LORENZO, Saint, Martyr. — Archdeacon of the Roman Church, put to death on 10 August 258, together with the subdeacon Claudius, the priest Severus, the reader Crescentionese, and the ostiarius Romanus, and buried on the Via Tiburtina in a crypt of the cemetery of the Agro Verano, which soon took his name and only later that of Ciriaca (v. : cf. Lib. Pont., I, p. 155). The events of his martyrdom are closely connected with the swift execution, four days earlier, in the cemetery of Callisto, of Pope Sixtus II and the deacons Januarius, Magnus, Vincent, Stephen, Felicissimus, and Agapius, all victims of Valerian’s second edict of persecution (cf. St. Cyprian, Epist., 80 to Successus: CSEL, III, II, pp. 839–40 and Lib. Pont., loc. cit.). His feast is celebrated on 10 August in Western and Eastern liturgies (of precept until the reductions of the early 19th century).
I. LIFE
The best-known episodes of St. Laurence’s martyrdom are: the moving conversation with Pope Sixtus in prison; the clandestine distribution of the Church’s goods to the needy faithful hidden in various parts of the city; his arrest at the moment of the Pope’s execution following his public declaration to the Pontiff that the treasures of the Church had been distributed; the appearance, three days later, of a multitude of poor before the judge, as the treasures of the Church; the interrogation, torture, and finally the execution by gridiron, with the sarcastic words addressed to the judge: “Take, wretch, eat your part; turn the other side and eat.” He was buried in the crypt of the estate of the widow Ciriaca on the Via Tiburtina. These events, unfolding within four days, are described in rich detail (speeches, healings, conversions, etc.) in the so-called history of the Decian persecution, narrated in the historical romance known as the Passio Polychronii (BHL, 4753; cf. H. Delehaye, Recherches sur le légendier romain. La passion de St Polychronius, in Analecta Bollandiana, 51 [1933], pp. 34–71 [critical introduction], 71–98 [critical edition]), of which three recensions exist, each with its own peculiarities, dating from the end of the 5th to the beginning of the 7th century (kind personal communication from P. Franchi de’ Cavalieri, who has a critical edition in preparation; cf. also P. Guidi, Geometremum Cyriacae «or» Geometremum Laurentii, in Riv. di arch. crist., 26 [1950], pp. 163, 166; the text published by Fr. Delehaye would represent the latest recension).
While there is no doubt that the overall drama of Laurence as described in the aforementioned Passio is legendary, certain details—such as the meeting with Sixtus II, the presentation of the poor to the tyrant, and the execution by gridiron with the sarcasm in its oldest version: “Take it, turn it, and eat”—are already attested in passages from St. Ambrose (De officiis, I, 41; II, 28; Epist. XXXVIII, 36–37; PL 16, 90–92, 149–50, 1139; Hymn De s. Laurentio: PL 17, 1254–55) and exploited with rhetorical variations by Prudentius (Peristephanon, II), St. Augustine (Serm. 302–305; PL 38, 1385–1400), St. Maximus of Turin (Homil. 71; PL 57, 679–80; cf. also the other homilies), and St. Leo the Great (Serm. 85; PL 54, 433–40). The preface of the twelfth Mass in the so-called Leonine Sacramentary (ed. C. L. Feltoe, Cambridge 1896, p. 98) calls him “a citizen of Rome.”
II. CULT
The focal point of the cult of the protodeacon Laurence was his tomb in the Agro Verano, over which Constantine (314–35) had a basilica built, communicating with the underlying crypt by means of steps for ascending and descending (Lib. Pont., I, p. 181). In the same locality other basilicas later arose: namely, the greater one (not yet identified), the one ad corpus of Pelagius II (579–90), and another of Honorius III (1216–27; cf. W. Frankl-E. Josi-R. Krautheimer, Le esplorazioni nella basilica di S. L. nell’Agro Verano, in Riv. di Arch. crist., 26 [1950], pp. 9–50). From the 12th century, the basilica of St. Laurence at the Verano has been numbered among the Patriarchal Basilicas (v. BASILICA).
Within the city of Rome, from antiquity and especially in the Middle Ages, there flourished some thirty-five churches and chapels dedicated to St. Laurence (cf. C. Huelsen, Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo, Firenze 1927, pp. 280–97), erected on all the sites where, according to popular imagination, the principal scenes of his martyrdom were said to have taken place. Worthy of special mention are the title erected by Pope Damasus on his family home, now S. Lorenzo in Damaso (cf. F. Lanzoni, I titoli presbiteriali di Roma antica nella storia e nella leggenda, in Riv. arch. christ., 2 [1925], pp. 201–202), and that of Lucina dedicated by Sixtus III (432–40), whence the name S. Lorenzo in Lucina (cf. ibid., p. 204), or also, beginning with St. Gregory of Tours, the basilica ad craticulam (cf. B. Pesci, L’itinerario romano di Sigerico arciv. di Canterbury, ibid., 13 [1936], pp. 51–55). Also to be recalled is S. Lorenzo in Palatio, the pope’s private oratory in the Lateran patriarchate. According to Grisar, the oration in honor of St. Laurence in the thanksgiving of the Mass may derive from what the pope recited in this oratory before the Avignon exile; but it is perhaps more likely that St. Laurence was associated with the “Three Children,” all victims of the fire (cf. H. Grisar, Il Sancta Sanctorum ed il suo tesoro sacro, Roma 1907, p. 32; J. A. Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia, II, Vienna 1949, pp. 558–59).
The earliest document to mention the dies natalis of St. Laurence is the Depositio Martyrum: “III id. Aug. Laurenti, in Tiburtina” (ed. R. Valentini-G. Zucchetti, Codice topografico di Roma, II, Roma 1942, p. 23). From the end of the 4th century, his feast was celebrated immediately after that of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, being regarded as the leader of Rome’s victory over paganism and a worthy counterpart to St. Stephen (cf. Prudentius, Peristephanon, II, vv. 2–4 and passim), a reason why St. Augustine calls 10 August “the most solemn day of Rome, which is celebrated with a great concourse of people” (Serm. XIII, of 10 August 401, edited by Denis, reproduced in G. Morin, Miscellanea agostiniana, I, Roma 1930, p. 55; cf. also the