur, ordinarily beheading) of bishops, priests and deacons.
22 23Pio Franchi de' Cavalieri, "S. Lorenzo e il supplizio della graticola", Römische Quartalschrift, vol. 14, 1900, pp. 159–176. Hypothesis of a transcription error: the formula passus est ("he suffered") is said to have been altered into assus est ("he was roasted") by the omission of a "p", giving birth to the gridiron account. A conjectural hypothesis, attested by no manuscript.
24Lawrence's burial on the Via Tiburtina (ager Veranus, catacomb of Cyriaca) is attributed by tradition to Saint Hippolytus and the priest Justin. See Liber Pontificalis, Duchesne ed., and the notices of the Roman Martyrology.
25The Basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls (San Lorenzo fuori le mura), raised over the tomb by Constantine, rebuilt by Pelagius II (6th c.) then Honorius III (13th c.), is one of the seven pilgrimage churches of Rome. See R. Krautheimer, Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae, Vatican City.
26Missale Romanum, Roman Canon (Eucharistic Prayer I), Communicantes prayer, which names after the Apostles and the first popes: "Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian, Lawrence, Chrysogonus…". Presence in the Canon manifests the antiquity and universality of the cult.
28Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermons 302 to 305 (In natali sancti Laurentii), delivered for the feast of 10 August. Patrologia Latina (PL 38). In them Augustine develops the meaning of martyrdom as the supreme imitation of Christ's charity.
31Saint Leo the Great, Sermon for the feast of Saint Lawrence (Sermo 85 in the Patrologia Latina numbering, PL 54). Ed. R. Dolle, Léon le Grand, Sermons, vol. IV, Sources Chrétiennes no. 200, Cerf, Paris. In it Leo compares Lawrence to Stephen (Rome / Jerusalem); there is no question in it of Peter and Paul, nor of a title of patron — the standing of third patron of Rome belongs to Roman piety, not to an act of Leo. Original text: "sicut Hierosolymam Stephanus, sic Laurentius Romam fecit illustrem".
32The monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial was built by Philip II of Spain in thanksgiving for the victory of Saint-Quentin (10 August 1557, Saint Lawrence's feast). Its plan is traditionally interpreted as evoking the shape of a gridiron.
34The Perseid meteor shower, visible each year around 10 August, is called in popular tradition the "tears of Saint Lawrence", by association with the date of his feast and the fire of his martyrdom.
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