"He will make me, Damasus, arise from my ashes" ~ The epitaphs of Pope Saint Damasus

Pope Saint Damasus I in the Catacombs, taken from Shea's Pictorial Lives of the Saints. 

“He who stilled the raging waves of the sea by walking thereon, He who makes the dying seeds of the earth to live, He who could loose for Lazarus the chains of death, and give back again to the world above her brother to his sister Martha after three days and nights. He, I believe, will make me, Damasus, arise from my ashes.”

—Epitaph of Pope Saint Damasus, composed by himself and placed on his tomb. 

Pope Saint Damasus I reigned as bishop of Rome for eighteen years from AD 366 through 384. The Liber Pontificalis records that he was a Spaniard and the son of Antonius. Based on the epitaph written for his father by Damasus himself, Antonius was a Church record-keeper, lector and later bishop.

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According to the Liber Pontificalis, Damasus, “searched out many bodies of the saints and found them and marked them with verses.” He further, “built two basilicas, one near the theater to the holy Lawrence, and the other on the Via Ardeatina where he is buried in the catacombs, and he dedicated the marble slab whereon lay the bodies of the apostles, that is, the blessed Peter and Paul, and he beautified it with verses.”

His father’s original profession probably explains Damasus’s passion to restore the tombs of the martyrs and commemorate them in stone as best he could. It should be remembered that sixty years before his reign, the Christian Church in Rome was nearly annihilated during the persecution under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. At that time, it seems that most of the records of the Roman Church, including grave sites, were sought out and obliterated by the persecutors.

To restore as much as he could for posterity, Damasus undertook to mark the graves of his predecessors. Many of his epitaphs (like the one above) have survived to this day. Inscribed in the mid-4th century, these epitaphs represent some of the earliest records of the saints and popes of Rome. Here are a few examples:

Epitaph on a niche which once held the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul in the Catacombs (as mentioned above):

Here, you must know, the saints dwelt aforetime. Their names, if you ask, were Peter and Paul. The East sent the disciples, as we gladly admit. On account of the merit of their blood—and having followed Christ through the stars, they sought the ethereal havens and the realms of the just—Rome rather deserved to defend her citizens. Let Damasus thus recall your praises, ye new constellations.

Epitaph of Pope Sixtus II, martyred during the reign of Valerian in AD 258:

At the time when the sword severed the holy bowels of our mother, I, the ruler, was seated here teaching the Divine laws: those come suddenly who are to seize me on my throne. Then the people gave their necks to the soldiers who were sent, but when the elder knew who wished to bear away the palm, he offered himself and his life of his own accord first of all, lest their impatient frenzy should injure anyone. Christ, who awards the prizes of life, shows the merit of the Shepherd. He Himself keeps the number of the flock.

Epitaph of the martyrs Peter and Marcellinus who are mentioned to this day in the Roman Canon of the Mass:

When I was a boy, your executioner made known to me thy triumphs, O Marcellinus, and thine also, O Peter. The mad butcher gave him this commandment—that he should sever your necks in the midst of the thickets in order that no one should be able to recognize your grave, and he told how you prepared your sepulcher with eager hands. Afterwards you lay hid in a white cave, and then Lucilla was caused to know by your goodness that it pleased you rather to lay your sacred limbs here.

This epitaph is especially interesting because it demonstrates the emphasis placed by the Roman persecutors on preventing Christians from finding and commemorating the bodies of their martyrs. It is also a good indication of how the oral tradition was passed down during the dangerous years before the history could be written again on paper or carved into stone.

Epitaph of Saint Eutychius by Pope St. Damasus I. Read the translation here. 

Finally, here is an epitaph for Pope Saint Marcellus who advocated tough discipline for those who had apostatized during the Great Persecution and was later banished from Rome by the usurper, Maxentius:

The truth-telling ruler, because he bade the lapsed weep for their crimes, became a bitter enemy to all these unhappy men. Hence followed rage and hate, and discord and strife, sedition and slaughter. The bonds of peace are loosed. On account of the crimes of another, who denied Christ in time of peace, he was driven from the borders of his fatherland by the savagery of the tyrant. Damasus wishes briefly to tell these things which he had found out, that the people might know the merit of Marcellus.

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Other saints whose epitaphs of Damasus survive include: Nereus, Achilleus, Pope Callixtus, Gordianus, Tiburtius, Felicitas, Felix, Philippus, Hippolytus, Pope Cornelius, Tarsacius, Pope Eusebius, Lawrence, and Agnes.

All of these may be found in the book, I Am a Christian: Authentic Accounts of Christian Martyrdom and Persecution from the Ancient Sources. These epitaphs, along with explanatory text, are included as an appendix.

As part of his drive to preserve Christian antiquity for all time and transmit it faithfully to the future, Damasus encouraged Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus (aka, Saint Jerome) to undertake his monumental Latin Vulgate translation of Sacred Scripture. Indeed, Jerome mentions Pope Damasus by name in his preface on the Gospels.

Damasus died on December 11, AD 384 and his feast is commemorated on that date.