Nor indeed do I understand this sermon to have been published in print, which I have transcribed from the Vatican Ottobonian codex 106, because it bore before it the name of Saint Maximus, being the first of three others attributed to him. Since, dearly beloved, the sum of all virtues and the whole fullness of righteousness are born of that love by which God and neighbour are loved, in none assuredly is this love found to excel more sublimely and to shine forth more clearly than in the most blessed martyrs; who imitated closely the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for all men, as much in the ardour of charity as in the work of the passion. For although no one's benevolence can be made equal to that love by which the Lord redeemed us;
for it is one thing for a man to die for a righteous one, being himself destined to die by necessity; another to lay oneself down for the ungodly, being free from the debt of death. Yet the martyrs too have conferred much upon all men, whose fortitude the Lord, the giver, so employed, that he willed the penalty of death and the atrocity of the cross to be terrible to none, but made it imitable to many. If therefore no good man is good for himself alone, nor to any wise man is wisdom a friend to himself only; and this is the nature of true virtues, that he who is bright with their light should draw many away from dark error, then for the instruction of the people of God there is no more useful pattern than the unconquered patience of the martyrs; it is an easy means for entreating, an effective one for persuading.
Yet examples are more powerful than words, and it is more to teach by deed than by voice. In this most excellent kind of teaching, blessed Lawrence the martyr, by whose passion this present day is made illustrious, showed with what glorious dignity he prevailed—as even his persecutors were able to perceive. With what marvellous fortitude of soul was he, conceived chiefly from love of Christ; a fortitude which not only would not itself yield, but even strengthened others by the example of its own endurance!
For when the pagan fury raged against each of the choicest members of Christ, and especially assailed those who were of the priestly order, the impious persecutor boiled with rage against the deacon Lawrence, who was preeminent not only in the ministry of the sacraments, but also in the dispensing of the ecclesiastical property. He set before himself a double prey from one man: if he had accomplished it, he would have made him a betrayer of the sacred money, and also an outcast from the true religion. So the man, greedy for money and enemy of truth, arms himself with a double torch: with avarice, to snatch the gold; with impiety, to take away Christ. He demands of the immaculate holy prelate the ecclesiastical wealth which, most greedily, he was eager to have brought in.
To him the most chaste deacon, showing where he had these treasures stored, brought forth most numerous flocks of holy poor, in whose food and clothing he had laid up imperishable resources. Which were the more entirely safe, the more holily they were shown to have been spent. The plunderer, cheated, rages, and burning in hatred of the religion which had instituted such a use of riches, he sets about the pillaging of a greater treasure, in whom he had found no store of coins; that deposit, by which he was rich in sacred things, he seeks to carry off, and orders Lawrence to renounce it, and prepares to press that most solid fortitude of the levitical soul with dire torments; when the first of these do not prevail, more violent ones follow:
he ordered his limbs, torn and cut by many strokes of the scourge, to be roasted over a fire placed beneath; so that through an iron grate, which already of its own continued heat had within it the force to burn, by the alternating turning of the members the torment might become more violent and the punishment more prolonged. Thou obtainest nothing, thou profitest nothing, cruel savagery; while Lawrence is relieved in heaven, thou failest with thy flames. The flame of the love of Christ could not be overcome, and the fire that burned without was slower than that which kindled within. Thou hast raged, persecutor, against the martyr, and thou hast increased his palm while thou heapest up his punishment. For what has thy ingenuity not devised for the victor's glory, when even the instruments of his torment have passed into the honour of his triumph?
Let us therefore rejoice, dearly beloved, with spiritual joy over the most happy end of this renowned man. Let us glory in the Lord, because he is wonderful in his saints, in whom he has established for us a defence and an example. And thus throughout the whole world he has glorified his glory, so that from the rising of the sun even to its setting the lights of the levitical lamps might gleam, and as Jerusalem was glorified by Stephen, so illustrious might Rome be made by Lawrence. By whose prayer and patronage we trust without ceasing to be aided, so that—since all, as the Apostle says, who wish to live godly in Christ suffer persecution—we may be strengthened by the spirit of charity, and fortified by the constancy of steadfast faith to overcome all temptations.