Damasus of Rome

• Damasus was born at Rome, where his family was well established and his father was engaged in an ecclesiastical career.
• Damasus was a deacon of Liberius when the latter was sent to exile by Constantius in 355.
• At the death of Liberius, he was elected bishop of Rome.
• He was a forceful opponent of Arianism and other forms of heresy; in this he enjoyed the support of St. Peter of Alexandria, who was his firm friend all along and was associated with him in the condemnation of Apollinaris.
• His interest in Scripture was shown to his commission to his secretary, St. Jerome, to revise existing Old Latin

versions of the Bible in light of the Greek text; an assignment that would eventually result in the Vulgate.

• St. Jerome speaks in high terms of Damasus; calling him “that illustrious man, that virgin doctor of the virgin church”, “eager to catch the first sound of the preaching of continence” who “wrote both verse and prose in favor of virginity.”
• From this, we understand that Damasus was a patron of the growing monastic party.
• The best known record of Damasus will always be his labor of love in the catacombs of Rome. He searched ardently and devotedly for the tombs of the martyrs, which had been blocked up and hidden by the Christians during the last persecution.
• Almost all the catacombs bear traces of his labors, and modern discovery is continually bringing to light fragments of the inscriptions which he composed in honor of the martyrs.
• Damasus, indeed, deserves our gratitude for calling forth the genius of St. Jerome.

• He is one of the greatest writers that has appeared among the bishops of the Roman Church.
• His own contributions to Christian literature were mainly hymns and epitaphs.
• A number of his letters survive, although the authenticity of some is doubtful.
• The genuineness of three letters in Damasus’ name contained in the correspondence of St. Jerome has come into question.
• A decretal addressed to the bishops of Gaul on disciplinary matters is probably authentic.
• The fourth letter,The Tome of Damasus,is a summaryof

errors pertaining to the Trinity and to Christology in a profession of faith drawn up by a Roman council (382) and sent to Paulinus of Antioch.

• Damasus may have composed the first three parts of the Decretum Gelasianum, those on the Holy Spirit, the canon of Scripture, and the Roman see as the source of authority, in connection with a Roman council (382), but the work as a whole is probably a product of southern Gaul in the later 5th or early 6th century.
• Damasus’ greatest literary fame is connected with the numerous epigrams (titles) he composed to honor the martyrs or deceased relatives and friends, or in memory of various undertakings. The majority of the inscriptions are known from transcriptions made in the Middle Ages.
• His epigrams carry much historical and archaeological importance.
• St. Jerome attributes to him works on virginity (e.g. De virginitate) in both prose and verse, but these are now lost.