Saint Damasus I, Pope

Damasus was born about 305, probably in Rome, the son of a priest, and served as a deacon. His election as bishop of Rome in 366 was contested by the supporters of Ursinus, and the historian Ammianus Marcellinus records that 137 people were killed in one day of fighting in a basilica. As pope he held councils in Rome on the teaching of the Trinity and asked his secretary Jerome to revise the Latin text of the Gospels. He searched out and restored the tombs of the martyrs in the catacombs and wrote verse inscriptions for them, carved in elegant letters by the calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus; many still survive. He died on 11 December 384.