Pope Damasus I

Damasus became bishop of Rome in October 366 and spent eighteen years shaping doctrine: he fought Apollinarianism and Macedonianism, mended the rift with Antioch, and promoted martyr worship. At the Council of Rome in 382, he formalized the scriptural canon and championed Jerome's Latin Vulgate. He also wrote verse - one scholar called his epitaph for a girl named Projecta "a tissue of tags and clichés shakily strung together" - and emerged as what historians label "the first society Pope," likely tied to a circle of Hispanic Christians close to Emperor Theodosius I. Gold glass cups bearing "DAMAS" survive as probably the earliest contemporary images of a pope. He died 11 December 384.