Pope Leo XIV is the 267th bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter, whom Jesus named as the chief of the apostles and leader of the Christian community, or the Church.
Among Leo XIV‘s predecessors have been both saints and scoundrels. Some made little, if any, impact. Others changed Christian religious practice and even the world.
Into this latter group falls Pope St. Damasus I, who sat in the chair of Peter between 366 and 384, a relatively long time as papacies go, but he is rarely recalled. This is a pity.
St. Damasus I gave Christians the Bible as it is known today, and he made reading and meditating upon the Scriptures possible.
Thought to have been born in or near Rome around 305, St. Damasus lived in a time when savage persecution of Christians was not a distant memory. Every indication is that St. Damasus was reared in a family in which the Christian faith was not taken lightly.
He became a priest. Christianity was legalized. When he was elected bishop of Rome in 366, the Church had needs, and Christians were divided.
Deciding what belongs in the Bible
Christians today take the Scriptures, or the Bible — a word drawn from the Greek word for “books” — for granted.
But until Pope St. Damasus, that collection of books had not been assembled. Some books were available here, others there; some were trusted as the written word of God, others not.
For example, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John existed and were respected, but also existing were the Gospels of Thomas, Barnabas, Peter, Mary Magdalene and others. All these writings appealed to some audiences. All claimed to meet the test of antiquity. But which of them were divinely inspired? Which of the so-called “epistles” were written by St. Paul? Which were not?
The bishops of the world, probably by then more than a handful, travelled to Rome to resolve these and other questions. The bishops met under the presidency of St. Damasus. His role in presiding, with the bishops’ consent, and the choice of Rome, where St. Peter ministered and died, for the meeting, attest to the status the other bishops gave the bishop of Rome.
Accepting some books, dismissing others, the bishops asked questions. Had the work long been venerated by Christians? Did its author have associations with Christ, or with the apostles? Importantly, did its content conform with the uninterrupted, traditional belief of the Church?
In the end, they created one single, recognized volume, called the Bible. The process makes clear that the Bible is a product of the Church. Basic was the notion that only the authority of the Church can judge the Scriptures.
The bishops’ listing was universally respected in Christianity until the Protestant Reformation 12 centuries later.
Translating the Bible into the language of the people
However, assembling the Scriptures into one volume did not give all people access to God’s written revelation. The books of what is today known as the Old Testament were almost exclusively in Hebrew, a language then understood by few gentiles. The rest were in Greek, still spoken at the time, but not understood by all by any means. The New Testament was exclusively in Greek. And the everyday language of the people was Latin.
So St. Damasus commissioned a priest, St. Jerome, to translate the Bible into Latin. His translation was called the Vulgate, as it was meant to serve the people, or vulgus in Latin.
For centuries, the Vulgate was the standard biblical text. Further changes occurred in linguistics. People primarily spoke French, English, German and so forth. The Church allowed translations of the Bible into these languages.
Reinforced by all that happened under Pope St. Damasus I, the Church always has seen itself as the protector of, and advocate for, the holy Bible.
