(1 Oct. 366 — 11 Dec. 384)
Born in Rome c. 305, he was son of Antonius who rose to be priest and possibly a bishop, and whose home became the church later known as S. Lorenzo in Damaso, and of a mother Laurentia; he had a sister Irene. A deacon under Liberius, he accompanied him into exile in 355 but soon found his way back to Rome where, in defiance of the oath of the Roman clergy not to recognize anyone else as pope while Liberius was alive, he took service with Antipope Felix II. When Liberius was allowed to return in 358, Damasus became at some point reconciled with him. On Liberius' death on 24 Sept. 366 violent disorders broke out over the choice of a successor.

A group who had remained consistently loyal to Liberius immediately elected his deacon Ursinus in the Julian basilica and had him consecrated bishop, but a rival and larger faction of Felix's adherents met in what is now San Lorenzo in Lucina and elected Damasus, who did not hesitate to consolidate his claim by hiring a gang of thugs, storming the Julian basilica and carrying out a three-day massacre of Ursinians. On Sunday, 1 Oct. his partisans seized the Lateran basilica, and he was there consecrated. He then sought the help of the city prefect (the first occasion of a pope enlisting the civil power against his adversaries), and he promptly expelled Ursinus and his followers from Rome. Mob violence continued until 26 Oct., when Damasus' men attacked the Liberian basilica, where the Ursinians had sought refuge; the pagan historian Ammianus Marcellinus reports that they left 137 dead on the field.

Damasus was now secure on his throne; but the bishops of Italy were shocked by the reports they received, and his moral authority was weakened for several years. The antipope and his adherents, though repeatedly banished by the government, kept up continuous attacks on him throughout his reign. In about 371, through a converted Jew named Isaac, they brought a 'disgraceful charge', probably of adultery, against him, and only the emperor's intervention secured his acquittal.

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In spite of these embarrassments, Damasus enjoyed the favour of court and aristocracy, not least of wealthy ladies; gossips nicknamed him 'the matrons' ear-tickler'. His magnificent lifestyle and hospitality helped to break down the anti-Christian prejudices of upper-class pagan families, though his closeness to the aristocracy was a source of criticism, especially from the followers of Ursinus. He was active in repressing heresies, including Arianism, and in 378 did not scruple to call in the secular power against the Donatist community in Rome; but he failed to dislodge Auxentius (d. 374), the Arianizing bishop of Milan. His measures against the intransigently Nicene disciples of Lucifer of Cagliari (d. 370/1) were particularly brutal. ‬

‪In 380 he counselled moderation in dealing with Priscillianism, an esoteric Spanish heresy with dualist and Sabellian traits, but at successive synods he anathematized Apollinarianism (which claimed that the Logos took the place of the human mind in the God-man) and Macedonianism (which denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit). His relations with the eastern churches, however, where Basil the Great (d. 379) was striving to restore orthodoxy on the basis of a subtle restatement of Nicene doctrine, were less than happy. ‬

‪Like the west generally, he failed to understand the new developments and, when Antioch was split between rival bishops, persisted in backing Paulinus, the unrepresentative leader of a reactionary group, instead of Meletius, on whom eastern hopes for unity were centred; when Meletius died in 381, he refused to enter into communion with his successor Flavian. In despair Basil described him as impossibly arrogant. He took no part in the ecumenical council (the second) held at Constantinople in 381, and made no contribution to the constructive détente between east and west which was now under way.‬

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Damasus was indefatigable in promoting the Roman primacy, frequently referring to Rome as 'the apostolic see', an expression inherited from Pope Liberius, and ruling that the test of a creed's orthodoxy was its endorsement by the pope. In 378 he persuaded the government to recognize the holy see as a court of first instance and also of appeal for the western episcopate, but it declined to admit any special immunity for the pope himself from the civil courts. In tune with his ideas, Theodosius I (379 — 95) declared (27 Feb. 380) Christianity the state religion in that form which the Romans had once received from St Peter and Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria now professed; for Damasus this primacy was not based on decisions of synods, as were the claims of Constantinople, but exclusively on his being the direct successor of St Peter and so the rightful heir of the promises made to him by Christ (Matt. 16: 18). 

This succession gave him a unique juridical power to bind and loose, and the assurance of this infused all his rulings on church discipline. Much to Damasus' annoyance, however, canon 6 of the council of Constantinople endorsed the claim of the church of Constantinople to the second place of honour in the ranks of the churches, because it was the 'new Rome'. He was also a builder of churches (including S. Lorenzo in Damaso), advanced the cult of the martyrs, and restored the catacombs, making them much easier for the faithful to visit, with the aim of demonstrating that the real glory of Rome was not pagan but Christian. 

A man of cultivated interests, he organized and rehoused the papal archives. He made friends with St Jerome, employed him as his secretary for several years, corresponded with him on points of exegesis, and commissioned him to revise the existing Latin translations of the gospels on the basis of the original Greek. He himself composed epigrams in sonorous, if turgid, verse, mostly in honour of martyrs and previous popes, and had them inscribed on marble slabs in the elegant lettering of his friend Filocalus; and St Jerome attributes to him essays in prose and verse on virginity. He was buried in a church he had built on the Via Ardeatina, but his remains were later transferred to S. Lorenzo in Damaso. Feast 11 Dec.

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