Historical Badass of the Day: Saint Lawrence

I probably shouldn’t refer to a saint as a “Badass”, but you read through this and tell me if you can come up with a better adjective.

There’s a lot of badasses out there. There’s an awesome site I go to from time to time to read about just crazy badasses. The kind of badasses who make Mr. T look like Andy Dick. My favorite of all time is Simo Häyhä and you just have to read his story to believe it, ’cause dude was off the chain. Anyway, Saint Lawrence isn’t on that site, and he definitely deserved a home, so I am giving it to him here.

First off, why St. Lawrence? Well, if Wiki is to be believed (and naturally nothing there is ever innaccurate) then St Lawrence of Rome was the patron saint of: Commedians, Canadians, Prostitutes, Students, Librarians and Chefs. That alone represents all three writers here, and conservatively 98.2% of our readership.

Anyway, Lawrence lived from circa 225 until 258, when he came to his untimely death in a manner which is even more badass than Mel Gibson in Braveheart. More on that later. According to Orthodoxwiki (does anyone NOT have a wiki at this point?):

Little is known about St. Lawrence. His Acts were lost by the time of Augustine. Legend states that he was a native of Northern Spain, who had received instruction from St. Sixtus while he was an archdeacon in Rome. When Sixtus rose to the papacy in 257, Lawrence was ordained a deacon and was charged with the administration of ecclesiastical alms for the poor.

Anyway, in August of 258, the Emperor Valerian issued a command that all priests, deacons, bishops, et al were to be put to death. According to St Ambrose of Milan, Lawrence ran into the Pope as the latter was being led to his execution. Lawrence asked:

“Where are you going, my dear father, without your son? Where are you hurrying off to, holy priest, without your deacon? Before you never mounted the altar of sacrifice without your servant, and now you wish to do it without me?” The Pope is reported to have prophesied that “after three days you will follow me”.

And so he did. They first tortured him extensively looking for information on other Christians, and then they laid him a top a grill, to be slowly cooked to death. Put somewhat more intellectually, according to The Golden Legend or Lives Of The Saints, Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275:

And the ministers despoiled him, and laid him stretched out upon a gridiron of iron, and laid burning coals under, and held him with forks of iron. Then said Laurenee to Valerianus: Learn, thou cursed wretch, that thy coals give to me refreshing of coldness, and make ready to thee torment perdurable, and our Lord knoweth that I, being accused, have not forsaken him, and when I was demanded I confessed him Christ, and I being roasted give thankings unto God.

Despite the extensive torture, Lawrence never relented and gave up the INTEL. However, shortly before his death it is reported that he yelled out to his torturers:

Assum est, inquit, versa et manduca.

“This side’s done, turn me over and have a bite.”

Anyway, from now on, for any of my Warrior’s Code posts I intend to invoke the name of St. Lawrence of Rome, the ultimate warrior. And I will of course be honoring his feast this year, as should you all, on August the 10th.

H/t Son of Siggurd

Category: Politics