DAMASUS I, Pope, Saint. - Reigning from 366 to 384, born probably in Rome, where his father, Anthony, made his entire ecclesiastical career (exceptor, lector, deacon and bishop) in his own house, later reduced by D. to a titular church and seat of the papal archives. He soon followed his father's career and was a deacon when, toward the end of 355, Liberius was abducted from his see. Having first drawn near to the antipope Felix, he then returned in 358 to Liberius, whom he served until the latter's death (24 Sept. 366), preceded shortly before by that of Felix.
The majority now declared for D., but the minority of anti-Felician rigorists opposed to him the deacon Ursinus. Bloody disputes followed through the streets and the churches, in which D. already in 366 ended up gaining the upper hand, with the civil authority on his side. Little by little the Ursinians were deprived of their churches, were expelled from Rome, from the suburbanic diocese and even (their leaders) from Italy. Their tactic was always that of citing D. before the civil authority for the bloodshed of 366, of protesting before the Emperor their innocence and perfect Catholicity. Thus there was with regard to them a a perpetual alternation of severity and indulgence, continuous troubles and dangers for D.
Three moments above all are to be noted. In 368 D. succeeded in having the rivals driven out of the last basilica they held, St. Agnes Outside the Walls, indeed 20 miles away from Rome (to that time must be referred the verse Epigrammata, 42,4, pro reditu clavi Christo prestante triumphans). In 373 the skilful intervention of Evagrius, the friend of St. Jerome, succeeded in saving him tam paene factionis laqueis inretitum (Jerome, Epist., 1,15). There then followed the important rescript of Valentinian which reserved the causes of ecclesiastics to the emperor himself and to the Pope. In 377-78 Ursinus, through the learned converted Jew Isaac, succeeded in fabricating against D. a great trial, probably de vi (turpissima calumniae says the emperor); D. then had to make a vow to St. Felix of Nola, the famous avenger of calumniated truth, wherefore, once acquitted (and Isaac too relegated to a corner of Spain), he thanked him: te duce servatus mortis quod vincula rupi, hostibus extinctis fuerant qui falsa locuti (Epigr. 59). Shortly afterwards the Council of Rome of 380 protested against the emperor over these continuous extortions. Finally, still in 381, the machinations of the eunuch Paschasius, emissary of Ursinus exiled to Cologne, succeeded in creating serious embarrassments for the Pontiff; hence the protests (which seem to have obtained full effect this time) of the Council of Aquileia before the emperor Gratian.
With such tribulations at home (added to those caused him by the ever-active Luciferians, Novatianists and Donatists of Rome) D. could not attend to the general interests of the Church as much as would have been desired of him. He nevertheless did a very great deal. He is the first pope who each year, on the day of his election (Sept. 30), seems to have gathered around himself in council the bishops of suburbanic Italy. In such councils he took many decisions concerning the universal Church. If, unfortunately, he did not wish to concern himself with the nascent Priscillianism of Spain and with the express complaints of Priscillian himself, contenting himself with vague recommendations of moderation to the Council of Saragossa of 380, he replied exhaustively to the consultations of the bishops of Gaul in a letter (of ca. 374) that may be called the first decretal, instituted with Acholius the papal vicariate of Thessalonica for eastern Illyricum, proceeded in various synods against the last Arian bishops of the West (especially Illyrian), supporting in this the more energetic action of Ambrose, received in Rome, from 373 to 378, Peter, a fugitive from his see of Alexandria, was a good champion of the papal primacy, so much so that Theodosius, recalling the Eastern empire to Catholicism, gave those bishops as their norm the faith followed by D. of Rome and Peter of Alexandria. Therefore one may, with the manuscripts, trace back to D. (perhaps to the Roman Council of 382) the first three chapters of the so-called Decretum Gelasianum (v. GELASIANO DECRETO) with their scriptural canon and the energetic affirmation of the papal primacy.
But the East would above all have needed his decisive and enlightened concern against the Arians protected by Valens, against nascent Apollinarianism, and to regulate the Antiochene and Constantinopolitan successions. This too was among the desires of Athanasius and still more of Basil, but it was done only in small samples and as it were by force, and for the most part unhappily. D. and the Westerners (Ambrose in particular) were too compromised with the Antiochene minority of Paulinus, Marcellus of Ancyra and his little church, Apollinaris and Vitalis; the close union with Alexandria led them even to give some support to Maximus the Cynic, intruded at Constantinople, and to wish to ignore Gregory Nazianzen. That half-indolence and that continual headwind disgusted the soul of St. Basil, who let himself go against D. with very bitter words, as against a proud and pitiless man. It must be said, however, that the Roman Council of 377 set out the condemnation of the doctrines, if not of the persons, and in 381 the letter of Thessalonica stigmatized the attempt of Maximus the Cynic. It is therefore no wonder that D. remained practically extraneous to the Council of Constantinople of 381 (Ecumenical II) and little less so to the parallel Western one of Aquileia, which was the work of Ambrose. The Council that met at Rome in the middle of 382 should have been ecumenical and should have composed by common accord what had been done at Aquileia and at Constantinople, but it succeeded only in ratifying the election of Nectarius.
To this Council there also came from Constantinople St. Jerome, already known to D. by letter, especially for his scriptural knowledge. D. kept him dear as long as he lived, as secretary and biblical consultant. On his commission he carried out a first revision of the Psalter and that of the New Testament. According to Jerome, he would also have been naturally designated to succeed him, were it not for the opposition of the ecclesiastics, irritated by the bitter criticism of their morals and jealous of his apostolic successes in the field of women.
D. is the pope of the first decretals and also the first writer who illustrated the chair of St. Peter. St. Jerome recalls various brevica opuscula of his in hexameters and a little treatise De virginitate versus prosque, praising his elegans in versibus componendis ingenium (De viris illustribus, 103 and Epist., 22, 22). So it may have been, but such do not appear to be the many little poetic compositions that survive from him, poor in substance, style, inspiration and even phrasing, precious nevertheless for their archaeological and hagiographic interest. In fact they are generally metrical eulogies in honor of Roman martyrs, made to be engraved on marble slabs on their tombs by the hand of the famous calligrapher Furius Dionysius Philocalus (v.), a personal friend of the Pontiff. Others recall works carried out in the cemeteries at the tombs of the martyrs or in the Roman basilicas; a good group has notable autobiographical interest. Thanks to them D. is the first pope of whom we know something of his life before the papacy.
He was not, however, the first to concern himself with ecclesiastical building, but he easily surpassed all his predecessors. By this he earned the undying gratitude of archaeologists, who have chosen him as their patron. Besides the basilica of St. Lawrence, D. built that suburban one of Sts. Mark and Marcellian, in which he was buried with his mother and sister; he built and adorned the basilica of the Apostles on the Appian Way, and in almost all the catacombs he carried out significant works to adorn the tombs of the martyrs and to facilitate their visitation and veneration. With this he paid his tribute to a time in which the cult of the martyrs was developing exuberantly; to suppose all that activity to have had ulterior motives (foundation of jurisdictional primacy, placating the hostility of the Romans) is simply unhistorical.
The apocryphal D. risks surpassing the genuine one. Numerous are the poems falsely ascribed to him, numerous the pieces received in the False Decretals, especially of pseudo-Isidore. To be noted separately is the correspondence with St. Jerome for the Lib. Pont. (v.; since this work too was soon attributed to D.), and the other for the version of the Psalter, in which the Western use of psalmody in the churches is traced back to D., concluding the psalms with the Gloria Patri, a legend already received in the Lib. Pont.