St. Damasus

St. Damasus I was born around 305, probably in Rome to a family of Iberian origin; his father served the Roman Church as a priest. Damasus grew up in the service of the church of San Lorenzo in Rome and rose through the ranks of the clergy, becoming a deacon under Pope Liberius. On Liberius's death in 366 he was elected Bishop of Rome, though a rival faction set up the antipope Ursinus, and the early years of his pontificate were marked by violent factional strife that he worked to overcome. As pope for eighteen years, Damasus proved a vigorous defender of orthodox faith in a turbulent age. He condemned Arianism and Apollinarianism, supported the teaching later confirmed at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, and asserted the primacy of the See of Rome as the see of Peter. Under his pontificate Christianity was increasingly established in Roman public life, and a council held at Rome in 382 is traditionally associated with an early listing of the canonical books of Scripture. Damasus is best remembered for two great works of Christian memory. First, he engaged the brilliant scholar St. Jerome as his secretary and commissioned him to revise the Latin text of the Bible—the beginning of the work that became the Vulgate, the Latin Bible of the Western Church for over a millennium. Second, he devoted himself to the tombs of the Roman martyrs, draining and restoring the catacombs, opening them to pilgrims, and composing elegant verse epitaphs, carved in beautiful lettering by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus, many of which survive. Damasus died in Rome on December 11, 384. Venerated as a saint from early times, he is honored on December 11 in the General Roman Calendar. Because of his loving care for the catacombs and the memorials of the martyrs, he is invoked as the patron of archaeologists, and his epigrams still greet pilgrims who descend into the catacombs along the Appian Way.