Lawrence the Archdeacon and Martyr

ON ST. LAWRENCE THE ARCHDEACON AND MARTYR,

AT ROME.

LIKEWISE ON SS. ORENTIUS AND PATIENTIA, THE PARENTS, AS IS REPORTED, OF THE SAINT,

AT HUESCA IN ARAGON.

In the year 258.

PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.

Lawrence, Martyr at Rome (St.)

BHL Number: 4778, 4788, 4789

BY J. P.

§ I. His memory in the ancient Calendars, his cult among the Latins and the Greeks, the sacred edifices and public monuments at Rome.

The memory of this most illustrious Martyr is so held in benediction, The memory of the Saint in the most ancient Calendars; so everywhere celebrated and venerable, so widely and far propagated through the whole globe of lands, that merely to have named him seems sufficient to renew that image of his unconquered valor and heroic fortitude which is deeply impressed upon the minds of all the Faithful of Christ. But to represent that image in its genuine and living colors, those things will serve which bear upon the matter, and which we are about to gather from various documents. And first indeed, to begin from the sacred Calendars: to what Martyrologist, whether ancient, or of the middle age, or new, has the name of St. Lawrence been unknown or passed over? But it will be enough to hear the ancient ones. The most ancient Bucherian Calendar has it thus: IV Id. (of August) of Lawrence in the Tiburtine. The Martenian, in the New Treasury of Anecdotes, volume 5, column 76: On the tenth day of the month of August, the birthday of St. Lawrence. The Calendar of Polemius Silvius, in our work, volume VII of June, page 182: IV (Id. of August) The birthday of St. Lawrence, martyr. The Carthaginian, volume 3 of the Ancient Analects published by Mabillon: IV Ides of August, of St. Lawrence. The Martyrology distinguished by the name of St. Jerome the priest, and edited by D'Achery in the Spicilegium, volume 4: IV Ides of August, at Rome, on the Tiburtine Way, the birthday of St. Lawrence, archdeacon and martyr. The old or little Roman: At Rome, of Lawrence, archdeacon and martyr. In the Calendar which Leo Allatius published, there is marked at V Id. of August the Vigil of St. Lawrence. Likewise a public Mass on the birthday of St. Lawrence. Add the Roman of Fronto, Ado, Usuard, Wandelbert, and others.

[2] But now, with what solemn rite that distinguished Champion was always celebrated in the Catholic Church from the most ancient times, the public veneration of the same among the Latins, will become plain from the following monuments. In the Sacramentaries in Menard and Thomasius there are noted proper prayers to be recited for the Mass both on the vigil or eve and on the feast itself. And in the Gregorian, indeed, in Menard, this is altogether singular, that after the Mass of the vigil there are marked what things are to be said in the first Mass by night; while in Thomasius there are given the propers for the Mass on the Octave. What of this, that in the Frontonian, besides the vigil, a Gospel is assigned in the first Mass; and that these words are subjoined at page 117: On the day of the Saints, at the public Mass, the birthday of St. Lawrence. And at page 124: The first week after the birthday of St. Lawrence. And again at page 127: The second week after St. Lawrence; and so there follow in order the third and fourth weeks, up to the feast of St. Cyprian; which, as it is altogether rare, so it seems to indicate some special commendation of our Saint.

[3] and among the Greeks: Nor by the Latins only, but by the Greeks also was our most holy Levite held in the highest veneration. Their announcements we gave in this volume, on the 11th of this month, page 125, on the occasion of St. Sixtus II, Pope and martyr, of whom we there treated. In the Anthologion, and in the Great Menæa published in print, a particular Office is made concerning St. Lawrence on this day, where there is his eulogy, as also a canon marked with this acrostic:

Λαυρέντιον κράτιστον ὑμνῶ προφρόνως.

Lawrence the most valiant I gladly sing.

The things which are said throughout the course of this canon in his praise I forbear to transcribe. In the said Office these three little verses are chanted to the Saint.

Τὸν Λαυρέντιον λαύρακα Χριστοῦ λέγω, Ἐπ᾽ ἐσχάρας ἄνθραξιν ἐξωπτημήνον. Ὤπτησαν δεκάτῃ Λαυρέντιον ἠΰτε ἰχθύν.

I celebrate Lawrence, the labrax of Christ, roasted upon the hearth with burning coals. On the tenth Lawrence was roasted like a fish.

[4] is celebrated. That allusion, as not seldom elsewhere in the said Menæa, is of little charm. Further, the word λαῦραξ, or also λάβραξ (for the Notes on the sixth book, chapter 9, of the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux, reprinted at Amsterdam in the year 1706, page 593, treat of both these forms of writing) is in Latin labrax, a kind of fish: the wolf-fish, as it were Λίαν βόραξ, very voracious: whence by syncope λάβραξ; or from τοῦ λα as an intensive particle, and βορὰ, food, is derived λαβόρος, and by syncope λάβρος: whence λάβραξ, as from λίθος λίθαξ. Great Etymologicon 554. 3. And the proverb λάβραξ Μιλήσιος. For so in Erasmus at Chiliad 2, century 10, column 606, at 55, Labrax Milesius, that is, the Milesian wolf-fish. Aristophanes, Knights, page 209, verse 5, scholion at note 5: whence Suidas. But there is more there. And he was so called because his mouth, always intent upon prey, gapes, and he swallows and devours his food impetuously and voraciously. For which reason also he is easily caught. But in Miletus, a city of Asia, the greatest wolf-fish are born, and very many, on account of the lake which breaks out into the sea. For the fish, delighting in fresh water, ascend from the sea in their course into that lake, and thus among the Milesians they are plentiful; as the interpreter of Suidas says, printed at Geneva in the year 1619. Let us return to our purpose. If therefore, pardon being granted for the far-fetched consonance of letters in the words lauraca and Laurentium, to which the maker of those verses alluded, you should wish to find in what sense they cohere with one another in any way; say that the physical qualities of the labrax agree, in a certain moral and spiritual manner, with St. Lawrence, who eagerly and bravely devoured every hard thing, and, intent upon the prey of souls to be won for Christ, incorporated them by his mouth and words into the very bowels, so to speak, of the Church. But of these Greekling trifles this is more than enough.

[5] Latins alike and Greeks wished the excellent memory of their singular veneration toward our holy Levite to be attested by public monuments, The ancient temples at Rome under his name; as is concluded from the sacred places inscribed with his name. Aurelius Prudentius, in the Περὶ στεφάνων, hymn 2, which is concerning St. Lawrence, gives assurance that in his own time (that is, about the year 400) a church under his name existed at Rome, when he sings thus:

The pontiff, once fillet-bound, Is summoned to the sign of the cross, And Claudia the Vestal Enters thy temple, Lawrence.

O thrice and four times, O seven times Blessed the dweller in the City, Who close at hand keeps festival For thee and for the seat of thy bones.

[6] In our work, volume 1 of April, page XXX, in St. Sylvester, it is said thus of Constantine Augustus: At the same time he made the basilica of St. Lawrence. Anastasius the Librarian, volume 1, chapter 34, page 47 of the most recent Roman edition, writes this: At the same time Constantine Augustus made a basilica for the blessed Lawrence the martyr, on the Tiburtine Way in the Roman field above the sand-pit of the crypt, and as far as the body of blessed Lawrence the martyr; in which he made a stairway of ascent and descent. In which place he built an apse, and adorned it with porphyry marbles, and from the upper place he enclosed it with silver, and adorned the railings with purest gold: which weighed a thousand pounds; and before that place in the crypt he set a lamp of purest gold bearing ten wicks *, weighing thirty pounds. A silver crown with fifty dolphins, weighing thirty pounds; two candlesticks of ten feet each, weighing three hundred pounds apiece. Before the body of blessed Lawrence the martyr, his passion enclosed in silver, adorned with figures, with lamps of silver with linen wicks, weighing fifteen pounds apiece. The gift which he offered: a golden paten weighing twenty pounds, two silver patens weighing thirty pounds apiece, a cup of purest gold weighing fifteen pounds, two silver cups weighing ten pounds apiece, ten silver ministerial chalices weighing twenty pounds apiece, two silver ewers weighing ten pounds, thirty silver lamp-stands weighing fifteen pounds each, a golden measure weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, holding three medimni. In the same place, the possession of a certain religious woman Cyriaces, which the treasury had seized in the time of persecution, etc.

[7] the temples; There seems to be left some room for doubting whether that church, the construction of which Anastasius attributes to Constantine, was not built by Justinian I, according to those things which Placidia, his daughter, is handed down to have done about that edifice; for Baronius, in the Appendix annexed to volume 12 of the Annals, page 898, at the year 461, says: St. Leo took care that the same Placidia should restore the basilica of St. Lawrence in the Veran field to a better form and adorn it. And presently he brings forward from the Ancient Inscriptions in Gruter, page 1173, number 1, these verses:

THE PIOUS MIND OF PLACIDIA REJOICES THAT BY THE ZEAL OF THE PONTIFF LEO EVERY GLORY OF THE WORK SHINES FORTH, O FATHER.

THE LORD REMOVED THE DARKNESS, THAT, LIGHT BEING CREATED, WHERE ONCE WERE THESE HIDING-PLACES THERE MIGHT NOW BE SPLENDOR.

THE VENERABLE BODY HAD NARROW APPROACHES,

HERE WHERE NOW A MORE SPACIOUS HALL RECEIVES THE PEOPLE.

A LEVEL SPACE, DUG OUT AND CUT BACK BENEATH THE HILL, LAY OPEN, AND THE THREATENING RUIN OF ITS HEAVY MASS WAS REMOVED.

[8] their ornaments, St. Damasus, as Anastasius the Librarian relates, chapter 38, page 59, Made two basilicas, one next to the theater (of Pompey) to St. Lawrence, etc.

But he only restored and enlarged it, as appears from the inscription in Baronius in the cited Appendix from page 889: He established a title in the Roman city, namely the basilica which he himself built; as Anastasius reports in the same place, treating also of the offerings with which he enriched that place. Moreover the name of Damasus was given to it as its founder; as we have from St. Gregory, book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 31; and it is commonly called St. Lawrence in Damaso. St. Sixtus III, Pope, adorned the altar and sepulchre of St. Lawrence excellently. Let Anastasius the Librarian be heard, chapter 45, from page 71: Bishop Sixtus made the confession of blessed Lawrence the martyr with porphyry columns, and adorned the screen, and the altar, and the confession of St. Lawrence with purest silver. He made an altar weighing fifty pounds, silver railings above the porphyry Platonias, weighing three hundred pounds. An apse above the railings, with a silver statue of blessed Lawrence the martyr, weighing two hundred pounds. And he made a basilica for blessed Lawrence, which Valentinian Augustus also granted; where also he offered these gifts, which the aforesaid author enumerates one by one, and which may be read in him. St. Hilarus, the successor of Leo, as Anastasius relates in chapter 47 from page 77, made For blessed Lawrence the martyr a golden cup with green and hyacinth gems, weighing four pounds. A golden lamp of ten wicks, weighing five pounds, etc. In the basilica of blessed Lawrence the martyr, ten silver lamp-bowls, weighing ten pounds each; twenty-six bronze bowls, silver vessels for baptism, ten pounds, a bronze lamp-stand, fifty pounds. And a little after: He made monasteries at St. Lawrence's. He was also buried at St. Lawrence's in the crypt beside the body of the blessed bishop Sixtus.

[9] and pious works; St. Simplicius, who next followed Hilarus, Established .. at St. Lawrence the martyr's, a weekly course *, that priests might remain there for the sake of penitents and of baptism. The third region at St. Lawrence's; from Anastasius, chapter 48, page 79. And in the same author, chapter 52, page 88, concerning St. Symmachus these words are found: At St. Lawrence the martyr's he built dwellings for the poor. Of Pelagius II, chapter 64, page 114, he thus records: He made above the body of blessed Lawrence the martyr a basilica built from the foundations, and adorned his sepulchre with silver plates. Into the metrical inscription which I just now gave from Gruter these verses are inserted:

Under the prelate Pelagius, Lawrence the martyr of old Ordained that temples so precious should be given him.

Besides these, chapter 82, page 144: Benedict II restored the Church .. of blessed Lawrence the martyr, which is called of Lucina. Chapter 94, page 199: Stephen III restored the basilica of St. Lawrence situated above St. Clement's in the third region, which for a long time had remained in ruins. There may be consulted what Montfaucon notes concerning the church of St. Lawrence in Lucina in the Italian Diary, chapter 17, page 234; likewise what Panciroli has concerning the sacred edifices under the name of St. Lawrence in the Hidden Treasures of the city of Rome.

[10] The Stations also anciently celebrated at Rome in the places inscribed to the Martyr various stations, etc. add no small commendation to his cult. John Fronto, in the Prefatory Notes to the Roman Calendar which he published, §7, treating of the stations noted in the same, says: A Station was nothing else than a concourse of clergy and people, the bishop being present, to the place where on that day the public solemnities of the Masses were to be held. More on this matter in the same place. But in the Calendar there praised, Stations held at St. Lawrence's are marked in various places; which may be seen in the same. But now, if those things which I brought forward above concerning the vigils and Masses be inspected more thoroughly, they add great weight to the public and solemn cult of the Martyr. So far indeed was his public veneration propagated through all the churches of the West, that there is perhaps not even a single one which does not both keep the solemn light of his feast, and, a fast being enjoined, celebrate his eve. Besides these things, in the Observations on the Martyrology of Usuard published by us, on the X of August, this is noted as peculiar in this most illustrious Saint, that he alone, apart from the feasts of our redemption and of the Apostles — he alone, I say, among mortals — has a celebration of solemn and universal cult, enjoined not upon the clergy only but upon the people also; or that to him alone, not a Jew by origin, was decreed almost the first festival in the Church. But on occasion of the fast of which I was speaking, on the eve of the Martyr, let me here add from Francisco de Aynsa, in the work on the Foundation, excellences, etc., of the city of Huesca, book 2, chapter 7, page 152, that some in that place have been accustomed, in veneration of the martyrdom which the Saint consummated by fire, to fast on his vigil by eating nothing that had been brought near fire: and he adds that, because by this means favors are wont to be obtained from the Saint, he wished to mention it, that thereby the imitation of the Faithful might be stirred up.

* al. Ivchnorum (of wicks)

* al. hebdomadas (weeks)

§ II. Other sacred places throughout the West ennobled by prodigies.

In a sacred edifice among the people of Ravenna health is restored: St. Augustine, in sermon 322 of the new edition, volume 5, column 890, reciting the copy of a petition given to him by a certain Paul, makes mention of a sacred edifice founded at Ravenna about the year 425, perhaps on account of some relic of the Saint which had been brought thither, in which one of those seven famous sons, who for contempt of their mother had been punished by God with a continual trembling of the limbs, is said to have prodigiously recovered his former health. The text, which I excerpt from the same place, runs thus: Having therefore all gone forth, not bearing our reproach, and leaving our common fatherland, we were scattered here and there through divers places. But of all us ten brothers, he who follows the first also in the order of birth, at the Memorial of the glorious martyr Lawrence, which has lately been set up at Ravenna, as we have heard, obtained health.

[12] in the restoration of another among the Umbrians No small glory also accrued to St. Lawrence when, among the people of Norcia, in Umbria of Italy, the Lord honored the restoration of his sacred edifice with a most rare and remarkable prodigy. Learn the fact from St. Gregory, book 3 of the Dialogues, chapter 38: At another time also a violent famine had settled everywhere, and the church of the blessed martyr Lawrence had been burned by the Lombards. Wishing to restore it, the man of God (Sanctulus, a priest of the province of Norcia) employed many craftsmen and several workmen to assist them; for whom it was necessary that daily provisions should be furnished to the laborers without delay. But, the necessity of that same famine requiring it, bread was lacking; and the laborers began urgently to seek food, since through want they had not strength for the work. Hearing this, the man of God consoled them with words, outwardly promising what was lacking: but he himself was gravely troubled within, not being able to provide the food which he promised. But as he went anxiously hither and thither, he came upon an oven in which the women of the neighborhood had baked their bread the day before, and bending down there he looked, in case perchance a loaf had been left behind by the bakers. Then suddenly he found a loaf of wondrous size and unaccustomed whiteness: which indeed he took, but was unwilling to carry it to the craftsmen, lest perhaps it were another's, and he should commit a fault under the guise of piety.

[13] the workmen are fed by a wondrous prodigy. He therefore carried it about among the neighboring women, and showed it to all, and inquired whether it had been left by any of them. But all who had baked bread the day before denied that it was theirs, and confessed that they had brought back their loaves from the oven in full number. Then the man of the Lord went rejoicing to the many craftsmen with the one loaf, and admonished them to give thanks to almighty God. And he made known that He had provided them with food, and, having at once invited them to a meal, set before them the loaf he had found. When they had been sufficiently and fully satisfied, he gathered up more fragments from it than the loaf itself had been. These on the next day also he brought in to them for their meal: but that which remained over from the fragments surpassed even those very fragments which had been set out. And it came to pass that for ten days all those craftsmen and workmen, being satisfied from that loaf, both ate of it daily, and daily there remained over from it, for the morrow, what could be eaten, as if the fragments of that loaf grew by the eating, and the food restored the mouths of those who ate.

[14] Another temple Besides, we read it handed down from the memory of antiquity that other sacred edifices of St. Lawrence were made illustrious by miracles. For St. Gregory of Tours, book 1 on the Glory of the Martyrs, chapter 42, thus narrates: There was in a certain place a temple of blessed Lawrence, consecrated both by relics and by name, which through the neglect of long time had been greatly unroofed. When the inhabitants of the place wished to renew it, they went to the woods, and cutting and smoothing the timber made beams of it, and, placing them on wagons, brought them to the place. When these had been laid out upon the ground to be arranged, one was found to be too short: and immediately the greatest grief seized the mind of the priest who was superintending the work, and weeping bitterly he knew not what to do or whither to turn. Then, looking at the shorter timber *, he said: O most blessed Lawrence, thou who, set upon the fire, dost glorify thyself, ever cherishing and refreshing the poor: consider my poverty, for our slender means have no way of supplying another here. Straightway, to the astonishment of all, the beam grew to such a length that it was necessary to cut off a great part. Of which, the diligence of the people thinking it a crime to lose such benefits, and believing it had been touched and lengthened by the hand of the Martyr, they tore the portion that was over into small pieces, and often drove away divers infirmities.

Lawrence, deservedly burned with life-giving flames, Who with fervent faith returnest victor from the fire, While the people renew thy temples with too short a timber, Both the beams grew, and kindly faith grew too: The shrunken stock stretched itself out at thy reward, As much as it had been small before, so much was afterward cut away: The tree, felled by axes, deserved to grow the more, And the dry wood learned to be longer Than where it was cut: thence it brings health to the peoples, If a man come undaunted, the blind man has his sight.

He wrote thereafter many more little verses (in Poem 14 of book 9, which contains twenty-two verses), which I have passed over, writing these only as a testimony of the truth.

[16] Now these things were done at Briones, a fortress of Italy. is renewed at Briones, a fortress of Italy. For I myself saw a man who, suffering grievously from toothache, having received from the priest a particle of this wood, as soon as he touched his tooth with it, was at once free from the pain. The Briones are noted in Paul the Deacon, book 2 on the Deeds of the Lombards, chapter 13. And in book 4, chapter 4, he writes that in the region of the Briones blood flowed from the clouds. Fortunatus, in the Life of St. Martin, book 4, when he had named Augusta, subjoins this: Where the neighboring places of the Breones lie. Welser, in the Augsburg Vindelician Affairs

book 8, page 339 of the edition of the year 1682, affirms that they lie between the Lech and the Inn, and adds: Gregory of Tours called Briones a fortress of Italy, I believe because Rhætia was reckoned to Italy. Baudrand says: Brionum, a district of Noricum, in which is Bruneck, a town of the County of Tirol, on the testimony of Lazius, four leagues eastward from the city of Brixen. To others Brionum seems to be Pernaun, a town in the territory of Salzburg.

[17] Nor shall we leave unmentioned another church in Campania ennobled by an altogether singular and most rare kind of prodigy. Another church in Campania Hear the matter from Aringhi, who in volume 1 of Subterranean Rome, book 1, chapter 28, number 10, narrates this: In a town which, situated in Campania, is adorned with the name of St. Lawrence, and is subject to the dominion of the Colonna nobles, not far from the City, there exists down to these our own times a glass phial, indeed of considerable size, filled with the sacred blood of that same blessed Martyr, which is most honorably preserved in the church there dedicated to blessed Lawrence. Now this exhibits to the eyes of beholders a new and wonderful portent every year: for the blood, which is enclosed in the aforementioned phial in a congealed state and mingled with fat, when the festive and solemn memory of the martyrdom of the most blessed Martyr recurs, as is customary, on the tenth day of the month of August — on which day above all he, under Valerian, roasted over an iron gridiron by a slow fire, offered himself a victim worthy of God and an acceptable holocaust for Christ — (it is wonderful, what I am about to say) from the first Vespers of that same festal day, the blood, which a little before was seen congealed, at once begins to liquefy, to boil, and within the very enclosure of the glass, as if it would leap forth again to martyrdom and again exult over the tyrant and those who feed the flames; kindled with a new fire of charity, and once more burnt with hidden force by the flames in which he was once cooked upon the gridiron; it tries to come forth from the glass, just as from the veins, in such a manner as if it had been set beside the heating force of fire.

[18] ennobled by an altogether singular prodigy; For immediately the blood is separated from the fat, in exactly the same manner in which oil is separated from water, and so it remains divided and separate right up to the octave day from the feast. But when the solemnities of those days are completed, the blood again coalesces, and, mingled with the fat, is coagulated in the glass. Now this portent is perpetual, although fresh and new each year it is renewed in the church of the aforementioned town, innumerable peoples flowing together from every side to behold such a thing. And the portent is rendered even more illustrious and solemn to those who contemplate it, because, as the witnesses of the matter attest, when it was not known to anyone whose Martyr's blood was preserved in that same glass phial, so that the inhabitants might yearly (as is the custom) honor his festal day with due honor; behold — although it persisted coagulated while the Martyr lay hidden from those who sought him — behold, I say, on the recurring festal day of Lawrence the martyr, when the hour drew near for the chanting of first Vespers, the blood, boiling within the phial, presently began to liquefy, and thereafter has not ceased to do the same every year. The fame of which matter presently spread abroad, and, being carried even to the City, reached the ears of Paul V, Supreme Pontiff. He, admiring, as was fitting, the portent of the Martyr, which he had learned from men of approved credit who freely related it, wished some drops of that same sacred blood, drawn from thence, to be brought to him; which, enclosed in glass within a precious case, he laid up among the other relics of the Saints in the sacristy of the chapel erected by him at St. Mary Major… Jerome, the Most Eminent Cardinal Colonna, with the pious zeal toward the Martyr of Christ with which he burns, and emulating the piety of his forebears, in order the more to cultivate and increase the devotion of the inhabitants of the aforementioned town, took care that the phial of the precious liquor, enclosed in a silver case, should be kept with fitting honor in the said church, and wished this matter, attested by public testimony, to be here set forth for the pious reader. There may also be consulted below this our Commentary at number 61, and the Posthumous Glory of our Saint at the end.

[19] as also at Milan. The most ancient memorial of the veneration of the Milanese toward our holy Levite, in the founding of a sacred edifice to him, we learn from Gregory of Tours on the Glory of the Martyrs, book 1, chapter 46; where an excellent prodigy also increased the public veneration, which he reports thus: For there is at the same city (he had treated in chapter 45 of the city of Milan) a basilica of St. Lawrence the Levite, of whom we made mention above; and there a crystal chalice of admirable beauty was kept. But on a certain solemnity, while it was being offered by the deacon at the holy altar, it slipped from his hand and fell to the ground, and was broken into fragments. But the deacon, pale and bloodless, having carefully gathered up the fragments of the vessel, placed them upon the altar, not doubting that the power of the Martyr could make it whole. At length, having passed the night in vigils, tears, and prayer, he found the chalice he sought made whole upon the altar. When this miracle had been announced to the peoples, it kindled their minds with such devotion that they asked of the priest that new solemnities be celebrated to God in his honor. Then the pontiff of the place, having suspended the chalice above the altar, appointed the feasts to be celebrated most devoutly both from that time and thereafter every year. Let me be permitted to add to these sacred edifices what I have learned of Bohemia and Gaul.

[20] Our Georgius Crugerius, in the Sacred Ashes, at the X day of August, says: From the very first Christianity in Bohemia this Arch-martyr had sacred edifices, Sacred places in Bohemia, especially within and above Prague. The last is even today frequented yearly at this festival by an uncommon pilgrimage. Outside the metropolis there are in several places convenient churches dedicated to the memory of St. Lawrence: but as the moon surpasses all the lesser stars, so the Laurentian basilica of Altomünster surpasses all our others. Of that of the Dominicans at Klattau something similar was once said: but now the ruins, not yet wholly obliterated by new structures, testify that it was, and is not.

[21] But if we pass into Gaul, we shall find that already from the sixth century of Christ there existed at Paris a church and abbey bearing the name of St. Lawrence, and in Gaul. St. Gregory of Tours attesting the matter in the History of the Franks, book 6, chapter 9, where he says this: But Domnolus, bishop of Le Mans, began to sicken: for in the time of King Chlothar he had presided over a monastic flock at Paris at the basilica of St. Lawrence, etc. Ruinart in his notes says: This basilica still stands even now, distinguished with a parochial title, where a few years ago there were found ancient plaster sarcophagi which bore the marks of about nine hundred years; on the opening of which black garments and the figures of monks were seen: but as soon as they were breathed upon by the purer air, they were reduced to dust. In the same place also the praised author vindicates Gregory's text against Le Cointe. But in the Life of the praised holy Bishop of Le Mans, written by a contemporary and eye-witness, which is found in our work at volume III of May, on the day XVI, page 607, these things are said: Now this most devout lover of holy Church built a certain monastery in the suburb of his city, both that it might be a defense to that city, and that he might be able to gain souls for the Lord: and he consecrated it in honor of the holy martyrs Vincent and Lawrence. Further, in the same church he honorably laid up the head of blessed Vincent the martyr, and a great part of the gridiron on which St. Lawrence was roasted. And he embraced the most blessed bishop Germanus with so great love that in that very church he prepared a place of burial for him: where nevertheless afterward not St. Germanus, but he himself, was worthily buried. But now, leaving the West, let us visit the East; in which Constantinople alone will supply various monuments of antiquity to our purpose.

* i.e. robur brevius (the shorter timber)

§ III. Temples at Constantinople; the honorable eulogies of the Latin Fathers concerning St. Lawrence.

The Empress Eudoxia raises a temple; likewise Pulcheria a sacred edifice, etc. Already before the year of Christ 439 the Empress Eudoxia had raised a magnificent temple to him at Constantinople. For Marcellinus Comes in the Chronicle, which Sirmond published at Paris in the year of the Lord 1619, page 24, under Indiction VII, in the consulship of Theodosius XVII and Festus (to which corresponds the year of Christ 439), has it thus: Eudocia, wife of the emperor Theodosius, returned from Jerusalem to the royal city, bringing with her the relics of the most blessed Stephen the first martyr, which, placed in the basilica of St. Lawrence, are venerated. The Excerpts from the ecclesiastical history of Theodore the Reader, which were published at Paris in the year 1673 together with the Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret and Evagrius, book 2, near the end: In his reign (namely of Theodosius the Younger) the relics of Saints Stephen, Lawrence, and Agnes were deposited in the Martyrium of St. Lawrence, on the twenty-first day of the month of September. And on the same day their memory is celebrated there, down to the present day. Theophanes in the Chronography, published with the royal types at Paris, page 91, says: In this year .. the blessed and pious Pulcheria fell asleep in Christ. She moreover built very many sacred edifices, or oratories .. among which is numbered the temple of the holy martyr Lawrence. The restoration, size, and site of this edifice is taught by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the Life of his grandfather, chapter or number CXII, page 209 of the royal Parisian edition. Thus therefore we have there concerning Basil the Macedonian: He also restored the very great edifice of the sacred martyr and archdeacon Lawrence (ἐν Πουλχεριανοῖς, in the Pulcherian quarter, which is wanting in the Latin version), which had fallen down, filling it with much beauty and grace.

[23] Some things are here noted about the site. Bandur, Eastern Empire, volume 2, page 659, says: It is called ἐν Πουλχεριανοῖς: for that district of the city was so named from the house of the Empress Pulcheria. And there were two edifices of this Empress in the city, as is found in the ancient description of the city; one in the third region, the other in the eleventh. Here our writer speaks of this latter edifice of the Empress, in whose district was the church of St. Lawrence, which is said in the Menology of Basil, at the IX of May, to be next to the Blachernæ. And indeed the Menology just cited, speaking of the relics of the holy prophet Isaiah, writes thus to our purpose: But at length, being translated to Constantinople, they were deposited near the Blachernæ in the temple of the holy martyr Lawrence. I do not conceal, however, that from the delineation of the city of Constantinople, divided into three parts, such as it is described by the anonymous author who lived in the time of Alexius Comnenus, in Bandur, in the volume praised before, there is so great a space between the Blachernæ and the church of St. Isaiah and St. Lawrence, that the latter (if indeed it be the same of which we here treat) cannot be reckoned nearest to the former. But there was more than one church of St. Lawrence among the people of Constantinople.

[24] What Justinian did. A monastery. For Procopius of Cæsarea, on the Buildings of the Emperor Justinian, book 1, chapter 6, page 17 of the royal Paris edition, says: Justinian Augustus .. on the left of the gulf (called the Horn), the Martyrium of St. Lawrence, before blind and exceedingly dark, into that form which, to speak most briefly, we behold today,

by changing its form, he restored. The same writer had premised in chapter 5: About the gulf called by the natives the Horn, from the name of Ceroëssa, the mother of Byzas, who founded the city, when Justinian had seen the temples worthy of none of the Heavenly Ones, in all things he displayed a truly imperial magnificence. Besides these things, mention has been made in our work, volume VII of May, on the day XXX, page 238, of the church of St. Lawrence in Petrion. That the place Petrion lay upon the Ceratine gulf, Bandur observes in the cited volume, page 649; whence it follows that this edifice does not seem to be distinguished from the one immediately preceding. Let it be permitted to add to these a monastery, built by Theodore, abbot of the same, in the reign of Justinian, in whose time that abbot was present at the Council of Constantinople which was celebrated under Mennas in the year of Christ 535, as appears from that subscription in Labbe, volume 5 of the Councils, column 134: I, Theodore, by God's mercy priest and Prior of the monastery of St. Lawrence the martyr, founded by me by God's grace, have subscribed and presented it. From these things therefore shines forth the spread of the ancient veneration among the people of Constantinople, with which they embraced the holy Levite and in a manner made him their own.

[25] What of this, that his church in the same city (in the Ceratine gulf, so far as I suspect from the things said and to be said) is read to have enjoyed a certain singular prerogative of asylum, Asylum in the Saint's church. on the testimony of Theophanes, page 156? For treating there of that famous and tragic sedition, whose name was NIKA, Conquer, raised at Constantinople against the emperor Justinian in the month, as he had premised, of January, Indiction X (to which corresponds the year of the vulgar era 532), he says: The prefect condemned to hanging three seditious men, arrested from the factions of the charioteers. One of them indeed lost his life immediately; the other two fell from the gibbet. Being hung up again, they fell again. On seeing this, the people standing by cried out: Take them to the church. Hearing the shout, the monks of St. Conon took the condemned men in a small boat, and, carrying them across, brought them to St. Lawrence's, because that church enjoyed the privilege that none should be cast out of it until satisfaction had been made. Learning of this, the prefect sent soldiers: but when the popular factions had found out that these had been sent, they gathered at the prætorium, intending to demand of the prefect that the soldiers appointed to guard should be removed from the temple of St. Lawrence: but they received no answer from him.

[26] Nor shall I omit to weave in with these a story indeed wonderful, A wonderful story is related, but of suspect credit, which blessed Peter Damian thus sets forth concerning a basilica of St. Lawrence that was built, book 8, letter 5: Alphanus, archbishop of Salerno, a man truthful and prudent, declares that he learned in the city of Constantinople what he related. It happened, he says, that an emperor, whose name however he did not remember, once fell into the affliction of blindness, whom no care of medical skill could relieve. And when he could by no means escape this peril by human effort, he set himself to obtain it from God by pouring forth prayers. He heard therefore in a dream that if he should seek the church of blessed Lawrence the martyr, he would divinely obtain the brightness of restored sight. About to go to Rome, therefore, he makes his vow, orders a ship to be made ready at once, and fixed his resolve to set out immediately on the journey. But his wife, while she dreads the loss of the empire, her sons being still little, while she fears for herself the setting of the royal dignity, and for her husband the peril of the sea's danger, undertakes a device of pious deceit. She therefore gave the rowers this command, that they should by no means make for Rome by a straight course; but that, halting and holding back the ship through divers ports and stations of the shores, they should only pretend a voyage.

[27] But while the sailors, as they had been instructed, deceive the king by changing the various names of places, and now go forward, now by winding turnings and returnings slip back into the same places through which they had passed; the queen, a multitude of stone-cutters and masons being employed, built a most august and exceedingly wonderful church in honor of blessed Lawrence, namely constructed after the measure of that basilica which the aforesaid Martyr has in the very suburb of Rome. which is said to have happened in the church of St. Lawrence that was built. For she said: If it is granted that through blessed Lawrence my husband return to health, whatever God can do at Rome, He can none the less do here also. But while on the one hand the emperor is led about wandering through divers windings and stations of the shores; on the other the basilica is built by very many craftsmen of the works: at once both the fabric is wonderfully adorned and completed, and the year is filled up. These things therefore being accomplished in this manner, the aforesaid prince is brought back to the walls of Constantinople: yet he thinks it to be Rome, his companions so declaring. It was therefore provided and more carefully arranged that none should attend him but such as spoke Latin, who, namely, should persuade him when he asked that Rome and the basilica of blessed Lawrence the martyr were there. Led therefore by the hand, the emperor enters the church, and immediately, having received his sight, he marvels to behold those standing about him, his wife, his clients, and his household. But these things, which Alphanus learned at Constantinople, seem to have much of Greekling loquacity. Now these few specimens will show how honorably the most ancient Fathers of the Church spoke of St. Lawrence.

[28] [SS. Augustine, Leo, Maximus, Peter Chrysologus write honorably of the holy Martyr.] To say nothing of the poems 18, 19, 20, 37, and 38 of St. Damasus, Pope; St. Augustine composed various sermons for the solemnity of St. Lawrence, namely the three hundred and second, and the two next following, which are found woven in that order in the fifth volume of his Works of the new edition. In sermon 303, therefore, that holy Father says: As little as Rome can be hidden, so little can the crown of Lawrence be hidden. His benefits at Rome are so illustrious that they cannot at all be numbered. This is he of whom Christ said: He that shall lose his life for my sake shall save it. He saved it by faith, he saved it by contempt of the world, he saved it by martyrdom. How great is his glory with God, when so great is his praise among men? In sermon 304 he calls it the triumphal day of blessed Lawrence; and adds: For all Rome is witness how glorious, and marked with how great a multitude of virtues, as with a variety of flowers, is the crown of Lawrence the martyr. St. Leo the Great, in his sermon on the festival of St. Lawrence, says: Let us glory in the Lord over the most happy end of that renowned Man, who is wonderful in His Saints .. and He so glorified His glory throughout the whole world that from the rising of the sun to its setting, with the flashing splendor of the Levitical lights, as Jerusalem was glorified by Stephen, so illustrious should Rome be made by Lawrence. St. Maximus, bishop of Turin, in Homily 1 on the birthday of St. Lawrence, speaks thus: It is holy, brethren, and pleasing to God, that we should venerate with special devotion the birthday of blessed Lawrence, with whose radiant flames the victorious Church of Christ shines in all the world unto this day .. Nor without cause do we proclaim him next in rank to the Apostles, etc. And in Homily 2 on the same: The whole world everywhere today celebrates with harmonious devotion the triumph of blessed Lawrence. Let St. Peter Chrysologus at last be heard, in sermon 135 on our Saint: This day is made illustrious by the crown of the baptism of Lawrence the martyr: whose merits, that distinguished martyr's, no part of the Roman world is ignorant of.

[29] and before these St. Ambrose had gone before, whose dialogue concerning the holy Archdeacon is as widely known everywhere to all as it is eloquent and illustrious. Yet, lest anyone should miss it here, I shall not grudge to transcribe his words from book 1 of the Offices, chapter 41: Let us not pass over St. Lawrence either, who, when he saw Sixtus his bishop led to martyrdom, began to weep, not for the other's passion, but for his own remaining behind. And so he began to address him in these words: Whither dost thou go forward without thy son, father? Whither, holy priest, dost thou hasten without thy deacon? Never wast thou wont to offer the Sacrifice without a minister. What then has displeased thee in me, father? Hast thou proved me degenerate? Try at least whether thou hast chosen a fit minister. To him to whom thou hast committed the consecration of the Lord's blood, to whom the fellowship of consummating the Sacraments, to him dost thou deny the fellowship of thy blood? See that thy judgment be not endangered while thy fortitude is praised. The rejection of the disciple is the loss of the master. What of this, that illustrious and eminent men conquer more by the contests of their disciples than by their own. In fine, Abraham offered his son, Peter sent Stephen before him. Do thou also, father, show thy virtue in thy son: offer him whom thou hast trained, that, secure in thy judgment, thou mayest come to the crown with a noble retinue.

[30] Then Sixtus: I do not, my son, leave thee nor forsake thee; holy but greater contests are due to thee. We, as old men, receive the course of a lighter combat; for thee, as a young man, there awaits a more glorious triumph over the tyrant. Soon thou shalt come, cease to weep; after three days thou shalt follow me. Between priest and Levite this intervening number is fitting. It was not for thee to conquer under a master, as though thou wert seeking a helper. Why dost thou seek fellowship in my passion? I leave to thee the whole inheritance of it. Why dost thou require my presence? Let weak disciples go before their master, let the strong follow, that they may conquer without the master, who now have no need of teaching. So also Elijah left Elisha. To thee, therefore, I commend the succession of our virtue. Such was the contention, worthy indeed that priest and minister should strive about it, which of them should suffer first for the name of Christ. In tragic tales it is related that great applause of the theater was raised when Pylades said he was Orestes, and Orestes, as he was, asserted that he himself was Orestes: the one that he might be slain in place of Orestes, Orestes that he might not suffer Pylades to be slain for him. But it was not lawful for them to live, because each was guilty of parricide, the one who had done it, the other who had aided it. Here nothing urged holy Lawrence to this but the love of devotion: yet he too, after three days, when, the tyrant being mocked, he was burned laid upon the gridiron, said: It is roasted, turn and eat. Thus the virtue of the soul overcame the nature of fire.

[31] The same St. Ambrose, book 2 of the Offices, chapter 28, Ambrose. says: Such gold did the holy martyr Lawrence lay up for the Lord: of whom, when the treasures of the Church were demanded, he promised that he would show them. The next day he brought forward the poor. Being asked where were the treasures which he had promised, he showed the poor, saying: These are the treasures of the Church: and truly treasures, in whom Christ is, in whom is the faith of Christ. In fine the Apostle says: We have this treasure in earthen vessels. What better treasures has Christ than those in whom He said that He Himself was. For thus it is written: I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me to drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in. And below: For what ye have done to one of these, ye have done to me. What better treasures has Jesus than those in whom He loves to be seen. These treasures Lawrence showed, and conquered, since the persecutor could not carry them away, etc.

§ IV. Certain deeds and the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, established on the authority of the ancient Fathers.

Of his fatherland and parents nothing new has been handed down to memory by the Fathers, He was a disciple of St. Sixtus, archdeacon, excelling in chastity of soul: as neither by Prudentius in the hymn which he composed concerning the Saint. He was a disciple

of St. Sixtus II, Pope, whose Acts we illustrated on the VI day of this month; and he was especially dear to him on account of his singular virtues, and was promoted by him to the honor of the diaconate; as we have from St. Ambrose, book 1 of the Offices, chapter 41. The words we gave at number 29. St. Augustine, in the cited sermon 302, says: Holy Lawrence was an archdeacon. And in sermon 303: For in that Church, as you are wont to hear, he discharged the office of deacon. He had premised in the same place: He was a deacon, following the Apostles. St. Leo, in the sermon on St. Lawrence, calls him a Levite. And a little after he is called by him a most chaste Levite. And indeed St. Maximus, bishop of Turin, in the first Homily on our Saint, ascribes that sacred ministry to his chastity, when he says: To whom also chastity of soul gave the levitical ministry. St. Peter Chrysologus, in the cited sermon 135, writes: There (at Rome) he served as deacon. And presently: Blessed Sixtus was then bishop, he being archdeacon. Let us add to the Fathers Prudentius, lately alleged, who touches in a few words both the Saint's prerogative in that office and the nature of the office itself, singing thus:

He, first of the seven men Who stand nearest to the altar, A Levite lofty in his degree, And more eminent than the rest; He presided over the enclosures of the sacred things, Governing with faithful keys The secret of the heavenly house, And dispensing the wealth that had been vowed.

[33] His twofold office: The Saint's office therefore was twofold; of which the one pertained to the altar and the Sacraments; the other to the distribution of the treasures of the Church. The first is confirmed from the cited passage of St. Ambrose, where St. Lawrence is introduced thus addressing St. Sixtus: Never wast thou wont to offer the Sacrifice without a minister. Add: To whom thou hast committed the consecration of the Lord's blood; to whom the fellowship of consummating the Sacraments. Consult what we observed in the Annotations to the Martyrdom of St. Sixtus, on the VI of this month, page 142, letters k and l. The second, which we were just now indicating, will shine forth from what is to be said below. Our Saint therefore was first of the seven men, or deacons, as Prudentius sang. For at that time there were not more deacons there than seven. Eusebius indeed, in book 6 of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 43, sets down seven deacons. Sozomen, book 7, chapter 19, says: Among the Romans the deacons are up to now not more than seven, after the pattern of those who were first ordained by the Apostles: of whose number was Stephen, who first endured martyrdom. But among others the number of deacons is by no means fixed. See the Preliminary Commentary of Mabillon on the Roman Ordo, chapter 3. Of the origin of the Cardinal deacons, and of their twelve ancient Deaconries, Onuphrius Panvinius treats in the book which is on the Seven Churches of the City, chapter 3.

[34] [he abounded in virtue, and was in the flower of his age; and of a very strong soul, and one kindled toward God.] Our most holy Deacon of the Church was as rich in virtues as he was poor in riches, on the testimony of St. Peter Chrysologus: Lawrence, he says, poor in wealth, rich in character. Besides this, he was a young man, or in the flower of his age. For St. Sixtus says, in St. Ambrose: We, as old men, receive the course of a lighter combat; for thee, as a young man, there awaits a more glorious triumph over the tyrant. St. Peter Chrysologus calls him that venerable young man. His fortitude St. Sixtus expressly praises in Ambrose in these words to him: Why dost thou require my presence? Let weak disciples go before their master, let the strong follow, that they may conquer without the master, who now have no need of teaching. The charity of God poured forth in his heart by the indwelling Holy Spirit consumed the holy Man with a very vehement flame of heavenly fire. To this the holy Fathers excellently allude; namely St. Augustine in sermon 304: Therefore, my brethren, the glorious Martyr did not dread in his body the cruel flames of the fires, because he burned in his mind with a most ardent desire of heavenly joys. In comparison with the fervor with which his breast burned, the outward flame of the persecutors was cold. St. Leo: The charity of Christ could not be overcome by flame: and the fire which burned without was more sluggish than that which kindled within. St. Maximus, bishop of Turin, Homily 1 on the Saint: Nor was he bent by the penal fire, in whose breast the unconquerable flame of the Holy Spirit glowed. Peter Chrysologus at last: He burned more than he was burned: he was burned in the flesh, he burned in the heart. St. Augustine, Tract 27 on John: For the flesh burned, but the spirit gave life to the soul.

[35] Further, that not only martyrdom was foretold to him by St. Sixtus, St. Sixtus foretold to him not only martyrdom, but even the very day of his martyrdom, is established from the testimony of the Fathers. This most holy Pontiff, in St. Ambrose at the place designated, says: Soon thou shalt come, cease to weep, after three days thou shalt follow me. St. Maximus, bishop of Turin, thus confirms the matter: When venerable Xystus, the prelate of the Roman city, was overcoming the impiety of the raging world through torments, and was now near to the heavenly realms, and saw him most sorrowful at his father's death, he is related to have addressed him thus in the spirit of foreknowledge: Be not sad, my son, after three days thou shalt follow me. Whence it appears, dearly beloved, that blessed Lawrence had no sorrow over the victory of his priest; but grieved because he too was not conquering the world together with his priest. Be not (he says) sad, my son, after three days thou shalt follow me. That is, be not sad, as though left behind in the world. For neither thy faith nor thy life shall deprive thee of such a death. Let no anxiety trouble thee about my passing, in which I rejoice, because soon thou also shalt have joy from thy own passion. Truly the singular glory of blessed Lawrence, who obtained so much grace from his God that a martyr prophesied to him about his martyrdom. And in homily 2 on St. Lawrence he records this: Whom the admirable Xystus armed against all the evils of the raging world with the prophecy of a prophetic word. For when the same Lawrence, as a most dutiful son, was bewailing his father's passion with inconsolable grief, Xystus, taught by the foreknowledge of the Holy Spirit, discerning things to come, said to him: Lay aside, my son, all sorrow over my death: for my absence shall not sadden thee long: after three days thou shalt follow me.

[36] St. Augustine, Tract 27 on John: But holy Xystus the martyr, whose day we celebrated five days ago, had said to him: but even the very day of his martyrdom. Be not sad, my son .. Be not sad, he says; thou shalt follow me after three days. And he said three days, the interval between the day of the passion of holy Xystus and the day of the present passion of holy Lawrence. Three days is the interval. O consolation! He does not say: Be not sad, my son, the persecution will cease and thou shalt be safe: but, Be not sad, whither I go before, thou shalt follow: nor is thy following delayed: three days will be the interval, and thou shalt be with me. He received the oracle, he conquered the devil, he came to the triumph. Prudentius agrees with the holy Fathers, when he sings this:

The priest had said this would be — Xystus, already fastened to the cross, Seeing Lawrence weeping Beneath the very stem of the cross: Cease at my departure To pour forth tears in grief: I go before, brother: thou also Shalt follow after this third day.

The bishop's last word, Herald of glory, Deceived in nothing: for the day Foretold bestowed the palm.

For St. Sixtus died on the VI day of August, according to what was said in his Preliminary Commentary at that day, §2; but our Saint on this X day: both under the emperor Valerian, in the year of the vulgar era 258.

[37] The holy Fathers assign as the cause of martyrdom Of the cause also of his martyrdom we have testimonies from the Fathers: which was the greedy thirst of the heathen, wherewith they gaped after the treasures of the Church, entrusted to St. Lawrence by his office, to be wrested away by an insatiable lust for wealth. Let St. Maximus be heard in the cited homily 1: Therefore, when he learned from the mouth of the priest and martyr that he too was in every way to be taken, having gathered together crowds of the needy, he distributed the ecclesiastical funds with religious liberality. How profound and how heavenly the counsel of that spiritual Man, that he should both provide for the needy, and, the multitude consuming what he had given, there could not be found what the persecutor might seize. Kindled therefore with this grief, the heathen fury, etc. St. Augustine, sermon 302: The wealth of the Church was demanded of him by that persecutor, as is handed down: whence he suffered so many things as are dreadful to hear. And sermon 303: When therefore the persecution .. was burning fiercely at Rome as in the rest of the places, and, as it were, the goods of the Church were demanded of the Archdeacon, etc. St. Leo: For when the fury of the heathen powers raged against all the most chosen members of Christ, and especially assailed those who were of the priestly order, the impious persecutor blazed out against Lawrence the Levite, who was preeminent not only in the ministry of the Sacraments but also in the dispensing of the ecclesiastical substance, promising himself a twofold prey from the seizing of a single Man. Whom, if he had made a betrayer of the sacred money, he would also make a stranger to true religion. The man greedy of money and the enemy of truth is therefore armed with a double torch: with avarice, to snatch the gold; with impiety, to take away Christ. Add SS. Ambrose and Peter Chrysologus, of whom I shall presently speak.

[38] and Prudentius Prudentius thus wove this very cause of the martyrdom into metrical numbers:

The prefect of the royal city Turns over his hunger for money, Minister of a mad ruler, Exactor of gold and of blood, By what force he may dig out The hidden coins, supposing That talents lie covered beneath the sanctuaries And heaps piled up are concealed; And he orders Lawrence to be set before him.

[39] his gaping after the treasures of the Church What did the most holy Levite say to this? From St. Ambrose, book 2 of the Offices, chapter 28, we have these words: Of whom, when the treasures of the Church were demanded, he promised that he would show them. The next day he brought forward the poor. Being asked where were the treasures which he had promised, he showed the poor, saying: These are the treasures of the Church, and truly treasures, in whom Christ is, in whom is the faith of Christ. St. Peter Chrysologus interposes the space of three days, and narrates the matter thus: He did not deny that the Church had riches; but that he might show them, he asked a delay of three days; then he ordered the companies of the poor to be gathered together. Then afterward, on the very day of his crown, being presented to the trial, as though about to show what the other sought, he showed what he had. Then said the persecutor: Where are the goods of the Church? But he, stretching out his hand toward the poor, said: These are the goods of the Church. He spoke truly, but bitterly. St. Leo agrees: He demanded that the ecclesiastical wealth, after which he most greedily gaped, be brought to him by the spotless Ruler of the sanctuary. To whom the most chaste Levite, showing where he had them laid up, presented most numerous flocks of the holy poor, in whose food and clothing he had stored up imperishable goods, which were so much the more entirely safe, as they were the more holily proved to have been spent. St. Augustine, sermon 303: Let carriages be sent with me, in which I may bring the wealth of the Church .. As many carriages as he demanded, so many went. And he demanded many .. he filled the carriages with the poor .. He answered: These are the riches of the Church.

[40] Prudentius supports the Fathers, when he sings this pathetically and at the same time elegantly:

Lawrence returns nothing harsh the greed of the heathen. To these words, nor troubled: But, as one ready to comply, He obediently assents… I will make all public, and will bring forth

The precious things which Christ possesses.

But one thing I beg in supplication, A little space of respite..

The prefect swells with glad joy, And devours the gold in hope, Exulting as though it already Lay stored up at his house.

They agreed upon a term of three days.

The Poet then subjoins that for three days the Saint ran about the City and gathered together the sick and the needy, as you will read there at greater length and vividly in him. But that a few years before there had been in that same place widows, together with the sick and needy, more than one thousand five hundred, for all of whom the grace and kindness of God supplied nourishment, we have from the letters of St. Cornelius, Pope, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, book 6, chapter 43.

[41] The tyrant, seeing himself deluded by that unexpected and at once pious and harmless stratagem, The Saint's monstrous torments on the gridiron, from the Fathers; but splendid began to rage and be furious. St. Leo says: The baffled robber roars, and, blazing into hatred of the religion which had established such a use of riches, undertakes the plundering of a greater treasure in him, in whom he had found no substance of coined money; that he might carry off that deposit whereby he was the more sacredly rich. He orders Lawrence to renounce Christ, and prepares to press that most solid fortitude of the Levitical soul with dreadful punishments. When the first of these obtain nothing, more violent ones follow. He commands his mangled limbs, torn with much cutting of scourges, to be roasted with fire set beneath, so that upon an iron grate, which already from the continual heat had in itself the power of burning, by the alternate turning of the limbs, the torment might become more violent and the punishment more prolonged. St. Augustine, sermon 303: The gridiron was brought up, and he was roasted. What says St. Maximus of Turin in the cited homily 1? Kindled therefore with this grief, the heathen fury at once prepares a fiery gridiron, upon which it might tear Lawrence limb from limb as he burned. And homily 2: A gridiron therefore is prepared, kindled with fire, which should both weary the soul and burn up the body of the triumphant Martyr. St. Peter Chrysologus: The cruel tyrant and greedy enemy, grieving that he had been mocked .. ordered flames to be prepared .. Then was brought forth that gridiron, ennobled by the martyrdom of Lawrence, for scorching, and, to speak more truly, for roasting his skin *. Prudentius describes the barbarous apparatus excellently; whom do thou consult. Meanwhile it pleases me to note these things from him:

While the Prefect spoke thus, On this side and that the savage torturers prepare To strip the Martyr of his garment, To bind and stretch his limbs.

His face shone with beauty And a radiance was poured about him.

[42] That radiance, on the testimony of Prudentius, appeared to the neophytes, but not to the impious. For thus he sings: on the testimony of Prudentius

This shone forth from afar To the brethren lately purified, Whom baptism newly given Had made capable of Christ.

But the blindness of the impious, Its face smeared with the mold of night, Covered beneath a blackening veil, Sees not that brightness.

To this is added that the odor of the burnt body affected the two parties far otherwise. Which the praised Poet thus expresses:

Nay, the very quality of the odor, Which the scorched skin gives forth, Moves the two parties differently; To these it is a stench, to those nectar.

And the same sense, varied By a differing breath, either afflicts The nostrils with an avenging horror, Or soothes them with delight.

[43] and triumphant The holy Fathers, already so often praised, thus display Lawrence triumphing amid the most bitter torments: St. Augustine, sermon 303: When he had burned on one side, he is said to have borne those torments with such tranquillity that there was fulfilled in him what we lately heard in the Gospel: In your patience you shall possess your souls. In fine, burnt by the flame, but tranquil in patience, he said: It is now cooked; what remains, turn me, and eat. Peter Chrysologus agrees with Augustine in these words: And so the most blessed Martyr, showing how quietly he lay upon that glowing iron, said to the bystanders: Now turn me, and if one side is cooked, devour it. Doubtless In that .. long death, in those torments, because he had eaten well and drunk well (namely the Body and blood of the Lord), as though fattened with that food and drunk with That cup, he did not feel the torments; as St. Augustine writes in Tract 27 on John. Prudentius introduces the Martyr using this speech to the judge; by which the things said are confirmed:

Turn over that part of the body Already sufficiently burned throughout: And make trial of what thy Burning Vulcan has accomplished.

The Prefect orders him to be turned. Then he: It is cooked, devour it, And take experiment Whether raw or roast be sweeter.

And these indeed are the things which it seemed good to gather from the holy Fathers and from the poet Prudentius for establishing certain of his chief deeds, of which it will be useful to be mindful afterward, when we shall examine his Acts, of whatever sort, which are in circulation.

* perhaps cuticula (his skin)

§ V. St. Lawrence is shown from the Fathers to have been a great thaumaturge; a prodigy and victory granted to St. Henry; the violation of his feast punished; a wonderful but suspect privilege of the Saint.

That St. Lawrence was a thaumaturge, memorable for great and many prodigies, the marvels which he wrought both at Rome and elsewhere solidly prove. Of those wrought at Rome, St. Augustine in sermon 302 suggests a great idea in a few words, saying: He was a great thaumaturge, on the testimony of St. Augustine, Prudentius, But of what merit the said Martyr is, who is ignorant? Who has prayed there and not obtained? To how many sick has his merit granted even temporal benefits, which he himself despised. For they were granted, not that the infirmity of those who prayed might remain; but that, lesser things being granted, love might arise for seeking better things. Prudentius, cited above, sings this:

What each suppliant asks He carries away happily obtained, They ask freely, they declare it, And not one returns sorrowful.

The same poet, having spoken of the death of the Martyr and the carrying away of his body, testifies how much Rome owes to him — Rome above all most addicted to the worship of idols, and after his death restored to a better condition — while he records this:

From that day grew cold The worship of shameful gods, The people, rarer in the shrines, Run to the tribunal of Christ.

That death of the holy Martyr Was the true death of the temples, etc.

[45] That Satyrus, the brother of St. Ambrose, escaped safe from a storm, a vow having been made to St. Lawrence, and St. Ambrose as witnesses. we learn from the holy Doctor himself in the funeral oration on the departure of that same brother of his Satyrus, which is found in volume 5 of the Paris edition published in the year 1586; where at column 715 he thus addresses him: For by thy vows to the holy martyr Lawrence we now know that a safe passage was obtained; and would that thou hadst asked not only a passage, but also a long span of life. Thou couldst have obtained very many years of living, who couldst obtain a passage for coming. And indeed to Thee, almighty and eternal God, I give thanks, that Thou hast not denied us even these last consolations, that Thou hast granted us the longed-for return of a most loving brother from the Sicilian or African regions. For so soon after he came was he taken away, as though he seemed to have been delayed for this only, that he might return to his brothers.

[46] The Milanese Prelate, just now praised, in the cited volume, in the Exhortation to Virgins, teaches that a certain pious woman by the name of Juliana, having no hope of male offspring, by the patronage of St. Lawrence, a vow being made both by herself and by her husband, obtained a son; and that they therefore named him by the name of Lawrence, and dedicated him to the service of the Church. Let Ambrose be heard at the place designated, from column 579: That widow therefore is holy Juliana, who prepared and offered to the Lord this temple which we dedicate today. And after some things interposed, he introduces that mother addressing her son in this speech: Consider who helped thee that thou mightest be born. Thou art the son of my vows rather than of my pangs. Consider for what office thy father designated thee by such a name, who called thee Lawrence. There we laid down our vows: thence we took the name. The result followed the vows. Render to the Martyr what thou owest to the Martyr. He obtained thee for us; do thou make good what by the giving of such a name we promised concerning thee. But what else is there, my son, that thou shouldst think ought to be chosen, save the God of thy fathers? And at column 587 he says: But thou, my son, whom the true Elkanah, that is, the possession of God, has given me, my asked-for one, my sought-for one (for thence also Samuel received his name). Thou, I say, my obtained one, and my votive one, who — how thou camest into my womb I know not (for I had already despaired of offspring of the male sex) — whom my vows, and no secret rites of any solemn assembly, formed for me. Do thou, I say, my son, acknowledge by whom thou wast given me. He fashioned thy face: he distinguished thy limbs, he received my prayers, to whose temple, to whose service I consecrated thee before thou wast born. Not to thy parents, not to thyself; but to God wast thou born, whose thou didst begin to be before thou camest forth from thy mother's womb. And all indeed are His; but yet thou, specially promised to the Lord, art rendered back: because it is written: Vow ye, and render to the Lord your God. I, wretched, I, unworthy, and yet like Anna I promised, that all the days and nights of thy life thou shouldst not depart from the sight of the Lord. I promised; do thou perform. The Lord will Himself fulfill the office of His own victim.

[47] [Singular favors granted to St. Melania the Younger by the patronage of our Martyr.] That one of the seven sons who had been punished by God with a continual trembling of the limbs for their contempt of their mother recovered his former health, we said above in §2 from St. Augustine, on occasion of the edifice sacred to St. Lawrence among the people of Ravenna. Of the heavenly favors granted to St. Melania the Younger, our Saint seconding her prayers, what shall I record? These are thus reported in Surius at the day XXXI of December, in her Life, §4: Now it was above all in her prayers to be torn away from the world, and, as God wills, to live the philosophic life. Whence also, when she was with child, and her second delivery was now at hand, the feast of the glorious martyr Lawrence was being celebrated: but she passed the night sleepless, kneeling, singing psalms, striving to overcome her pains and nature itself. Matins had ended: but she did not cease from prayers. But thus straining herself also, she felt heavier pains, and with violence indeed, yet she brings forth. And that which was born was male. But as soon as it was born and had been regenerated by holy baptism, departing from this world it is sent over to Him who is there. But her also, after the birth, the pains vexed, and a bitter torment was hastening death. But her husband standing by, when he had seen her harsh and grievous suffering, being troubled, all but gave up the ghost. But when he had collected and revived himself, he runs to the altar (namely of St. Lawrence), and going about it in a circle, poured out tears from his eyes, uttered pitiable cries, and called for the swiftest possible help to come from Above. But she, judging that this was that time which should put an end to her desire, signifies by a messenger to her husband, who still sat in the temple, that both he and she should yet live, if an oath be given and a covenant be entered into that both should henceforth live in continence, and should lead perpetually not the life which the world wills, but which God wills. The husband obeys the words and will of his wife: and answers that this was to him

a settled persuasion. And when she had learned this, in body indeed she is the better; but in mind she at once becomes more joyful, whether because the disease gave place to joy, or because a hand from above was assisting her purpose and design. The miracles attributed to St. Damasus, Pope, and to St. Lawrence by Peter, a deacon of the Apostolic See, will be given below at number 103.

[48] Wonderful things happened when the Saint's sepulchre was opened. St. Gregory the Great, in book 3, letter 30, addressed to the Empress Constantia, narrates this: My predecessor of holy memory .. desiring to improve certain things at the body of St. Lawrence the martyr, while it was not known where his venerable body was placed, and digging was done in the search, suddenly his sepulchre was unknowingly opened. And those who were present and were working, monks and sacristans, who saw the body of that same Martyr — which indeed they by no means presumed to touch — all died within ten days, so that none who had seen his holy and just body could remain alive. But let your most tranquil Serenity know that it is not the custom with the Romans, when they give the relics of the Saints, that they should presume to touch anything of the body; but only a brandeum is put into a little box and placed near the most sacred bodies of the Saints.

[49] In the Life of St. Henry the emperor, published in our Work at the day XIV of July, A prodigy in a chalice which St. Henry had given in honor of St. Lawrence: in volume III of that month, page 763, this is read: The aforementioned and often to be remembered servant of God had bestowed a golden chalice upon the church of Merseburg in honor of God and in commemoration of St. Lawrence the Martyr: by whose special patronage he is believed to have been helped before God, and delivered in the very hour of his departure. But it is judged worthy of all veneration and admiration that at that same hour the chalice was kept shut in secure custody, and yet none the less received the material sign of the aforesaid collision (concerning which see below in the Posthumous Glory of St. Lawrence, §3). But of the same chalice, what we have heard in truth from the relation of religious men, we have thought it worth the labor to communicate to the memory of those to come. For when the aforesaid confessor of Christ Henry had come to Merseburg to settle the affairs of the kingdom, it happened that on a certain day he heard Mass most attentively at the altar of St. Lawrence. Which being completed, as he had always been accustomed to do, he wished to take the ablution of the chalice; but a great affair of the kingdom intervening, which the holy man proposed, it could not be done at that time. Having therefore called the guardian of the church, he asked him to lay up the chalice with the ablution in a clean place and to keep it with all diligence, until he himself, being free, should find a fit time and place for taking it. But, cases and pleas increasing, being occupied all that day, he could not disengage himself. But on the next day, after matins, he entered the monastery secretly with a few of his confidants, and, with knees long bent and tears poured forth, he prayed to God, and having summoned the guardian, he ordered the chalice with the ablution to be brought to him. And when it had been brought and uncovered, they found that ablution changed into the form of true blood. Which wonderful deed presently became known to all who were present, and now and always the whole Church will relate it to her successors, to the praise of God and the glory of His confessor.

[50] Nor will it be beside the purpose to make mention of that notable victory by whose patronage also he relates a notable victory of the Saint. which the same most holy emperor won over the Slavs by the patronage of St. Lawrence: concerning which I cull these things from his Life just indicated, at page 755 and the following: Setting out thence, he pitched camp in the field where the church of Merseburg is situated, and seeing the place desolate and reduced to nothing, he groaned and said: Blessed Lawrence, martyr of Christ, if by thy intercession I shall subdue these barbarous nations, to which I go, to the Roman empire and to the Christian religion, I will, by the favor of divine grace, restore this desolate place consecrated to thy name to its former state of dignity … And having invoked over himself the name of the Lord, as is said in the same place a few lines after, he with the highest devotion committed himself and his army to be protected by blessed Lawrence, St. George, and blessed Adrian, martyrs. And divine aid being implored, his eyes were opened, and he saw those glorious Martyrs, with a smiting angel, going before his army and driving the wedges of the enemy to flight .. And when, the enemy being splendidly conquered, he had made Poland, Bohemia, and Moravia tributary; out of reverence for St. Lawrence the martyr he began to look upon the trampling down and destruction of the church of Merseburg with an eye of mercy and piety, and, reduced to nothing as it was in buildings, in ministerial officers, in secular possessions, in ecclesiastical ornaments, he strove to restore it to the former rank of pontifical dignity, as he had vowed to God and St. Lawrence. Nor did he cease from works of mercy until he had wholly brought it back to its ancient state of dignity and the former honor of religion. John Cuspinian, in the Work on the Cæsars and Roman Emperors, briefly touches on the present matter thus in his St. Henry: He pursued the enemy terribly, the divine power cooperating. For the holy martyrs George, Lawrence, and Adrian were seen to go before his army and to scatter the wedges of the enemy. Gretser also may be seen, on the Saints of Bamberg, in the notes on chapter 4 of the aforesaid Life, at page 84 in my copy.

[51] The violation of the feast punished. The author of the Life of St. Otto, bishop of Bamberg and apostle of the Pomeranians, published in our work at the 2nd day of July, page 447, narrates this: It happened at that time on the feast of blessed Lawrence the martyr, that a certain priest of the retinue of bishop Otto, named Bokeus, passing by, saw peasants reaping the corn in a field, whom he modestly reproved, saying: Wretched men, what are you doing? Today is the birthday of blessed Lawrence the martyr, which is celebrated with the highest veneration by the whole Church; and do you, senseless men, presume to violate it? But they said: We cannot keep sabbath at all times. It is expedient also sometimes to provide the necessaries for our households. But the priest, fervent in spirit, said: I know that the violation of the solemnity will not go unpunished with you; but know that all that you have unlawfully reaped shall be consumed by heavenly fire. Scarcely had he finished his words, when, behold, the fire of God fell from heaven, and, touching their harvests, consumed them to ashes. And so it came to pass that the citizens of that place thereafter held the excellent martyr Lawrence in great veneration.

[52] A wonderful, but suspect, We have a transcript to which this title is prefixed: The Passion of St. Lawrence the martyr, and of other Martyrs: and it is indicated in the margin that it was copied From a Ms. of St. Maximin of Trier. But among the miracles of St. Lawrence which are woven into that same transcript, there occurs a certain wonderful prerogative, consisting in this, that on every Friday the Saint draws one soul out of the expiatory flames. We describe the matter as it is there narrated: which would that it had been permitted us to see confirmed by more certain documents; and not resting upon a false supposition concerning the day of the death of our Martyr, which fell not on the sixth feria but the third; namely in the year 258, in which he died, the Dominical letter being C, with the first day of the month of August concurring. Behold then for thee this privilege, such as it is: Let all the Christian faithful know that whosoever shall faithfully keep the memory of blessed Lawrence the Levite on the sixth feria, the enemy shall never prevail against them. For that blessed Martyr departed from the world with the triumph of martyrdom on that day on which also our Savior underwent death.

[53] privilege is ascribed to St. Lawrence. Whence he is read to have received this greatest privilege from God, that every week, on the sixth feria, he snatches one soul from the fire of purgatory. A great glory indeed, and to be celebrated by all the faithful with pious devotion. But lest perhaps so signal a miracle should seem incredible to anyone, I will set forth in few words how it was proved. There was in the monastery of that Martyr a certain abbot of great religion, and of so approved a sanctity that he asked God to show him of how great merit blessed Lawrence was. And the Lord heard his prayer. For while he enjoyed angelic converse in a vision, he seems to himself to see in a certain place of the earth as it were a torment of wretched ones; but of such as awaited at some time the mercy of God. But while he hesitated what this might be: behold, a certain Levite, more splendid and whiter than snow, coming attended by a very great multitude of angels, was snatching one soul out of that fire, and with great exultation was bearing it to the joys of the heavens above. Then indeed the abbot inquired of the Angel what this might be. To whom the angel said: The Levite whom thou hast seen is blessed Lawrence the martyr, truly most holy and most acceptable to God: to whom this singular privilege has been given, that every week, on the sixth feria, he draws forth a soul from the torments, to the praise and glory of the Son of God; who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns through all ages of ages. Amen. Other things which are to be said of the prodigies of St. Lawrence you will find below, after his Acts.

§ VI. The place of the contest, his burial; whether his body was found at Rome in the fifteenth century; his relics.

Where the Saint suffered; whence, and by whom, his body was carried away. The place of the contest, as report has it, was the Viminal hill: concerning which matter Mabillon in his Italian Journey, page 82, records this: Another is .. on the Viminal hill, the basilica of St. Lawrence in Panisperna, to the ancients St. Lawrence in Formonso (for so they wrote), where the holy Martyr was burned. In the same place is buried that great Cardinal William Sirleto, with an honorable epitaph, as was fitting. Prudentius indeed indicates that the Saint's body was carried away from the place of martyrdom; but who he was and where situated, he does not add. For he narrates thus:

Certain fathers bore the body Upon their bowed necks; Whom the wondrous freedom of the Man Had persuaded to seek Christ.

But who were those fathers? They were Justinus and Hippolytus, according to Ado. But in the morning, he says, while it was still twilight, Hippolytus carried off his body, and embalmed it with linen cloths and spices: and having done this, he made it known to Justinus the priest. Then blessed Justinus and Hippolytus, weeping and greatly sorrowful, took the body of the blessed Martyr, and came on the Tiburtine Way to the estate of the widowed matron Cyriaca in the Veran field, and there, now at the evening hour, they buried it on the IV Ides of August. See also the Acts in Surius.

[55] And indeed that the Martyr was buried on the Tiburtine Way seems to be drawn from the Bucherian and D'Achery Calendars cited above at number 1; It was buried on the Tiburtine Way. as also from the basilica built by the emperor Constantine on the Tiburtine Way in the Roman field, above the sand-pit of the Crypt, and as far as the body of blessed Lawrence the martyr; as was said at number 6. St. Augustine, who in sermon 296 reckons that body among the most precious remains of the Saints which Rome possesses, in these words, The body of Peter lies at Rome .. The body of Paul lies at Rome, the body of Lawrence at Rome, etc., ought not to stand in the way: for at Rome, that is, so far as I at least

interpret it according to what has just been said, in the Roman field. The place of burial is confirmed from Anastasius the Librarian, who in his account of St. Sixtus II, Pope, reports this: Blessed .. Lawrence was buried on the Tiburtine Way in the cemetery of Cyriaces, in the Veran field, in a crypt with many other Martyrs, on the IV Ides of August. For the rest, of that cemetery Aringhi treats in Subterranean Rome, volume 2, book 4, chapter 16, page 125. To which may be added the things which Montfaucon observed in that same place, and thus described in his Italian Diary, chapter 8, page 117: Hence we go to St. Lawrence outside the walls, situated on the Tiburtine Way in the Veran field. From the entrance the portico is adorned with paintings of the contest and miracles of St. Lawrence: there is represented the baptism of St. Romanus, who stands naked, and not immersed in water, as some relate. In the church also, on the side of the door, paintings of equal age are seen with this inscription: "This work was caused to be made by the lord Matthew of St. Albert for his soul," in a character, as is judged, of about the XIV century. There are erected in the church two ambos: that which is seen on the right is adorned on one side with the instruments of the ancient sacrifices, namely the white cap, the sacrificial knife, the incense-box, the vessel of aspersion, the aspergill, learnedly sculptured, and taken, as it seems, from the frieze of some temple.

[56] Whether that which was found at Rome in the 15th century But now those things which are related in Martène, volume 4 of the Ancient Writers and Monuments, column [ ], concerning the body of St. Lawrence found at Rome, afford us occasion for inquiring on what foundation that matter rests. And thus it is there set forth: In the year 1447 Pope Eugenius died, and Nicholas the fifth was elected Pope, and consecrated on the Sunday Lætare Jerusalem. In the same year, at the Friars Minor at Rome, there was found the body of a certain Saint, which on one side had been burned: and immediately they spread abroad through the city that it was the body of St. Lawrence. Wherefore the lord Pope Nicholas V sent thither five Cardinals to investigate the truth of the matter, namely the Cardinal of Angers, who was Cardinal of that same St. Lawrence, the Cardinal Colonna, the Greek Cardinal (that is, Bessarion, as is noted in the same place), the Cardinal of Fermo, and the Cardinal of Terracina; with three defenders and senators of the city, who approached with great fear and reverence, and opened the tomb of St. Lawrence, and found the body of St. Lawrence entire, covered with a dalmatic, but his head was bald, because the fire had burned the hairs; and the body of St. Stephen entire, except the right arm, and on one part of the head there were still hairs. Then the Cardinal of St. Lawrence took the younger monk, and showed him the sepulchre, and gave him a box on the ear as a memorial for those to come. Done on the last day of July. So far there, and concerning our St. Lawrence indeed, as the text not obscurely indicates.

[57] was St. Lawrence's. But against this stands: 1. When, by whom, on what occasion, with what witnesses, was that body brought thither from its first burial? 2. That body was, as is asserted, burned on one side, and covered with a dalmatic, and also its head made bald by the fire. But that our Saint's body was cooked on both sides Prudentius said above, introducing Lawrence speaking thus:

Turn over that part of the body Already sufficiently burned throughout .. The Prefect orders him to be turned. Then he: It is cooked, devour it.

3. The body is said to have been entire; how then, if you will have it to be our Athlete's, were so many relics before this plucked from it and dispersed through the world? 4. If it were, I say, our Martyr's, why does the author not add that those five Cardinals, sent by Nicholas V to inspect it, acknowledged it for such? 5. Piazza, in the Sacred Hemerology of Christian and heathen Rome, part 2, page 142, attributes the body of our Saint and of St. Stephen to the church of St. Lawrence outside the walls; but at page 143, treating of the church of St. Lawrence in Panisperna, which belongs to the Friars of the Order of St. Francis, as he there indicates, he says nothing of the aforesaid relics, as neither of others.

[58] But since we have fallen upon the subject of the Saint's relics, it will not be beside the purpose to give them their place here. Of the various Justinian, when not yet emperor, sought relics of St. Lawrence from Pope Hormisdas by legates. The fact is related in Labbe, volume 4 of the Councils, column [ ], where these words are found: Your son the magnificent man Justinian, doing things befitting his faith, has founded a basilica of the holy Apostles, in which he desires that there should also be relics of blessed Lawrence the martyr, and hopes through our littleness that you will speedily grant the relics of the aforesaid Saints .. He asks also for some of the chains of the holy Apostles, if it is possible, and of the gridiron of blessed Lawrence the martyr. St. Gregory the Great, book 2, letter 33, which is addressed to Dynamius, patrician of the Gauls, etc., says: We have sent the blessing of the blessed Apostle Peter, and a little cross, in which are inserted benefits from his chains .. But in the four parts round about are contained benefits from the gridiron of blessed Lawrence, on which he was burned: that this, where his body was burned for the truth's sake, may kindle your mind to the love of the Lord. Observe here in passing that it was the usage of the Roman Church at that time that the bodies of the Saints should not be touched for relics. St. Severus, priest and confessor, who lived in the 5th century, in a place built by himself placed with due honor the venerable patronages of blessed Lawrence the martyr; as is reported in his Life at the VIII day of this month, page 350.

[59] Gregory of Tours, on the Glory of the Martyrs, book 1, relics of St. Lawrence. chapter 83, relates a fact which, as he says, we have learned to have taken place just as it was lately related to us by our deacon. Now this deacon (concerning whom see book 10 of the History of the Franks, chapter 10, as Ruinart here notes, and thence conjectures that the following translation of relics is to be referred to about the year 590), having received from Pelagius, Pope of the city of Rome, the pledges of certain Martyrs and Confessors, was escorted as far as the harbor with great chanting and the office of the clergy, and the attendance of an immense people. And having entered the ship, the sails being raised and spread by means of that yard which bears the fashioned shape of a cross, with the wind blowing, they take to the deep sea. And while they sail, so as to reach the harbor of the city of Marseilles, they began to draw near to a certain place, from which a stony mountain, rising from the sea-shore and gradually sinking, is stretched out into the sea as far as the surface. And when, the wind driving, the keel was borne headlong with great force, so that, being dashed upon the rock, it should be shattered, and the sailors, beholding the danger, cried out that it was the end, the deacon, raising up the casket with the holy pledges, began with groaning and a very loud voice to invoke the names of each, praying that by their power they, on the point of perishing, might be delivered from this peril. And now the ship was drawing near, as we have said, to the rock, and immediately, at the sight of the holy relics, a wind contrary to this wind, stirred with greater violence from that very place, beat down the wave and drove back the adverse wind, and, the ship being called back into the deep sea, delivered all from the peril of death: and so, the mass of danger being rounded, they reached the harbor which they desired, by the mercy of the Lord and the patronage of the Saints. For there were relics of the Saints whose sacred feet were washed by the Lord's hands (namely the Apostles, whose feet the Lord washed), together with the relics of Paul, and Lawrence, and Pancras, of Chrysanthus and the virgin Daria, of John and another Paul his brother, whose contests and palms of victory Rome herself, the head of the world, devoutly celebrates.

[60] woven together We shall now survey other remains of the Saint in various regions of Europe, beginning with Italy, and giving them on the credit of the writers whom we shall cite. The book whose title is Ancient monuments of the holy bishops of Verona, etc., has an index of the relics of that city, and at folio 85 verso it is said that in the church of St. Paul in the Campus Martius there are preserved portions of the arms of the Holy Innocents, of St. Lawrence, etc. And at folio 86 verso: In the church of the Holy Spirit or monastery of nuns, a rib and bones of St. Lawrence. Mention is made of others likewise in the said index. I have before me an Italian pamphlet which is entitled The Triumph of the ashes and gridiron of St. Lawrence the martyr, titular of the cathedral church of Perugia, ordered to be celebrated with the pomp of a most solemn procession by the most illustrious and most reverend lord Luca Alberto Patrizi, bishop of that same city, his fatherland, on the X day of August 1681, and dedicated to the Most Eminent and most reverend Lord Cardinal .. Gaspar de Carpegna. These sacred pledges had before been preserved in the sanctuary of St. Lawrence in Lucina: the faculty of removing them, and an authentic testimonial, were granted by the Most Eminent Cardinal Vicar Gaspar de Carpegna: on the XXVI day of July, sacred to St. Anne, they were carried to Perugia: they were borne in procession there on the said X day of August, according to the cited pamphlet; in which you will find the triumphal pomp, the ornament, the retinue, and the signs of public rejoicing described at length.

[61] put together Of the prodigious blood of St. Lawrence we have spoken above at number 17, an opportunity being there offered of making mention of his church in Campania not far from the City. But for the greater confirmation and knowledge of that precious and altogether wonderful sacred treasure, it is well to observe the following from a Ms. testimony which we have at hand. The undersigned therefore testifies that in the territory of San Lorenzo in Roman Campania, of the diocese of Ferentino, in the collegiate church of St. Mary Major (above at number 17 it was said to be dedicated to blessed Lawrence), among other sacred remains which are preserved there, there exists the blood, the fat, and the skin of St. Lawrence the martyr in a little crystal vessel. For five hundred years, as he indicates, that sacred pledge has been kept there, according to a record which he asserts is found in the ancient inventories of the said church; but how it came into the said territory he affirms is not known; adding that the prodigy which is beheld to happen every year in the said sacred deposit consists in this, that for a few days before his feast the blood is greasy; yet in such a way that on the feast day of the same Saint, from first Vespers, the blood is separated from the fatness, appearing above it in the same manner in which oil floats upon water, and appears so limpid and clear as though it had then been drawn from some vein. But when the Octave is ended it begins to coagulate or thicken, and to be mingled together with the fat, so that within a few days it is so congealed that it is not distinguished from the fat, and remains in that state through the remaining course of the year. And the copy of this testimony is corroborated with these words: In witness of the truth I, the undersigned archpriest, have caused the present (document) to be written, and approve it as such on this XXVIII day of March 1618. I, Paduanus de Padua of San Lorenzo, archpriest in the said church of St. Mary Major, with my own hand. Father John Francis Vannius, S.J., in the year 1685, on the XXVII day of October, wrote to our Daniel Papebroch: The present cathedral church of Tivoli, St. Lawrence,

venerates St. Lawrence, M., as its patron: whose fat is said to liquefy and boil every year on his feast.

[62] Rome, as she was the spectator of the triumphs of St. Lawrence, an enumeration so is she the chief preserver of his sacred remains. I set forth those which Piazza in the Sacred Hemerology of Christian and heathen Rome, part 2, at this X day of August, diligently collected, writing that in the church of St. Lawrence outside the walls, beneath the high altar, in a marble urn constantly illuminated, his sacred body is preserved, together with the body of St. Stephen; that here in the presbytery is exposed the marble upon which his sacred body was laid, still venerable with the marks of his blood and fat, when he was taken down from the gridiron: that in the parochial church of St. Lawrence in Lucina, of the Fathers Clerks Minor, there is exposed the iron gridiron upon which the Saint was roasted, and which is laid up in a sumptuous bronze ark, caused to be made by the Most Eminent Nicholas Ludovisi when he was titular of that church: that there also is to be seen the iron fork with which the body was turned; likewise that there is held in veneration part of the shoulder with his ashes and teeth, together with the chain, three palms long, with which he was bound to that same gridiron, and with part of the roasted flesh, and the fat of the same mingled with coals: that the most ancient inscription of these sacred relics, as the praised hemerologist calls it, existed there, expressed in these verses:

The fork, the iron of the gridiron joined with the fetter, The cloth, the fat, are all in this house.

[63] To these add, from the same writer, a shoulder in the famous oratory dedicated under the name of the same Saint, in the chapel Sancta sanctorum in the Lateran; is given. an arm in St. Mark's; a jawbone or maxilla in St. Marcellus'; two ribs in Holy Cross in Jerusalem; some of his fat in St. Mary in Campitelli, as they call it; part of a rib in the Holy Apostles', and in St. Praxedes'; part of the gridiron in St. Mary in Cosmedin; in St. Barbara's, part of his tunic and dalmatic; in the basilica of St. Mary Major, in the Pauline chapel, a bone of the back, a tooth, and some fat; in St. Cecilia's a half-burnt bone; in St. Susanna's, in the chapel called of the Peretti, a finger. By way of conclusion, before we pass from Italy into Gaul, let it be permitted to add that in the little Appendix after the Life of St. Tygris the virgin, which is found in our work at the day XXV of June, page 76, among the chief relics of the church of Maurienne in Savoy there is noted one of the ribs of St. Lawrence.

§ VII. Sacred remains in Gaul, Spain, Germany, and Belgium.

Relics in Gaul, St. Gregory of Tours, on the Glory of the Martyrs, book 2, chapter 42, treating of the temple of St. Lawrence, records this: But neither did I think that this should be passed over in silence, that his relics, snatched from the burning of the enemy, were carried by a certain man into the Limousin. Who, when he was often admonished in a vision to carry them to the abbot Aredius, and did not fulfill the command, himself with his wife and all his household began to sicken. Then, compelled by necessity, as soon as he had carried them to the holy man, he departed restored to health. In the Gallia Christiana of the Sainte-Marthes, among the bishops of Auxerre, these things are said: Waldricus, from a monk and abbot of St. Germanus, obtained from Pope John, whom he visited at Rome, relics of St. Lawrence: and Waldricus is set down as having died in the year 933. The Premonstratensian canons of St. Martin of Laon claim an arm for themselves; concerning which sacred pledge we have a French poem, inscribed to M. Nicolas le Sage, abbot of St. Martin of Laon, etc., by F. P. Boree, canon of St. John of Amiens, of the same Order, in the year 1644. That another arm is shown at Le Puy in Velay; in the monastery of Lézat, of the diocese of Rieux, a finger; likewise at Paris in the place commonly called Blancs-Manteaux some bone, Baillet notes on this day in the History of the cult of St. Lawrence, column 128. Which Saussay in the Supplement at the X day of this month had thus expressed: In the church of St. Mary of Le Puy, the veneration of one arm of St. Lawrence the martyr, there placed with all honor. Other relics of this glorious Martyr Geldricus, the XLIV bishop of Auxerre, obtained from Pope John, and having received them, laid them up with worthy furnishing. There is preserved in the monastery of Lézat, of the diocese of Rieux in Gascony, and is seen, the joint of one finger of St. Lawrence himself, which appears scorched. In the Parthenia or History of the church of Chartres, published at Paris in the year 1609 by Sébastien Rouillard, at folio 110, a tooth of St. Lawrence is noted. Let us pass on into Spain.

[65] and in Spain The royal monastery of St. Lawrence of the Escorial preserves many and various relics under the name of the same Saint, which are noted one by one in the Ms. Inventory of them and of very many others, which elsewhere we have called a Lipsanology, exhibited and communicated to us while we were there in the year 1722. Concerning therefore a part of the shoulder, and part of the bone of one arm, and of one finger, and one of the teeth, with a little vessel of blood and fat; likewise concerning a rib of the same Saint, there exists the following testimony in the said Inventory: To our beloved son Ferdinand, Cardinal deacon of St. Mary in Domnica, called de' Medici, Pope Gregory XIII. Beloved son, health and Apostolic benediction. With how great and how remarkable piety and religion our most dear son in Christ Philip, Catholic king of the Spains, has undertaken the veneration of blessed Lawrence the martyr, can easily be understood even from this, that at immense cost and with wonderful workmanship, in Spain, at the place called the Escorial, he has raised from the foundations a church under the name and protection of the same Saint, and has wonderfully adorned it and enriched it with the greatest revenues.

[66] in the royal monastery of St. Lawrence Hence it came to pass that the King, impelled by the fervor of his devotion, caused earnest supplication to be made to us through thee, that we would be pleased to grant to his majesty some of the relics of that glorious Martyr which were kept in the City; to this end, that they might be placed in that same church of the Escorial. Inclining to which supplications, since we have ordered certain relics of the aforesaid blessed Lawrence the martyr, namely a part of the shoulder, and part of the bone of one arm, and of one finger, and one of the teeth, with a little vessel of blood and fat; likewise a portion of a rib of the same Saint (all which relics were preserved here in divers churches and places), to be gathered and consigned to thee; and since we know that this has been so done; we now by Apostolic authority, by the tenor of these presents, grant to thy circumspection full and free faculty of taking those relics out of the City, and of transmitting them into the Spains to the aforesaid King Philip for that cause which we have said. Notwithstanding Apostolic constitutions and ordinances, and the statutes and customs of any churches whatsoever, both secular and regular, confirmed by Apostolic oath or strengthened by any other security, and also privileges, indults, and Apostolic letters granted, approved, and renewed under whatsoever tenors and forms, and all other things whatsoever to the contrary. Given at Rome at St. Peter's under the Fisherman's ring, on the XXVIII day of December 1585, in the thirteenth year of our Pontificate. Jo. Bapt. Canobius.

[67] There exists in the same Inventory a testimony concerning the skull of St. Lawrence, monastery which I here subjoin: William Lindanus, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See Bishop of Roermond, to all who shall see these presents, health in the Lord Jesus Christ. We make known to all that we, striving to satisfy the pious wishes of the most serene lord Philip, Catholic king of Spain, lord of the Belgians, set forth through the most illustrious lord Duke of Alva, governor of the Belgians, have sent the sacred relics: of the skull of St. Lawrence, of a joint of the finger of St. Augustine, and of the head of St. Jerome, and of the bones of St. Sebastian: the remaining parts whereof are hitherto preserved with great veneration of the people, by the undoubted tradition of our forefathers, either in our cathedral church or in the monastery of St. Jerome of the Canons Regular. In witness whereof we have signed these with the subscription of our hand, and confirmed them with our seal. Given at Roermond on the XXVIII day of December, in the year from the birth of Christ 1571. So it is. William Lindanus.

[68] Besides, other relics of St. Lawrence are noted in the said Inventory, of the Escorial; concerning which we have the following testimony of the same: I, the undersigned notary, bear witness how the lord don Luis de Torres, clerk of the Apostolic chamber, presiding in the salva-robba * of the Apostolic palace, on the XXVIII day of the month of December, in the year 1565, out of certain reliquaries in which were contained divers relics of the Saints, drew forth among others the following: namely, of the garments of St. Lawrence; of the blood of St. Lawrence; of the shoulder-blade of St. Lawrence; of a certain rib of St. Lawrence: of which, in my presence and that of the undersigned witnesses, the same lord don Luis fitted certain particles into a certain golden casket, which, as he asserted, was to be transmitted to the most serene Catholic king. In witness whereof I have here subscribed myself. At Rome on the IV day of September in the year 1567, there being present Juan de Vergara and Jerónimo Caro, clerks of the city or diocese of Saragossa and of Seville respectively, witnesses called and asked to the premises. And because I, Gonzalo del Vado, clerk of the diocese of Burgos, by Apostolic authority a public notary, and enrolled in the archive of the Roman curia, have subscribed and signed, being asked, this present attestation, written by another hand faithful to me. Lest our discourse grow beyond measure, we forbear to record the other sacred remains which are designated under the name of our holy Martyr in the above-mentioned Inventory. But now of others in Germany and Belgium.

[69] Gelenius, on the greatness of Cologne Agrippina, book 4, in the sacred and pious Calendar, at the X day of August, says: likewise at Cologne, and among the people of Gladbach in the diocese of Cologne; Whose chief relics (he treats of St. Lawrence) Charlemagne gave to the church of the Molenses or of Mulgavia (now they call it Gladbach, a town of the diocese of Cologne), where the priests of Mulgavia, fleeing on account of the inundation of the Hungarians, and burying the sacred treasure beneath the stone of the baptistery, afterward gave to blessed Gero the archbishop, divinely instructed, the occasion of building a monastery of Benedictines, who to this day still possess the head of St. Lawrence. But both his shoulder-blades and the sacred bone are in the church of St. Andrew, which Gero consecrated; and other excellent relics of St. Lawrence are kept in other churches of the Ubii, namely, on the testimony of Saussay in the cited Supplement, a jawbone of the same Martyr is had at Cologne among the Carmelites, and one vertebra of the spine among the Knights of St. John.

[70] about which a wonderful contest between the kings of Spain On occasion of the head of St. Lawrence among the aforesaid monks of Gladbach, it is well to recall those things which have been handed down to memory concerning it in the Literary Itinerary of two Religious of the Order of St. Benedict and of the congregation of St. Maur, which was printed in French at Paris in the year 1724; where from page 207 you will find the most lavish efforts, the most protracted entreaties, the most urgent endeavors, and, so to speak, armed prayers, on the one side of Philip II, king of the Spains, that he might obtain that sacred pledge and transfer it to the sacred treasury of his most august monastery of St. Lawrence of the Escorial; but on the other side the unshaken firmness of the abbots and Religious body of Gladbach in retaining it

their most precious treasure, and their tenacity that knew not how to be bent; whence no light argument is drawn for the genuineness and therefore for the value of that sacred deposit. Further, it is scarcely credible how many, how great, how frequent and long-continued, how strong and how powerful were the engines which that pious King — and at the same time the most diligent unearther and collector of sacred treasures of this sort for his royal monastery — set in motion, that he might obtain his wish; which in the year 1570 he caused to be laid before Peter, abbot of Gladbach. But neither he nor his successors could ever be brought to it. In vain were prayers, promises, threats; in vain the interposed authority of the most weighty persons, as even of Clement VIII himself, Supreme Pontiff, and of the most august emperor Rudolph. For the mind of the possessors remained unmoved, and, so long as Philip II lived, he obtained nothing.

[71] and the people of Gladbach is set forth. But after he was taken from among the living in the year 1598, his successor Philip III renewed that undertaking afresh on the VIII day of July in the year 1612; and thereafter various engines were diligently and vigorously set in motion; but the matter was not carried to its end. At last there still exists on the same subject a letter of the most pious princess Isabella Eugenia, who at that time governed Belgium, directed to the abbot and Religious of Gladbach, and dated on the XXI day of February in the year 1628: whence it follows that that unwearied contention for the head of St. Lawrence was drawn out for as much as sixty years, and that the firmness of purpose of the men of Gladbach against so many most powerful princes was altogether wonderful. But if anyone shall wish to know these transactions at large and in detail, let him consult the said Itinerary: where from the original acts, which are said to be preserved at Gladbach, there is brought forward at page 215 the Brief of Pope Clement VIII to the king of the Spains, given on the XIII of July 1592; likewise at page 217 a Brief of the same Clement to the abbot and Convent of Gladbach, on the IX day of July 1596; then at page 218 a letter of Philip II, king of the Spains, to the same, on the X day of the month of February 1596; at page 219 a letter of Philip III, king of Spain, to his envoy in Belgium, on the VIII of July 1612. Lastly at page 220 two letters of the emperor Rudolph to the abbot of Gladbach. To these add, from the book of our Theodore Rhay which he entitled Illustrious Souls of Jülich, Cleves, Berg, etc., page 135, at this X day of August: In the very ancient abbey of Gladbach, the showing of the head of St. Lawrence, which but lately Philip IV, king of Spain, strove in vain to obtain there from the prelate with great entreaties and gifts. Thes. Annal. But now what shall I say of the people of Liège?

[72] Bernard Pez, in volume 4 of the newest Treasury of Anecdotes, A wonderful matter in the relics at Liège. part 3, at the beginning, brings forward the writing of Ludovicus the elder, monk and deacon of St. Lawrence of Liège, of the Order of St. Benedict, on the coming of the relics of blessed Lawrence the martyr from Rome to Liège. These were the liquor of the body of the same Saint, as you will read in the course of the narration, and also in what manner they were taken from Rome. I excerpt thence this wonderful passage: Arriving at Liège with a prosperous journey, (Godfrey) discloses the whole matter to Diewinus *, the bishop of the place. At which the Pontiff rejoiced .. He proceeds therefore with a blessing to transfer the most holy pledges to us. There was at that very time so great an inundation of rains, and so violent a pouring down of showers, that we almost believed it another deluge. But now with what great alacrity an innumerable people went forth, how religiously all the clergy with hymns and praises conducted the precious relics all the way to us, scarcely can anyone believe who did not see it present. For clear skies, for the tranquillity of peace, voices were raised, reaching, as we believe, the ears of Almighty God .. I .. shall both speak and write what I saw with my eyes, calling God to witness. After the reception of the holy relics, when they had been carried to the horn of the altar, and the clergy had begun the Litany, Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy; the sun, which had been under cloud for almost a month, at that very hour so poured forth the light of its rays that the people clapped with both hands, and for the greatness of their joy poured forth yet more tears. Nor was that clear weather accidental, but, continuing without break, it restored hope and safety to all the world. Done at Liège on the fourth Ides of June, in the year one thousand and fifty-six. In the cited Pez, page 121, there is noted a metrical book of Reiner, monk of St. Lawrence of Liège, on the coming of those relics.

[73] That other relics of the Saint besides were brought to the aforesaid monastery, we have from a Ms. of St. Lawrence of Liège, Other relics in the same place. of which we have a transcript at hand, on the institution of the feast of the celebration of the relics of St. Lawrence, M. For Albert de Cuyck, bishop of Liège, as is set down in that Ms., had obtained at the Roman curia, with great zeal and labor, from Pope Celestine the third, most precious relics from the very body of the aforesaid Martyr, namely of his flesh roasted upon the gridiron, yet as if freshly suffused with blood, as the truth still shows itself to those who look upon it: which, being held by him in great veneration, after his death were translated to us on the third of the Kalends of May, and were taken up into the high altar. Of their coming to us we have instituted a festal and yearly commemoration .. Done in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred. Another transcript lies before me from the Ms. Passional for June and July of St. Lawrence of Liège, prefaced with this title: Of the venerable and holy head of blessed Lawrence, and of the part of it brought to us. It begins: In the year of the Lord's incarnation one thousand five hundred and twenty-six. It is said at the end: When .. the Duke of Cleves had set out for the Holy Land, then .. he brought them back with him; and so through successive generations they came into the hands .. of a venerable man, who gave them to our monastery.

[74] It does not please us to weave together a catalogue of all the sacred pledges Notice is given of those which are noted as Laurentian in Raissius in the Belgian Sacred Treasury in various places. Here at Antwerp, among the sacred treasures of our professed house, are preserved two fingers of St. Lawrence, according to the approbation of the most illustrious Bishop of Antwerp, from which for brevity's sake I excerpt the following: Gaspar, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Antwerp, to all who shall see these presents, health in the Lord .. The Reverend Father Francis ab Hees, Provost of the professed house of the Society of Jesus in this city, on the XI day of the month of November, in the year of Christ 1648, exhibited to us a silver reliquary of ancient workmanship, containing two fingers of St. Lawrence the glorious martyr, or joints of them: to which case there was joined another ornament of silver-gilt and adorned with gems, with particles of relics of various Saints inserted here and there, as of St. Peter the Apostle, St. Andrew, the same St. Lawrence M., St. Hippolytus, St. Constantius, St. Nicholas, St. Margaret. Both these sacred treasures had been sent to the professed house of Antwerp — an illustrious gift indeed — by the most serene Margrave of Brandenburg, Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, as he himself testified by a public instrument, which he signed with his own hand and caused to be fortified with his seal.

[75] And it ran thus: Frederick William, by the grace of God Margrave of Brandenburg, which among the Fathers arch-chamberlain and prince elector of the holy Roman Empire, etc. We make known that there have come to us certain relics of the Saints, taken from the church of our city of Cologne on the Spree, founded by our Ancestors: among which were two fingers of St. Lawrence, formerly publicly exposed in the same church, and held in veneration by Catholics. These, as also a few other relics, being moved by just consideration, we have consigned into the hands of Father John Hagebaert, a Jesuit, at that time at Cleves in the retinue of the most excellent Lord Baron de Ribaucourt, the Envoy, to be delivered to the said professed House of the Society at Antwerp, as a free gift; testifying that these are the Relics, namely those contained in a four-cornered gilded case adorned with gems, but especially the two fingers of St. Lawrence, namely the thumb and forefinger, so far as appears, or at any rate joints of them, enclosed in silver, which were preserved in the aforesaid church and exposed for veneration. In witness whereof we have ordered these testimonials to be issued from our chancery, and to be fortified with the authority of our seal, and have subscribed them with our hand. Done at Cleves in the year 1647, on the XIV of August. Frederick William, Elector.

[76] of the professed house of the Society of Jesus are preserved. These relics, because both the attestation of so great a Prince and the antiquity of the workmanship with which they were adorned persuade us that they are true and genuine, we have permitted to be publicly exposed in the church for the veneration of the Faithful. Done at Antwerp, in the professed house of the Society of Jesus, on the XI day of November, in the year of Christ 1648, in the presence of the Reverend and most learned Lords, canons of our cathedral church and licentiates of sacred theology, Christian Voochts, archpriest, and Theodore Voochts, penitentiary; and likewise of the distinguished gentleman Arnold Voochts, alderman of this city, and of the Reverend Fathers Francis ab Hees, Provost, James Cater, John Bolland, Matthew Voochts, professed priests of the same Society; and also of Master John Sporckmans, licentiate in both laws, our secretary, witnesses called to these things. In witness whereof we have subscribed these with our hand, and have caused them to be fortified with our seal. Gaspar, bishop of Antwerp. By the mandate of the aforesaid most illustrious and most reverend Lord. Franc. Hillewerven, secretary. The aforesaid relics were afterward, on the very feast day of St. Lawrence, exalted with solemn rite in the church of the said professed house; as appears from a printed program which I have in my hands.

* perhaps the officer in charge of the wardrobe

* al. Theoduinus

§ VIII. The Saint's name; whether SS. Orientius and Patientia were his parents; their cult, relics, Acts; whether St. Orientius, bishop of Auch, was his brother.

A fictitious etymology of the Laurentian name: These things, which conduce to the religious cult of our great Martyr and to the increase of the public veneration, having thus far been set forth, there remain various other matters which may be inquired concerning him. Lucius Marineus Siculus, published at Frankfurt in the year 1603 in the Spain Illustrated, or in the Work in which various writers of Spanish affairs are given, volume 1, page 332, speaks thus of the name of St. Lawrence: Some relate that he was the son of a certain duke of Spain, whom the demon had carried off as an infant from his cradle into a wood; but the blessed Pontiff Sixtus, when he was preaching in that same province, finding him divinely beneath a certain laurel tree, called him Laurentius, and ordered him to be nourished and taught with diligent care, and when he was grown, led him with him to Rome together with Vincent. Where afterward, having been made Pontiff, he appointed him his archdeacon. If those "some" had left the origin of the name Lawrence untouched, they would not have contaminated it with old wives' fables of this kind. For, 1. As to what concerns his parents, of them below. 2. I have not yet seen it proved from ancient and trustworthy documents that St. Sixtus the Pontiff either before his pontificate or during his pontificate set foot in Spain, according to those things which we said at the VI day of this month of August in the Commentary prefixed to the Martyrdom of St. Sixtus II, Pope, §7. Besides this, St. Vincent suffered

is noted to have suffered under Diocletian; Lawrence under Valerian. Away then with that fictitious invention and fabulous etymology of the name; which, whether it is to be derived from the laurel or from some other source, who shall explain? But now of the parents of St. Lawrence, referred hither from the 1st day of May on account of the many difficulties to be unraveled, which we there indicated could more conveniently be done at the Life of our Saint.

[78] The Roman Martyrology on the said 1st day of May announces them thus: SS. Orentius and Patientia are said to have been the parents of the holy Martyr. At Huesca in Spain, of the holy martyrs Orentius and Patientia. Baronius in the notes says: In the Flos Sanctorum of Spain, from the ancient monuments of the church of Huesca, these are read to have been the parents of St. Lawrence the martyr. That Alfonso Villegas labored under the greatest dearth of information concerning their deeds is indicated by this, that in his Flos Sanctorum, near the end, before the "extravagant" Saints, as he calls them, he notes some Saints of whom particular churches of Spain read; adding that, because he found no other and longer account, he would set down only their names and the churches which celebrate their feasts, that some knowledge of them might be had. Among others, therefore, he says thus to our purpose: Of St. Orentius and Patientia, the parents of St. Lawrence the martyr, the church of Huesca reads on the 1st day of May. And he had premised this: Of St. Orentius the confessor, brother of St. Lawrence the martyr, the church of Huesca reads on the XV of March. John de Aguas, of whom I shall speak later at the beginning of paragraph XI, at page 243 sets forth the Proper of the Saints of the diocese of Huesca, published by the authority of the Apostolic See and by the order of the Lord Fr. Berengarius de Bardaxi, of good memory, bishop of Huesca, and revised by the mandate of the illustrious and most reverend Lord Francisco Navarro de Eugui, now, he says, governing that same church, and published at Huesca .. in the year 1670. Then at page 244, among the festivals which are celebrated in the diocese of Huesca, on the 1st day of May these words occur: Of Orentius conf., and of Patientia, neither virgin nor martyr, double of the 2nd class. They are transferred to the two preceding days not impeded by a feast of 9 lessons.

[79] What is contained concerning their cult in the Breviary of Jaca, And at page 245 he confesses that the said three Saints have there no historical lessons approved at that time by the holy Apostolic See; but in default of these, to strengthen the most ancient, as he calls it, tradition concerning their native place, the city of Huesca or its diocese, he adduces the ancient lessons of the manuscript and primitive Breviary of the holy church of Jaca, which run thus: Lesson I. There was a man venerable of life, simple, upright, and fearing God, Orentius by name. He, a citizen of Huesca, possessed a dwelling at the second milestone from the city, in the place which is called Loret. Lesson II. Who, since he was noble and abounded in temporal things, took a noble wife, by name Patientia *, of whom, in the first flower of his youth, at one birth he begot two sons, one Laurentius and the other Orentius. Lesson III. Whom from infancy he taught to fear God. But in process of time, when the Boys had come to the years of discretion, he handed them over in that city to be instructed. Dormer, of whom below, in chapter 19 cites the Bull of Cardinal Robert, prelate of Cambrai, who under the name of Clement VII laid claim to the See of Peter, issued at Avignon on the IV of the Nones of May in the year 1387; from which he had brought forward these words at chapter 2, page 13: Desiring therefore that the church of St. Lawrence of Loret, of the diocese of Huesca, in which, as is asserted, that same Saint was born, and the bodies of the holy Orentius and Patientia, his parents, rest, should be frequented with fitting honors, and that the faithful of Christ may the more willingly flock thither for devotion's sake, and stretch out more ready helping hands to its fabric, the more they shall perceive themselves refreshed there by the gifts of heavenly grace; trusting in the mercy of Almighty God, and in the authority of the blessed Peter and Paul, His Apostles, etc. From these things therefore it is concluded that those Saints were, from time immemorial before the decree of Pope Urban VIII, publicly held as such, and that therefore their public cult is legitimately established, of whatever sort they may finally have been. To these add the following.

[80] and in Tamayo. Tamayo at the 1st day of May reports this concerning St. Orentius at page 34: But he is also set down as a patron among the Celtiberians for obtaining rain in a time of drought; as is clear from the collect which the ancient breviaries of Huesca and of Montearagon report, of this kind: Merciful and compassionate Lord God, who by a special gift didst establish blessed Orentius Thy confessor, citizen and noble of Huesca, as a patron of rain upon the earth: graciously hear us Thy servants, and by his prayers and intercessions make a fitting shower to descend upon the parching earth, and vouchsafe to bedew the dryness of our heart with the dew of heavenly grace. Through our Lord, etc. Nay, he is reckoned a favorable patron against the plague of locusts; concerning which matter see Aynsa, Affairs of Huesca, book 2, chapter 1, page 120. The aforesaid Tamayo mentions also a letter of the city of Saragossa to the city of Huesca, written in the year 1446, by which Saragossa promises to hang a silver lamp-wick, perpetually burning, before the holy bodies of Orentius and Patientia; from the Vindications of St. Lawrence by Andrés, which he cites at chapter 6, folio 116.

[81] Of the sacred pledges of the said Saints transmitted by the most illustrious Bishop of Huesca and Jaca to the most serene Philip II, king of the Spains, Their relics. there is treatment in the Ms. Inventory of the monastery of the Escorial, or, as elsewhere it has pleased us to call the book, the Lipsanology of the same monastery. From the testimony which is there had under the first delivery, number XI, I excerpt this to our purpose: Pedro Agustín, by the grace of God and of the Apostolic See bishop of Huesca and Jaca, to all and singular the faithful of Christ who shall inspect these our testimonial letters or hear them read, everlasting health in the Lord … We betook ourselves to the hermitage church of St. Lawrence, commonly called of Loret, situated near the said city of Huesca, together with the most illustrious lord Don Pedro de Luna, abbot or perpetual commendatary of the monastery and abbacy of Montearagon, and with a very great retinue of the canons of the see of the said city and of the monastery, of the citizens of the said city, and of very many of Christ's faithful, and, being stationed in the chapel of the holy confessors Orencius and Patientia, the parents of the aforesaid St. Lawrence, in which the bodies of the aforesaid Saints are from most ancient and immemorial time carefully and with the greatest and most celebrated reverence and devotion held and preserved; from the case within which the bodies of the aforesaid holy Orencius and Patientia are honorably laid up, we took the ulna or radius of the arm of the one, and another ulna or radius of the arm of the other of the aforesaid Saints, and placed and set them in that same case in which the relics of the aforesaid holy Justus and Pastor had been placed by us, and have sent them to his majesty the aforesaid King Philip with these presents signed by our hand and fortified with our pendant seal. Given in the city of Huesca of the kingdom of Aragon, on the IV day of the month of January, in the year from the Nativity of the Lord 1569. P. A., bishop of Huesca and Jaca.

[82] The Acts of SS. Orentius and Patientia Tamayo compiled at his own discretion at page 32 from the breviary of Huesca Tamayo compiled their Acts and other writers; and after he had given them, at page 33 he indicates that Aynsa, book 2, chapter 1, folio 115, took them at greater length from ancient and older offices, breviaries, and images. But who would defer even a little to their antiquity and credit, unless these qualities were established from elsewhere? But this we do not dare to hope. Meanwhile, of what sort are the things which occur in them, and to which Tamayo would have us give credit, you will gather from the summary which we draw from them, that the reader may at least have some idea: Orentius, a citizen of Huesca .. since he was noble and abounded in temporal riches, took a wife by name Patientia: by her, in the first flower of his youth, at one birth he begot two sons: of whom he named the one Laurentius and the other Orentius .. In process of time, when the Boys had come to the years of discretion, he handed them over in the said city to be instructed in letters. Who .. within a very short time were promoted to sacred Orders. Afterward, Lawrence having been taken to Rome by Sixtus the Supreme Pontiff, and Patientia taken from among the living, and her sacred body buried in the Lauretan house of the married pair near Huesca; on a certain night an angel of the Lord came and said to Orentius: Take thy son Orentius, and go into the land which I shall show thee. In the morning therefore he withdrew with his son into the valley of Lavedan of the diocese of Tarbes; in which there then dwelt a legion of demons laying waste men, beasts, and the fruits of the earth; which were thence put to flight by him; by which miracle all the inhabitants of the territory began to venerate him with his son as servants of God.

[83] at his own pleasure; But they .. determining forthwith to eat from the labor of their own hands, Orentius the father, seeking a pair of oxen, found none but an untamed one: but the name of Christ being invoked, and the sign of the cross made over it, he tamed it: with which in due time he gathered a very great harvest of fruits. At home he had a venerable old woman, whom he called mother, and a servant by name Expertus: who .. in place of good seed .. sowed .. tares ..; but by God's providence Orentius heaped up the better piles of wheat. Which the wicked servant beholding, dragging a wolf from the woods .. handed over the ox to it to be eaten; whose voracious hunger, leaving nothing but bones and horns, was running back with slow haste to its cave in the dreadful wood, but the slaughter being seen by Orentius .. he called it back in the name of Christ to the place of the killing; and joining it under the yoke with the other ox, in place of the one devoured, the ox and the wolf, as though of one species, drew the plow with equal docility .. The servant besets the body of the venerable old woman, whom he so wearied with unbearable torments that he drove her to cast herself into the fire and into a well. But when Orentius had returned home and had learned the fraud of the diabolical servant, he set about expelling him by the power of Christ from the body of the venerable mother. But the devil promised to leave the old woman if he might receive leave from him to enter into the body of a certain Cornelia. Which the holy Old Man granted: and then Expertus left the old woman.

[84] here drawn into a summary. After these things, when the prince of France had an only daughter by name Cornelia, it came to pass that the devil, having entered into her body, tormented the young girl fiercely .. Then the prince, having heard the fame of the blessed man, sent messengers to him: who, moved by divine inspiration, both he and Orentius his son took the road .. And when .. the daughter of the prince had been cured, he promised them very many gifts if they would dwell with him. But they .. by God's command return into the land of Tarbes. And it happened, as they were approaching the city of Auch, that it had lately been bereft of its bishop. But when in the election of a new one

there was discord among the bishops and clergy, a three days' fast being made, it was revealed by the Lord that whoever should first meet them at the entrance of the city, him they should appoint bishop. Doing which, they found Orentius .. and elected him. Which being seen by his father .. going to the house at Tarbes .. the blessed old man .. restored the mother .. to life. Afterward, being admonished by an angel to return to his native land, hastening into Celtiberia, and finding the fields deprived of rain and parched .. he obtained by his prayers a saving dew, and, withdrawing to the house of Loret, at length, full of days and of virtues, he fell asleep in the Lord on the Kalends of May, about the year 265. His body is known to have been religiously buried beside the pledges of his most holy wife in the oratory of Loret: where the constant tradition of that region is that it has been honorably preserved to this day.

[85] Three miracles of St. Orentius. Tamayo, cited above, at page 33, from Peter Occo the Gaul, part 2 of the Annals, chapters 26 and 27, adds three miracles of Orentius the elder; namely that he freed a certain demoniac man by a blow of the hand; another by a stroke of the staff which he was accustomed to carry, from the possession of the devil; and that he wonderfully delivered a certain widow in the town of Sebot, who was keeping the yearlong solitude of her widowhood within the enclosure of her house, from a devil that mocked her, sewn into the corpse of her husband. These things Tamayo drew from Aynsa, in whom also he found the passage of that Peter just cited: but of what credit and of what age that Annalist may be, we cannot say. Since, however, though sought by us among the bibliographers, he has hitherto not been able to be found, we suspect that he was of no great mark or name. Meanwhile, since from what has been said above the public and lawful cult of SS. Orentius and Patientia is sufficiently established, it remains that we examine their Acts, which seem to us to need no small correction, especially in the part in which they attribute the parentage of SS. Lawrence and of Orentius, bishop of Auch, to the aforesaid Saints, as the documents brought forward a little before also do.

[86] In the new edition of the Gallia Christiana, volume 1, column 973, concerning St. Orientius, It is inquired whether St. Orientius, who is there set fifth among the bishops of Auch, this is read: Orientius, who is said to be the brother of St. Lawrence the martyr, born in Spain, although he led an eremitical life, could not long lie hid by reason of the great fame of his virtue. And so, for the sake of shunning vainglory, he passed into Novempopulania, where in a valley of the district of Béarn which is called Capraria he hid himself. But Ursinianus being dead, Orientius was substituted for him by divine admonition. Having most holily administered this see at Auch, he passed to the heavens. But presently it is subjoined: These things, though few chosen out of many, we by no means give as certain .. He lived in the episcopate XLI years, namely from the year 323 to the year 364. For in an ancient instrument of the church of Auch drawn up in the year 1108 I read this concerning the time of St. Orientius: "From the passing of blessed Orientius to the present year, which is the year 1108, there are reckoned 712 years. From the passion therefore of the Lord to the passing of blessed Orientius there are reckoned 364 years. But from the passion of the Lord to the ordination of blessed Orientius there are reckoned 323 years. And from the passing of blessed Orientius to the passing of blessed Martin there are reckoned 47 years." These things agree neither in matter nor in form with the Acts which we have just cited, nor in date; so that consequently they cannot be combined with SS. Orientius and Patientia and their twin offspring; unless you say that St. Orientius the bishop lived a hundred and fifty years or more, and began to preside over the see of Auch when about a hundred years old; which without lawful testimonies of antiquity is not presumed to have happened. Let those who would have it to have happened produce them.

[87] Of the praised St. Orientius, bishop of Auch, was the brother of St. Lawrence, our Godfrey Henschen long since treated at the 1st day of May in those things which he prefixes to his Lives, at page 60 and the following. He designates three sets of Acts; those which he judged the older and better he indicates that he gives in the first place; concerning which see more there. From these Acts the time in which St. Orientius flourished would have to be referred to the V century of Christ, as you will there find. Other Acts, which are given in the second place, he corrects beforehand at page 61. Others finally he affirms were received at Paris from the collectanea of the Fathers of the Feuillants, which are said to have been compiled from the year 1609, after the translation of certain relics of the same to Huesca, by the mandate of the Most Christian King of France Henry IV, and with the assent of the Supreme Pontiff Paul V. Then Henschen brands those Acts with this note: Here at the beginning many things are heaped up about the parentage of St. Orientius: to which afterward the rest from the second Acts are fitted; but altogether without any congruity. There is also got up an embassy to Aëtius, or Agentius, and Littorius, which is established from what has been brought forward above to have been made in the year 439; and yet the Saint is said to have died in the year 384, and to have been the brother of St. Lawrence the martyr, brought forth at the same birth with him: to whose parents "Orientius and Patientia, Pope Sixtus, fleeing on account of the persecution into Spain, had turned aside; and had consecrated a church to the honor of St. Lawrence, whom he knew was to be adorned with martyrdom; and so, after taking St. Lawrence to himself as a companion, Sixtus had withdrawn to other parts of the Spains." Which things plainly seem to us discordant: since Sixtus scarcely presided over the Church three full years, nor is any notice of that journey had elsewhere. What of this, that the martyrdom of St. Lawrence belongs to the year 258? And yet he was of mature age when he suffered: how aged then would his brother Orientius have been when he went as an envoy to the Roman Duke in the year 439, being more than two hundred years old; or, if you reject that embassy, at the very least a hundred and fifty.

[88] and indeed his twin Of this brotherhood it will be possible to treat more exactly on the X of August at the Life of St. Lawrence; if ancient monuments be at hand for solidly proving it. Some are alleged by Tamayo-Salazar at the day XV of March, among which FIRST by him is asserted Flavius Dexter, second Julianus Petri; and to these others are subjoined with the breviary of Huesca: whose authority we should not deem much better than theirs, if those very lessons were not drawn from similar fabulous authors. Then it is subjoined that Philip Labbe, after the Life of St. Orientius, indicated there in our work at page 60, published a brief eulogy of the same Orientius; but, as he prefaces, STUFFED WITH FABLES: in which similar things about his parentage are reported. Our aforesaid hagiographer likewise observes that Tamayo on the day XXVI of September celebrates the Translation of certain sacred pledges of St. Orientius, from the city of Auch in Gaul to Huesca in Celtiberia of Tarraconensian Spain, performed with solemn pomp and famous applause; and that the Acts of the translation which he brings forward also indicate him to be the son of the married pair SS. Orientius and Patientia, and the twin brother of blessed Lawrence the archdeacon.

[89] of St. Lawrence. These things Henschen observed not carelessly already from the year 1680, in which our first volume of May was published. But since in the meantime, down to the year 1733, in which we write this, we know of no arguments truly and solidly ancient hitherto supplied by learned Spaniards for the aforesaid parentage and brotherhood, which should prove them; they will grant us this indulgence, that, adhering to Henschen's observations, we do not subscribe to their tradition, of whatever sort it be. Nor does it matter that Baronius in his notes, as we saw above, names for that parentage, which regards St. Lawrence alone, the ancient monuments of the church of Huesca, out of the Flos Sanctorum of Spain. For those ancient monuments, in order to move a judicious reader, ought not to have been indicated merely by name, but accurately circumscribed by the name and age of their authors, that judgment might be made of their worth and credit, especially in a matter so wonderful, and, as it seems to us at least, unheard of by all true antiquity. Was not the title of martyrdom, under which the Roman Martyrology, as was said above, marked SS. Lawrence and Patientia, drawn from these same or at any rate from monuments of this kind? Yet in others which we have produced above, those Saints are noted under the name of confessors. Whence you may gather how little sincere and truly ancient are the monuments thrust upon us, since they are not consistent with themselves.

* read Patientiam

§ IX. The nobility and studies of St. Lawrence; whether St. Sixtus delivered to him the chalice which Christ the Lord is said to have used at the last supper, and which is thought to have been afterward preserved in Spain.

The nobility of St. Lawrence, Concerning the nobility of our Saint, of which mention was made in passing above, certain things occur to be considered; which we set forth thus. Those who would have it admitted as trustworthy and historically certain ought to strengthen it with ancient documents. Among which St. Vincent Ferrer has no place, who flourished at the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th, in whose sermon on St. Lawrence this is read: He was born at Huesca * of a great family. Tamayo, at the day X of August, with great confidence, and deciding the matter as though from the tripod, says: Concerning the illustrious nobility of the holy Deacon as regards the world, no one of the writers has doubted, nor ever will doubt. And not content with this, he proclaims the Saint's illustrious and, as he will have it, indubitable birth, and that he sprang from the noble family of the Salazars. Away with such trifles, utterly unworthy of author and reader in whom there is even a grain of salt; which it is wearisome to report here. Not inelegant is that sort of epiphonema with which Saussay concludes his letter, given on the XV of the Kalends of March in the year 1647 to the aforesaid John Tamayo-Salazar, and printed by Tamayo himself at the day XV of March from page 227, in these words: But since no one, great man, knows the affairs of St. Lawrence better than thou, both on account of the exquisite knowledge of the history of the Saints in which thou excellest, and most of all because blessed Lawrence himself is believed to have been descended from the family of the Salazars, we put an end to these side-matters. But indeed all who have read our work know that Tamayo's simplicity, inexperience, and utterly old-wifely trifles in the histories of the Saints have been chastised in six hundred places.

[91] The same Tamayo, in the Acts of the holy Levite, which he fabricated from Antonio of Nebrija [as also the studies which he is said to have pursued at Saragossa, are not proved.] and other Spanish writers, as he indicates, and foreign ones, at page 452, says: As soon as he came to the age of youth, he went to Saragossa, that he might be instructed in sacred letters under Valerius, the bishop of that city: where, first learning the studies of philosophy, he proceeded, by God's granting, to greater and more sacred things: in which he came forth so learned that he deserved to be raised to the summit of the archdeaconate of the church of Saragossa. In St. Vincent Ferrer, cited a little before, I find this: When he had discretion, having left his father's house, he went to Saragossa to study. So there, without lawful witnesses and records. But in the Martyrology of St. Ado, prelate of Vienne, who flourished in the IX century, our Saint is said to have been educated and nourished

at Rome. However that may be; if you answer, and will have it, that this happened both at Rome and at Saragossa, prove your answer, or condemn your wish. The things which are found in St. Vincent Ferrer — Pope St. Sixtus, going to celebrate the council of Toledo, made his passage through Saragossa: and having heard the fame of blessed Lawrence .. took him with him — we have refuted elsewhere. See what was said in §8 at the beginning.

[92] There are those who would have a wonderful matter ascribed to the same Saint: the substance of which the reader will learn from a Ms. which we have, and a copy of which the Reverend Father Joseph Matthias de Leris sent me from Saragossa in the year 1727, Whether St. Sixtus delivered to St. Lawrence the chalice he being then Rector of the college of the Society of Jesus there, after having previously presided over the province of Aragon. The same document was long since published in print, and inserted into the History of the monastery of St. John of the Rock (commonly San Juan de la Peña; of the Order of St. Benedict in Aragon) by Don Juan Briz Martínez, abbot of that same monastery: which, since it may there be read in full, we shall taste from the said Ms. those things which are enough for our purpose. Those things which are noted in the margin we have received from Briz's edition. Take then our transcript: In the name of God. Be it manifest to all that whereas the most excellent prince and lord, the lord Martin, which Christ used by the grace of God king of Aragon, of Valencia, of Majorca, of Sardinia and Corsica, and Count of Barcelona, Roussillon, and Cerdagne, greatly desired and longed to have in his chapel the stone chalice with which our Lord Jesus Christ at His holy supper consecrated His most precious blood, and which blessed Lawrence, who had it from St. Sixtus, then Supreme Pontiff, whose disciple he was, and Deacon of St. Mary in Domnica, sent and gave with his letter to the monastery and convent of St. John de la Peña, situated in the mountains of Jaca of the kingdom of Aragon, with which chalice afterward the abbots, priors, and priests of the said monastery were accustomed to consecrate:

[93] at the last supper, and which afterward, according to the testimony here given, And whereas for the obtaining of the said chalice the said lord King had appointed to the said monastery the reverend father in Christ Anthony, archbishop of Athens, his counselor; at length on the Friday entitled the twenty-sixth day of September in the year from the Nativity of the Lord one thousand three hundred and ninety *, the said reverend archbishop and the religious Brother Bernard, Prior of the cloister of the said monastery, made report to the aforesaid lord King, being in his lesser chapel of the Aljafería of the city of Saragossa, that, the credence having been explained by that archbishop on the part of the said lord King to the convent of the aforesaid monastery, all the Priors and monks of that monastery had held a Chapter upon the delivery of the above-said chalice; and finally they resolved to grant the said chalice, none dissenting, to the aforesaid lord King. Which being recited, the aforesaid Prior in his own name and that of the said monastery presented to the Lord King, and delivered into his hands, the above-said stone chalice.

[94] was preserved in Spain And the lord King himself, having received into his hands the above-said chalice, wishing to do some favor to the said monastery, gave for it, and delivered into the hands of the said Prior for the use of the aforesaid monastery, a golden chalice of his chapel, weighing, by the weight of Saragossa, five marks and one ounce: on which golden chalice above-said are the following marks, which are there exhibited; as also on what conditions the aforesaid King gave that chalice to the monastery. Of all and singular which the above-said lord King aforesaid ordered the present instrument to be drawn up by me, Berengarius Sarta, his secretary, in testimony of the premises, there being present as witnesses the nobles Berengarius de Crudilis, Roger de Montcada, and Olfus de Próxida, knights, counselors and chamberlains of the said lord King. Sig ✠ num of me, Berengarius Sarta, secretary of the said lord King, and by royal authority * a public notary throughout the whole land and dominion of that lord King: who was present at the aforesaid things, as is contained above, and caused these to be written, and closed them.

[95] The Reverend Father Leris praised above bears witness, and says in testimony of the truth, but that tradition that that transcript is faithful and true, and was extracted in the last days of the month of December of the year 1726 from the original and authentic writing which exists in the archive of the city of Barcelona. It is subscribed: At Saragossa, January X, 1727. Joseph Matthias de Leris, S.J., Rector of the college of Saragossa. But now, since that pious tradition is liable to the gravest difficulties, the present place demands that we set them forth and weigh them. 1. That transmission of the chalice, such as it is recited in the instrument just noted, rests solely, so far as we at least know, on a testimony of the XIV century, in which there was a report that it was preserved among the ascetics of the monastery of the Rock. But how small, or rather how nonexistent, is the proportion between the third century, in which that sacred pledge would have to have been sent by St. Lawrence from Rome into Aragon, and the XIV century, in which it is asserted to have been sent in the said third century; when through eleven whole centuries no other letter appears which should confirm that tradition. 2. As to what is contained in the above diploma about a letter or epistle sent together with the chalice; the notary who drew up the substance of that document by the king's order seems to have learned this either from the monks of the Rock alone, or from them together with the common report in those parts: for nothing is said of any authentic exemplar of it, or at least a transcript, surviving there or elsewhere. 3. At his own discretion, or from the report of the said monks, as I suspect, he says of the Saint that he was deacon of St. Mary in Domnica (in Briz it is written in Domnit., perhaps by an error for Dominica).

[96] Panciroli treats of that church in the Hidden Treasures of the city of Rome, is liable to the gravest difficulties, Region 2, page 122; which he affirms is called by another vulgar surname della Navicella, that is, of the Little Ship; because before its door there stands a marble little ship, which was placed there for ornament's sake; and that it was further called Domnica (and it was reckoned among the ancient deaconries of the Cardinals) from its foundress Dominica, otherwise Cyriaca, which word in Greek signifies the same as Dominica; and he adds that she in her house afforded lodging to Christians who suffered persecution in obedience to the faith, from Surius at the X of August in St. Lawrence; and that, after she had bestowed all her goods upon the Church, it is to be believed that her house was erected into a title, and that among the deaconries this was the archdeacon's. But that already at the time of St. Lawrence, in which we have from the passage just cited in Surius that Cyriaca also lived, that title adhered to our Archdeacon, seems indeed rather to be capable of being piously believed than probably affirmed or denied; unless a suitable testimony be brought forward for the matter. 4. Another difficulty embarrasses the diploma adduced, of which we shall now speak. Blessed Lawrence, as is reported in it, sent and gave the often-mentioned chalice to the monastery and convent of St. John de la Peña. The Spanish notes on that diploma which we have given, sent to us from Saragossa together with a transcript of the same, hence draw out the antiquity of that monastery; since it already existed in the time of St. Lawrence; but they err by a whole heaven, as will become plain from what is to be said. Briz, not unaware of this knot, employs another means to loose it. For neither, as may be read in him, book 1, chapter 48, ought this to be understood as though the Saint sent that chalice immediately to that Religious house, which in those times was not yet founded; but that he directed that sacred pledge to the city of Huesca, his fatherland, discharging indeed the office of a grateful son. Besides this, when the secretary who drew up the instrument mentioned above reports that the said chalice was transmitted to St. John of the Rock; he meant to say this, that the Saint, directing it into Spain, from which he was sprung, sent it to Huesca, where he had drawn his birth.

[97] is liable; But because the church of Huesca, as the same author then subjoins, betook itself together with its relics to that sacred cavern, and there remained for some time, as soon as the Moors invaded Spain, and at that time that royal house of St. John was the church of Huesca, by virtue of that translation, there always adhered, he says, to the memory of our predecessors, that St. Lawrence sent that precious chalice of the Lord to St. John of the Rock; and thus he judges that the aforesaid words of King Martin's secretary are to be explained, when the monks of the Rock delivered that vessel to the same king: and although, as Briz confesses, he did not use altogether proper terms, yet he affirms that in strictness he did not speak amiss, on the supposition that the church of Huesca for some time subsisted at St. John of the Rock, and that in that place the chalice was preserved, which from the city of Huesca had migrated thither together with the church of Huesca.

[98] nor is it sufficiently established. But the praised author assumes that which is in question. For as regards Spain, whither he will have that chalice sent; which accordingly was directed to the city of Huesca by our Saint on account of the fitness drawn from his native place; from this supposition granted, but not conceded, nothing else is concluded, save that only in the XIV century there was among the men of the Rock, and among the neighboring Aragonese, if you will, or perhaps even elsewhere among Spaniards, a report and tradition of the fact here disputed; which we have not yet seen established from any older testimony. Add that it is not sufficiently established whether Huesca was St. Lawrence's native place, as is clear from those things which we shall dispute below concerning that subject. And these indeed are the difficulties which occur to us concerning the said chalice and its circumstances. Since, however, notwithstanding them, it could in fact have happened that that sacred pledge was truly transmitted by the holy Levite into some part of Spain, whence, according to what is to be said below, he seems to have sprung, and no certain documents are brought forward from elsewhere which convict that transaction of falsity; therefore we leave that pious tradition undecided, ready to confirm it more strongly, if learned Spaniards shall be able to supply us with monuments suited to this: which that they may do, we earnestly desire.

[99] Further, that that sacred treasure was afterward translated to Valencia, Briz affirms, book 1, That chalice is held in the highest esteem among the people of Valencia. chapter 47, as also that it is preserved there. The Spanish Ms. notes, of which we made mention above, report that the holy chalice is at present (namely in the year 1727, in which they were sent to us) preserved in the metropolitan church of that same city, and is held in so great veneration that it is not permitted to any priest, nay indeed not even to the archbishop himself,

to use that chalice for celebrating; that on the day sacred to the holy apostle Matthew a most solemn feast is held in veneration of the holy chalice; which is then carried about through the squares with procession and pomp, such as is performed on the day of the Body of the Lord. As regards its material, it consists of stone alone, as Briz reports at the cited place, page 213, which seems to be chalcedony, and of a wonderful and strange color. The cited notes assert that the material of the chalice, so far at least as appears, consists of agate stone; and that its shape is like that of a little dish; that its foot is of gold, a golden ornament likewise running round its lip.

* Huesca

* Briz adds "ninth"

* Briz: of the royal audience

§ X. Whether St. Lawrence was born in Spain.

The Saint's fatherland much disputed among Spaniards. Most celebrated, and long and much agitated among learned Spaniards, is the controversy concerning the fatherland of St. Lawrence. First, therefore, let us set forth the arguments by which they endeavor to claim him for Spain; and then let us consider which cities of Spain say that he is theirs. So common is the voice of the more recent authors who write of the affairs of Spain, and so widely spread, that that Saint drew his birth in Spain, that to weave here a long catalogue of them would be superfluous. Tamayo in the Spanish Martyrology at the day X of August, page 456, says: As regards his origin; nothing is more ancient than that it was Spanish, as is clear from the very Acts, both the most ancient and the more recent .. That he was Spanish by origin, next after the Acts, almost all the foreign writers cited above prove wonderfully, who alone are to be summoned and cited concerning this quality.

[101] Then he adduces from the poets Peter Rosetus, Baptista Mantuanus, That his fatherland was Spain Pope Urban VIII; and thus he continues: There agree also all the breviaries, both ours and foreign, which we heaped up above, and Baronius, Ecclesiastical Annals, volume 2, at the year 241, number 8; Gretser, on the Feasts of Christians, book 2, chapter 9, folio 348, where he rises up against Manlius the Calvinist, who had made St. Lawrence a native and a citizen of Rome, proving from other heretics of his own meal that he was a Spaniard. The passage of Baronius just indicated records thus: Further, that St. Lawrence himself was a Spaniard is expressly contained in the deeds of St. Damasus, which were wont to be recited in the Church. But Gretser in the cited book 2, page 348, thus addresses his heterodox antagonist: A Roman citizen, thou sayest, born at Rome. Hear Hospinian the Calvinist: Lawrence the Spaniard faithfully taught Christ. Hear also thy fellow-soldier in Luther's camp, George Fabricius, who thus entitles the second hymn of Prudentius Περὶ στεφάνων; or rather thus represents it as already of old entitled: Hymn II to the divine Lawrence the Spaniard, Roman archdeacon. And in the Commentary the same Lutheran: Lawrence, by nation a Spaniard, etc. But from titles no strong argument is formed: for in our most ancient codex, of which I shall speak at the end of this Commentary at number 127, it is read thus: The Passion of Lawrence the most blessed martyr. But in the Heinsian edition of Prudentius, in the Annotations, page 29: A hymn in honor of the passion of Lawrence the most blessed martyr. And: Here begins the Passion of Lawrence the most blessed martyr.

[102] The aforesaid Tamayo at page 445 had brought forward a hymn from an ancient, as he adds, breviary of Toledo, is proved by various arguments; in which the Saint is said to have been born in the Spanish clime. And at page 447, from breviaries of the kingdom of Aragon even older, by his own testimony, there exists another hymn, in which in him I read: Let Spain now exult. Lastly he also cites at page 451 the evening hymn of the breviary of Apt, giving these verses from it:

Let the land of Spain rejoice today, From whose borders and of whose stock Was born Lawrence, soldier of the Church, And most faithful witness.

To these things which we have recited from Tamayo may be added Peter the Deacon, who in Baronius, volume 4 of the Annals at the year 384, indicates that St. Lawrence was of the same fatherland as St. Damasus, Pope, whom to have been from Spain is certain and granted, says Nicolás Antonio in the Old Spanish Library, volume 1, book 2, chapter 6, page 139. The praised founder of the Ecclesiastical Annals thus narrates at the cited year: There exist Acts of Damasus, formerly wont to be recited in the Church, in our possession in two very ancient codices, namely the fifth and tenth volumes of the Lives of the Saints. The same are exhibited by a Vatican codex, and another of St. Mary Major, which we have seen (namely volume 1 of the Lives of the Saints, page 35, as is noted in the margin), in which at the end this is read: To pass over many things, I will by no means keep silence about those which Peter, deacon of the Apostolic See, in the sermon which he published in honor of blessed Damasus, records to have happened in his title-church. He therefore says to the brethren of the aforesaid title: Already, brethren, you have often seen here demons put to flight, the bodies of the fevered healed, and, what is greater, the bedridden and the contracted stretched straight, as was lately seen in a man deprived of the use of his feet: who, being placed before the doors of this church, since he did not despair of being healed, began to creep by himself with wooden supports so far as he could reach hither.

[103] and also from the sermon of a certain Peter the deacon, To whom at last (as he himself declared) a light unexpectedly coming shone like a lamp, and immediately restored the use of his feet. But what follows, not only the writings of the same title-church, but even its paintings declare. There were two men not always of sound mind, whom the physicians call lunatics, frequenting that basilica, and beseeching blessed Damasus with continual prayers that they might receive health. On a certain day therefore, coming before his sepulchre, they prostrated themselves, weeping more than usual, imploring the mercy of God through the help of St. Damasus. And when they did this ardently, they were heard, and, health being recovered, they proclaimed the mighty works of God, and, not unmindful of the benefit received, having shorn the hair of their heads, they served the Lord in that same place all the days of their life. But these miracles some assign to blessed Lawrence the martyr, others to blessed Damasus the confessor: but we do not divide in miracles THOSE WHOM ONE FATHERLAND BEGOT, one church (namely the Roman) promoted, one basilica venerates on earth, one Lord honors in heaven. So Baronius from that author, who, making St. Damasus, on other grounds owed to Spain, and St. Lawrence countrymen, makes both of them Spaniards. But since, in his judgment, the miracles which, in producing his whole text, I have at the same time reported, are common to both those Saints; we would have them inserted among the Laurentian miracles, of which we treated before.

[104] (although who that Peter was is not sufficiently ascertained) But who was that Peter, deacon of the Apostolic See? There lived with St. Gregory, Pope, a certain Peter, his deacon, as is established from the Dialogues of the praised Saint; to which he prefixes this: My most beloved son Peter the deacon was present, who from the first flower of my youth has been familiarly bound to me in friendship, and my companion in the searching out of the sacred word. He converses with St. Gregory in the said dialogues: but we do not know that he wrote anything which regards the present matter. Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus marks a Peter the deacon older than the one already named, who lived in the year of Christ 486 under the Arian emperor Valens; but the book which he is there said to have written on the Incarnation, etc., does not belong to this place. But how could he have lived in the said year, in the reign of Valens, who died in the year 378? In the said Possevino, Peter the deacon of Monte Cassino, who wrote the Life of St. Athanasius bishop of Naples, is also noted, and of whom Baronius makes mention at the end of the year 850, as also at the year 861 and 872. Lastly, another Peter the deacon, a monk of Monte Cassino, you will find in Possevino, attached to the twelfth century: but among the sermons which are there reckoned among his writings, I meet with none concerning St. Damasus. To the same century belongs Peter the deacon of Ostia, of whom Vossius in the Latin Historians, book 2, chapter 49, adding that this man seems to him the same as the one of whom I was treating in the last place. But although it is not ascertained by me whether any of the Peters the deacon mentioned wrote those Acts of St. Damasus which Baronius above alleged; yet because that Most Eminent man affirmed that they exist in two very ancient codices; therefore no contemptible strength accrues to the opinion of the Spaniards, who ascribe St. Lawrence to themselves as a countryman.

[105] Nicolás Antonio in the place just indicated further observes this: and from the Life of St. Damasus, Pope. Likewise the author of his Life (namely of St. Damasus) in Ms., which is preserved in a codex of the archive of the canons of St. Peter's (and which was published together with the Works of St. Damasus at Rome in the year 1638), calls Lawrence the martyr the FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN of Damasus; and also expressly a Spaniard, as he draws toward the end: if that portion of the Life (from those words: But blessed Damasus was, etc., page 60), in which mention is made of Pope John XIX, who is said to have lived after the year one thousand, is not to be separated from the foregoing, which seem to me to contain a greater antiquity. But if you take the whole compass of that Life as composed by one and the same author; then it will follow that he did not write it before Peter, deacon of the Roman Church; for in the cited edition, page 60, he cites the sermon of Peter the deacon on blessed Damasus, and from it reports those miracles which we gave above from Baronius.

[106] And to proceed to investigating and confirming the region of St. Lawrence's fatherland; Tradition, and Ado, favor the Spaniards. besides those things which have already been said in favor of the Spaniards, an argument may be taken by them from tradition, drawn out in this manner. Since, they will say, it is the common sense of Spaniards, nay indeed of the faithful, either of the whole Church or at least of its better part, that the holy Martyr drew his first light in Spain, and the tradition on that matter is constant — in whatever century it began to be propagated — that he is truly ours; and since no reason from any other quarter so solid, no authority either from the Fathers, or from his Acts, or from Ecclesiastical monuments, so effective, is hitherto brought forward as could convict that common sense and tradition of open falsity, and dislodge its settled possession from its seat, much less overthrow it from the foundations; it remains that it continue to reside among us henceforward, as it has resided hitherto; and that no arguments of more recent smatterers, if there be any, merely negative, as they call them, snatch away our foster-child and countryman from the native bosom of our Spain. These things the Spaniards can answer on behalf of their Saint. Meanwhile, for our part, although we have not at hand those most ancient testimonies which we could wish, wherewith to patronize their tradition and possession; for our part, I say, it shall not stand in the way that the pious nation of the Spaniards should hold St. Lawrence for their own, invoke him as their own, and continue to venerate him with constant religion

especially since already from the ninth century we find the Saint held for a Spaniard in the Martyrology of Ado at this day: where the Martyr is thus introduced speaking: As to my race, I am a Spaniard, educated and nourished at Rome.

§ XI. In what place of Spain St. Lawrence was born.

Various places of Spain contend about the fatherland of St. Lawrence. But now another controversy presents itself, namely in what place of Spain our Martyr came forth into the light; about which there is great contention among the Spaniards, some designating one city, some another, for his birth. For the men of Huesca in Aragon affirm that the Saint is theirs; the Valencians claim him for themselves; the men of Cordova demand him back. For the Valencians against the men of Huesca contends Don Juan Bautista Ballester, archdeacon of Sagunto in the metropolitan church of Valencia, etc., in a book on this matter published at Lyons in the year 1675, which is entitled The Lydian Stone of truth .. for investigating the true fatherland of the renowned martyr and Levite blessed Lawrence. I have the Latin copy before me; but the others whom I shall adduce wrote in the Spanish tongue. But the praised author did not then first begin to descend into that arena, as will become clear from what follows. On the side of the men of Cordova against the Valencians and their champion Ballester stands Doctor Diego José Dormer, who was a capitular of the parish church of St. Paul at Saragossa, and afterward was promoted to the archdeaconate of the cathedral church of Huesca, and finally to the archdeaconate of the metropolitan church of Saragossa. For in the year 1673 he published a book, printed at Saragossa with this title: St. Lawrence defended in the ever-victorious and most noble city of Huesca, against the uncertain judgment by which Doctor Don Juan Bapt. Ballester pretends anew that he was sprung from Valencia, etc. Don Francisco Carrillo de Córdoba published some work for the men of Cordova at Cordova in the year 1676, under the name of Historical Contest, etc., as the same man affirms who replies to him, Doctor Juan de Aguas, canon of the metropolitan church of Saragossa, and synodal examiner of his archbishopric, after the Historico-ecclesiastical Discourse in favor of the tradition of the men of Huesca, reprinted at Saragossa in the year 1677, from page 237.

[108] There are set forth If we should be willing to spend labor in reporting, comparing among themselves, and examining severally the arguments which those writers heap together, each for his own place in whose favor he contends, there would be no end, nor would the result answer to the labor. For as the parents, boyhood, education, and manner of life before the archdeaconate of the Saint, and other things of that kind, lie hidden and buried in the most obscure night of ancient antiquity after so many centuries have passed; what wonder is it if we do not dare to hope for even one single testimony of a writer of such a kind, all things considered, as should solidly decide that suit about which contention is here made — even Dormer himself confessing, otherwise a laborious defender of the men of Huesca, in chapter 2, that The lack of monuments and of ancient writers has obscured for us the first notices of the fatherland of St. Lawrence. But from the more recent, however much you increase their number, what is concluded, so long as they cannot assign the primitive fountains from which they drew their information? Dormer therefore, destitute of writers of the antiquity requisite for deciding the present controversy, takes refuge in the common sense of men, and the hereditary notices received from ancestors, and tradition, recording in the same place, page 11, that in the year 1250, in the house of Loret, inhabited, as he will have it, by the parents of St. Lawrence, and in which the same Saint first began to breathe, a confraternity was erected for increasing his cult; and he cites a parchment codex, in which this is noted: This confraternity was begun in the year of the Lord one thousand two hundred and fifty. Whence it is inferred, says the said author, with all evidence, how long before the institution of that confraternity there preceded the knowledge that St. Lawrence was born there: since FOR THIS REASON (POR ESTE RESPETO) the church was built, dedicated to his name, with which it was founded, and because the very ignorance of its origin the more favors its antiquity, since it exceeds all the records that can be preserved; and it is recognized by all as not now merely built, but ancient.

[109] But that that argument might have force, Dormer ought to have proved that causal particle, some as they call it, "for this reason": which since he does not do, the argument is nerveless. For whence does Dormer know, by force of that instrument which he brings forward, that that church — add also the confraternity — was erected on account of the Saint's birth rather than on some other ground, as for instance on account of a singular piety toward him, the increase of the public veneration, etc.? Nay indeed he himself designates this ground in the same place, when he alleges una cofadria, que assistiesse a la mayor observancia de su culto; that is, a confraternity which should conduce to the greatest observance of his cult; for which matter he presently cites the aforesaid codex. I pass over the things which he then adduces in favor of his tradition for the 14th century; which at page 19 he affirms to have been introduced from a time of which no memory exists: Because there are not fewer, as he adds, than FOURTEEN CENTURIES through which it has successively, without any interruption, always persevered. Which, what else is it than to speak with a great gaping and not to prove what is said? Whence it follows that the antiquity of that tradition of the Saint's birth among the men of Huesca is not so evident as Dormer proclaims: whom, as we do not dislodge from their possession, such as it is; so we by no means interpose ourselves as judges for deciding the present suit, if it can ever truly and safely be decided, which we think will never be, because it is never to be proved by the authority of lawful documents.

[110] And in this our opinion we have been not a little confirmed, after we saw a book published in the Spanish tongue with this title: of their arguments; Historical contest for the fatherland of the illustrious Spanish protomartyr St. Lawrence; where Cordova replies to various writings, etc. That work Don Francisco Carrillo of Cordova dedicates to the same city of Cordova; which is noted as printed there in the year 1673. The author divides it into three parts. In the first part, in treatise I, he sets forth the first opinion, which will have Rome to be the fatherland of St. Lawrence, and produces its foundations. In the same part, in treatise 2, he brings forward the second opinion, by which the men of Saragossa ascribe him to themselves. In treatise 3 he exhibits the third opinion, why indeed the city of Valencia claims him for itself. To which he then subjoins the men of Huesca in Aragon, and those of Loret near Huesca, who attribute the Saint's birth to themselves. The praised author in part 2 replies to the arguments of the five opinions which he had set forth in the first part, and endeavors to show that none of these five places was the birthplace of the holy Levite. All these being excluded from the prerogative of that honor, he contends in part 3 that it belongs to Cordova. As regards the city of Rome, as though St. Lawrence drew his birth in it, the opinion which asserts this seems so destitute of every appearance of probability that it does not deserve even to be set forth, much less refuted. But although it is more probable that the Martyr is owed to Spain, we remain nevertheless in that opinion, that it is hitherto undiscovered in what place of Spain he came forth into the light; which we would have understood of Cordova also: yet in favor of that most illustrious city we shall, by a generous rather than a necessary labor, weigh certain chief arguments by which she will have it that the most holy Archdeacon drew the first breath of life in her bosom.

[111] of the men of Cordova And this we do the more because the most illustrious senate of that same city sent hither most courteous letters, in which it earnestly commended this its cause, given in that place on the V day of December of the year 1732, with the addition also of a complimentary copy of the book composed by Carrillo, and printed at Cordova, as I said, in the year 1673. It also pleased those most noble Gentlemen to send hither at the same time the Life of St. Lawrence, faithfully copied from a codex, as they will have it, most ancient, which is preserved with great veneration and apart from the other books in the archive of their Cathedral church. And to the transcript of that Life which they sent hither, and which was fortified in the fullest form with subscriptions attesting that it agreed word for word with their Cordovan exemplar, this is prefixed: Bachelor Don Antonio Junguito y Guevara, notary of the Catholic majesty the king and our lord Philip V, and one of the number of this most noble and most faithful city of Cordova, do bear witness that, together with the Lord Don Martín Guiral y Concha, one of the four-and-twenty men of this aforesaid city, and expressly deputed for proving and elucidating that the birthplace and fatherland of the renowned martyr St. Lawrence is our Cordova, I went to the place where the archive of the Chapter of this most illustrious cathedral church is; which, being unlocked with three keys, which are kept with the lords Don Juan de Nabas y Rezio, canon distinguished with the dignity of treasurer, Don Juan Gómez Bravo, canon likewise magistral, and Don José Saravia, portionary, deputed for the capitular household affairs for this month in the aforesaid cathedral church, and keepers of the keys of the archive; from it, and from the shelf marked number one, designated by the letter G, a book was taken out which is called Santoral, and is written by hand on parchment, and is completed in two hundred and seventy-two folios; whose title is this: Here begin the flowers of the Saints.

[112] especially In it from folio one hundred and fifty-eight to folio one hundred and seventy-two following, there extends the Life and martyrdom .. of St. Lawrence, which, transcribed word for word, are of this sort, namely: Here begins the Life: Lawrence, martyr and levite, born at Cordova, was brought to Rome by blessed Sixtus: for thus says master John Beleth: When blessed Sixtus had set out into Spain, finding there two youths, namely Lawrence and Vincent his kinsman, composed in the honorableness of their manners, and distinguished in the acclamation of all, he brought them with him to Rome, of whom the one, namely Lawrence, remained with him at Rome: but Vincent his kinsman returned into Spain, and there ended his life by a glorious martyrdom. But John Beleth * contradicts this Passion. The time of the martyrdom of each: Lawrence suffered under Decius, but Vincent in his youthful age under Diocletian and Dacian. But let those gentlemen of Cordova, whom I humbly reverence, tell me, I pray, what of antiquity, what of rarity, what sufficiently suited to the decision of the point here disputed, can even in appearance be hammered out of this Life?

[113] That there is in it, in the first place, nothing rare, this is an argument, which also that that Passion is printed among the Legends of the Saints which Brother James of Genoa of the Order of Friars Preachers compiled; which Work afterward, being reprinted under the care of Brother Claude de Rota of the same Order, came forth enlarged. To these add the Passion which we have, taken from the Utrecht Ms. of St. Saviour, and which begins thus: Lawrence, martyr and levite, a Spaniard by race, was brought to Rome by blessed Sixtus: for as master John Beleth says, when that same blessed Sixtus had set out for Spain, finding there two youths, namely Lawrence and Vincent his kinsman, composed in the honorableness of their manners, and distinguished in every action, he brought them with him to Rome. Of whom the one, namely Lawrence, remained with him at Rome: but Vincent his kinsman returned into Spain, and there

ended his life by a glorious martyrdom. But to this opinion of John Beleth the time of the martyrdom of each is repugnant: because Lawrence suffered under Decius; but Vincent in his youthful age under Diocletian. If you compare this with the Cordovan exemplar, do you not clearly see that they agree too well with one another to savor of a different fountain from which they were drawn? Do you not likewise understand from the name of John Beleth, who in so tiny a specimen of a few lines is twice cited by him who compiled this Passion, that that exemplar is not older than the XII or XIII century?

[114] For John Trithemius, in the Catalogue of ecclesiastical writers, are weighed; placing him among the writers who flourished in the year 1200, says: John Beleth, formerly a distinguished theologian of the school of Paris, etc. William Eisengrein, in the Catalogue of the witnesses of truth, printed at Dillingen in the year of the Lord 1565, folio 133 verso, says: Two hundred and thirty-seven years ago, which was the year of Christ 1328, John Beleth, etc. Of him also treat our Antonio Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus, César Egasse du Boulay in the History of the University of Paris near the end of volume 2, which extends from the year 1110 to the year 1200, in the Catalogue of illustrious academics, page 749; and William Cave in the Literary History of ecclesiastical Writers, part 1, page 472; to whom he seems to have flourished about the year 1162. Yet there are not lacking, as he adds, others, namely Claude Jolly, canon of Paris, and Casimir Oudin, who refer him back to the year 1328: which indeed ought to seem strange; since Henry of Ghent, who wrote in the year 1280, reckons him among the first writers of his Catalogue; concerning which Henry see more in Valerius Andreas in the Belgian Library, published in the year 1643 with Louvain types, page 351. Let John Beleth then have flourished in the XIII or XIV century, or, if you will, in the XII century (for it is not of so much moment to us as that we should quarrel about it); but to whichever of these centuries you attach him, nothing of antiquity, nothing rare, nothing sufficiently suited even in appearance for deciding the fatherland of St. Lawrence in favor of the most illustrious city of Cordova, can be hammered out of the transcript which it has pleased its most reverend governors to send hither; since there is no proportion between the said times and the middle of the third century, in which that Martyr flourished. Besides this, although it is established that the compiler of that Life wrote after John Beleth, since he cites him; yet it is not established how long after him he wrote, namely whether in the XIII or XIV century, or later.

[115] Carrillo therefore, in part 3, treatise I, chapter 3, page 150, did not sufficiently know that Life, saying: but they are shown not to suffice The second foundation which Cordova has for being believed the fatherland of St. Lawrence, and by which its most ancient tradition is confirmed, is a Santoral (that is, a codex containing the Lives of the Saints) written by hand in Gothic or Lombardic letters; that same one of which we spoke above; which the same author extols wonderfully indeed, but beyond its desert. Away then with those six hundred years or so of its age at page 151; as also the other consequences which, since they are built upon that ruinous foundation, have nothing of firmness, nor, to say what I think, deserve to be reported, the same writer having strayed so far beyond the bounds of prudent judgment as at page 153 to carry back the age of his Santoral to the seventh century, in which the Moors or Saracens invaded Spain, and there to make it more than a thousand years old; which he also repeats, and intrepidly indeed, at page 154; but by conjectures of what utter unimportance, it is not necessary to prove at greater length. What of this, that instead of "born at Cordova," as is expressly read in the said Cordovan transcript, our Utrecht Ms., with the printed texts in James of Genoa and Claude de Rota, of whom above, reads "a Spaniard by race," as may be seen above. But whether the exemplar that ought here to seem more suspect of interpolation is the Cordovan, or the Utrecht one with the other printed exemplars which I just now indicated, we leave to the judgment of the fair reader. Now indeed those exemplars agree that blessed Sixtus set out into Spain, and that, finding there two youths, namely Lawrence and Vincent, etc. But that journey of St. Sixtus into Spain we struck from the roll of truth on the VI day of this month of August, in the Preliminary Commentary to the Martyrdom of that Saint, §7, page 139, together with the Most Eminent Cardinal Aguirre, the collector of the Spanish Councils and among Spaniards the most learned; to whom we send the reader: where also he will find at page 140 that St. Sixtus, and therefore St. Lawrence, suffered not under Decius, but under the emperor Valerian. And yet in that precious codex of Cordova Decius again and again comes upon the stage, who is established to have perished six years before Sixtus obtained the Apostolic See, according to what was there said.

[116] are shown, Finally, since in the aforesaid Cordovan exemplar there is discussion of Decius, and mention is again made of John Beleth, who is afterward named yet again; and then various histories are narrated from Gregory's Dialogues and Register, and also from the book on the Miracles of the blessed Virgin, and from the Life of St. Henry the emperor; and likewise it is noted that the passion of St. Lawrence seems to be the most excellent among the other passions of the holy Martyrs in four respects, which are there deduced at length; and to which are added the privileges of St. Lawrence among the other Martyrs, in his vigil, in his Octave, in the verses of the Antiphons; it is plainly evident and breathes forth in that exemplar a collector of various Laurentian matters; but not a genuine, primitive, and ancient author: by whom also his own youthfulness is betrayed, when master William of Auxerre is named by him; namely that one, as I altogether suspect, who was a distinguished professor of philosophy, and then of theology, in the academy of Paris, and flourished in the times of Gregory IX and Innocent IV (on the testimony of du Boulay, whom I alleged above, volume 3, page 683), that is, in the thirteenth century.

[117] that St. Lawrence should be given to them. Carrillo would draw me further than is right, if I should weigh the other arguments scraped together by him from every quarter for the men of Cordova with greater effort than persuasiveness: among which the first that is set down is a tradition, established in the minds of the men of Cordova from the very martyrdom of St. Lawrence, page 126; which he endeavors to confirm from an edifice there sacred to him for, as he will have it, about a thousand two hundred years, or a little after the Saint's contest, page 129. The second foundation, at page 150, he takes from the Santoral; concerning which more than enough has already been said. The third he seeks from the words of the Cordovan Breviary, which, as he himself indeed defines, has eight hundred and seventy-four years of antiquity, and which, as he immediately reports from a Religious of the Order of St. Dominic, was written in the year 800. But let the men of Cordova forgive me if I say candidly that I shall not be persuaded of this beforehand until it is more firmly proved. But now as regards the fifth foundation, and also the sixth and seventh, which Carrillo then subjoins; I say that I am not moved by them even the least little bit, until there be brought forward a clear and manifest authority which was written before the twelfth century. And indeed even if that were brought forward, it would afford some foundation for the tradition; but how little nevertheless for deciding the fatherland of St. Lawrence in their favor against others who dispute about it; since he flourished in the third century, and concerning his native soil, and also concerning the deeds done by the Saint before the time of his diaconate and martyrdom, all genuine antiquity behind us, so far as we know, is most completely dumb; as appears from what has been said in this Commentary. To conclude this matter at last, to the foundations which the men of Cordova allege for themselves we oppose the foundations of the other places in Spain contending for the Saint's fatherland; to none of which can we hitherto, saving the truth, grant him, because whose he is, or is not, we have not sufficiently ascertained, desiring only to learn this first, and then to teach the same to the literary commonwealth; and at the same time entreating both the men of Cordova and the other competitors for the Saint's fatherland to pardon our candor, and not to be unwilling to receive in charity this judgment, such as it is, for the truth. Meanwhile I do not touch the empty conjectures of Tamayo about St. Lawrence the priest, a Spaniard, as he will have it, and a Cordovan, who was a martyr among the people of Novara in Cisalpine Gaul (as though indeed the men of Cordova had substituted Lawrence the levite for that one). The said author on these matters may be seen at the day XXX of April, page 857; as also the things may be consulted which at the said day, in volume III of the same month, page 763, were long since written by us against Tamayo, when we gave that St. Lawrence there.

* al. "the time of the martyrdom of each is repugnant to John Beleth."

§ XII. The exemplars of the Acts, the Saints mixed in with them; whether the primitive ones were seen by the holy Fathers; the Hymn of Prudentius, and a summary of the Acts.

The Acts in Surius, The Acts of St. Lawrence, which now offer themselves to us for examination, exist in various exemplars. Best known in the first place are those which are current from Surius, and are found in him at this day X of August with this opening: A storm having arisen under Decius, many of the Christians were slain. Galba presiding in the City, Decius proceeds against the Persians, being pressed by war with them. But coming to a Pontic city, he settled in it, though he was pressed by war. And he went up into the mountain of the Medes: and having engaged with the Persians, he obtained the victory, and slew many of the Persians, and seized Babylonia, Bactria, Hyrcania, and Assyria: where, having found many Christians, he slew them, vexed with punishments and afflictions. Then there occur Polychronius, bishop of Babylon, with the priests Parmenius, Elimas, Chrysotelus, and the deacons Luke and Mucius; then the letter of Decius Cæsar to Valerian the prefect; Parmenius the priest, Abdon and Sennen, who are said to have gathered the bodies of the Saints whom I have just named; and also their contest and martyrdom, as also that of Olympias and Maximus; to whom add SS. Sixtus, Pope, Felicissimus and Agapitus, and Lawrence, Hippolytus, Romanus the soldier, Irenæus and Abundius, Concordia, Cyriaca, Tryphonia, Cyrilla, and finally forty-six Soldiers with their wives, mention also being made of another hundred and twenty Martyrs. You have here a brief synopsis of the Acts in Surius.

[119] our Trier Ms., and others, Our transcript from the Ms. of St. Maximin at Trier represents a narration of the same substance as the Surian Acts. The opening is: A storm having arisen under Decius, many of the Christians were slain, etc. Our parchment codex marked P Ms. 10 describes the Acts of our Saint from folio 206, which thus begin: In the time of Decius Cæsar, when blessed Sixtus, bishop of the city of Rome, was being scourged, blessed Lawrence, his archdeacon, began to cry out with a tearful voice and to say: Do not forsake me, father, etc. Likewise another of our codices, P Ms. 21, at folio 64 and following, exhibiting the Passion, prefixes to it this beginning: Soldiers holding

blessed Lawrence led him and delivered him to Partemius the tribune. At that same hour Partemius the tribune announced to Decius that Lawrence, the archdeacon of Xystus who had the hidden treasures, was being held in custody. A specimen of the Passion from the Cordovan Ms. Codex, and from the Utrecht Ms. of St. Saviour, together with its opening, we set forth on another occasion in § XI.

[120] likewise metrical Mss., Besides, in two of our parchment codices, one of which is marked ✠ Ms. 33, and the other ✠ Ms. 81, there exists a metrical Passion of St. Lawrence, composed in verses rhyming alike in the middle and at the end, or Leonine, as they are called, whose opening runs thus:

Seized by Decius, and slain by the raging sword, Sixtus, mingled with the Martyrs, shone in the sky.

Dom Antoine Beaugendre, of the Order of St. Benedict, published at Paris in the year 1708 the Works, both published and unpublished, of the venerable Hildebert, raised from the see of Le Mans to that of Tours, together with the opuscula of Marbod, bishop of Rennes; and under the latter's name you will there find that little poem from column [ ]. Now Marbod flourished at the end of the XI century, according to what is recorded of him in the Sainte-Marthes among the bishops of Rennes; where also he is written to have died in the year 1123.

[121] The Acts published in summary in Ado; the Passion in Mombritius. St. Ado, archbishop of Vienne, who flourished in the IX century, inserted into his Martyrology at the day X of August the Acts of St. Lawrence, or, if you prefer, a summary of them, extracted, as we suspect, from a longer narration which lay before him, in which those things are reported which more nearly pertain to St. Lawrence, without those side-matters which in the exemplar in Surius, and also in the aforesaid Trier transcript, are unskillfully mixed in. The Passion in Mombritius begins thus: At that time, after blessed Xystus had passed to Christ, then the soldiers of Decius seized blessed Lawrence the archdeacon, and led him and delivered him to Parthenius the tribune. At that same hour Parthenius the tribune announced to Decius, etc. Further, the substance of the rest of the narration agrees with those exemplars which we designated above from the codex P Ms. 21 and P Ms. 10: where account is taken of the deeds done by St. Lawrence, apart from those digressions, so frequent, with which the Surian and Trier Acts, which we have just named, are stuffed.

[122] Now let us enumerate the Saints mixed in with the same, and assign to each of them his own day, [Many Saints stuffed into some of the Laurentian Acts are assigned to their proper days.] on which they have either already been given by us, or will be given hereafter, and this in order to avoid confusion and to supply the reader with the knowledge where he may find them outside these Acts, which will not be reprinted by us. Olympias therefore and Maximus you will find on the day XV of April, page 375; Abdon and Sennen on the XXX of July, page 130 and following; where also they are set down as having suffered under Decius, and the difficulties concerning the Persian expedition of Decius (of which mention was made a little before) are set forth, as also our conjectures concerning it; Polychronius on the day XVII of February, page 5; Parmenius, Helymas, and Chrysotelus the priests; and also Luke or Lucius and Mucius the deacons, on the day XXII of April, page 11; Sixtus, Felicissimus, and Agapitus, on the day VI of August, page 124; Romanus the soldier, on the IX of the same. But others are inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on the following days, namely Hippolytus, Concordia his nurse, and nineteen others of his household, on the day XIII of August; Cyriaca the widow, on the day XXI of the same month; Irenæus and Abundantius on the XXVI of the same; Justinus the priest and M., and also Narcissus and Crescentio, on the day XVII of September; Tryphonia, the wife, as is reported, of Decius Cæsar, on the day XVIII of October; Cyrilla, their daughter as they will have it, on the XXVIII of the same; forty-six Soldiers and another hundred and twenty-one Martyrs in the praised Roman tables, on the XXV day of the same month. Meanwhile, in so great a collection of Martyrs thrust into the Laurentian Acts, I do not remember reading anything about St. Quartus, the fellow-soldier of St. Sixtus, Pope, in martyrdom (of whom I spoke in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Sixtus, §3); which for that reason seems strange to me.

[123] But now, since it is our part to defend the Acts of the Saints so far as, saving their truth, it is permitted us; we should indeed wish that those of which we now treat had come down to our age as primitive and sincere; but since those in the first place which are current as published in Surius are not of this kind, it is well to hear what judgment men eminent in learning have formed concerning them. What Baronius thought of the Acts published in Surius. Baronius in the notes to the Roman Martyrology at this day X of August says: His Acts (he treats of St. Lawrence) are had in Surius, volume 4; to the beginning of which are prefixed the deeds of the holy Abdon and Sennen and of others; which, both from the diversity of style and from the variety of the history and its inconstant truth, appear to be of some other author: for many apocryphal things are known to be in them, and many contrary to the truth, especially those about the death of Decius and Valerian. This therefore we would say, that the prudent reader may know how to separate those things from the genuine Acts of St. Lawrence. And in the Annals at the year 261 he gives this warning: But the Acts of Lawrence which were recited by Metaphrastes seem by no means to be those pristine ones taken down by the notaries; but written by some other: with which he may have woven together also the things which had been written by Ambrose or others concerning St. Lawrence; since indeed they have some things to which historical truth is repugnant. So Baronius: to whom more deference is to be paid than to the judgment prefixed in Surius to the Laurentian Acts in these words: From these deeds blessed Ambrose copied not a few things almost word for word. For who would believe that Acts of so bad a stamp lay before St. Ambrose, who flourished in the century next after St. Lawrence; or, if the primitive Acts were then lost, that he did not receive what he reported of the Saint from tradition or common report, which then survived among posterity as it were living, even if not altogether recent?

[124] The censure of the Most Eminent Noris and of Pagi. The Most Eminent Noris, on the Epochs of the Syro-Macedonians, dissertation 3, chapter 20, thus pronounces concerning the Acts of St. Lawrence: That expedition of Decius against the Persians was carried into the Ecclesiastical Annals from the Acts which are prefixed to the narration of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence: which nevertheless by that same most learned Baronius at the place praised (namely at the year 254), number 27, are said to be SOMEWHAT CORRUPTED; and in the notes to the Martyrology at the day XXX of July he confesses that they NEED CORRECTION. At the beginning of the Acts, chapter 1, Decius is said, having conquered the Persians in battle, to have seized Babylon, Bactria, Hyrcania, and Assyria, and to have ordered a temple to be built at Babylon to Saturn; which being finished, Polychronius, bishop of Babylon, refusing to pour libations to the gods there, was put to death, the clergy of the same church being dragged to the city of Cordova and there afterward slain. It is added that Decius brought from Persia to Rome Abdon and Sennen, petty kings of the Persians, and ordered them to be slain for the worship of Christ; to whom within a few days he added as companions the holy Sixtus the Pope and Lawrence .. All which are plainly fabulous. And after the reasons which the praised author there adduces, he thus concludes: And so that expedition of Decius against the Persians, narrated in the said Acts, is fictitious; as also wrongly are Xystus the Pope and Lawrence there said to have been martyrs slain under Decius, who were put to death in the reign of Valerian Augustus .. Since in the same Acts, chapter 7, we read: But the bodies of the holy Abdon and Sennen lay hidden until the times of Constantine, it is clear that they were written by a writer of a later age, unskilled in the things which he committed to writing. To these two Most Eminent men add Pagi in the Critique on Baronius, where at the year 261 he writes this: That the Acts of St. Lawrence are spurious ought to be certain, on account of the reasons brought forward by Baronius and others.

[125] [Even if the holy Fathers of the 5th century had not seen genuine written Acts of St. Lawrence,] As regards the primitive and genuine Acts of the Saint, someone might suspect whether they existed in the V century; because certain Fathers, whose fragments concerning our Martyr we produced in § four, use the words "it is handed down" and "it is narrated," tacitly indicating in a manner that they received what they say not from written Acts, but from tradition and the narration of others. For St. Augustine, in the same place, number 37, says: The wealth of the Church was demanded of him by that persecutor, AS IS HANDED DOWN. And at the place cited, number 35, St. Maximus of Turin says: Venerable Xystus .. IS NARRATED to have thus addressed him (St. Lawrence) in the spirit of foreknowledge. But the ground of that suspicion, by force of those expressions as such, does not seem sufficiently founded: for since elsewhere those Fathers, as also Prudentius, cited by us in that paragraph, speak of the Saint most affirmatively; why may it not be permitted so to interpret those two expressions of SS. Augustine and Maximus, as though they had said "it is handed down in writing," "it is narrated in writing"? I said, by force of those expressions as such: for whether the Fathers drew what they say from written Acts or fragments of them, or from the mere report and unwritten tradition of others, who can define with sufficient certainty? But grant that they drew what they say from tradition alone; assuredly that tradition ought to be most venerable and precious to us, and to command the highest credit: for St. Ambrose and Prudentius flourished in the century next to the Martyr's passion, the fourth of the Christian era; and in the fifth there followed him SS. Augustine, Peter Chrysologus, Leo the Pope, and Maximus of Turin; judging that those things which they had learned about the martyrdom of St. Lawrence were most opportunely offered, that they might instruct the people, incite them to virtue, and exalt the Catholic religion.

[126] From these things therefore the truth of the Saint's Acts, at least as regards their chief substance, yet their truth, as regards the substance, is solidly confirmed by witnesses of undoubted credit and beyond all exception; and abundant satisfaction is made to the note on letter 80 of St. Cyprian; which note is found in the new impression of his Works published at Bremen in the year 1690, page 238: where on occasion of Quartus the martyr, who suffered with St. Sixtus, Pope, among some Saints who, as the annotator will have it, require some author more worthy of credit than the common Martyrologies, St. Lawrence is placed. But that letter of Cyprian does not embarrass the holy Levite: for although in it Cyprian says that only Quartus with Xystus was put to death in the cemetery; yet in the same letter he signifies that there were also very many others afterward victims of the same persecution, in these words: But the prefects in the City press on daily with this persecution also, so that, if any be offered to them, they may be put to death, and their goods claimed for the treasury. Why therefore should not St. Lawrence have been one of those many victims immolated to the tyrannical persecution? He was indeed: since his martyrdom, established above by so many and so great testimonies,

is. Moreover there may be consulted what was said at the VI day of this month in the Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Sixtus, Pope, §§3 and 4; likewise what is to be said of St. Hippolytus at the day XIII of this month, §1 of the Commentary prefixed to his Martyrdom, may also be inspected.

[127] Besides the holy Fathers, the greatest weight of truth for the martyrdom of St. Lawrence is supplied by Aurelius Prudentius, is supplied from elsewhere, who flourished at the end of the fourth century of Christ, when he composed that excellent hymn on the Saint, mentioned by us again and again above: which, as one of the chief monuments of venerable antiquity in this matter, we shall afterward reprint entire from the edition of Theodoric Ruinart, collated with the Ms. codex of St. Michael in Peril of the Sea, etc.: besides which codex there can also be of use to us the parchment exemplar which we preserve as ✠ Ms. 66, and which bears the marks of a most ancient age, perhaps not later than the VIII or IX century. From these ancient documents therefore which we have mentioned the lack of sincere and primitive Acts is supplied; which, as it has not yet befallen us to see them, so we by no means dare to hope ever to see.

[128] But although at the day XXVII of February, in volume III of that month, Which, and why in preference to others, are here reprinted by us. page 5, and in volume II of April, at the day XV, page 375, we said that we should give the Acts of the Saint on this day; yet, the matter, which at that time was not sufficiently ripe, being now considered in its own place and time, it has seemed good not to commit them to the press. For since the Surian Acts, and our Trier transcript, so far as they treat of St. Lawrence, if you compare them with the Mombritian, and also with our two Mss. designated above, and with those of Ado, have many and clear marks from which you may gather that they came forth from one and the same fountain; we judge it sufficient to reprint those which, reduced to a summary, are found in the praised Ado, who flourished in the IX century. Whence it is concluded that the Acts of St. Lawrence existed before that time, although it is unknown to us from any other source at what time and by what author they were written. Omitting therefore the announcement of the Martyr, and these words, to whom blessed Sixtus, going to the crown of martyrdom, delivered all the goods and treasures of the Church, which precede in Ado, we transfer hither from the same place the following: but first, however, there shall be presented the

HYMN

of St. Lawrence, by Aurelius Prudentius, from the book Περὶ στεφάνων, which was published by Theodoric Ruinart among the sincere and select Acts of the Martyrs, and collated with other exemplars.

Lawrence, Martyr at Rome (St.)

BHL Number: 4752

BY AURELIUS PRUDENTIUS.

Ancient mother of shrines, The Poet, addressing the city of Rome, O Rome now given up to Christ, Victorious with Lawrence for thy leader, Thou triumphest over the barbarous rite.

Proud kings thou hadst conquered, And peoples thou hadst curbed with the bridle; Now upon monstrous idols Thou layest the yoke of empire.

This glory alone was wanting To the honors of the toga-clad City, That, the savagery of the nations being taken captive, She should tame filthy Jove.

Not by the turbulent might Of Cossus ^a, of Camillus, or of Cæsar; But by the not unbloody battle Of Lawrence the martyr.

Faith fought in arms, Prodigal of her own blood, For by death she overthrew death, And spent herself upon herself.

[2] The priest had foretold that this would be, relates the prediction of St. Sixtus concerning the martyrdom of St. Lawrence: Xystus, already fastened to the cross ^b, Seeing Lawrence weeping Beneath the very stem of the cross:

Cease, at my departing, To pour forth tears in grief: I go before thee, brother; thou also Shalt follow after this third day.

With what voice, with what praises Shall I celebrate the order of his death? With what song, unfolding his passion Worthily, shall I sing?

He, first of the seven men ^c Who stand nearest to the altar, A Levite lofty in his degree, And more eminent than the rest;

He presided over the enclosures of the sacred things, Governing with faithful keys The secret of the heavenly house, And dispensing the wealth that had been vowed.

Turns over his hunger for money, Minister of a mad ruler, Exactor of gold and of blood.

By what force he may dig out The hidden coins, supposing That talents lie covered beneath the sanctuaries, And that heaps piled up are concealed:

He orders Lawrence to be set before him; He searches for a coffer stuffed With rich ingots, and mountains Of gleaming coin laid up.

You are wont, he says, to complain That we rage beyond what is just, When we cut Christian bodies More than cruelly.

Far from me is a judgment burning With more atrocious impulses: Gently and quietly I demand What thou oughtest of thine own accord to undertake.

And the practice of your rites ^d, This the discipline of your covenant, That your prelates make libation with gold.

They say that in silver cups The sacred blood steams, And that at your nocturnal rites Wax tapers stand fixed in gold.

Then it is the chief care of the brethren, As talkative rumor bears witness, To offer, their lands being sold, Thousands of sesterces ^e.

The disinherited heir groans That his grandsires' estates are made over Under shameful auctions, Made needy by his holy parents.

These things are hidden away in the secret Corners of the churches: And it is believed the highest piety To strip one's sweet children bare.

Persuasion and by conjuring tricks Thou holdest heaped together: Which thou shuttest up in a blackening cave.

This the public need demands, This the fisc, this the treasury, That money, given over to soldiers' pay, May aid the ruler.

Such is your doctrine, I hear: Render to each man his own. Behold, Cæsar acknowledges his own Image stamped upon the coins.

What thou knowest to be Cæsar's, give To Cæsar: surely I ask what is just. Unless I am deceived, thy God Stamps no [*] money at all.

Nor when He came did He bring Golden Philips ^f with Him: But He gave His precepts in words, Empty of purse.

Fulfill the credit of the sayings Which you peddle through the world: Render up your coins willingly; Be rich in words.

[6] Lawrence returns nothing harsh To this, nor troubled: Lawrence, having bargained for a three days' respite But, as one ready to comply, He obediently assents.

She is rich, he says, I deny it not, And our Church has Very much both of wealth and of gold, Nor is any in the world richer.

Not even Augustus himself, Possessing the citadel, To whom every coin is inscribed, Has so much of silver tokens ^g.

But neither do I refuse to disclose The coffer of the wealthy Godhead: I will publish all, and will bring forth The precious things which Christ possesses.

But one thing I beg in prayer, A little space of respite, That I may more effectively discharge The office of my promise:

While all the furniture of Christ Is written out for me in order: For first the little sum must be reckoned, And then set down.

They agreed upon a term of three days: Thereupon Lawrence is released with praise, Surety for himself, And surety for a vast gain.

Through the city, driving together into one And gathering the companies of the sick, And all who beg an alms.

There one, showing hollow orbs In both his eyes, Guided with a staff going before him His step that wavered in wandering.

And the lame man with broken knee, Or half-footed with maimed leg, Or shorter in the one sole, Dragged along an unequal gait.

There is one who, with ulcerous limbs, Runs with corrupted decay: There is one whose withered right hand Draws its sinews up into the arm.

Such men he seeks out in all the streets, Accustomed to be fed From the store of mother Church, Whom he himself, their steward ^h, had known.

Thereafter he reviews them one by one, Writing down their names man by man, And orders them, set in a long row, To stand before the temple.

And now the appointed day Had run out; the greedy judge Raged with burning spirit, Demanding that the promises be discharged.

Then the Martyr: I would have thee attend, And marvel at the wealth set out Before thee, which our God, Exceeding rich, has in His Saints.

Thou shalt see a huge hall Gleaming with golden vessels, And through the open porticoes Rows built up with talents.

They came to the consecrated door; There stood troops of the poor, Swarms unkempt to look upon.

The clamor of the beggars is raised: The Prefect shudders, stupefied, Turning upon Lawrence, Threatening with troubled eyes.

Against him the other: Why, gnashing thy teeth, Dost thou threaten? he says; or what displeases thee? Are these things sordid or cheap? Dost thou judge them fit to be spat upon?

The gold for which thou ardently thirstest, Rubble dug out brings forth; And penal labor hammers it Out of squalid mines.

A torrent, or a river rolling With turbid sands, enfolds it: And what is earthy and filthy Must needs be boiled down by flames.

Modesty is dissolved through gold: Integrity is violated by gold: Peace falls, faith perishes, And the laws themselves come to nothing.

Why dost thou extol that poison as glory And count it a great thing? If thou seekest a truer gold, It is the light and the human race.

[9] These are the foster-children of light, Whom a feeble body confines, and the true Lest through the soundness of the flesh The mind grow swollen and insolent.

When disease cuts the limbs asunder, The soul thrives the more robust; And where the limbs are strong in turn, The force of the senses is wounded.

For blood growing hot toward sin Supplies less of strength, If its fervor, worn out by ills, Contracts a nerveless poison:

If perchance a choice were offered, I would rather suffer with bitterest pain The breaking of my limbs, And live beautiful within.

Set the forms of the plagues together, And compare the two contagions. Is the disease of the flesh more foul, Or the ulcers of the mind and of the morals?

Ours, through their feeble limbs, Unimpaired in inward comeliness, Bear a harmless sense of beauty, Untouched by languor.

Yours, strong in body, An inward leprosy corrupts; And error limps maimed, And blind fraud sees nothing.

[10] Any one of thy rich men, Who shine in garment and in countenance [*] ⁱ, and the most precious I shall prove more feeble Than any one of my poor.

This man who is proud in silk, Whom a chariot carries puffed up: A watery dropsy distends him within With its shining venom.

But this miser draws his hands Crooked together, and, folding his palm With hooked nails, Cannot slacken his sinews.

That one, dragged through the public harlots By stinking lust, Is defiled with mud and sewers, While he begs for filthy debaucheries.

What of him who burns with ambition, And seethes with the thirst of honor? Does he not pant with deep-sunk fevers And rave with the fire of his veins?

Whoever, intemperate in keeping silence, Itches to betray what should be hushed; Is tormented, and scratches his liver, And endures the scab of the heart.

Why should I unfold the swollen tumors Of envious breasts? Why the purulent and livid Wounds of malignities?

[11] Thou thyself, who rulest Rome ^k, Despiser of the eternal God, treasures of the Catholic Church. While thou worshippest the filth of demons, Labourest under the royal disease.

These whom thou proudly despisest, Whom thou judgest accursed: Shall shortly put off their ulcerous Limbs, and shall be whole.

Loosed at length and free From most corrupt flesh, In the fairest state of life They shall shine in the citadel of the Father:

Not befouled nor feeble, As meanwhile they appear; But bright with purpling robes And with golden crowns.

Then, if the power should be given, I could wish that those mighty ones Of the world were produced For review before thine eyes.

Thou wouldst see them covered with rags, And with snotty nostrils, The chin wet with drivel, And blear-eyed with rotting lids.

Nothing is more hideous than a sinner, Nothing so leprous, or so putrid: The scar of crimes is raw, And stinks like the cavern of Tartarus.

Upon souls, by an inverted turn, A corrupted form is inflicted,

Which a fair aspect had before Delighted in the body.

Behold then the golden coins Which lately I had promised: Which no ruin may bury under embers, Nor thief carry off.

Lest thou think Christ poor, Gems of flashing light, With which this temple is adorned.

Thou seest consecrated virgins: Thou marvellest at untouched aged women: And such as, after the loss of a first marriage-bed, Know not a second fire.

This is the necklace of the Church: With these gems is she adorned: Thus dowered she pleases Christ: Thus she adorns her lofty head.

Behold the talents; take them. Thou shalt adorn the city of Romulus: Thou shalt enrich also the Prince's estate, And thou thyself shalt become richer.

Roaring, and in wondrous ways We are made sport of by so many figures, And the mad head still lives!

Dost thou think, gallows-bird, That thou hast woven such tricks Unpunished with a mimic's jest, While like a buffoon thou dancest thy play?

Was this thought neat urbanity, To handle us with mockeries? Have I then been sold [*] to guffaws, And become a festive entertainment ^l?

Is there then no austerity, No severity in the fasces? Does soft leniency so blunt The public axe?

Thou sayest: Gladly will I meet death, Death is what the martyr vows: That, we know, is your Vanity of persuasion.

But I will not grant it to one who wishes it, That there be given him the brief Exit of a swift death: I will not suffer thee to perish quickly.

I will hold thy life, and will prolong it With the continual pains of delay, And a death that cannot be escaped Shall draw out long agonies.

Strew the coals but lukewarm, Lest a fervor too fiery Seize the mouth of the obstinate man, And enter the secret places of the heart.

Let the vapor grow old and languid: Which, poured forth with a light breath, May by degrees temper the torments Of the half-burnt [*] body.

It is well that he himself, of all, The master of the mysteries ^m, has fallen: He alone shall give an example Of what they must presently fear.

[14] Mount the piled pyre, Lie down upon a worthy little couch: at whose bidding the Saint is set to the fire. Then, if it please thee, dispute That my Vulcan ⁿ is nothing.

While the prefect spoke thus, the savage Torturers on this side and that prepare To strip the Martyr of his garment, To bind his limbs and stretch them.

His face shone with beauty, And a radiance was poured about him. Such a countenance the lawgiver ^o, Returning from the mountain, brought down:

Which the Jewish people, defiled And discolored by the golden bull, Feared, and the impatient man of God Turned his face away behind him.

And such glory of a shining countenance Stephen also displayed, Beholding through the shower of stones The heavens opened.

But the blindness of the impious, Their face smeared with the mold of night, Covered beneath a blackening veil, Sees not that brightness;

After the manner of the Egyptian plague: Which, while it condemned the barbarians With darkness, exhibited to the Hebrews A day of clear light.

So the eternal God is a fire; For Christ is the true fire; He Himself fills the just with light, And burns the guilty.

[15] After the long-continued heat Had scorched and cooked one side, The heroic fortitude of the most unconquered Of his own accord from the framework He addresses the judge with a brief speech:

This he had said in sport; Then he looks up to heaven, And, groaning deeply, entreats, Taking pity on the city of Romulus.

O Christ, sole Godhead, O Splendor, O might of the Father, O maker of the world and of the sky, And founder of these walls!

Who hast set the scepters of Rome On the summit of things, ordaining That the world should serve the Quirinal [q] toga, And yield to her arms:

That thou mightest tame with single laws The manners and observances, The tongues, the tempers, and the rites Of discordant nations.

Has passed under the rule of Remus; Discordant rites speak the same, And feel the same thing.

This was ordained, that the more The law of the Christian name Might bind in one bond Whatever of lands lies open.

Grant, O Christ, to thy Romans, That the city may be Christian: Through which thou hast granted that for the rest There should be one mind concerning holy things.

All the members are confederated [*] On this side and that into one creed: The subject world grows gentle [*]; Let the head also grow gentle.

Let it observe that sundered regions Come together into one grace: Let Romulus become faithful, And let Numa [r] himself now believe.

The Trojan error [s] still confounds The senate-house of the Catos [t], Venerating on hidden hearths [u] The exiled Phrygian [x] household gods [y].

The senate worships two-faced Janus [z] And Sterculus [aa] (I shudder To name so many monsters of the fathers), And the feasts of gentle [*] Saturn [bb].

[17] Wipe away, O Christ, this disgrace; Send forth thy Gabriel, for the conversion of the city of Rome, with prophecies. That the wandering blindness of Iulus [cc] May acknowledge the true God.

And already we hold most faithful Hostages of this hope: For here already reign the two Princes of the Apostles.

The one the caller of the Gentiles; The other, possessing the first [*] chair, Unlocks the entrusted Gates of eternity.

Depart, adulterous Jupiter, Befouled with the ravishing of thy sister, Leave Rome free, And her people now Christ's. Flee!

Paul drives thee hence, The blood of Peter dislodges thee: That which thou thyself hadst armed, The deed of Nero, works against thee.

I see that one day there shall be a Prince Who, a servant of God, Shall not suffer Rome to serve The foul filth of the rites.

Who shall shut the temples with bars, And block up the ivory doors: Shall condemn the accursed thresholds, Setting bronze bolts against them.

Then at last the marbles, pure From all blood, shall gleam: And the bronzes shall stand harmless, Which now are held for idols.

[18] Here was the end of his praying, And the same end of the bond His death, burial, and the impiety of the Romans repressed; Of the flesh: his spirit burst forth Willingly, following his voice.

Certain fathers [dd] bore his body Upon their bowed necks: Whom the wondrous freedom of the Man Had persuaded to seek after Christ.

A sudden character had breathed Upon their marrow, and had compelled them, By love of the God on high, To hate their former trifles.

From that day grew cold The worship of shameful gods: The people rarer in the shrines: Men run to the tribunal of Christ.

So Lawrence, doing battle, Girded not his side with a sword: But, turning back the enemy's steel, Bore it against its author.

While the demon provokes to battle The unconquered witness of God, He himself falls transfixed, And lies prostrate forever.

That death of the holy Martyr Was the true death of the temples: Then Vesta [ee] felt her Palladian household gods [ff] Deserted with impunity.

Whoever of the Quirites had been wont To pray to Numa's ladle [gg], Now frequenting the courts of Christ Resounds the Martyr in hymns.

The very lights of the senate, Once Luperci [hh] and flamens, Kiss the thresholds Of the Apostles and the Martyrs.

We see illustrious houses, Noble in both sexes, Offer to their vows the pledges Of most distinguished children.

O thrice, and four times, and seven times Blessed the dweller in the City; Who close at hand keeps festival For thee [*] and for the resting-place of thy bones:

To whom it is permitted to fall prostrate beside them; Who besprinkles the place with tears; Who presses his breast to the earth, Who pours out his vows in murmurs.

Us the Basque [kk] Ebro [ll] divides, Removed by two ranges of Alps [mm], Beyond the ridges of the Cottians [nn], And beyond the snowy [*] Pyrenees [oo];

Scarce is the report known to us How full of hidden Saints Rome is, How richly the soil of the City Blooms with sacred sepulchres.

But we who lack these goods, And cannot behold face to face The traces of the blood, Gaze upon heaven from afar.

Thus, holy Lawrence, we seek Thy passion: For thou hast a twofold hall, Here of the body; of the mind in the sky.

There, chosen a citizen Of that unspeakable city, In the citadel of the eternal senate-house Thou bearest the civic crown.

Glittering with illustrious gems, Whom heavenly Rome has chosen For herself as perpetual consul.

What power has been entrusted to him, And how great a gift bestowed, The joys of the Quirites prove, Whose requests thou grantest.

As though thou wert ever present at hand, And, embracing thy city-born foster-children In a milk-giving bosom, Didst nourish them with a father's love.

Among these, O glory of Christ, Hear a rustic poet, Confessing the crimes of his heart, And betraying his own deeds.

Unworthy, I acknowledge and know it, That Christ Himself should hear me; But through the Martyrs as patrons He can obtain a remedy.

Hear graciously the suppliant Prudentius, guilty before Christ, And loose him, the servant of the body, From the chains of the world.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. That is, the radiance, of which a little before, which the newly baptized, but not the heathen, saw, as Ruinart rightly observes.

q. Quirinus was a surname of Romulus, from whom the Romans were called Quirites, and Quirinalia the things which pertained to them, as here the Quirinal togas. Further, it is uncertain from whom Romulus received that surname; whether from Mars, who was said to be the father of Romulus, and whom the Romans, when he raged, called Gradivus; when he was mild, Quirinus. Or from his spear, which the Sabines named curis or quiris. Titus Livius, book 1 of the first decade, says the Romans were called Quirites on account of the union of the Sabines with them. But those Curites or Quirites were named from Cures, their own city. Thus far Ruinart.

r. Numa Pompilius, sprung from Cures, a city of the Sabines, the second king of the Romans after Romulus, distinguished for justice and piety .. He founded the temple of Janus .. Then he created the Dial, Martial, and Quirinal flamens. He likewise assigned twelve Salii to Mars: he consecrated the Vestal virgins: he first declared a pontifex maximus, etc. These and other things in the Poetical Geographical Dictionary of Charles Estienne. Understand therefore that Numa is here put by Prudentius metonymically for that ancient and superstitious religion of the Romans, of which he was the author.

s. The wanderings of the Trojans, by which they were much tossed by land and sea until at length they came into Italy, are most celebrated. Brief is that verse of Virgil concerning Æneas, book 1 of the Æneid, verse 7:

He, much tossed both on lands and on the deep:

Whose sea-perils the same poet wove into the first six books of the Æneid.

t. That the name of the Catos was great among the Romans is clear from the writers. Here it is well to recall what our Ruæus noted upon this verse 841 of the sixth book of the Æneid, illustrated by him,

Who would leave thee unmentioned, great Cato, or thee, Cossus?

in these words: There were two chief men of this name: the one the elder and the censor, who reached extreme old age: the other the younger and the prætor, of the elder's posterity, who in the Cæsarian war took his own life at Utica, lest he should come into Cæsar's power: both so distinguished for gravity that whoever affects gravity is called a third Cato. Juvenal, Satire 2. 40:

A third Cato has fallen from heaven.

The elder, of whom we here treat, sprung from Tusculum, of the obscure Portian clan, was called Cato on account of his prudence: for to the Latins catus is prudent. As prætor he subdued Sardinia. As consul in the year of the City 559, in the following year he triumphed over Spain as proconsul. As censor in the year of the City 579 he cast the consular L. Quinctius Flamininus out of the senate. In the third Punic war he judged that Carthage must be destroyed: at seventy he learned Greek letters: at eighty he accused Galba: himself accused four and forty times, he was always acquitted. By this therefore of Prudentius, the senate-house of the Catos, understand the Roman senate, composed indeed of the gravest and most prudent officers, as it were of Catos.

u. Prudentius, as it seems to me at least, by the phrase "on hidden phoci," or, if you prefer, "foci," alluded chiefly either to the Palladium in the temple of Vesta, of which below, preserved under strict guard by the Vestal virgins; or to Vesta herself, or to both goddesses, and to the Penates; of whom mention will be made a little later. Further, they will have Vesta, as Ruæus notes on Virgil's first book of the Georgics, verse 498, to be twofold, the one the mother of Saturn, whom they take for the earth; of whom Ovid, Fasti 6. 299:

The earth stands by its own force; by standing by force she is called Vesta.

The other the daughter of Saturn, whom they make a virgin and the president of fire, from ἑστία, a hearth: of whom Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2. 67. Commonly, however, the two are confounded. This one they will have brought over by Æneas among the household gods, as will be seen at Æneid 2. 717, and her rites afterward handed on to the Albans, and brought to Rome by Numa Pompilius; a college of virgins being instituted, who should feed a perpetual fire for the safety of the empire, upon whom severe punishment was inflicted if by their negligence the sacred fire were extinguished, which indeed had to be kindled again only by the rays of the sun.

x. Of the Phrygians, that is, of the Trojans, who inhabited lesser Phrygia.

y. Exiled Penates, brought namely to Rome from the Trojan city, their fatherland, or from lesser Phrygia. Now they are household gods: but whence they were called Penates, and who they were, etc., may be seen in Ruæus in the notes on verse 717 of the 2nd book of the Æneid: where also the Lar gods are distinguished from the Penates.

z. The fables which are current concerning Janus are very well known among the mythologists. Brief and suited to this place is what is said in the Poetical History written in French by Father Gautruche, S.J., and afterward rendered into Latin by one of our same Society, page 2: This Janus was placed in the number of the gods, both for the benefits bestowed on Saturn, and because he was the wisest of all the princes of his age, and was held famous for a rare knowledge of things past and to come. For which cause he is painted two-headed. But why do I set down these things, which are most obvious?

aa. Sterculus, who first introduced the method of manuring fields, says Lactantius, on False Religion, book 1, chapter 20, was reckoned among the gods of whom he there treats.

bb. I read that the Saturnalian feasts, of seven or five days, were dedicated to Saturn in the month of December, on which the Romans put on the synthesis garment, and waited on their slaves as these reclined at table, and gifts were wont to be sent and returned back and forth.

cc. That is, of the Romans: for Iulus or Ascanius was the son of Æneas, from whom the Romans draw their origin.

dd. These are called Justinus and Hippolytus in Ado, as we shall presently see.

ee. That goddess is most well known in the fables of the poets.

ff. Ruinart in his notes on this passage says: The Lares, household gods, who were thought to guard houses: whence Prudentius calls them Palladian from the statue of Pallas, which, preserved in the temple of Vesta, was said to render the City impregnable. This statue had before been famous at Troy: concerning which everywhere Homer and Virgil. It is commonly called the Palladium: more in the Mythologists. Observe with Ruæus (whom I cited above) on verse 166 of the 2nd book of the Æneid, among many other things which he notes concerning the Palladium, that it was brought into Italy, and was preserved first at Lavinium, then at Alba, then at Rome in the temple of Vesta under the guardianship of the Vestals and of the Nautian family, so secretly that Herodian testifies that under the emperor Commodus, when the temple of Vesta had burned down, the Palladium was then for the first time seen at Rome.

gg. Ruinart here observes that the codex of St. Michael has, to adorn the ladle of Numa. Then for "the ladle of Numa" he cites Juvenal's sixth satire. Now that was a small vessel with which they made libation to the gods. Of Numa Pompilius it has already been spoken.

hh. Luperci. Ruæus in the notes on the word lupercal, book 8 of the Æneid, verse 343, says: A place on the Palatine hill, where the Arcadians at Evander's instance had built a temple to Pan, the god of Arcadia. There a game was yearly celebrated, young men running about naked here and there, with thongs of goat's hide, with which they struck all whom they met; especially the women, who thought themselves aided by these lashes toward childbirth. They themselves were called Luperci. Then he adds the etymology of the word lupercal; whence some think that Romulus was the author of this game. He observes moreover, at the word Lupercos, which is set at verse 663 of the same book: Further, the priests, especially the flamens, wore oblong caps, from the peak of which a rod stood out, about which wool was bound with a thread; and if during the summer they thought it too troublesome to wear the cap, they encircled their head with that thread, since it would be unlawful for them to be bareheaded: hence they were called flamines, as it were filamines, and that wool an apex, from apo, which is from ἅπτω, I bind.

ii. This woman, as Suetonius reports in the Tiberius, chapter 1, followed her brother, who was triumphing without the people's order, mounting the chariot with him all the way to the Capitol, that it might be lawful for none of the tribunes to forbid or interpose. Another was Claudia the matron, who as a proof of her chastity is said to have drawn with her girdle the ship in which was the mother of the gods. Of her, Suetonius in the same place; Titus Livius, decade 3, book 9; Ovid, Fasti book 4; Valerius Maximus, etc. Ruinart here.

kk. The Vascones are peoples of Hither Spain, where it slopes toward the Gallic and British Ocean, placed along the Pyrenees.

ll. Iberus (commonly el Ebro), a river of Spain, which flows between the Pyrenean and Idubedan mountains. More in the geographers.

mm. The Alps are most well-known mountains, separating Italy from Gaul and Germany, which, as they are many, so also have various names given them according to the diversity of places.

nn. Or the Cottian Alps, situated between Gaul and Italy.

oo. The Pyrenean mountains separate Gaul from Spain, and are most well known.

* read, with our Ms., haud

* perhaps auro

* our Ms. Egon

* our Ms. semustulati

* our Ms. Confœderentur

* ibid. Mansuescat

* our Ms. senis.

* our Ms. Primus

* our Ms. Qui te præsentem

* nividos

OTHER ACTS

From the Martyrology of Ado at the day X of August.

Lawrence, Martyr at Rome (St.)

BHL Number: 4762

From the Martyrology of Ado.

[The Saint distributes the treasures of the Church, washes feet, gives sight to a blind man.] He (St. Lawrence), coming to the Cælian hill ^a, where there was a certain widow who had been thirty-two years in her widowhood; in whose house many Christians, and priests, and clerics remained in hiding, took the vestments and treasures of the Church, and began to distribute them, and to wash the feet of all the Christians. At whose feet Cyriaca ^b the widow, falling down, said: By Christ I adjure thee, that

thou lay thy hands upon my head, for I suffer many infirmities of the head. Blessed Lawrence, having made the sign of the cross, laid his hands upon the widow's head, and the linen cloth with which he wiped the feet of the Saints. But passing into the street which is called Canarius ^c, he found many Christians gathered in the house of Narcissus ^d, a Christian, and he washed the feet of all, and gave them of the treasure. There was in the same house a blind man, by name Crescentio, who began to beg the blessed Deacon that he would lay his hand upon his eyes. Then blessed Lawrence, weeping, said: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who opened the eyes of the man born blind, may He Himself enlighten thee: and, the sign of the cross being made, his eyes were opened.

[2] Having addressed St. Sixtus, he is delivered to the prefect: When therefore blessed Sixtus ^e was now being led away with two deacons, to consummate his martyrdom, and blessed Lawrence, coming up, cried out, Do not forsake me, holy father, for I have already spent thy treasures which thou didst deliver to me; he was seized by the soldiers and delivered to Parthenius the tribune. Who announced to Decius ^f that Lawrence, who had the hidden treasures, the archdeacon of Sixtus, was being held in custody. He, rejoicing, caused him to be brought before him, and, having heard him, delivered him to Valerian the prefect, who also himself gave him into the custody of a certain Hippolytus ^g: and Hippolytus shut him up with many others.

[3] He restores sight to Lucillus and other blind men, and converts Hippolytus. Now there was there a man, Lucillus by name, blind, to whom holy Lawrence said: Believe in the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and be baptized, and He will enlighten thee. Lucillus answered: I have always desired to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then blessed Lawrence catechized him, and, taking water, baptized him, and his eyes were enlightened. Many blind men, hearing of this deed, came to blessed Lawrence, and he laid his hand upon their eyes, and they were enlightened. Seeing this, Hippolytus believed, and was catechized and baptized.

[4] [Being ordered to give up the treasures of the Church, he gathers the poor and mocks the tyrant:] And so by command blessed Lawrence was brought before the sight of Valerian, who said to blessed Lawrence: Now lay aside thy obstinacy, and give up the treasures which we have learned to be hidden with thee. To whom holy Lawrence said: Give me a respite of two or three days, and I will bring forth to thee the treasures. From that same day he began to gather the blind and the lame, the feeble and the poor, and hid them in the house of Hippolytus. But Valerian had announced to Decius that Lawrence, a respite being granted him, had promised the treasures. Three days therefore being completed, he presented himself in the Sallustian palace ^h. And Decius said to him: Where are the treasures which thou didst promise to present? Blessed Lawrence brought the gathered multitude of the poor into the palace, and with a loud voice said: Behold, these are the eternal treasures, which are never diminished nor grow less: which are scattered among individuals, and are found in all [*].

[5] Valerian the prefect said: Why dost thou shift about through so many things? Sacrifice to the gods, and forget the magic arts in which thou trustest. To whom when blessed Lawrence had said, by whom he is most grievously tortured. Why does the devil constrain you to say to Christians, Sacrifice to demons? Decius, angered, ordered him to be stripped and beaten with scorpions. Who, while he was beaten, said: I indeed give thanks to my God, who has vouchsafed to join me to His servants: thou, wretch, art tormented by thy own madness and by thy own fury. Then Decius said: Lift him up, and set before his sight every kind of torments. And there were brought iron plates, and beds, and leaded whips [*] ⁱ, and thistle-combs. Afterward, bound with chains, blessed Lawrence was led into the palace of Tiberius ^k, that he might there be heard with the proceedings recorded.

[6] And Decius sat on the tribunal in the basilica of Jupiter. And when, Lawrence being presented, he had said, He is again led to the tribunal and beaten with cudgels. Sacrifice to the gods, and trust not in the treasures which thou hast hidden: blessed Lawrence answered freely: Truly I both trust and am secure concerning my treasures. Whereupon Decius, full of wrath, ordered him to be beaten naked with cudgels. Who, while he was beaten, cried out to the Cæsar: Behold, wretch, learn even now that I triumph over the treasures of Christ, and do not feel thy torments. Still Decius orders the cudgels to be increased, and burning iron plates to be applied to his sides. But blessed Lawrence said: Lord Jesus Christ, God of God, have mercy on me Thy servant: for being accused I did not deny; being questioned, I confessed Thee, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he had been very long beaten with the leaded whips, he said: Lord Jesus Christ, who for our salvation didst deign to take the form of a servant, that Thou mightest free us from the service of demons, receive my spirit. And a voice was heard: Many contests are yet owed to thee.

[7] Then, stretched upon the frame, he was most grievously beaten with scorpions: who, smiling and giving thanks, The conversion of Romanus the soldier said: Blessed art Thou, Lord God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hast granted us the mercy which we have not deserved. But do Thou, Lord, for Thy loving-kindness give us grace, that all who stand about may know that Thou dost console Thy servants. Then one of the soldiers, by name Romanus ^l, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, and said to blessed Lawrence: I see standing before thee a most beautiful man with a linen cloth, wiping thy limbs: I adjure thee by Christ, who has sent thee His angel, do not forsake me. Blessed Martyr being therefore lifted from the frame and loosed, he was given back to Hippolytus only within the palace. But Romanus, coming and bringing water, cast himself at the feet of blessed Lawrence, that he might be baptized: and he, having blessed the water, baptized him.

[8] Hearing of this deed, Decius ordered him to be brought before him with cudgels. and his martyrdom. Unquestioned, he began to cry out: I am a Christian. And by Decius' order, being led out beyond the walls of the Salarian gate ^m, he was beheaded on the fifth of the Ides of August. Whose body Justinus ⁿ the priest gathered by night, and buried in a crypt in the Veran field ^o.

[9] But Decius Cæsar goes by night to the baths beside the palace of Sallust: and holy Lawrence was again produced before him, and all kinds of torments were brought, [St. Lawrence is set before the judge again: to whose questions, while he answers undauntedly,] leaded whips, cudgels, plates, hooks, beds, shovels [p]; and he said to the blessed Martyr: Now lay aside the treachery of the magic art, and tell us thy birth. To whom blessed Lawrence: As to my race, I am a Spaniard [q], educated and nourished at Rome, and a Christian from the cradle, instructed in all the Holy and divine law. And Decius: Sacrifice to the gods; for this night shall be spent upon thee with tortures. My night, said Lawrence, has no darkness, but all things shine bright in light. And when his face was struck with stones, he laughed and was strengthened, and said: I give Thee thanks, O Christ, because Thou art the God of all things.

[10] he is condemned to the fire, and undergoes martyrdom with heroic fortitude, Now a bed with three ribs was brought: and blessed Lawrence, being stripped of his garments, was stretched upon the iron grate: and shovels with live coals were brought, and they placed them beneath the iron grate. Who, when he was pressed down from above with iron forks, said to Decius: I have offered myself a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness: for a sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit. Yet the executioners, urging on, plied their office, putting coals beneath the grate, and pressing him down from above with iron forks.

[11] insulting the tyrant. Holy Lawrence said: Learn, wretch, how great is the power of my God. For thy coals afford me refreshment, and to thee eternal punishment: because the Lord Himself knows that being accused I did not deny; being questioned I confessed Christ; being roasted I give thanks. And with a most beautiful countenance he said: I give Thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, who hast vouchsafed to strengthen me. And lifting up his eyes upon Decius, he said: Behold, wretch, thou hast roasted one side; turn the other and eat. Giving thanks therefore and glorifying God, he said: I give Thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, because I have deserved to enter Thy gates; and he gave up the ghost.

[12] The Martyr's burial. But in the morning, while it was still twilight, Hippolytus carried off his body, and embalmed it with linen cloths and spices: and having done this [r], he made it known to Justinus the priest. Then blessed Justinus and Hippolytus, weeping and greatly sorrowful, took the body of the blessed Martyr, and came on the Tiburtine Way [s] to the estate of the widowed matron Cyriaca in the Veran field, to whom the Martyr himself had come by night; to whom also he gave the linen cloth with which he had wiped the feet of the Saints; and there, now at the evening hour, they buried it on the IV Ides of August. And they fasted, keeping vigils of the night for three days with a multitude of Christians. And blessed Justinus the priest offered the sacrifice of praise, and all partook.

On the same day at Rome, of one hundred and sixty-five soldiers. Then suffered Claudius, Severus, Crescentio, and Romanus; on the very day on which blessed Lawrence suffered, after the third day from the passion of holy Sixtus.

ANNOTATIONS.

p. Du Cange in the Glossary, after having alleged this passage of Ado, adds concerning the word batuli that Rosweyde thinks batilli or batilla are meant by it; concerning which Pliny, book 33, chapter 8, book 34, chapter 11, and Trebellius Pollio in the Claudius. Now batilli are iron instruments, in the likeness of a shovel, with which live coals are gathered in furnaces. And this seems in conformity with the next number here, where the same word batuli recurs.

q. Chiefly from these words we gave St. Lawrence to the Spaniards in the Preliminary Commentary, §10; where more of this matter. With Ado agree our parchment codices P. Ms. 10, folio 207 verso, and P. Ms. 21, folio 67 verso. Add the Passion of the Saint published in Surius.

r. For "this deed being done."

s. On the Tiburtine Way, at a mile from the City, is the Veran field of St. Cyriaca, a Roman matron distinguished by nobility and martyrdom, in which are buried SS. Lawrence and Stephen, etc., says Fioravante Martinelli cited above, page 332.

* perhaps asperguntur & inveniuntur (are scattered and are found).

* perhaps plumbatæ

POSTHUMOUS GLORY.

Lawrence, Martyr at Rome (St.)

BHL Number: 4782, 4784, 4785, 4787

BY J. P.

§ I. Miracles, apparitions, and punishments inflicted for irreverence toward the Saint.

To an ascetic of St. Lawrence's at Liège Certain miracles of St. Lawrence we set forth in the Preliminary Commentary; certain we referred hither. Among our literary stock concerning St. Lawrence there exists a transcript with this title, written by the hand of our Papebroch: From the Ms. Passional for June and July, of the monastery of St. Lawrence at Liège. A vision and a miracle of St. Lawrence. The transaction is inserted into the newest Treasury of Anecdotes which Bernard Pez, of the Order of St. Benedict, published not long since, as may be seen in volume 4, part 3, from column 5, under this title: The vision of blessed John, monk of St. Lawrence at Liège, of the Order of St. Benedict, concerning the state of souls after death, and a miracle of St. Lawrence M. Hence I excerpt the following: At that time there was a Brother in this monastery of blessed Lawrence, John by name, brother of Gislebert the monk, who composed chants about many Saints: whose blood, being kindled through incaution in bleeding, inflamed his brain with burning fevers. When for four days the sickness increased, the birthday of blessed Martin the bishop came round. By the order therefore of his abbot he was carried into a more retired cell. And when, at the sounding of the bells, all ran together to the Office of Vesper praise, he alone was left there in his little bed, those who had undertaken to watch him supposing that he had fallen asleep. But he, being in an ecstasy, that is, in a going forth of the mind, saw himself as it were standing in a certain vestibule: before whose eyes a painting was stretched out. He saw therefore above the Crucifixion of the Lord set forth: but below, of the deeds of Samson, his death and the ruin of the house. While he was regarding these things, he felt as it were a person standing above his head, holding in his hand an ivory rod, and holding this discourse with certain bystanders: O how delightful and pleasant it is to bend the mind upon divine things! since all wise men might profitably keep their zeal upon the matter of such deeds, and give the eloquence of beauty to the profit of their own souls. This intention and this zeal this man ought to have had, if he had had at heart the salvation of his own soul and the profit of his brethren. That Brother heard these things, and it came into his mind that it was blessed Lawrence. And so he stood astonished, waiting for what he should further say.

[2] The Saint appears in a vision. The blessed Martyr therefore, directing toward his head the rod which he held in his hand, said thus: Who of all the Saints has conferred greater benefits upon thee? Under whose shadow hast thou more profited? Who nourished thee? Who taught thee? Who set thee to serve God? Confess, I say, if thou wilt not end thy life from the present sickness. At this he trembled, and said: What can I answer; who, when I begin to hear things so sad, what good can I hope for hereafter? Blessed Lawrence indeed is my patron: he received me as a boy, he himself nourished and taught me, and before all the Saints I owe him thanks. When he had said this, it came into his mind that perhaps what he saw might be an illusion: and he began to arm his forehead with the sign of the cross. To this the blessed martyr Lawrence: Not by a phantom, brother, art thou deluded: and the sign of the cross is familiar to us also. By the sign of the cross God has vouchsafed to work many things through us. Hearing this, that brother, all the bystanders pitying him, was prostrated at his knees, crying out and begging his mercy [*]. Then the most kindly blessed Martyr Lawrence was bent to the will of the bystanders, and, touching him as he lay with the little rod, said: Hope, and do not despair. In whatever way thou hast lived hitherto, or whatever thou hast done, the examination of it shall meanwhile be omitted: and life in the body shall be prolonged for thee for so many years. I shall be present as overseer and witness, how from day to day thy correction shall be perfected, thy solicitude for thy salvation, and the fitting and modest admonition of thy negligences. Of all these things, I say, I shall be present as witness, and, if this prolonging of thy life shall have been in vain, a terrible examiner of thy negligences and contempt.

[3] Brought back to hope by these words, and now presuming to speak and to lift his head, he said: Behold, my Lord, appears. with how great an infirmity I am pressed down, and, as is told me, with the incurable pain of burning fevers. Why, said blessed Lawrence his patron, dost thou doubt of thy present health? Of this present ailment thou shalt by no means die. But the brother answering said suppliantly: Give a blessing upon me, most Blessed one, after which I shall not be able to doubt of my health. Having obtained it, he rose. And now, confiding in the grace of his Patron, at his mere nod he began to follow his leader on high; and he felt himself ascending through the spaces of the air. What things were afterward seen by that Brother concerning the state of souls after death, I forbear to transcribe, since they can both be read there and be here harmlessly omitted. Another apparition of St. Lawrence, made to blessed John of Alverna, may be seen at the day IX of this month in his Acts, chapter 3, page 465, and what is contained at page 473.

[4] In another of our transcripts from the said Ms. Passional for June and July of the monastery of St. Lawrence of Liège, Captives after treatment had been made of the coming of the relics of that same Martyr from the city of Rome to that of Liège (of which matter we treated from Pez in the Preliminary Commentary, number 72), and it had also been set forth in what manner his sacred relics were laid up there in the high altar, there are subjoined some miracles of the Saint; from which I transcribe hither this: It is written in Tobias: To hide the secret of a king is good; but to reveal and confess the works of God is honorable. There related therefore lately a certain young man, who had been captured by certain robbers; who, gaping after his goods, demanded a heavy sum of money from him. Whom they had wasted both with chains and with hunger for several days. At last they shut him up in a tower high enough, binding his feet most tightly in the stocks. He lay therefore most miserably afflicted [and] wakeful. But knowing that it was then the vigil of the passion of St. Lawrence, with utter breaking of mind he called upon the Martyr. Suddenly he felt the stocks shaken and loosened: whose bulk was so vast that it would have sufficed to confine that Minotaur destined for a certain labyrinth of Dædalus. His feet being thus drawn out, he came to the window of the tower, and looked about whether he could leap down without danger. He mistrusted indeed the precipice; but he trusted the Martyr more. And so he let himself down from on high, and, borne up by the power of the Martyr and directed by his guidance, although he was ignorant of the roads, yet came to us by a safe journey [and] related what had befallen him. We, according to the Psalmist, invoked with a loud shout the name of the Lord, who bringeth out them that are bound in strength: while he, coming to the high altar, vowed that, as long as he lived, he would pay his yearly offering to the Saint in thanksgiving.

[5] are freed; the Saint's altar unharmed by fire: Likewise another, seized by wicked men and cast into a fetter, unless he should give what was demanded; at length promised that he would give it: and, being released, left his wife as pledge for himself. The woman was cast into the fetter in her husband's stead. The feast of St. Lawrence was at hand: through almost the whole night the poor woman, importunate to Lawrence with complaints and tearful grief, called upon the Saint, adjured the Saint. When suddenly she marveled that the collar [*] had burst apart: and using a manly spirit, she laid it upon her shoulder, and fled away with it: which also she straightway, through her husband giving thanks, dedicated to St. Lawrence, because he had loosed her from her fetters.

There came also a boy brought by his father with a collar. How he too was loosed, and at the invocation of the Martyr on his feast was snatched from his enemies, was made known before the people. Whence the people also with us gave praise to God.

In the district of Gâtinais there is a church by name Calecta, containing three altars: the middle one indeed in honor of the perpetual virgin Mary: but the two placed on either side, the one of blessed John the Baptist; the other of Lawrence the archdeacon. Concerning this the inhabitants of the place are wont to relate that, although that church has been burned twice or thrice, that altar alone could not be destroyed by the fire, nor the pall of that altar.

[6] a sinner recalled to life and penance: It is read also in the books of the miracles of the blessed Virgin Mary, that there was at Rome a certain judge by name Stephen, who, willingly taking bribes, perverted the judgments of many. He violently carried off three houses of the church of St. Lawrence, and one garden of St. Agnes, and unjustly possessed what he had taken. But it happened that he died, and was led before the judgment of God. Whom St. Lawrence, beholding, approached with exceeding indignation, and three times most harshly gripped his arm, and tormented him with excessive pain. But St. Agnes with the other virgins would not look upon him, but turned her face

away from him. Then the Judge, passing sentence upon him, said: Since he took away what belonged to others, and, taking bribes, sold the truth, let him be delivered over into the place of Judas the traitor. St. Prejectus, whom the same Stephen had greatly loved in his lifetime, coming to blessed Lawrence and St. Agnes, prayed pardon for him. And they, and the blessed Virgin praying for him, it was granted that his soul should return to the body, and there for thirty days do penance. He received besides from the blessed Virgin a command that he should say the psalm Beati immaculati every day of his life. And when he returned to the body, his arm was so livid and scorched as if he had suffered these things in the body. Which sign remained upon him as long as he lived. Restoring therefore what had been ill taken, and doing penance, on the thirtieth day he passed to the Lord.

[7] In the village of Hoeven near the village of Vetibustum a certain householder had hired mowers to lay down the hay from the meadows. [a workman abstaining from labor in honor of the Saint, is wonderfully compensated] While they therefore were mowing on the vigil of Lawrence the archdeacon and martyr, when the evening time came, the bells were rung for Vespers through the neighboring villages. And presently one of them said to his companions: Let us cease from work, for the love of St. Lawrence, since Vespers are now being rung. But they said to him: Go thou to the Vespers of St. Lawrence; we will pursue the work begun. Presently he, leaving the work, went to Vespers, saying: God is able, and St. Lawrence, to give me back half a day's wage. And, behold, on the third day, returning with the rest to the unfinished work, he saw that, the others going before, he alone must mow behind: and for this he was derided by the others. Yet bearing patiently the laughter and jeers of all, when he laid his hand to the scythe, he presently found hanging before him upon a grassy shoot a golden coin of wonderful and unusual breadth. Bending his knees therefore at once, he blessed God in the blessed and glorious martyr Lawrence with great joy. At his cry his companions run up, the master of the meadow also runs together: they see the divine miracle: all bless the Lord, and St. Lawrence. Then the wife of that householder bought that same penny from the poor man for nearly a mark of silver: which she afterward showed to many in testimony of that miracle. But the writing of that penny, in the Teutonic tongue, as it was interpreted, ran thus: The hand of God fashioned me, and made me a gift to the poor man, who did not break the day famous to the Saint.

[8] A certain householder in Hesbaye had gone out into the field with a wagon to gather in the harvest on the vigil of that glorious martyr, the most blessed archdeacon Lawrence. another preserved from harmful rain: And when he had already gathered the greater part of the harvest, the day now growing toward evening, one of his servants, against the will of the householder himself, and without his knowledge, going again to the field with the wagon, loaded that same wagon anew with corn and grain [*], wishing with speed, on account of the impending rain, to bring the aforesaid wagon with the grain into the barn. When the aforesaid householder learned this, with all the speed he could he restrained him, saying: Bring the horses back into the stable: I repent that I have labored so long today. To whom the servant answered: Behold, rainy weather is at hand; it is better that the grain be brought to the barn. But he said: Do what I say, for neither today do I permit any of my people to labor further. The wagon with the grain I commit to God and to the holy martyr Lawrence. This being said, the servant obeyed, and, leading the horses to the stable, left the wagon with the grain in the field. And, behold, coming on the third day, he found the wagon with the grain so preserved from every shower as though not one drop of rain had fallen upon it, although all day and night a great rain had wetted the earth and the crops round about with a mighty flood. When the aforesaid householder saw this, he blessed the Lord in His blessed martyr Lawrence, and everywhere spread abroad the miracle to the honor of God and of the holy Martyr.

[9] In a certain village in Zeeland near the town which is called Scherpenisse, another likewise punished and delivered. a certain farmer on the festival of St. Lawrence, setting aside the reverence of God [*], not out of malice but out of rustic, as afterward appeared, foresight, rising in the morning, when he saw the sky ruddy, and suspecting that rain was impending, went with his wagon to the field with what speed he could, so that, having gathered what he had left in the field and placed it in the barn, he might still come in good time to the office of Mass. But while he was busied in gathering, the bells were rung in the church for Mass. And, behold, the wretched man, when he heard the sound of the bells all ringing together, did not at all take care to come to the office of Mass, as he had proposed, but, persisting in the work begun, the wagon being loaded, he began to make his way toward his house: and while he was rebuked by others, why he should violate the festival of the holy Martyr, and would by no means obey, suddenly by divine power the wagon remained motionless, and could by no means be moved further. When the aforesaid peasant saw this, he was greatly terrified, and, fearing greater things, invoked blessed Lawrence, and vowed that he would thenceforth never violate his festival. And, loosing the beasts, he left the loaded wagon there. On the morrow therefore, rising in the morning, having yoked the beasts, he wished to bring that same wagon to the barn, but he did not prevail, for it remained wholly immovable: which when he perceived, he caused a priest to be called, and obtained that a Mass in honor of the holy Martyr be celebrated for him. Which being said, and the beasts being yoked to the wagon, it was brought to the barn with such speed as though it had had no load at all. He therefore blessed God in the blessed martyr Lawrence, and all who saw and heard gave praise to God and to blessed Lawrence the martyr.

[10] A certain peasant In Hesbaye there is a village near St. Trond, which is called Bruysten. In this village there is a church dedicated in honor of St. Lawrence. When therefore on the festival of that glorious Martyr the people from the neighboring villages ran together on every side to his solemnity, paid their vows, and implored the suffrages of the blessed Martyr, a certain peasant, setting aside the reverence of the sacred day, and neglecting the veneration of the blessed Martyr, went out with his wagon to the field to gather the crops, and did not fear to violate the solemn day and to incur the offense of the blessed Martyr .. Merrily therefore, while others kept the solemnity, he goes to the harvest, gathers the crops, and, the wagon being loaded, brings it to the barn. And when he had come to the village, he is rebuked by many, and is judged that he should implore the merit of the glorious Martyr. But when he, hearing this, passed on with a deaf ear, and had come before the church, where the people were keeping the solemnity of the holy Martyr with joy, suddenly, all beholding, lightning fell from heaven, and burned up the whole aforesaid wagon with the crops. Seeing which, a great fear seized him, and, prostrate upon the earth, he begged pardon with his whole heart of God and of the glorious martyr Lawrence, vowed vows, and devoutly paid them, so that he carried with him as a pilgrim even to our monastery some of the coals of that wagon burned by heavenly fire, and spread abroad the miracle to all dwelling near and far.

[11] and women are punished for the violation of the feast, A certain woman, on the day of the solemnity of the glorious martyr Lawrence, when she had no more loaves to sell, kindled with the heats of avarice, began to consider what she should do, namely whether she should keep that festal solemnity, or prepare to bake loaves. And while she wavered in thoughts of this kind, and at length, overcome by love of money, began in every way to prepare herself, the reverence of the sacred day being set aside, to bake loaves, and, the oven being heated, mixed the flour and began to make dough [*]. But when she wished to shape loaves from that dough, suddenly blood began to flow out. Seeing which, she was greatly terrified, called together the household, and related what had befallen her; and showed them the blood flowing from the dough. Then she with all who were present blessed God in the blessed martyr Lawrence, and promised that thenceforth they would never violate his solemnity.

At Liège a certain woman by name Mathilda was wont to relate that, when she was a young girl and lived according to her own desire, on the vigil of the holy martyr Lawrence, when she was exhorted to fast, she answered that she could not fast. And when she had begun to break the fast and to eat bread, suddenly her mouth was turned to the side and wholly twisted round to her neck. She, repenting of the deed and begging pardon, invoking blessed Lawrence, made a vow that as long as she lived she would fast his vigil, and would never eat bread on the day of his festival. And so, health being received, she blessed God in His Saint, and devoutly fulfilled what she had vowed.

[12] In the year of the Lord one thousand four hundred and sixty-five, on the vigil of the glorious martyr Lawrence, a certain woman born in Brabant, who had not kept the fast. who had already dwelt eighteen years at Liège, asserted in the presence of many persons who had come to this monastery on that same day for the solemnity of that holy Martyr, that it had befallen her on that very day that, between the eleventh and twelfth hours, she had sat down to dine with her daughter of about twelve years, and the girl had begun to eat bread, when suddenly her neck swelled, and her mouth was turned to the left side, and her head lifted on high, and her back wonderfully and pitiably bent. And in that girl misery was to be seen. When the mother saw this, she began to cry out vehemently, and to invoke divers Saints. But when she felt no help, it came into her mind that it was the vigil of the holy martyr Lawrence, and, hope being conceived, she began to invoke blessed Lawrence with all [*] the devotion she could, and to exhort her daughter that she should devote herself to blessed Lawrence and invoke his help; and she vowed that, if he should restore her to health, she would visit his monastery and offer an offering. And suddenly the girl began to breathe again, and her mouth and neck and back to return to their place, and to be restored to their former soundness. She fulfilled her vow, and offered a waxen image to the blessed Martyr, and with many tears the girl herself gave thanks to God and to St. Lawrence, and the mother related before all who were present the things which had befallen her. Which when it had been told to the brethren, they sent for that woman, and asked that she would be willing to relate before them the things which had befallen her. She came to the monastery at the hour of Vespers on the vigil of St. Hippolytus, and brought that same girl with her, and before the whole convent, giving thanks to God and to St. Lawrence, related what had befallen her. Blessed be God in all things, who did what He willed, and wonderfully glorified His Martyr. Thus far of the miracles taken from the said Passional.

[13] Another Ambrosio de Morales relates in the General Chronicle of Spain, book 9, A horse is shod on the feast of St. Lawrence, and dies. chapter 46 at the end,

which from the Spanish I thus render into Latin: I will set down here also, he says, a certain thing which happened at Salamanca while I was there a very young man, and which was much noted and widely spread abroad in that city. A rich nobleman, whose name was Medrano, had two horses, and one of them was above all admired and esteemed by all the inhabitants of the city for its elegance and beauty of form. This horse he sent one day, on St. Lawrence's day, to be shod with an iron shoe: but the smith, accustomed to shoe horses, out of reverence toward the Saint and his festival, sent to tell him that, since he had another horse on which he might ride at that afternoon hour, he should put off this one to another day. But he sent back and gave orders with obstinacy that it should be shod. The horse was shod: but it did not return home, for it fell on the road with gripings of the belly, and within the space of two hours was dead. I myself saw the farrier, while he was busied in applying remedies to it, lamenting most fittingly that, though he had warned, as was fitting, of the reverence to be shown to a day sacred to the Saint, and had profited nothing, this manifest punishment of scant reverence had befallen. Our Ms., which we received from Saragossa, relates another example from Bagatta, volume 1, book 2, chapter 1, number 20, concerning irreverence toward the Saint's feast punished; and then two others are reported in the same Ms.

[14] Other vindications of the Saint Our Georgius Crugerius in the Sacred Ashes at the day X of August gathers this: For the rest, more than once, when certain persons among the Bohemians profaned his festal memory, Lawrence raged with prodigious vindications upon the perpetrators of such deeds. Below Leitmeritz, in a certain village, a woman baking loaves on that day found, in place of eatables, hard stones. When Zdenko Kosta at Kuttenberg ordered money to be coined, no one else being touched, he was so struck by a falling thunderbolt that he immediately expired. Near Gitschin, beyond a great fishpond, heretics turned a desolate little temple into a sheepfold. Upon it the harmless sheep, struck from heaven in a great number altogether, felt the wickedness of men. Beyond the Austa, the church surnamed St. Lawrence na Biehan does not suffer a roof, put on by Catholics fleeing from a battle: which portent has not yet disclosed its cause. There lie in it many of the slain Meissen barons and Counts, whom the Hussites destroyed in 1421. The Laurentian church of Leitmeritz has this peculiarity, that vows once made by the people stayed the inclemency of fire, that it should not thereafter rage in conflagrations, as from the beginnings of the city it had been wont to be exceedingly destructive to the houses of the citizens. And from that time Vulcan has hitherto been altogether milder in that place. About the year of the Lord 1003, as may be read in Helmold in Melchior Goldast on the Kingdom of Bohemia, we find that Lawrence was hostile against our whole nation.

* our Ms. manum (hand)

* i.e. a bond

* i.e. wheat

* perhaps diei (of the day)

* i.e. a lump of dough

* perhaps omni

§ II. A sinner is said to have obtained salvation, a chalice having been cast into the scale by St. Lawrence.

A certain great sinner The transcript of this miracle, such as it is, which I have in my hands, is noted as copied from a Ms. book concerning St. Lawrence, compiled by John of Stavelot in 1428, of the monastery of St. Lawrence at Liège: and it is assigned to chapter XLII. And it runs thus: In the times of the Lord Pope Alexander the second, and of the emperor Henry, there was a certain very powerful and great man in the parts of Saxony, exceedingly rich, and, according to worldly dignity, sufficiently honored. He, the more he abounded in riches, the more was he filled also with vices. Indeed, held fast by wantonness, greedy for other men's goods, violent in robberies, perjured, a traitor, and altogether in every way more a friend to the world than to God. Yet there was in him a certain virtue: namely because he had been accustomed to keep with all devotion, yearly as long as he lived, the festival of the most blessed martyr and archdeacon Lawrence, and to take careful pains for lights in the church of that Martyr through the whole night of his festival, inviting not a few singers and clerics. And inviting to a banquet both clerics and the poor, he refreshed them most liberally; sending also very many presents to his neighbors. In which church, indeed, to the honor of Almighty God and the veneration of that same glorious martyr Lawrence, he caused a golden chalice of wonderful workmanship, with two handles, to be made.

[16] being about to be carried by demons to the pit of hell, Now it came to pass that, by the Lord's ordering, that same man departed from this life: and as he departed, an infinite throng of demons with their princes hastened along a certain road with headlong course to receive his soul, clapping their hands, chattering with laughter and guffaws, and as though they had obtained a victory. But on that very road a certain servant of God, leading a solitary life, remained shut up in a certain little cell, giving himself to prayers and fastings, and was pleasing to God and to men. That enclosed man, therefore, being troubled by the unwonted noise of those passing by, opening [*] through the window, contemplated the passers-by, and considered what that multitude might be, of those not, I say, walking, but rushing headlong. And when he had considered a long while, he saw one of them running last: whom, calling to himself, he said: Tell me, who art thou, and who are these, and whither do they go?

[17] The demon answered: I cannot tell thee anything now: nay rather let me follow my companions, lest perchance I seem to be absent from the victory which we are about to have over such a friend of ours who is now dead. But the holy man, understanding that they were demons, said: I adjure thee by the eternal judgment, that whatever shall be done there, thou tell me, returning hither; otherwise I will entreat the majesty of my Lord Jesus Christ, and He shall cause thee to be banished into the abyss. Hearing which, the demon at once answered: I will do as thou commandest, only let not what thou threatenest befall me. Which said, with winged course he presently flung himself headlong after his companions. But the servant of the Lord bent himself more and more to his accustomed course of prayer, asking of God that He would make known to him whether what he had heard from the devil were true.

[18] After the space of one hour, therefore, behold, suddenly the same throng of malignant spirits, howling, is shown to a certain solitary in a wonderful vision, wailing, crying woe, woe, and complaining like one who suffers violence, with countenance cast down to the earth, exceedingly sad, was returning by the same road by which it had passed. But the man of the Lord, anxious about what he had heard, as soon as he heard their wailing close at hand, looking out through the window saw them returning confounded, and as though they had suffered shame, with sluggish gait, who a little before had passed by headlong with joy. And that demon who had been adjured came to the man of God, and stood sorrowful before him. Behold, he said, as I promised, I have returned to thee. To whom the man of God answered: Tell me then the truth of the matter. To whom the demon said: I blush to tell my own shame, and that of my companions, which we have suffered. Nevertheless, since thou hast adjured me, I will tell thee the order of the matter.

[19] This man who is now dead, as long as he lived in this world, by the help of St. Lawrence, was publicly a sinner, and publicly led a slippery life. He took pains not to give away his own, but to seize what was another's; he followed after countless perjuries, adulteries, fornications, sacrileges, thefts, robberies, and other things of this kind. What more shall I say? Neglecting all good things, he wished to work all evils. But after he received the end of the present life, we hastened with great joy, as thou thyself sawest, to receive his soul, to lead it away with us to hell. That angel who was appointed his guardian began to speak against us: You have come in vain: for he is mine. To whom we answered: Behold the book in which are written down all the evils which he did. And the angel: Behold the book in which are written all the good things which he did: let both therefore be weighed in the scale, and let us see the equity. And so each book was weighed in the scale. This one, in which the good deeds were seen written, was lifted upward: and this one, in which the evils were written, remained below; whereupon we, with a huge outcry, as victors bore him exulting toward the heavens. But while we rejoiced, behold, Lawrence, that man burned with fire, suddenly came, bearing the sign of the cross in his right hand.

[20] What is this, he said, that I see? There is still something lacking of justice. Which said, a chalice being cast into the scale drawing a certain golden chalice from his bosom, he cast it so strongly into the scale which hung above, that one of its handles was at once disjoined and separated, and so it leaped down swiftly to the ground with great weight: and thus it came to pass that the scale which before clung downward to the earth by the weight of the evils was lifted up, and that which hung above, by the lightness of the good deeds, the chalice being added, was brought down. Which being done, forthwith Lawrence, stretching out his hand and receiving the soul of the aforesaid man, led it back with him. Seeing this, our prince with all of us who had come with him, being suddenly turned from great joy into great sadness, returning with huge grief and lamentation, with shame and confusion, we go back to our own places sorrowing exceedingly. But if thou doubtest to believe my words, send thy servant in haste to the city, and let him inquire diligently: and he shall find that man dead at this hour. And that it may the more quickly be known that what I have said is true, let him go to the church at which he is buried, and let him say to the clerics on thy behalf that they should show him the golden chalice which he who is dead had caused to be made in that same church. And when they shall find it broken, they will begin to be angry, and there will be a very great schism among them; namely one suspecting another, and another another, and another another, not knowing how this was done: and so they will prepare themselves to hold a trial, that even thus it may be made manifest which of them did this.

[21] obtained salvation. Meanwhile let thy servant come to them and say to them: Cease, my lords, so to deal among yourselves; cease, and be no longer madly and vainly excited; but hear patiently what I say. My Lord bids you come to him without delay, and he without doubt will point out to you him who wrought this. And when they shall come to thee, declare to them in order all the things which I have spoken to thee. Now therefore dismiss me, that I may return to my brethren, since, as thou hast adjured me by the judgment of God to come, so have I spoken the truth to thee in all the things which thou hast heard: and saying this, he was dismissed by the man of God. But the man of the Lord, having heard these things, bending his knees, gave thanks to Almighty God, who is wonderful in His Saints: who has ever willed to magnify His glorious martyr Lawrence in heaven and on earth. Rising therefore from prayer, he straightway called his servant and said to him: Make haste, and go to the city, and inquire at what hour Count Henry

departed from this life. And when thou shalt have come to the clerics of the church of St. Lawrence, ask them to show thee the golden chalice, which when they find broken, there will be a very great quarrel among them and great doubt. And when thou seest them ready for an oath, say: Be quiet now, my lords, be quiet, and be unwilling to labor further in vain; for this says my lord: Come to me, and I will teach you the truth of this matter.

[22] is related to have obtained Going therefore, the servant of the man of God did all as he had commanded. And the clerics, coming with many of the nobles of the city to the man of God, after the offices of salutation, the holy man diligently related to them all the things which have already been said above, and at the end of the narration added: Do not, brethren, mend the broken chalice as it was before; but that the memory of so great a miracle may be made manifest, and that the victory which Lawrence the levite, victor and triumpher, had over the enemy of the human race may be proclaimed, let that same chalice remain always as it is, broken. Hearing which, all who had come together there, filled with wonder and at the same time with joy, praised with harmonious voice the Lord Jesus Christ and His most blessed martyr Lawrence, and, bidding farewell to the man of God, returned. And when they had entered the city, they gathered all the clergy and all the people of the whole city, and, silence being made, they said:

[23] Hear, most dear citizens, hear and know the great marvels it is narrated: which the Lord has vouchsafed to work through blessed Lawrence His martyr. Then they sent and brought the golden chalice with the handle separated from the chalice, and related on what occasion that same chalice had been broken, and how blessed Lawrence had freed the soul of that dead man from the hands of the devil and his ministers, and how one of those who was hastening to carry his soul to hell had announced it to a certain servant of God, and that, that same servant of God relating it, they knew all these things. And when all the people had heard these words, lifting up their hands to heaven, all alike gave praise to God, who had vouchsafed thus to let His martyr Lawrence triumph. And so, journeying thence with great joy, singing with song and jubilation Te Deum laudamus and Kyrie eleison, they came to his church. To which when they had come, they rendered so great praises and thanks to God and to blessed Lawrence that all wept for joy, and offered plentifully offerings of gold and silver, of wax tapers and hangings or fine linens, commending themselves to the prayers of St. Lawrence.

[24] After these things, a council being held, they sent that same broken chalice to Rome to his basilica, which chalice is said to have been sent to Rome. where his most holy body rests together with blessed Stephen the protomartyr; which chalice, as it was broken, remained in that same place until the time of Pope Adrian IV; but the abbot of the aforesaid place, having a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, broke that same chalice, and, much gold being added, caused it to be made larger: which to this day is shown in the aforenamed basilica of the martyr: concerning which there is doubt to none but that he protects his worshippers and venerators both while living in the body, and, when they go forth from the body, triumphantly frees them from the punishment of hell and from the power of the devil. Let us also therefore, brethren, venerate Lawrence the martyr, that by his merits we may be freed from perpetual death, our Lord Jesus Christ granting it: who liveth, etc. In our Ms. exemplar, which contains a collection of the Acts and miracles, etc., of St. Lawrence, and at the beginning of which it is noted to have been taken from the Ms. of St. Maximin of Trier, under this title, A miracle of blessed Lawrence concerning the chalice, that story is also narrated with this opening: In the times of the lord Pope Alexander the second, and of the emperor Henry, there was a certain Count Henry, a very powerful and great man in the parts of Saxony, exceedingly rich, etc. Which, that they may cohere chronologically, must here be understood of the emperor Henry IV, who in the time of Pope Alexander II was king, and after his death emperor. Thou hast heard an altogether theatrical narration; concerning which, before I set forth what I think, it seemed good to premise the following.

* perhaps aspiciens (looking out)

§ III. Whether the story of the chalice and the scale is rightly ascribed to St. Henry the emperor; the Saint a preserver in storm and in pestilence.

The memory of this miracle Since that miracle of the scale and the chalice is neither narrated by writers to have befallen that wicked man alone of whom we spoke above, nor lacks celebrity, nor is free from certain difficulties, which we shall afterward set forth, it will be useful first in this place to review it at least in substance and summarily as indicated by others. In the Saints of Bamberg published and illustrated by our James Gretser, chapter 28 of the Life of St. Henry the emperor (which is also found in our work at the place cited above in the Preliminary Commentary on St. Lawrence, number 49), the matter is thus set forth: For at the very hour of his departure, to a certain servant of God dwelling in the wilderness, the devil is handed down to have appeared under a human shape. Whom the man of God at once recognized in spirit, and said: Whither goest thou? To whom he said: I go to the funeral of the prince. But he answered: Go, he said, and complete thy business, so far as it is permitted thee by the Lord. Nevertheless, thine office being accomplished, being adjured by the living God, return to me, that through thee I may know the issue of the matter. And after a little while, returning, he stood groaning before the servant of God, and with a plaintive voice and huge howling said: Alas, alas! we have been deluded, we have labored in vain: nay rather we departed confounded by the angels of God. For, as we stood on this side and that, and the angelic spirits also, the merits of the soul were justly weighed in the scale, and, the bundles of sins bearing down, our side had already almost outweighed. Then suddenly a certain scorched one (understand St. Lawrence), coming up with a golden bowl, loaded the pan of the right side, and in a wonderful manner so outweighed our side that, the bowl itself falling to the ground, the crash of the collision left its mark. And so the victorious angels joyfully led away into their own fellowship the soul snatched from us.

[26] occurs elsewhere also; But although these things are reported as done bodily, yet it is necessary that they be understood as accomplished by a spiritual power. For spiritual things are expressed by corporeal images: and when one thing is done or said outwardly, another is signified to be done within. The aforementioned and often to be remembered servant of God had bestowed a golden chalice upon the church of Merseburg in honor of God and in commemoration of St. Lawrence the martyr, by whose special patronage he is believed to have been helped before God, and delivered in the very hour of his departure. And it is judged worthy of all veneration and admiration that at that same hour the chalice was kept shut in secure custody, and yet none the less received the material sign of the aforesaid collision. So there. Krantz in the Metropolis, book 4, chapter 9, says: The fable which the church of Merseburg proclaims about a golden chalice, whose handle was torn off when it was cast by the divine martyr Lawrence into the balance of his merits and demerits (the discourse is of St. Henry the emperor), so as to make the merits outweigh the demerits, finds no credit with me. Those are not wont to be reckoned among the Saints of whose virtues the judgment is so ambiguous. Nor did the eternal salvation of that most holy king hang on so light a moment that, by the weight of one chalice, that balance as it swung should fall to one side. I judge that the fable is unworthy of the merits of that most holy emperor. So he, and rightly, so far as he touches the praised Saint.

[27] Yet in his Saxony, book 4, chapter 35, the same author, branding the said story with no mark, and elsewhere likewise it is narrated otherwise. records this concerning it: At Merseburg they keep a chalice which they say the divine Lawrence cast into the scales, when the good deeds of the already dead emperor were being weighed with his evil. They say that then the enemy of the human race in indignation broke off the handle, since he found nothing of his own in the dying man. Cuspinian relates the matter otherwise in his Henry II, using these words near the end: Whose death became known to a certain hermit from the noise of the malignant spirits. For they say that the emperor, while hunting, often visited a religious and holy anchorite, and discoursed with him of God and of the virtues. When he was girding himself for a journey to see Jerusalem, the emperor entrusted to him a golden chalice of immense size, distinguished with two handles, to be dipped three times in the Jordan in honor of the undivided Trinity, until he should return; giving him likewise as much provision for the way as was enough. He, returning by way of Constantinople, walks about Bulgaria, then abounding in hermits, each of whom he asked to entreat God with their prayers for the most pious emperor and his safety. While the religious men were thus conversing, one of them relates that the emperor has ended his life, and explains at length a nocturnal vision, in which he confesses that he saw a chalice dedicated to the divine Mary, of which one handle was destroyed. He shows from the vision how this happened. The anchorite unfastens his baggage, and finds the chalice broken; which even today, as a testimony of the miracle, is shown at Bamberg. When he returned home, he learned that the emperor had died on that day on which he was in the wilderness. Then, putting an end to the things which he had related of the emperor Henry, he says: These things we have excerpted from divers Annals. Would that he had produced those Annals!

[28] These things being premised, let us weigh with what difficulties that famous chalice and balance labor. Our judgment on that miracle, In the first place, that story, so far as it is ascribed to the salvation of St. Henry the emperor, is plainly fabulous and inept to us, as it was to Krantz cited above. And indeed, beyond doubt, as Gretser rightly observes in the notes on chapter 28 of that Saint, which was designated above, page 96, that holy Emperor came to God's tribunal heavy-laden with merits. If you ask whether it happened to another, at least in substance? We answer that we see nothing, either on the side of the man, or on the side of God, or on the side of the Saint, why that thing could not have happened. Nothing, I say, on the side of the man: for why could he not be snatched from life and again restored to life? Nothing likewise on the side of the divine judgment: for God can summon a man to His tribunal and suspend the execution of the sentence to be passed against him. Nothing finally on the side of the Saint, to prevent his having been able to obtain this miracle from the divine mercy.

[29] But now, since that story is already, so to speak, in stable possession, and I have not at hand any solid argument by which I may convict it of open falsity, and concerning that famous chalice. nothing compels us to brand it with the censure of fabulousness, if you regard the substance of the transaction: but if the circumstances of the narration; there are not a few things which embarrass it. 1. Some report them one way, some another, according to what has been said. 2. They do not agree in time. 3. That long narration of John of Stavelot does not please. 4. Concerning the chalice the writers disagree: for the same chalice, says

John, they sent broken to Rome to his basilica, where his most holy body .. rests; which chalice, as it was broken, remained in that same place until the time of Pope Adrian IV (certainly after the middle of the XII century). But the abbot of the aforesaid place .. broke that same chalice, and, much gold being added, caused it to be made larger: which to this day is shown in the aforenamed basilica of the Martyr. But in the Life of St. Henry the emperor cited above in our Preliminary Commentary at number 49, it is said of him: He had bestowed a golden chalice upon the church of Merseburg in honor of God, and in commemoration of St. Lawrence the martyr: where the discourse is of our famous chalice. Krantz, cited above, said that it is preserved at Merseburg. Cuspinian finally, as you have above at number 27, reports that the chalice was dedicated to the divine Mary .. which even today, as he adds, is shown at Bamberg. From these things therefore it follows that, although we do not dare to deny the story of the famous Laurentian chalice as regards its substance; yet not a few and not slight difficulties occur concerning the circumstances of the matter, which do not well cohere among themselves.

[30] Demetrius Cydones Nor indeed is it fitting that another miracle, or plainly excellent benefit, should be passed over by us in silence, which a Greek document suggests, a transcript of which we have, prefaced with this title: Τοῦ μακαρίτου κυροῦ Δημητρίου τοῦ Κυδώνης λόγος εἰς τὸν ἅγιον Λαυρέντιον. That is: A discourse of the lord Demetrius Cydones of good memory on St. Lawrence. And it begins thus: Οἱ σώφρονες τῶν ἐραστῶν οὐ τῶν ἐρομένων περίσχονται μόνον, etc. The praised author, a little after the beginning of that discourse, addressing the holy Martyr, testifies with grateful remembrance that by his patronage he escaped safe and sound from a most grievous storm at sea; when he writes:

Καὶ τοῖς λόγοις ὕλην διδοὺς, καὶ κινῶν ἐπὶ τὸν δυνατὴν ἀμοιβὴν τῷ χάριτος ἄρξαι, ὅτι ἡμῖν ἐπὶ τὸν σὴν πόλιν ἐπειγομένοις, καὶ χειμῶνι χρησαμηνοις, πάσης μὲν τέχνης, πάσης δὲ ἐλπίδος ἰσχυροτέρῳ, αὐτὸς μαρτύρων δόξα μόνον κληθεὶς, αὐτίκα τήντε τοῦ πελάγους ὕβριν ἐστόρεσας, καὶ ἡμᾶς ἤδη δυομένους τῶν κυμάτων ἐξήρπασας. Τότε γὰρ οὐ δίκαιον ἐδώκει, μὴ κηρῦξαι τὸν εὐεργέτην, καὶ μικρῷ λόγῳ γὰρ τῆς χάριτος ἐνδείξασθαι μέγεθος. Καὶ ἦν ἡμῖν ὑπόσχεσις ἐν αὐτοῖς τοῖς δεινοῖς, εἰ περιγενοίμεθα, λόγῳ τῷ τοῦ Χριστοῦ Μάρτυρι τὸν εὐεργεσίαν ἀφοσιώσασθαι.

[31] is preserved by the help of St. Lawrence in a most grievous storm. Which we render thus into English: And thou didst supply matter for words, and didst move us to an effectual return of a mindful heart, that we should begin to pay thanks, because, when we were hastening to thy city, and were tossed by a storm which left no room for skill, no room for hope, thou thyself, O glory of the Martyrs, being only invoked, straightway didst lay flat the injurious sea, and didst snatch us, already sinking, out of the waves. For then it did not seem right to be silent about the praises of our preserver, and not to show by a brief discourse the greatness of the favor; and in the very perils we bound ourselves by a vow, if it should befall us to survive, to celebrate with due proclamations the beneficence of the holy Martyr of Christ. From what place the aforesaid document came to us, we cannot say; since, contrary to custom, it is not noted in our transcript. But concerning Demetrius, the author of that discourse, we observe the following. His eulogy and writings you will find in our Antonio Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus, and in Leo Allatius on the perpetual agreement of the western and eastern Church, book 2, chapter 18, §5; to which add the author of the Appendix to the first part of the Literary History of William Cave the heterodox, of the Geneva edition of the year 1694, page 32; in which Appendix the praised Demetrius is said to have flourished in the year 1357. But we find in those bibliographers no mention of the discourse of which a fragment has just been produced, except in the Appendix to the second part of the said Literary History, page 283; where it is said to be had in the Bodleian library, codex Barocci 90.

[32] By way of corollary I should wish to add what is reported in the Bruxelles Relations or news-sheets of the year 1657; Certain other wonders. in which it is said to be written from Naples on the XXX day of January of the same year, that the province of Lecce had down to that time, by the intercession of St. Lawrence, who is its patron, remained free from the plague, although it was surrounded on every side by that pestilence. Certain other wonders concerning St. Lawrence our Ms. papers, which I have before me, record; but I forbear to report more. But the marvel which happened at Rome on occasion of a sacred pledge of St. Lawrence, which was to be sent thence into Spain at the request of Philip II for the sanctuary of the monastery of the Escorial, will be given in the next paragraph, where that monastery and its sacred edifice will be treated.

§ IV. Sacred edifices in Italy; the monastery and church of the Escorial in Spain; the miracle which is reported by some on that occasion.

The sacred edifices at Rome, the memorable chapel at Florence. Besides those things which we set forth in our Commentary prefixed to the Acts of St. Lawrence, concerning the sacred places called by his name, and also ennobled with the glory of prodigies, there remain certain others by which his posthumous glory is excellently commended. We pass over in silence those which are enumerated in Piazza in the Sacred Hemerology of Christian and heathen Rome at the day X of August, endowed with plenary indulgences; nor is it our purpose to inquire into the more numerous sacred places which have been built elsewhere in the world in his honor; when Florence calls us, illustrious for a most magnificent monument, and one most fitted to commend to posterity the immortal splendor of the Laurentian name. Maximilien Misson, in his New Italian Itinerary, made in the year 1688, and printed at The Hague in the year 1691, part 2, page 156, makes mention of the church of St. Lawrence, which at Florence is very great and rich; then he believes it may be said, saving the truth, of the famous chapel there, that, carried on with so long and uninterrupted a labor, it will be the most beautiful of all in the whole world. Besides this, not daring to describe this monument, he subjoins some idea of it; where there is discourse of the art of that most magnificent work, of the most precious stones and other ornaments splendidly adorning it, and other things are designated which are hereafter to adorn that place.

[34] But indeed the immortal posthumous glory of our holy Archdeacon, above all other fabrics erected under his venerable name, is, and deservedly ought to be called, that most august and truly royal monastery and church of St. Lawrence of the Escorial in Spain, It far and away surpasses all others, a unique prodigy among religious monasteries both in that place and elsewhere in the world; whose equal, if long you seek it, where in the world will you find it? in which indeed the munificence of the founder Philip II, king of the Spains, the costliness of the material, the elegance of the work, and the industry of the artificers seem as it were to contend among themselves for the palm. Moreover, it was permitted us to admire and gaze upon the majesty of this most celebrated monument in the year 1722, when we stayed there almost a whole month. A short description of it the Reverend Father Fray Francisco de los Santos published in Spanish, to which I send the reader who desires to learn more distinctly and vividly about it than we shall presently say. Meanwhile our Father Pedro Ribadeneira has a brief eulogy of it, which he inserted there among the affairs of St. Lawrence at the day X of August, and which, rendered from the Spanish, runs thus: Lastly, the Catholic king of the Spains, Don Philip, second of this name, founded a church of St. Lawrence at the Escorial, worthy of his greatness and his piety: in which so many things are to be seen that a man knows not what to admire more, whether the great religion in which so many Fathers of the glorious Order of St. Jerome live; or the sumptuous magnificence of the building in which they live; or the number of relics of the Saints which are honored in that church; or the inestimable riches with which they are honored; or the exquisite books which that great king ordered to be gathered together in the library of that holy house; or the college and seminary which he founded in the same; other things which are there, so rare and wonderful, being passed over in silence.

[35] the most magnificent and most sumptuous But now, that from the claw you may judge the lion, as the saying is, or that from the pecuniary expenses at which this work with its appendages stood you may estimate the majesty of that same work; the outlays made upon it rise not merely to hundreds of thousands of ducats, though often multiplied; but even to millions of ducats; concerning which matter Francisco de los Santos, the same as above, book 1, discourse 17, folio 102 verso, testifies from the accounts and books of the administrators of that fabric, and also from the vouchers and receipts, etc., that all the expenses which occurred through thirty-eight years, reckoned from the beginning of the work to the death of Philip II, rise as high as five millions and two hundred and sixty thousand ducats, with five hundred and seventy ducats added: by which sum, as the same author adds, not only did the whole fabric which is there beheld arise; but there are also comprehended all the painting, all the handwork of embroidery (so I render the Spanish todo lo que toca a las manos de los bordadores), and all the costs of those things which belong to the monastery as its additions or appendages, and which the said writer names; to which if you add the silver, gold, and other ornaments which are there reported, and also the books of all the libraries serving for study, even so, he asserts, the expenses do not rise to six millions and two hundred thousand ducats besides. He also reports the opinion of some who extend the expenses to twenty-two, nay even to twenty-five millions, which were made there in the space of thirty-eight years; but he does not admit it, holding it for certain that even after the building of the so-called Pantheon, by which the edifice was brought to the summit of its perfection by Philip IV, king of the Spains, together with the other works and ornaments which were added, the sum of expenses does not rise to a third part of twenty-five millions.

[36] monastery of St. Lawrence of the Escorial Further, what the royal chapel by the name of Pantheon may be, you will learn from this inscription of the same, which you have in the said author, book 2, folio 122 verso:

TO GOD, BEST AND GREATEST.

A PLACE SACRED TO THE MORTAL REMAINS

OF THE CATHOLIC KINGS

BY THE RESTORER OF LIFE, WHOSE HIGH ALTARS

AUSTRIAN PIETY STILL LIES BENEATH,

AWAITING THE LONGED-FOR DAY.

WHICH POSTHUMOUS SEAT FOR HIMSELF AND HIS OWN

CHARLES, GREATEST OF THE CÆSARS, HAD IN HIS VOWS,

PHILIP II, MOST PRUDENT OF KINGS, CHOSE,

PHILIP III, TRULY PIOUS, BEGAN,

PHILIP IV,

GREAT IN CLEMENCY, CONSTANCY, AND RELIGION,

ENLARGED, ADORNED, AND COMPLETED,

IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD 1654.

[37] But before all the other most excellent structures of the often-praised monastery, and church, built by Philip II on account of the victory of St. Quentin. there conduces most to our purpose its most august church; concerning which the author praised above may be consulted

book 1, folio 15 and following. Take from him this inscription, which is altogether singular for the immortal glory of St. Lawrence, and also for the remarkable veneration of the founding king toward that same holy Martyr:

TO ST. LAWRENCE, MARTYR.

PHILIP II, KING OF ALL THE REALMS OF SPAIN,

OF BOTH SICILIES, OF JERUSALEM, ETC.,

DEDICATED THE FIRST STONE OF THIS TEMPLE

UPON THE DAY SACRED TO ST. BERNARD,

IN THE YEAR 1563. DIVINE SERVICE

BEGAN TO BE PERFORMED IN IT ON THE DAY BEFORE

THE FEAST OF ST. LAWRENCE, IN THE YEAR 1586.

But that fabric of the church, together with all its ornament and furnishing, etc., stood at one million, two hundred and forty thousand ducats, as you will find in the cited book, folio 103. But of these things more than enough. The cause, however, which moved that most religious monarch to a work so remarkable, was his piety toward St. Lawrence; and the occasion was that most famous victory which he won over the French, cut down in a battle ignominious and destructive, to speak with Spondanus, at Saint-Quentin in the Vermandois district of Picardy, on the very day of St. Lawrence, in the year 1557.

[38] But to the so many and so great marvels of the monastery of the Escorial there now comes to be added another marvel; A notable miracle which is as follows. As the praised monarch showed himself a most zealous searcher out, and, so to speak, a most skillful hunter of sacred relics, that, having ordered them to be most diligently sought out by his agents from various parts of the world, he might enrich his monastery (a notable specimen of which matter we produced above in our Preliminary Commentary, §7), so also he sought at Rome from the Supreme Pontiff some sacred pledge or portion of St. Lawrence to be preserved in the monastery of the Escorial: on which occasion Francisco de Aynsa writes that the following miracle happened at Rome, in the Work which he published in Spanish concerning the affairs of Huesca, book 2, chapter 3, page 131. I report the transaction thence to this effect: His Holiness, complying with a petition so just, committed the business of the breaking off and of the donation to two Cardinals, giving them a piece of paper, that the section of the sacred relic might match its size. They had ordered a certain small file to be made of steel, in the manner of a saw, that they might cut off the sacred pledge with greater reverence. The sepulchre being opened, they saw a certain bone, to whose extremity the paper exactly fitted; and while they had begun to cut, the file could never make a bite into it, or set a mark upon it.

[39] Marveling at the matter, they attempted to cut higher up, so that the sacred relic should become notably larger: [is related to have happened upon a bone of the Saint, when it was to be sent from Rome by the Pontiff.] and scarcely was the file brought to the sacred bone when suddenly they found it split apart. The notaries attested the miracle they had seen by a public act. And the Cardinals, when they had come to the Pontiff and had related to him the outcome of the matter, he said: St. Lawrence wishes to return to Spain. And then he sent to the king the sacred bone, the miracle being authentically attested, and the file: all which things that holy bishop of Tarazona, Don Diego de Yepes, had in his hands, who at that time was confessor to his Majesty: and the same bishop related all that has been said to Doctor Gaspar Ram, emeritus professor of the first, as they call it, chair of theology in this distinguished University of Huesca, who afterward was confessor to Don Pedro de Toledo, governor of the Duchy of Milan, and vicar general of his army .. That instrument of the miracle will be in the archive of St. Lawrence Royal, so far as can be believed.

[40] is narrated to have happened. Francisco de los Santos, book 1, discourse 8, treats of the relic of St. Lawrence (which consists of half of the hip-bone, as he adds), and also of the prodigious event concerning it, when Pope Gregory XIII wished to send some part of that bone to the said monastery of the Saint at the Escorial; to speak in a word, the miracle is in substance the same which we have already reported from Aynsa: in substance, I say, it is the same, whatever be the case with certain accidents, as they call them, which I leave to the curious reader to be noted from a comparison of the two texts. But Francisco de los Santos, after the narration of the fact, subjoins this: So the testimony and letters of his Holiness report it. If the author had added that he had seen that testimony and those letters, or at least that they are preserved in the archive of the Escorial, he would have won greater authority for the aforesaid miracle, which conduces excellently to the glory of the Saint, and would have supplied me — what alone I desire — with arms for defending the truth of this prodigious matter against critical smatterers and detractors, who perhaps will not be lacking. Certainly in the instrument of Pope Gregory XIII concerning the relics of St. Lawrence sent to Philip II, which you will find in our Preliminary Commentary, §7, and in which among others it is said that there is sent to him a portion of a rib (I think it should be written hip: for in the Spanish of Francisco de los Santos it is anca of the same Saint), there is nothing of the above-said miracle; likewise nothing of the opened sepulchre of the Martyr, which Aynsa related; the Pontiff saying: All which relics were preserved here (namely at Rome) in divers churches and places.

§ V. The story of the bodies of St. Lawrence and of St. Stephen the protomartyr, joined in a wonderful manner, as is reported, in the same sepulchre at Rome. The adornment of the church in the Veran field.

The story In my hands is a Ms. exemplar prefaced with this title: On the translation or finding of SS. Stephen and Lawrence, from the Lessons of the Medicean Library at Florence, shelf 20. And it runs thus: The joining of the bodies of the holy martyrs Stephen and Lawrence took place at Rome under Theodosius the younger: for when Eudoxia, daughter of the emperor Theodosius and wife of Valentinian, dwelling at the City with her husband, was vexed by a demon, and Valentinian had signified this to her father, who was at Constantinople; he orders his daughter to be brought to Constantinople, that she might be touched by the relics of Stephen the protomartyr: for the body of St. Stephen had long since been translated to Constantinople from Jerusalem, as will be said below in his finding on the III of the Nones of August. But the demon cried out in Eudoxia that he would never come out thence unless Stephen came to Rome, because such was the will of the Apostles. Hearing which, the emperor obtained from the clergy and people of Constantinople that the body of Stephen should be given to the Romans, and the body of Lawrence be delivered to the Greeks.

[42] And the Emperor wrote this to Pope Pelagius, who with the consent of the Romans agreed to the Emperor's petition. is narrated Cardinals therefore being sent to Constantinople bring the body of St. Stephen to Rome, and the Greeks come with them to Rome to receive the body of St. Lawrence. But at Capua the body of St. Stephen is received, and by the citizens of that place the right arm is obtained with the utmost entreaties, and the metropolitan church is built to his name. But when they had come to Rome, and had resolved to carry the body to the church of St. Peter ad Vincula, the bearers halt, and cannot go further. But the demon cried out in the queen that they were wearied in vain, because he had chosen to be placed not there, but in the church of his brother Lawrence, and beside him.

[43] Thither therefore the body is borne: at whose touch the girl is presently freed from the demon: from our transcript: and when the sepulchre was so narrow that it could not have held both bodies, Lawrence, as it were congratulating his brother's coming, turned toward the other part of the sepulchre and withdrew upon his side, and, emptying half of it, left it to Stephen: and thus they placed Stephen likewise upon his side, with his face turned toward his fellow. But the Greeks, while they lay hands to carry off Lawrence, fell to the ground as though lifeless: but, the Pope, his clergy, and the people praying for them, they scarcely came to themselves toward evening. Yet all died within ten days: and the Latins who had consented to them, turned to frenzy, could not be healed, until in like manner the bodies of both were, as has been said, translated together. And this joining was made on the Nones of May. A marvelous fact indeed! A prodigy altogether illustrious for the posthumous glory of St. Lawrence! But I fear that the truth of the transaction cannot be defended by me so well as I could wish: whose the sum of my desires is to take nothing away from the true praises of the Saint; so it is a scruple of conscience to deck him with false trappings, with which he, elsewhere abounding sufficiently in true ones, neither wishes nor ought to be adorned. Let us therefore weigh the matter in the just balance of truth.

[44] The Most Eminent Cardinal Baronius, who can by no means be held suspect, but it labors under so many difficulties as though indeed he wished anything to be taken from the splendor either of the city of Rome or of St. Lawrence, in the Roman Martyrology at the day VII of May records this: At Rome, the translation of the body of St. Stephen the protomartyr, which, brought under Pelagius the Supreme Pontiff from Constantinople to the City, and placed in the sepulchre of St. Lawrence in the Veran field, is there venerated with great devotion of the pious. Where you see that nothing is said of the above miracle, probably for this reason, that he had ascertained nothing certain enough about it to say truly. For upon the said announcement he observes this in his notes: There are ancient monuments of the transaction committed to writing by Lucius the archdeacon; but such as need no small correction. We have read them in a manuscript codex of the monastery of St. Cecilia in Trastevere. Peter the deacon of Monte Cassino, in the book on the Illustrious Men of the monastery of Cassino, chapter 35, testifies that St. Bruno, bishop of Segni, wrote a sermon on that translation; and the same in chapter 45 adds that another sermon besides was written by Peter, librarian of the same monastery, on the same translation made from Constantinople to Rome. In our work, volume II of May, in the Passed Over at the day VI of the same month, page 98, this is noted: The translation of the body of St. Stephen the protomartyr at Rome, in the time of Pope Pelagius the first, and of the emperor Theodosius, which was buried in the church of St. Lawrence outside the walls, and in his sepulchre. So the Strozzi Ms., and the Florentine Martyrology of the year 1486. Here you have our case; but of the miracle of which we treat, nothing.

[45] it labors, And indeed the author, whoever he was, plays the fool in so many things in his historical account that he leaves himself no weight of credit even in the very substance of a thing so wonderful and prodigious, as we shall now show. He records that the thing happened in the time of Theodosius the younger, of Eudoxia, and of Valentinian, who belong to the IV century, and that indeed in such a way that that Theodosius died in the fiftieth year of that century; and Valentinian III, to whom Eudoxia was given as wife, closed his life in the year 455. But Pelagius, Pope, the first of this name, was raised to the Chair of Peter only in the year 555, whom nevertheless that unskillful writer connects in his narration with those persons. Is then his demoniac Eudoxia prettily arrayed? But leaving these trifles, let us uncover the author's other ineptitudes. The body, he says, of St. Stephen had long since been translated to Constantinople from Jerusalem. Is it so indeed? Baronius at the year of Christ 439, as he reports from the Chronicle of Marcellinus: Eudocia, the wife of the emperor Theodosius, returned from Jerusalem to the royal city (that is, Constantinople), bringing with her the relics of the most blessed Stephen the first

martyr, which, placed in the basilica of St. Lawrence, the faithful venerate. Then, treating from Cedrenus of the translation of those same relics of St. Stephen, he records that Theodosius .. sent much money to the archbishop of Jerusalem to be distributed to the needy, and that the archbishop in turn sent him as a gift relics of the right hand of Stephen the first martyr, etc.

[46] which are here reviewed, But how will you hammer out from this, not merely that some member of that Protomartyr, but that his body, was then translated from Jerusalem to Constantinople? Indeed, as Baronius subjoins, very many things not worthy of credit are found written by others concerning these relics, namely of a translation to Constantinople made, not of some member of St. Stephen, but of the whole body, by Juliana, a noble widow, secretly stealing it away. But since the author holds that this happened under Constantine the Great and Eusebius, bishop of Constantinople, that history wins no credit for itself, as neither does what Nicetas has in his History concerning the same translation, made (as he says) under the same emperor Constantine .. But before the times of Honorius the relics of the body of the Protomartyr were never seen. Fables therefore being rejected, the translation of the relics of Stephen the Protomartyr which was made in this year by Eudocia we receive as genuine and attested by all credit. There may also be consulted what Pagi noted in the Critique on Baronius at the year 415, number 2. But these things may be examined by our successors in their own place at the day XXVI of December, on which that Saint is to be treated; and his translations are to be spoken of, as we warned in the Passed Over at the day III of August. For the rest, before we put an end to this fabulous history of the anonymous writer, we desire it to be observed that the holy Protomartyr is twice called by him the brother of St. Lawrence. For if he calls him brother on account of certain properties common to both Saints, he uses a word wholly improper and foreign. But if he means simply, as his expression sounds, that he was his brother; by what show of truth could he mean this, nay rather by what gross and plainly discordant hallucination? But what shall I say of that apocryphal fabrication, when the author adorns his stage with Eudoxia possessed by a devil? This fact I have not hitherto found handed down by ancient writers suited to command belief; to which therefore I give a place among ill-founded and apocryphal fabrications, until I be taught more certain things concerning it, especially since the whole preceding history is on so many counts suspect from elsewhere. Nor of a better bran to me are those things which are subjoined at its end concerning the punishment and death of the Greeks and the frenzy of the Latins — a cover, so to speak, worthy indeed of the dish.

[47] But behold, while I am busied in chastising these trifles, so that as fabulous and apocryphal I fall upon the Catalogue of the Saints of Peter de Natalibus, book 4, chapter 139, where he reports the same story, adding however at its end, as brother Bartholomew says. On which occasion a desire came upon me of inquiring who that brother Bartholomew might be. Consulting therefore the prologue which is prefixed to that Catalogue of the Saints, there occurred to me there, among the other writers of the Legends of the Saints who are named, brother Bartholomew in his Chronicles. But who he was, I clearly understood from the Reverend Father James Échard in the work entitled Writers of the Order of Preachers reviewed, volume 1, page 110, where Brother Bartholomew of Trent is treated, with the note of the year 1240 appended, and then among his works there is named as chief the Epilogue of the life of the Saints. And it is added: There exists a Ms. codex at Rome in the Barberini (library), or at least a fragment of it .. A complete copy of this work Peter de Natalibus had, which he confesses that he everywhere used in the Lives of the Saints, and at the end of the Life of St. Ingenuinus, February V, he thus adds (book 3, chapter 85): So far brother Bartholomew, indicating that the whole was taken from him. But whence Bartholomew of Trent took the history of the translation of St. Stephen which we here examine, it is not easy for me to say: I suspect however that it is to be referred, however the matter stands with its first Latin writer, to the Greekling potteries, otherwise so fertile of filth of this kind, from which it afterward passed to the Latins. Meanwhile of Bartholomew of Trent we made mention in volume 1 of August at the day IV in the Preliminary Commentary on St. Dominic, §1, page 359; where also we indicated that that work of Bartholomew, of which we have just treated, is in the transcript of our Henschen called the book of epilogues on the deeds of the Saints.

[48] For the rest, that prodigious and at the same time fabulous joining of SS. Lawrence and Stephen is narrated also in the Golden Legend of James of Genoa, is rejected by us. of the Order of Preachers, published at Paris in the year 1475; likewise in the Legend which is entitled the Golden Work, which .. by the no small diligence of brother Claude de Rota, professor of sacred theology, of the Order of Preachers .. was rendered enlarged, and printed in the year 1531; and to the pretended joining of those Martyrs there is subjoined the following epiphonema: O happy Rome, which dost enclose in one mausoleum the body of Lawrence the Spaniard and of Stephen of Jerusalem, pledges so glorious! And then it is said: And that joining took place on the IX of the Kalends of May about the year of the Lord 425. Francisco de Aynsa, in the work to which he gave the title The Foundation, excellences, etc., of the city of Huesca, book 2, chapter 3, aims to prove from the translation of the body of St. Stephen, of which we spoke above, that St. Lawrence was a Spaniard, and he narrates it there at page 129 and following. But we have endeavored to give that Saint to the Spaniards on a better foundation than trifles of this sort, altogether tottering and ruinous, above in the Commentary, §10. Lastly, that we may not abuse the reader's patience, we do not wish to record what Doctor Dormer in his St. Lawrence defended in the city of Huesca, book 2, chapter 3, objects to Doctor Juan Bautista Ballester, after he had reported that translation from him; although he there at page 146 admits that prodigious event, as having earned, as he thinks, the credit of tradition; for which matter he adduces brother Tomás Truxillo, Alfonso Villegas, Peter de Natalibus, Gauberto Fabricio, Jerónimo de la Higuera, Esteban de Aguilar, Hermann Crombach, etc.

[49] it is rejected. But a tradition resting on so tiny, or rather on no authority, deserves only the name of a merely popular and masterless tradition; since authors of this kind, even if you should add many more such to these, in a matter so ancient can only make up number, not credit. Nor indeed does it irk me to have observed that Ballester is rightly corrected by Dormer at page 154 and following, because he calls St. Lawrence the kinsman (in Spanish primo, cousin) of St. Stephen; where nevertheless he contends that this Protomartyr can be called the other's brother by recurring to significations of the word brother too improper and far-fetched for either to be called simply the brother of the other; as he is called in the above transcript of the translation, and also in the Legends assigned a little before. Brother Tomás Truxillo, therefore, whom I just now named, in the Treasury of Preachers, part 2, in the Life of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, column [ ], treating of this prodigy of the body of St. Lawrence, and writing this concerning the tradition above mentioned, does not deserve to be heard. Further, he says, it is had from tradition that at the time when the sepulchre of blessed Lawrence was opened, he yielded from the place in which blessed Lawrence remained, so as to grant the right-hand side to Stephen: from which he was thereafter called the courteous and urbane Spaniard.

[50] [The ornaments of the church in the Veran field, where SS. Lawrence and Stephen are.] But these trifles being bidden farewell, let us put an end to the present subject with a more serious matter. Ciampini in his Historical Synopsis of the sacred edifices built by Constantine the Great, chapter 6, treating of the church of St. Lawrence in the Veran field outside the walls of the City, at page 115 says: Beneath the triumphal arch is placed the chapel, or as it was formerly named the confession of blessed Lawrence, where his body, together with that of blessed Stephen, lies enclosed in a marble chest surrounded with iron bars. Eight steps afford a descent to it; twelve columns lift up the vault, of which the four in front are of green marble, the rest of Parian, and they show that these are not those which the Pontiff Xystus there praised (the third of this name, of whom our Commentary above at number 8) set up, since those were of porphyry. More may be read in the cited chapter 6 concerning the said church, and also may be beheld with the eyes in plate 26: which also may be compared with those things which have been set forth by us in the same Commentary. The praised author, in part 2 of the Ancient Monuments, chapter 13, writes of the mosaic work of that church, which also he represents in plate 28, and reports that it was constructed by Pope Pelagius II in the year 578; concerning which Pontiff mention was made by us in the place just indicated, number 9.

§ VI. Certain other wonders concerning St. Lawrence are recorded.

A terrifying vision is presented to the emperor Henry III, I have at hand a transcript noted with this title: The miracles of St. Lawrence; which our Papebroch noted as having been taken from Peter Calo, part 2, folio 39, after the Life. And it narrates this: Henry the third, emperor, as Helinand says, in the time of Conrad his father, had taken from a certain cleric a silver pipe with which boys at play squirt water, having agreed to give him a bishopric when he should be emperor. Having obtained the empire, he promptly gave what he had promised. Not long after, being seized by a harsh disease, he took to his bed: which disease increasing, for three days he lay senseless [*] and dumb. The bishops present, a three days' fast being proclaimed, besought the Lord for his life. Recovering, he summoned the bishop whom he had made for the pipe, and deposed him by the sentence of a council, confessing that during all those three days he had seen demons hostile to him hurling flame upon him through that pipe — a flame, I say, so persistent that our fire in comparison with it might be thought a jest. But meanwhile a half-burnt young man came bearing a golden chalice of immense size full of water, at whose sight and by the sprinkling of the liquid the fires were quenched and he escaped. This was blessed Lawrence the glorious martyr, the roof of whose church, dissolved by long decay, he had caused to be framed together, and, besides other gifts, he had honored that same church with a golden chalice.

[52] That story must have happened not later than the year 1039, St. Lawrence preserving him. in which the emperor Conrad II closed his last day, after whom in the same year Henry III, surnamed the Black, his son and not his son-in-law, as some have fabulously held, succeeded in the empire. Helinand, on whose credit the above is reported, a Frenchman, a monk of Froidmont of the Cluniac congregation, wrote about the year 1200 forty-eight books of histories from the creation of the world, one book on the restoration of the fallen; several sermons; one book of letters to divers persons, on the testimony of our Possevino in the Sacred Apparatus; before whom St. Antoninus had treated at length of the praised writer in the 3rd part of the Histories, title 18, chapter 5, which is entitled Of Helinand the historiographer. Of the word exensis mention is made in the

newest edition of Du Cange's Glossary, volume 3. By Brother Bartholomew, who will presently be named here, I understand Bartholomew of Trent, of the Order of Friars Preachers: of whom I treated in the preceding paragraph. Of Brother Peter Calo, who also was of the Order of Friars Preachers, there may be consulted the Library of the Writers of the same Order, volume 1, page 511.

[53] Now behold for thee other things, which I here transcribe from the said transcript: [What he did concerning the church of Trent, the drought of the air, and a lost sacred relic.] Brother Bartholomew writes that at Trent there is a church dedicated to the name of this Martyr, and delivered of old to nuns to dwell in: which was retained by the Martyr for them so long as it pleased them to live in holiness. The same we afterward saw fulfilled in the case of monks. It remains that those who now inhabit the place take heed lest the Martyr be angered.

A drought of the air was grievously pressing the people: the clergy and people of Trent were visiting the thresholds of the Saints on every side. On the fifth day of August therefore, while the solemnities of St. Dominic the Preacher, whose altar is in the aforesaid church, were being kept, and the air was exceedingly clear, the bishop came with clergy and people to seek his suffrages. And behold, while the choir begins the Mass, the clouds thunder, and throughout the whole Mass a saving rain came down. After this it ceased, until those who had come returned to their homes, and again all day it watered the earth, and straightway was withdrawn. On the fifth day after this, when the Martyr's feast was at hand, a solemn procession is brought back, and the Lord bestows abundantly on the people the longed-for rain.

In the year of the Lord 1220 also, on the feast of the dedication of the aforesaid church, I, returning from the courts nearby and from the Emperor's, and bringing relics of many Saints to this church, brought also a crystal with a little cross distinguished with gold and silver. While these were being reverently carried in procession, the cross unnoticed slips from the crystal, and, though there was an exceeding multitude and pressure of the people, it is presented to the sorrowing brethren by a small and unknown little boy before the Gospel, in front of the altar; whereas it was hard for the strongest men to pass through the throng.

[54] Wonders concerning coals in Spain But altogether marvelous is what I read in a letter of our father Alexander Wiltheim, given at Luxembourg on the VII day of August 1677 or 1679 to Papebroch, from which I extract the following: I told our most excellent lady Princess that your Reverence did not know St. Faustus, about whom I inquired, etc. But she told me today a marvelous thing. She says that in Spain, if anyone on St. Lawrence's day digs, in whatsoever place, even lightly, he at once strikes upon a coal: and she asserts that she experienced the same with the late Empress. Has your Reverence anything similar among the miracles of St. Lawrence? Then from the same place, writing on the XXI day of the same month and year to the same Papebroch, he thus confirms these things: Our most excellent lady governess has written into Spain for the Life of St. Faustus. I told her that your Reverence had laid up at the X of August my letters about the coals of St. Lawrence. It was pleasing to her, and she affirmed the same a little before she went to confession and communicated. She says that twice in one day she dug with the empress, once in a hanging garden (in Spanish en un balcón), again in another garden, and twice coals were found. And this happens from the first Vespers of the feast until the second. She called one of her ladies, who solemnly affirmed that the same had befallen her.

[55] are reported; That singular and marvelous fact befell those illustrious and trustworthy persons, on Wiltheim's report, I do not dare to deny; yet I cannot conceal my declaring that I wonder greatly that, if that prodigy occurs in any place whatever in Spain, if from the first Vespers of the feast to the second, if to anyone whatever who digs even lightly, nothing of this kind has hitherto come to my knowledge from any other quarter — mine, who have been not carelessly occupied in unearthing the affairs of St. Lawrence — from writers, especially Spanish ones, who can by no means be suspected either of wishing anything detracted from his praises, or of having been able to be ignorant of a thing so prodigious and so widely spread abroad, if it be true. There is need therefore of testimonies of good stamp before we approve it with our vote. Further, since mention has been made of Father Alexander Wiltheim, the Library of our Society may be consulted concerning the works published by him.

[56] as also various other things Francisco de Aynsa, mentioned above, book 2, chapter 8, page 156, reports some occurrences which, although they are not manifest miracles, yet seem to be things of such a kind that they could not have happened without a singular providence of God and the favor of our most holy Levite. Those things therefore which the same author there printed in Spanish, I here reprint, rendered by me into the Latin tongue to this effect. In the Saint's sacred edifice at Huesca, therefore, it happened in the year 1589 that the Paschal candle was lighted on occasion of a certain inclemency of the weather, but, through the carelessness of John Miedes the sacristan, was not extinguished, and burned all that night; whose fire caught the great wooden candlestick, the support of that same candle, and consumed whatever on it was overlaid with gold, as also SS. Orentius and Lawrence painted upon it, as far as the diadem of St. Lawrence: and there the fire stopped, although no one had extinguished it. It happened besides that, a certain live coal having fallen upon the altar, its whole leathern covering was burned, and something also of the frontal, as they call it; but to the altar-cloth, which seemed likely to be devoured most swiftly, no damage was done.

When half of that church had been pulled down, where (so Aynsa will have it) this most illustrious Martyr had drawn his birth, in order that the magnificent and sumptuous one, upon which work was then being spent, might be built; what remained was used for celebrating the divine offices. But on a certain day, when no one was then in the church, a great part of the vaulting (so I render the Spanish de la crucería) fell down; the fall, as appears, being deferred to that time in which all the people were outside the church.

[57] On another day it happened that, when a certain arch supporting the choir was being pulled down, which happened there in the city of Huesca. and a mason demolishing it was sitting upon it in the manner of a rider, by mischance the whole of it as it were collapsed, and with it the young man in the same posture of body: but he, having suffered no harm, was able to return without delay to his labor.

On the same occasion and at the same moment of time two workmen were carrying a stone on a barrow, to set it aside and so make room; and they were passing beneath the arch when it was falling; which, slipping down between the men, broke indeed the barrow and the ropes by which they carried it hung from their necks; but did them no harm; so that they returned at once to their labor, to the great admiration of the bystanders.

While the foundations of that church were being dug out, which were exceedingly spacious and deep, at various times many and very great heaps of earth fell down through the damp, the workmen who were busied below in opening them being left unhurt.

It happened also that, while the earth of the said foundations was being carried out, the carts trampled over boys and other people without any injury.

On Tuesday, which was the XXX of May, in the year 1617, half a brick slipped down from the cornice, and in the sight of all seemed bound to strike upon the head of a certain workman who was below engaged in his hired labor, by name Puxol: from whom, as though turning aside, the half brick gave him instead its side, touching only his garment, his whole person being unhurt.

A few days before likewise another very singular thing occurred. A certain young lad fell from above from the arch of the cathedral chapel which is situated on the Epistle side of the high altar: and he was believed, by all who were engaged in the work and looking on, to be falling down; but he remained, not without a miracle as it seems, unhurt upon a plank which he had laid over the cornice, of the breadth of a single board.

[58] The Saint drives away inclement weather: In our Spanish Ms. sent hither from Saragossa it is reported from Bagatta, volume 1, book 3, chapter 2, number 27, that the monks of the monastery of La Chiusa, who were meditating to abandon it on account of the thunderbolts falling upon it, consulted upon this matter St. Hugh, abbot of Cluny: who advised them that they should not move, but should bind themselves by a vow to St. Lawrence, of making daily commemoration of him. Which they carried into execution; and from that time they were freed from this kind of calamity. Of St. Hugh, abbot of Cluny, there is treatment in volume III of our April at the day XXIX, page 628; where he is noted as promoted to the abbatial dignity in the year 1049. Of the origin and founder of the abbey of the monastery of La Chiusa, Mabillon in the Acts of the Benedictines, century VI, part 2, page 697, says: The monastery of St. Michael of La Chiusa, formerly distinguished, is situated in the diocese of Turin at the roots of Mount Pirchiriano, namely at the Clusæ or jaws and narrows of the Alps, which Desiderius, king of the Lombards, vainly attempted to close against Charlemagne as he advanced into Italy. These things serve for the place and time of this narration.

[59] wonders in his blood. When in the Preliminary Commentary, §2, we treated of the sacred places ennobled with the prerogative of the miracles of St. Lawrence, we there produced an altogether marvelous thing which happens at a fixed time in the blood of that distinguished Levite, which we there indicated is preserved in a church of the Campania of the Roman territory. This miracle is briefly touched upon in our Ms. of which we were speaking, from Saragossa; but from Bagatta, who is cited in the same, volume 2, book 6, chapter 3, number 25, we learn that a thing of this kind happens at Naples in a certain sacred relic of the same Saint, which exists in the convent of the Franciscan Religious of the Invocation of that Saint; and also in some other sacred pledge of the same Martyr, of the convent of nuns of the Order of St. Benedict, commonly of St. Mary of Alvina, as is asserted in the same Ms. from Bagatta, volume 2, book 6, chapter 3, number 50. And let this be the end of the Laurentian matters.

* read exsensus, i.e. deprived of the senses.