Saint Damasus

Pope († 384)
Feast – December 11

In the year 272 in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea (today Niš, Serbia), Flavius Valerius Constantinus, also known as Constantine the Great was born to Flavius Constantius, an Illyrian army officer who became one of the four emperors of the Tetrarchy and Helena, a holy Christian woman of low social standing from Helenopolis of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, modern Turkey.

Constantine served with distinction under emperors Diocletian and Galerius campaigning in the eastern provinces against barbarians and the Persians. In 305 he was recalled west to fight under his father in Britain. After his father’s death in 306, Constantine was acclaimed as emperor by the army at Eboracum (York). He played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which ended persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. By 324 he emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors Maxentius and Licinius and become sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity. In those transitional and crucial times for the Catholic Church, about year 304 in Rome St. Damasus was born. His parents were Antonius and Laurentia. Both parents originally come from the Lusitania region covering today autonomous community of Extremadura and a part of the province of Salamanca in Spain. St. Damasus grew up in Rome in the service of the church of the martyr St. Laurence, which later became the basilica of San Lorenzo where his father received Holy Orders and served as parish priest. He began his ecclesiastical career as a deacon in his father’s church, and later served as a priest. Described by St. Jerome as “an incomparable person, learned in the Scriptures, a virgin doctor of the virgin Church, who loved chastity” he distinguished himself from others and in 352 was called to serve the Catholic Church as archdeacon to the Pope St. Liberius.

Three hundred years of Roman oppression ended, arenas were empty, but the war continued. Heresies such as Arianism, Apollinarianism and Macedonianism were confusing and dividing Christians in the east and west. When in 354 Emperor Constantius II, a promotor of Arianism, banished Pope St. Liberius to Beroea, an ancient city of the Hellenistic period and Roman Empire now known as Veria in Macedonia, northern Greece, a faithful archdeacon followed him into exile, but afterwards returned to Rome.

After more than two years in exile the emperor recalled him under extreme pressure from the Roman population who refused to recognize his puppet, Felix II. As the Roman See was “officially” occupied by Felix, a year passed before St. Liberius came back to Rome. It was the emperor’s intention that St. Liberius should govern the Church jointly with Felix, but upon his arrival, Felix was expelled by the Roman people. During the period before St. Liberius’ return, St. Damasus had a great share in the government of the church.

Following the death of Pope St. Liberius on 24 September 366, St. Damasus was elected by a large majority as the new Bishop of Rome, but a minority proclaimed deacon Ursinus as Pope, inciting a revolt in Rome, which resulted in violent battles in two basilicas, where 137 people died. Emperor Valentinian came to the defense of St. Damasus and drove the usurper from Rome for a time. Later he returned, and finding accomplices for his evil intentions, accused the Holy Pontiff of adultery. St. Damasus took only such action as was becoming to the common father of the faithful; in 378 he assembled a synod of forty-four bishops, in which he justified himself so well that the calumniators were excommunicated and banished.

As Pope his lifestyle was simple in contrast to many ecclesiastics of Rome. St. Damascus was fierce in his denunciation of heresies. In two Roman synods (368 and 369) he condemned Apollinarianism and Macedonianism and in 381 he sent his legate St. Zenobius to the Council of Constantinople convoked against the aforesaid heresies and to console the faithful who were cruelly persecuted by the fanatic Arian Emperor Valens.

In order to put an end to the marked divergences in the western texts of that period, St. Damasus encouraged the highly respected scholar St. Jerome to revise the available Old Latin versions of the Bible into a more accurate Latin on the basis of the Greek New Testament and the Septuagint, resulting in the Vulgate. One of the most important works of Pope Damasus was to preside in the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list of Sacred Scripture.

In the meantime, St. Damasus rebuilt and adorned the Church of Saint Laurence, still called Saint Laurence in Damaso, and provided for the proper housing of the archives of the Roman Church. He built in the basilica of St. Sebastian on the Appian Way the marble monument known as the “Platonia” in honour of the temporary transfer to that place of the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul and decorated it with an important historical inscription. He also built on the Via Ardeatina, between the cemeteries of Callistus and Domitilla, a basilicula, or small church, the ruins of which were discovered in 1902 in which, according to the “Liber Pontificalis”, the pope was buried with his mother and sister.

St. Damasus built at the Vatican a baptistery in honour of St. Peter. He had the springs of the Vatican drained, since they were inundating the tombs of the holy persons buried there, and he decorated the sepulchers of a great number of martyrs in the cemeteries, adorning them with epitaphs in verse.

His eighteen year reign reinforced the primacy of the Apostolic See and the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman Church based, not on the decrees of councils, but on the very words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18).

During his pontificate on 27 February 380, emperor Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius issued the Edict of Thessalonica “De fide Catholica” which proclaimed Catholicism, the doctrine which St. Peter had preached to the Romans and of which Pope St. Damasus was head, as the religion of the Roman State. The “Altar of Victory” was removed, no more Vestal Virgins, an no pagan priests reading in the Senate.

The Church was in the ascendancy. the Bishop of Rome’s importance swelled. Latin became the principal liturgical language as part of the pope’s reforms. Pope St. Damasus rode the first wave of these historical and religious trends. He was perhaps the first pope to rule with swagger. He died on the 10th of December in 384, when he was nearly eighty years old. In the eighth century, his relics were definitively placed in the church of Saint Laurence in Damaso, except for his head, conserved in the Basilica of Saint Peter.

References and Excerpts:

[1]          F. Media, “Saint Damasus I | Franciscan Media.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-damasus-i (accessed Jan. 09, 2021).

[2]          “Saint Damasus, Pope.” https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_damasus.html (accessed Jan. 09, 2021).

[3]          “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Pope St. Damasus I.” https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04613a.htm (accessed Jan. 09, 2021).

[4]          “Memorial of Saint Damasus I, Pope,” My Catholic Life! https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/11-december-saint-damasus-i-pope-optional-memorial/ (accessed Jan. 09, 2021).

[5]          “Pope Damasus I,” Wikipedia. Dec. 22, 2020, Accessed: Jan. 09, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pope_Damasus_I&oldid=995639706.