Pope Damasus

Damasus I was Bishop of Rome from 366 to 384 and is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church. He was born in Rome in the early fourth century. Ancient lists such as the Liber Pontificalis call him a Spaniard by origin, but the more widely accepted view among modern historians is that he was born in Rome, possibly to a family of Spanish extraction. His father, Antonius, served as a priest at the Roman church of Saint Lawrence. His mother was named Laurentia, and he had a sister, Irene, who embraced the life of a consecrated virgin. Raised in a clerical household, Damasus became a deacon of the Roman church and was closely associated with Pope Liberius, remaining in Rome during that pope's exile under Constantius II.

When Liberius died in 366, the Roman community split. One faction elected Damasus; another elected the deacon Ursinus. The rivalry produced serious street fighting. Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary pagan historian, reported that a single confrontation in the basilica of Sicininus left one hundred thirty-seven people dead. The imperial government of Valentinian I recognized Damasus as the legitimate bishop. Ursinus was expelled from Rome, yet his supporters continued to agitate, and Damasus faced further accusations, including a charge of adultery from which a synod and the court of the emperor Gratian cleared him. The episode illustrated both the violence that could attend episcopal elections in the fourth-century capital and the increasing involvement of the Christian emperors in determining the occupant of the Roman see.

During his eighteen-year pontificate Damasus sought to consolidate orthodox teaching and the prestige of his office. He opposed remaining Arian influence and condemned Apollinarianism. He held several Roman synods, notably one in 382 attended by Eastern and Western bishops, at which Jerome was present. Damasus made Jerome his secretary and asked him to produce a more accurate Latin text of the Gospels on the basis of the Greek, a commission that inaugurated Jerome's labors on what became the Vulgate. Damasus strongly asserted that the Bishop of Rome succeeded to the authority of the apostle Peter, and he pressed this claim in relations with the churches of the East, emphasizing Rome's status among the apostolic sees. A canon list has long been associated with a Roman council of his time, though scholars continue to discuss the exact date and documentary transmission of that list.

Damasus devoted great energy to the memory of the Roman martyrs. He had the catacombs searched, tombs identified and repaired, and stairways and lighting improved so that pilgrims could visit the shrines. For many of these tombs he composed short Latin poems, known as the Damasian epigrams, which were cut into marble by the skilled engraver Furius Dionysius Filocalus in a characteristic script. The verses mixed devotion, historical claim, and papal self-presentation. He also built and embellished churches in the city, among them the basilica of San Lorenzo in Damaso, near the Theater of Pompey, on a site connected with his family's service at the church of Saint Lawrence. Through these projects he helped fix a topography of Christian Rome that later centuries inherited.

He died in Rome on 11 December 384 and was buried in a basilica he had prepared on the Via Ardeatina, near his mother and sister. Siricius succeeded him. The Church keeps his feast on 11 December. Because of his systematic work on the martyrs' burial places and inscriptions, he is invoked as a patron of archaeologists. Later ages remembered him as a pope who bound the Roman see more tightly to Petrine claims, to Nicene orthodoxy, to the Latin Bible, and to the cult of the city's saints.