Sacred Calendar

Fourth Lesson - Defender of Nicaea against Arian Error

Damasus was a Spaniard, a man of eminence and of great learning in the Scriptures, and was elected to the Chair of Peter in the year of our Lord, 366. In 381 he convoked the First Council of Constantinople, wherein he crushed the wicked heresy of Eunomius and Macedonius. He confirmed the condemnation of the Assembly, at Rimini, which condemnation had already been pronounced by Liberius. This Assembly of Rimini was that in which, to use the language of St Jerome, Valens and Ursacius brought it about through trickery that the Faith of Nice was abrogated by mob law, and the world afterwards groaned in amazement to find itself Arian.

Fifth Lesson - Churches, Martyrs, and Sacred Learning

This Pope built two Basilicas, first, St Lawrence's, near Pompey's Theatre, which he magnificently enriched, and endowed with houses and farms; and, secondly, another, over the Catacombs on the Road to Ardea. He also consecrated the Platonia, where the bodies of St Peter and St Paul lay for some time, and decorated it with elegant inscriptions in poetry composed by himself. He wrote on the subject of virginity both in prose and verse, and likewise many other poems on various subjects.

Sixth Lesson - Psalmody, Scripture, and Roman Order

He ordained that false accusers should be punished for the offences which they had falsely laid to the charge of their neighbours. He established the usage, which already prevailed in many churches, of singing the Psalms, both by day and by night, by alternate choirs, and of adding at the end of each Psalm the words, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost." It was at his command that St Jerome revised the translation of the New Testament to accord with the Greek text. He ruled the Church for seventeen years, two months, and twenty-six days. He held five Advent ordinations, wherein he ordained thirty-one Priests, eleven Deacons, and sixty-two Bishops for divers Sees. At length he fell asleep in the Lord, in the reign of Theodosius the Elder, upon the 10th day of December, in the year 384, being aged nearly eighty years, and full of righteousness, truth, and judgment. He was buried beside his mother and sister in the Church which he had himself founded on the Road to Ardea. His reliques were afterwards taken to the Basilica of St Lawrence, which is thence sometimes called "San Lorenzo in Damaso."