Page "Pope Damasus I" Paragraph 13

Pope Damasus appointed St Jerome as his confidential secretary.

Writing in 409, Jerome remarked, " A great many years ago when I was helping Damasus, bishop of Rome with his ecclesiastical correspondence, and writing his answers to the questions referred to him by the councils of the east and west ..." If " east and west " do not betray the passage as an interpolation, Jerome spent three years ( 382 – 385 ) in Rome in close intercourse with Pope Damasus and the leading Christians.

Invited there originally to a synod of 382 convened to end the schism of Antioch, he made himself indispensable to the pope, and took a prominent place in his councils.