Damasus I

Probably of Spanish origin, he was elected bishop of Rome in 366 at the end of a bloody election: his supporters and those of his rival Ursinus fought in the streets, leaving more than a hundred dead in one basilica. His eighteen-year pontificate nonetheless strengthened the Roman position. He fought Arianism and held a council in 382 that settled the list of books received as Scripture. It was there that he charged his secretary Jerome with revising the Latin translations of the Bible: from that work came the Vulgate, the reference text of the Christian West for more than a thousand years. He also had the tombs of the martyrs in the catacombs sought out, cleared and adorned, composing their inscriptions in verse — the Damasine epigrams, cut in a script designed for him. He died in 384. He is commemorated on 11 December.