Essays in Idleness

Alas, after a few consecutive days without an Idlepost from me, some readers have concluded that I am at Death’s Door. But really, I am only on the verandah.

Saint Lawrence, whose day this is, would anyway be special to me, for he was born on December 31st — the day I was formally received into the Catholic Church, though quite a few centuries later. And it is precisely fifty-five years since Lawrence’s saint day, back in 1969. I did not realize at the time, however. (There were quite a few things I did not realize, when I was sixteen; and even today, I am fairly stupid.)

The fox knows many little things that the hedgehog doesn’t know, but I knew one big thing, like the hedgehog in Archilochus. What it was, I will not tell you, today.

Pope Sixtus II had made Lawrence, his fellow Spaniard, archdeacon of Rome, a job which entailed minding the Church treasury, and conducting alms into the hands of the poor — especially the hungry, old widows, and consecrated virgins. But the Emperor Valerian (also memorable) had Sixtus martyred in early August, 258 AD, as part of his policy to have all the Catholic bishops, priests, and deacons rounded up and executed. Sixtus was caught red-handed, celebrating Mass in the Cemetery of Saint Callixtus.

Lawrence was also immediately surrendered to the prefect of Rome, who instructed him to turn over all the riches of the Church, thought then as now to be extraordinarily wealthy. He said he would need three days to collect it all. The saint used this time to distribute the loot among all the indigents of the Urbs Aeterna, before returning to the prefect — with a little delegation of the blind, crippled, and so forth.

“Here are the treasures of my Church,” he declared. “As you can see we are much richer than your Emperor!”

This annoyed the prefect, as it would any humourless bureaucrat or tax collector. Lawrence was prepared atop a great gridiron, with lighted coals, to be toasted. (This account is disputed by “scholars,” whose job is to doubt everything they have learnt.)

After he had been toasted on these coals for awhile, but as he was still lively — thanks to Christ’s intercession — he cried out, that he was entirely done on one side, and should be turned over. That is why Saint Lawrence is the patron of cooks, and comedians.