Laurence (or
Lawrence) was chief of the seven deacons of the congregation at Rome, the seven
men who, like Stephen and his companions (Acts 6:1-6), were in charge of
administering the church budget, particularly with regard to the care of the
poor. In 257, the emperor Valerian began a persecution aimed chiefly at the
clergy and the laity of the upper classes. All Church property was confiscated
and meetings of Christians were forbidden. The bishop of Rome, Sixtus II, and
most of his clergy were executed on 7 August 258, and Laurence on the 10th.
This much from the near-contemporary records of the Church.
The accounts
recorded about a century later by Ambrose (see 7 Dec) and the poet Prudentius
say that, as Sixtus was being led to his death, Laurence followed him, saying,
"Will you go to heaven and leave me behind?" and that the bishop
replied, "Be comforted, you will follow me in three days." They go on
to say that the Roman prefect, knowing that Laurence was the principal
financial officer, promised to set him free if he would surrender the wealth of
the Church. Laurence agreed, but said that it would take him three days to
gather it. During those three days, he placed all the money at his disposal in
the hands of trustworthy stewards, and then assembled the sick, the aged, and
the poor, the widows and orphans of the congregation, presented them to the
prefect, and said, "These are the treasures of the Church." The
enraged prefect ordered him to be roasted alive on a gridiron. Laurence bore
the torture with great calmness, saying to his executioners at one time,
"You may turn me over; I am done on this side." The spectacle of his
courage made a great impression on the people of Rome, and made many converts,
while greatly reducing among pagans the belief that Christianity was a socially
undesirable movement that should be stamped out.
The details of
these later accounts have been disputed, on the grounds that a Roman citizen
would have been beheaded. However, it is not certain that Laurence was a
citizen, or that the prefect could be counted on to observe the law if he were.
More serious objections are these:
1. The detailed accounts of the martyrdom of Laurence
confuse the persecution under Decius with the persecution under Valerian,
describing the latter, not as an emperor, but as the prefect of Rome under the
emperor Decius.
2. We have early testimony that Bishop Sixtus and his
deacons were not led away to execution, but were summarily beheaded on the
scene of their arrest.
For these
reasons, the Bollandist Pere Delahaye and others believe that Laurence was
simply beheaded in 258 with his bishop and fellow deacons. On this theory, it
remains unexplained how he became so prominent and acquired so elaborate an
account of his martyrdom.
Lawrence's
emblem in art is (naturally) a gridiron.
