Note 21 — Chapter IX · MARTYRS.
William F. Fleming translation
We most certainly have a proper deference for whatever the Holy Church has made the objects of our reverence; accordingly, we invoke the blessed martyrs; but at the same time that we pay St. Laurence all due respect, may we not be permitted to doubt that St. Sixtus said to him: “You will follow me in three days.” That, during this short interval, the prefect of Rome made him demand a sum of money of the Christians; that Laurence had time to assemble all the poor people in that city; that he walked before the prefect, to show him the place where they were assembled; that he was afterwards tried and condemned to the torture; that the prefect ordered the smith to make a gridiron large enough to broil a man upon; that the principal magistrate of Rome assisted in person at this strange execution; and lastly that St. Laurence, while upon the gridiron, called out to him, “I am done enough on this side, let them turn me on the other, if you have a mind to eat me.” This same gridiron seems to have very little of the Roman genius in it; and besides, how happens it that we do not find a word of this story in any of the heathen writers?