DAMASUS I, POPE, saint. - Reigned from 366 to 384, born probably in Rome, where his father, Antonius, pursued his entire ecclesiastical career (exceptor, lector, deacon, and bishop) within his own home, which was later converted by D. into a titular church and the seat of the papal archives. He quickly followed in his father’s footsteps and was a deacon when, toward the end of 355, Liberius was forcibly removed from his see. Initially aligning himself with the antipope Felix, he later returned in 358 to Liberius, whom he served until his death (24 September 366), shortly preceded by that of Felix.
The majority now declared for D., but the minority of rigorist antifelicians opposed him by backing the deacon Ursinus. Violent clashes ensued in the streets and churches, in which D. by the end of 366 had already gained the upper hand and secured civil authority on his side. Gradually, the Ursinians were stripped of their churches, expelled from Rome, from the suburban diocese, and even (their leaders) from Italy. Their tactic was always to bring charges against D. before the civil authorities for the bloodshed of 366, and to protest their innocence and perfect Catholic orthodoxy before the Emperor. Thus, regarding them, there was a
DAMASO I, POPE - Epitaph of the Mother of D., found in the cubicle of the Twelve Apostles, located to the north of St. Callistus. Fragment of the original marble and an ancient cast found on the side of a marble block. The mother was called Lorenza; she lived 92 years, of which sixty in widowhood, and saw the fourth generation.
DAMASUS I, POPE, saint. — Reigned from 366 to 384, born probably in Rome, where he died on 11 December 384. He was buried in the basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on the Via Appia, which he himself had built. His feast is celebrated on 11 December.
His was a life of perpetual alternation between severity and indulgence, beset by continuous annoyances and dangers.
Three moments are especially noteworthy. In 368 D. succeeded in driving his rivals from the last basilica they still held, that of St. Agnes outside the walls, indeed twenty miles from Rome (to this period one should refer the verse in Epigrammata, 42,4: pro reditu clavi Christo prestante triumphans). In 373 the skillful intervention of Evagrius, the friend of St. Jerome, saved him tam paene factionis laqueis inretitum (Jerome, Epist., 1,15). At that time there was issued the important rescript of Valentinian reserving the cases of ecclesiastics to the emperor himself and to the Pope. In 377–78 Ursicinus, through the learned converted Jew Isaac, contrived to bring against D. a great prosecution, probably de vi (turpissima calumniae says the emperor). D. then made a vow to St. Felix of Nola, renowned vindicator of slandered truth, by whose intercession he was subsequently acquitted (and Isaac was also relegated to a corner of Spain), and he thanked Him: te duce servatus mortis quod vincula rupi, hostibus extinctis fuerant qui falsa locuti (Epigr. 59). Shortly afterward, the Council of Rome of 380 protested to the emperor against these continual extortions. Finally, in 381 the machinations of the eunuch Pascasius, Ursicinus’s envoy exiled to Cologne, caused serious embarrassment to the Pope; hence the protests (which seem to have achieved full effect this time) of the Council of Aquileia to the emperor Gratian.
Amid such tribulations at home (added to those caused him by the ever-active Luciferians, Novatians, and Donatists of Rome), D. could not attend to the general interests of the Church as much as might have been desired. Yet he accomplished much. He is the first pope who, every year on the anniversary of his election (30 September), appears to have gathered around him in council the bishops of the suburbicarian provinces. In these councils he took many decisions of interest to the universal Church. Though he unfortunately declined to deal with the nascent Priscillianism in Spain and with the explicit complaints of Priscillian himself, contenting himself with vague recommendations of moderation to the Council of Saragossa in 380, he responded exhaustively to the consultations of the bishops of Gaul in a letter (c. 374) that may be called the first decretal. He established with Acolius the papal vicariate of Thessalonica for eastern Illyricum, and in various synods he proceeded against the last Arian bishops of the West (especially in Illyricum), thereby supporting the more energetic action of Ambrose. From 373 to 378 he welcomed in Rome Peter, who had fled from his see in Alexandria. He was a strong advocate of the papal primacy, so much so that Theodosius, recalling the Eastern empire to Catholicism, gave as a norm to those bishops the faith followed by D. of Rome and Peter of Alexandria. Hence one may, with the codices, trace back to D. (perhaps to the Roman Council of 382) the first three chapters of the so-called Decretum Gelasianum (see GELASIAN DECREE) with their scriptural canon and the energetic affirmation of the papal primacy.
But the East above all would have needed his decisive and enlightened intervention against the Arians protected by Valens, the nascent Apollinarianism, and to regulate the Antiochene and Constantinopolitan successions. This was also desired by Athanasius and even more by Basil, but it was done only in small steps and as it were by force, and for the most part unsuccessfully. D. and the Westerners (Ambrose in particular) were too compromised with the minority at Antioch of Paulinus, Marcellus of Ancyra and his little church, Apollinaris and Vitalis; their close union with Alexandria even led them to give some support to the intruder Maximus the Cynic at Constantinople and to ignore the Nazianzen. That half-heartedness and that continual headwind vexed the soul of St. Basil, who allowed himself to speak of D. in very bitter terms, as of a proud and merciless man. Yet it must be said that the Roman Council of 377 stands out for its condemnation of doctrines, if not of persons, and in 381 the letter from Thessalonica stigmatized the attempt of Maximus the Cynic. It is therefore no wonder that D. remained practically a stranger to the Council of Constantinople of 381 (the Second Ecumenical Council) and little less so to the parallel Western council at Aquileia, which was Ambrose’s work. The council that met in Rome in mid-382 was to have been ecumenical and to compose in common accord what had been done at Aquileia and Constantinople, but it succeeded only in ratifying the election of Nectarius.
To this council there came from Constantinople St. Jerome, already known to D. by letter, especially for his scriptural learning. D. held him dear until his death, as his secretary and biblical consultant. At his behest Jerome carried out a first revision of the Psalter and that of the New Testament. According to Jerome, he would naturally have been designated to succeed D., had it not been for the opposition of the clergy, irritated by his sharp criticism of their morals and jealous of his apostolic successes in the sphere of women.
D. is the pope of the first decretals and also the first writer to illustrate the Chair of St. Peter. St. Jerome recalls various short works in hexameters and a little treatise De virginitate versus prosque, praising his elegant talent for composing verse (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 remain of him, poor in matter, style, and inspiration, and even in phrasing, though valuable for their archaeological and hagiographical interest. In fact they are generally metrical praises in honor of Roman martyrs, made to be inscribed on marble slabs over their tombs by the hand of the celebrated calligrapher Furius Dionysius Philocalus (see PHILOCALUS), a personal friend of the Pope. Others recall works carried out in the cemeteries at the tombs of the martyrs or in the Roman basilicas; a good group has considerable autobiographical interest. Thanks to these, 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 far surpassed all his predecessors. In this he earned the everlasting gratitude of archaeologists, who have chosen him as their patron. Besides the basilica of St. Lawrence, he built that of SS. Mark and Marcellian in the suburbs, where 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 facilitate their visitation and veneration. In this he was paying his tribute at a time when the cult of the martyrs was flourishing exuberantly; to suppose that all that activity had ulterior motives (foundation of jurisdictional primacy, placating the hostility of the Romans) is simply ahistorical.
The apocryphal D. threatens to surpass the genuine. Numerous are the poems falsely inscribed to him, numerous the pieces included in the False Decretals, especially of pseudo-Isidore. Apart, one should note the correspondence with St. Jerome for the Liber Pontificalis (see LIBER PONTIFICALIS; since even this work was soon attributed to D.), and the other concerning the translation of the Psalter, in which the Western use of singing the psalms in churches with the Gloria Patri at the end is traced back to D., a legend already found in the Liber Pontificalis.