saint-of-the-day

Saint of the Day Dec 11 Pope Saint Damasus I

Lulee Falcon

Pope Saint Damasus I (/ˈdæməsəs/; c. 305 – 11 December 384) was Pope of the Catholic Church from October 366 to his death in 384. He presided over the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list of Sacred Scripture. He spoke out against major heresies in the church (including Apollinarianism and Macedonianism) and encouraged production of the Vulgate Bible with his support for St. Jerome. He helped reconcile the relations between the Church of Rome and the Church of Antioch, and encouraged the veneration of martyrs. As well as various prose letters and other pieces Damasus was the author of Latin verse which modern scholars find "lame and frigid". Alan Cameron describes his epitaph for a young girl called Projecta (of great interest to scholars as the Projecta Casket in the British Museum may have been made for her) as "a tissue of tags and clichés shakily strung together and barely squeezed into the meter". [Damasus has been described as "the first society Pope", and was apparently a member of a group of Iberian Christians, largely related to each other, who were close to the Iberian Theodosius I.A number of images of "DAMAS" in gold glass cups probably represent him and seem to be the first contemporary images of a pope to survive, though there is no real attempt at a likeness. "Damas" appears with other figures, including a Florus who may be Projecta's father. It has been suggested that Damasus or another of the group commissioned and distributed these to friends or supporters, as part of a programme "insistently inserting his episcopal presence in the Christian (and barely Christian!) landscape". He is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church; his feast day is December 11.

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