A Contested Election
Damasus served at the Church of San Lorenzo in Rome and eventually became archdeacon. On the death of Pope Liberius in October 366 he was elected Bishop of Rome by a large majority, but the election was violently contested: the deacon Ursinus was set up as a rival by supporters drawn largely from the lower classes, while the patricians backed Damasus. Emperor Valentinian I recognized Damasus's authority and banished Ursinus to Cologne in 367.
In 378 Damasus faced an accusation of adultery, but he was exonerated both by Emperor Gratian and by a Roman synod of forty-four bishops.
Defender of the Nicene Faith
Damasus actively combated the heresies of his age. Through two Roman synods held in 368 and 369 he condemned Apollinarianism, which denied the fullness of Christ's humanity, and Macedonianism, which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Around 369–370 he excommunicated Auxentius, the Arian Bishop of Milan.
His concern for orthodoxy extended to the wider Church: he sent legates to the Second Ecumenical Council, held at Constantinople in 381, where the assembled fathers likewise voted against these heresies.
The Canon of Scripture and the Vulgate
A Roman synod of 374 proclaimed an important statement on the New Testament canon, and the Council of Rome in 382, over which Damasus presided, established the official canon of sacred Scripture.
When Jerome came to Rome, Damasus appointed him his confidential secretary and, in 382, entrusted to him the revision of the older Latin translations of the Bible. Jerome worked on this project in Rome during roughly 382 to 385; the result was the Latin version later known as the Vulgate, which would shape Western Christianity for more than a thousand years.
Poet of the Martyrs
Damasus restored and opened access to the tombs of the martyrs in the catacombs of Rome, setting up tablets bearing verse inscriptions that he composed himself. These epitaphs were executed in a distinctive lettering, the so-called Damasan Letters, cut by his associate Furius Dionysius Filocalus.
His surviving poetry includes brief epigrammatic verses and hymns, the Carmina, honoring various martyrs and saints.
Building in Rome
Damasus restored the church of San Lorenzo in Damaso and built a marble monument, the so-called Platonia, in the basilica of St. Sebastian, commemorating the tradition of the temporary transfer of the bodies of the Apostles Peter and Paul. He also built a baptistery at the Vatican in honor of St. Peter.
He constructed a small church on the Via Ardeatina, where he was eventually buried together with his mother and his sister.
