Feast day: December 11
Pope St. Damasus I
A pope who defended orthodox faith, restored and honored the tombs of the martyrs in the catacombs, and commissioned St. Jerome to produce the Latin Bible that became the Vulgate.
Damasus became Bishop of Rome in 366 and reigned for nearly two decades, through the years when Christianity, newly tolerated, was becoming the dominant faith of the Roman Empire — and when the Church was racked by the Arian controversy over the divinity of Christ. His election was marred by a violent contest with a rival claimant, but he went on to become one of the most important popes of the early Church.
He was a vigorous defender of orthodoxy against Arianism and other heresies, working to assert the authority and the doctrinal leadership of the Roman see. He held synods at Rome that condemned error, and gave strong support to the Nicene faith that would triumph at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
His two greatest legacies were scholarly and devotional. He commissioned his brilliant secretary, St. Jerome, to produce a reliable Latin translation of the Bible — the project that became the Vulgate, the standard Bible of the Western Church for more than a thousand years.
And he was the great patron of the Roman martyrs: he sought out, restored, and adorned their tombs in the catacombs, composing beautiful verse epitaphs to honour them, carved in an elegant script designed for the purpose. He died in 384, remembered as a pope who defended the faith, gave the Church its Latin Bible, and kept alive the memory of its martyrs.
It was he who set St. Jerome to translating the Bible into Latin — the Vulgate that would be the Western Church's Scripture for over a thousand years.
Image: Unknown authorUnknown author (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/04613a.htm
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