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The popes · No. 37 of 267

St Damasus I

He gave the West its Bible, and wrote poems for the martyrs’ graves.

Pope 366 to 84 · Opposed by Ursicinus, antipope (366-367)

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An eleventh-century manuscript painting of Pope Damasus enthroned, holding a book.

An eleventh-century manuscript: a later artist’s imagining. Unknown author. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The popes / St Damasus I

Rome, October 366

Damasus is elected pope by a large majority, but a rival faction consecrates a deacon named Ursinus instead.1

The rivals turn to violence and bloodshed in the streets of Rome.1

It is an ugly start. What Damasus did next is why he is remembered.

01St Damasus I

The Bible commission

Damasus persuaded St Jerome to revise the earlier Latin versions of the Bible, the work that became the Vulgate.1

Jerome also served for a time as his confidential secretary.1

For more than a thousand years, almost every Christian in the West who heard the Bible heard the translation this pope commissioned.

02St Damasus I

Poet of the catacombs

Damasus restored the catacombs and wrote verse epitaphs for the martyrs, carved in a beautiful lettering by his friend Furius Dionysius Filocalus.1

One of his inscriptions is still preserved in the Vatican crypts.1

The Crypt of the Popes in the Catacomb of St Callixtus, Rome: a vaulted chamber where third-century popes were buried.
The Crypt of the Popes in the Catacomb of St Callixtus, which Damasus restored and honoured with his inscriptions. Dnalor 01, 2007. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The next great pope would face the most feared man in Europe.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “Pope St. Damasus I”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.