LAWRENCE (LAURENTIUS, LORENZO) , ST., Christian mar tyr, whose name appears in the canon of the mass, and whose festival is on Aug. Io. The basilica reared over his tomb at Rome is still visited by pilgrims. Deacon of the pope (St.) Sixtus (Xystus) II., he was called upon by the judge to bring forth the treasures of the church which had been committed to his keeping. He thereupon produced the church's poor people. Seeing his bishop, Sixtus, being led to punishment, he cried : "Father ! whither goest thou without thy son? Holy priest ! whither goest thou without thy deacon?" Sixtus prophesied that Lawrence would follow him in three days. The prophecy was fulfilled, and Law rence was sentenced to be burnt alive on a gridiron. In the midst of his torments he addressed the judge ironically with the words : Assum est, versa et manduca ("I am roasted enough on this side; turn me round, and eat"). All these details of the well-known legend are already related by St. Ambrose (De 0 ffic. i. 41, ii. 28).
The date of the martyrdom is usually put at the persecution of Valerian in 258. The punishment of the gridiron and the speech of the martyr are probably a reminiscence of the story of the Phrygian martyrs as related by Socrates (iii., 15) and Sozomen (v., I 1). But even the fact of the martyrdom has been questioned.
The Escurial was built in honour of St. Lawrence by Philip II. of Spain, in memory of the battle of St. Quentin, which was won in 1557 on the day of the martyr's festival. The meteorites which appear annually on or about the loth of August are popularly known as "the tears of St. Lawrence." See Acta sanctorum, Augusti ii. ; P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, S. Lorenzo e it supplicio della graticola (Rome, 1900) ; Analecta Bollandiana, x., ix. 452 and 453 ; Fr. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications or England's Patron Saints, i. 508-515, iii. 18, 389-390 (1899).