CHAPTER I. — Since, beloved, the sum of all the virtues and the fullness of all justice is born of that love by which God and one's neighbour are loved, in no place assuredly is this love found to excel more sublimely or to shine more brightly than in the most blessed martyrs:
who are as near to our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for all men, in the imitation of charity as in the likeness of His passion. For although to that love by which the Lord redeemed us (Gal. iii, 13) no kindness of any man can be equalled—since it is one thing for a man to die for a just man, one who by his own necessity was going to die, and another to lay down his life for the impious, being himself free from the debt of death—yet the martyrs also have conferred much upon all men, whose fortitude the Lord, the bestower of it, so used that He willed the penalty of death and the atrocity of the cross to be terrible to none of His own, but made it imitable by many. If, therefore, no good man is good for himself alone, nor is any wise man's wisdom a friend to himself only;
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and if this is the nature of true virtues, that they lead away many from dark error by the brightness of their light: for the instruction of God's people no pattern is more useful than that of the martyrs. Let eloquence be ready to entreat; let reasoning be effective to persuade; yet examples are stronger than words, and it is more to teach by deed than by voice. CHAPTER II. In which most excellent kind of teaching, the blessed martyr Laurence, by whose passion this present day is made illustrious, with how glorious a dignity he prevails, even his very persecutors were able to perceive, when that wonderful fortitude of soul, conceived principally from the love of Christ, not only did not itself yield, but even strengthened others by the example of its endurance.
For when the fury of the pagan powers raged against the choicest members of Christ, and especially assailed those who were of the priestly order, the impious persecutor boiled up against the levite Laurence, who was pre-eminent not only in the ministry of the sacraments but also in the dispensation of the Church's substance, promising himself a twofold prey from the seizure of one man: whom, if he should make a betrayer of the sacred money, he might also make devoid of the true religion. Therefore this man, greedy of money and enemy of truth, is armed with a twin torch: with avarice, to snatch the gold; with impiety, to carry off Christ.
He demands that the ecclesiastical wealth, after which he most greedily gaped, be brought to him from the immaculate prelate of the sanctuary. To whom the most chaste levite, showing where he had those things stored up, presented most numerous flocks of the holy poor, in whose food and clothing he had laid up wealth that could not be lost, which was so much the more safely preserved as it was more holily proved to have been expended. CHAPTER III. — The plunderer therefore rages, being frustrated, and, blazing up into hatred of the religion which had instituted such a use of riches, he attacks the direction of a greater treasure; that from him with whom he had found no substance of coins, he might carry off that deposit by which he was more sacredly rich.
He bids Laurence renounce Christ, and prepares to press that most solid fortitude of the levitical soul with dire torments. When the first of these obtain nothing, more vehement ones succeed. He orders the mangled limbs, cut with many a stroke of the scourges, to be roasted by fire placed beneath: so that upon an iron grate, which from the continual heat now had in itself the power of burning, by the alternate turning of the members as they were shifted, the torture might become more vehement and the pain more prolonged. CHAPTER IV. — Thou gainest nothing, thou profitest nothing, savage cruelty. The mortal material is withdrawn from thy inventions, and, as Laurence departs into heaven, thou faintest. By thy flames the flame of Christ's charity could not be overcome, and the fire that burned without was more sluggish than that which kindled within.
Thou hast served the martyr, persecutor, when thou didst rage; thou hast increased his palm, while thou dost heap up his penalty. For what did thy ingenuity not devise for the conqueror's glory, when even the instruments of torture passed into the honour of his triumph? Let us therefore rejoice, beloved, with spiritual joy, and glory in the Lord over the most blessed end of this renowned man—the Lord who is wonderful in His saints (Ps. lxvii, 36), in whom He has established for us both a protection and an example; and thus throughout the whole world has He glorified His glory, that from the rising of the sun even to its setting, by the flashing splendour of the levitical lights, as Jerusalem was made illustrious by Stephen, so Rome was made illustrious by Laurence. By whose prayer and patronage we trust that we are aided without ceasing:
so that, since all men, as the Apostle says: 'Whosoever will live godly in Christ suffer persecution' (2 Tim. iii, 12), we may be strengthened by the spirit of charity, and, for the overcoming of all temptations, be fortified by the perseverance of constant faith. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, living and reigning with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.