Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings 11-Dec-2021: Memorial of St. Damasus, Pope

Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aguinas

Matthew CHAP. 17

17:10–13

10. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the Scribes that Elias must first come?

11. And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.

12. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.

13. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

JEROME. It was a tradition of the Pharisees following the Prophet Malachi, that Elias should come before the coming of the Saviour, and bring back the heart of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, and restore all things to their ancient state. The disciples then consider that this transformation which they had seen in the mount was His coming in glory, and therefore it is said, And his disciples asked him, saying, How then say the Scribes that Elias must first come? As though they had said, If you have already come in glory, how is it that your forerunner appears not yet? And this they say chiefly because they see that Elias is departed again.

CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lvii.) The disciples knew not of the coming of Elias out of the Scriptures; but the Scribes made it known to them; and this report was current among the ignorant multitude, as was that concerning Christ. Yet the Scribes did not explain the coming of Christ and of Elias, as they ought to have done. For the Scriptures speak of two comings of Christ; that which has taken place, and that which is yet to be. But the Scribes, blinding the people, spake to them only of His second coming, and said, If this be the Christ, then should Elias have come before Him. Christ thus resolves the difficulty, He answered and said, Elias truly shall come, and restore all things; but I say unto you, that Elias has already come. Think not that here is a contradiction in His speech, if He first say that Elias shall come, and then that he is come. For when He says that Elias shall come and restore all things, He speaks of Elias himself in his own proper person, who indeed shall restore all things, in that he shall correct the unbelief of the Jews, who shall then be to be found; and that is the turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, that is, the hearts of the Jews to the Apostles.

AUGUSTINE. (Quæst. Ev. i. 21.) Or; He shall restore all things, that is those whom the persecution of Antichrist shall have overthrown; as He Himself should restore by His death those whom He ought.

CHRYSOSTOM. But if there shall so much good arise out of the presence of Elias, why did He not send him at that time? We shall say, Because they then held Christ to be Elias, and yet believed not on Him. But they shall hereafter believe Elias, because when he shall come after so great expectation announcing Jesus, they will more readily receive what shall be taught by Him. But when He says that Elias is come already, He calls John the Baptist Elias from the resemblance of their ministry; for as Elias shall be the forerunner of His second coming, so was John the forerunner of His first. And He calls John Elias, to shew that His first coming was agreeable to the Old Testament, and to prophecy.

JEROME. He then who at the Saviour’s second coming should come in the truth of His body, come now in John in power and spirit. It follows, And they knew him not, but did unto him whatsoever they would, that is, despised and beheaded him.

HILARY. As he announced the Lord’s coming, so he was also to foreshew His passion by the example of his own suffering and wrong? whence it follows, So also shall the Son of Man suffer of them.

CHRYSOSTOM. He takes the opportunity from the passion of John to refer to His own passion, thus giving them much comfort.

JEROME. It is enquired how, seeing that Herod and Herodias were they that killed John, it can be said that Jesus also was crucified by them, when we read that He was put to death by the Scribes and Pharisees? It must be answered briefly, that the party of the Pharisees consented to the death of John, and that in the Lord’s crucifixion Herod united his approval, when having mocked and set Him at nought, he sent Him back to Pilate, that he should crucify Him.

RABANUS. From the mention of His own passion which the Lord had often foretold to them, and from that of His forerunner, which they beheld already accomplished, the disciples perceived that John was set forth to them under the name of Elias; whence it follows; Then understood the disciples that he spake to them of John the Baptist.

ORIGEN. That He says of John, Elias is already come, is not to be understood of the soul of Elias, that we fall not into the doctrine of metempsychosis, which is foreign to the truth of Church doctrine, but, as the Angel had foretold, he came in the spirit and power of Elias.

Pope St. Damasus I

Born about 304; died 11 December, 384. His father, Antonius, was probably a Spaniard; the name of his mother, Laurentia, was not known until quite recently. Damasus seems to have been born at Rome; it is certain that he grew up there in the service of the church of the martyr St. Laurence. He was elected pope in October, 366, by a large majority, but a number of over-zealous adherents of the deceased Liberius rejected him, chose the deacon Ursinus (or Ursicinus), had the latter irregularly consecrated, and resorted to much violence and bloodshed in order to seat him in the Chair of Peter. Many details of this scandalous conflict are related in the highly prejudiced "Libellus Precum" (P.L., XIII, 83-107), a petition to the civil authority on the part of Faustinus and Marcellinus, two anti-Damasan presbyters (cf. also Ammianus Marcellinus, Rer. Gest., XXVII, c. iii). Valentinian recognized Damasus and banished (367) Ursinus to Cologne, whence he was later allowed to return to Milan, but was forbidden to come to Rome or its vicinity. The party of the antipope (later at Milan an adherent of the Arians and to the end a contentious pretender) did not cease to persecute Damasus. An accusation of adultery was laid against him (378) in the imperial court, but he was exonerated by Emperor Gratian himself (Mansi, Coll. Conc., III, 628) and soon after by a Roman synod of forty-four bishops (Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, s.v.; Mansi, op. cit., III, 419) which also excommunicated his accusers.

Damasus defended with vigour the Catholic Faith in a time of dire and varied perils. In two Roman synods (368 and 369) he condemned Apollinarianism and Macedonianism; he also sent his legates to the Council of Constantinople (381), convoked against the aforesaid heresies. In the Roman synod of 369 (or 370) Auxentius, the Arian Bishop of Milan, was excommunicated; he held the see, however, until his death, in 374, made way for St. Ambrose. The heretic Priscillian, condemned by the Council of Saragossa (380) appealed to Damasus, but in vain. It was Damasus who induced Saint Jerome to undertake his famous revision of the earlier Latin versions of the Bible (see VULGATE). St. Jerome was also his confidential secretary for some time (Ep. cxxiii, n. 10). An important canon of the New Testament was proclaimed by him in the Roman synod of 374. The Eastern Church, in the person of St. Basil of Cæsarea, besought earnestly the aid and encouragement of Damasus against triumphant Arianism; the pope, however, cherished some degree of suspicion against the great Cappadocian Doctor. In the matter of the Meletian Schism at Antioch, Damasus, with Athanasius and Peter of Alexandria, sympathized with the party of Paulinus as more sincerely representative of Nicene orthodoxy; on the death of Meletius he sought to secure the succession for Paulinus and to exclude Flavian (Socrates, Church History V.15). He sustained the appeal of the Christian senators to Emperor Gratian for the removal of the altar of Victory from the Senate House (Ambrose, Ep. xvii, n. 10), and lived to welcome the famous edict of Theodosius I, "De fide Catholica" (27 Feb., 380), which proclaimed as the religion of the Roman State that doctrine which St. Peter had preached to the Romans and of which Damasus was supreme head (Cod. Theod., XVI, 1, 2).

When, in 379, Illyricum was detached from the Western Empire, Damasus hastened to safeguard the authority of the Roman Church by the appointment of a vicar Apostolic in the person of Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica; this was the origin of the important papal vicariate long attached to that see. The primacy of the Apostolic See, variously favoured in the time of Damasus by imperial acts and edicts, was strenuously maintained by this pope; among his notable utterances on this subject is the assertion (Mansi, Coll. Conc., VIII, 158) that the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman Church was based, not on the decrees of councils, but on the very words of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:18). The increased prestige of the early papal decretals, habitually attributed to the reign of Siricius (384-99), not improbably belongs to the reign of Damasus ("Canones Romanorum ad Gallos"; Babut, "La plus ancienne décrétale", Paris, 1904). This development of the papal office, especially in the West, brought with it a great increase of external grandeur. This secular splendour, however, affected disadvantageously many members of the Roman clergy, whose worldly aims and life, bitterly reproved by St. Jerome, provoked (29 July, 370) an edict of Emperor Valentinian addressed to the pope, forbidding ecclesiastics and monks (later also bishops and nuns) to pursue widows and orphans in the hope of obtaining from them gifts and legacies. The pope caused the law to be observed strictly.

Damasus restored his own church (now San Lorenzo in Damaso) and provided for the proper housing of the archives of the Roman Church (see VATICAN ARCHIVES). He built in the basilica of St. Sebastian on the Appian Way the (yet visible) marble monument known as the "Platonia" (Platona, marble pavement) in honour of the temporary transfer to that place (258) of the bodies of Sts. Peter and Paul, and decorated it with an important historical inscription (see Northcote and Brownlow, Roma Sotterranea). He also built on the Via Ardeatina, between the cemeteries of Callistus and Domitilla, a basilicula, or small church, the ruins of which were discovered in 1902 and 1903, and in which, according to the "Liber Pontificalis", the pope was buried with his mother and sister. On this occasion the discoverer, Monsignor Wilpert, found also the epitaph of the pope's mother, from which it was learned not only that her name was Laurentia, but also that she had lived the sixty years of her widowhood in the special service of God, and died in her eighty-ninth year, having seen the fourth generation of her descendants. Damasus built at the Vatican a baptistery in honour of St. Peter and set up therein one of his artistic inscriptions (Carmen xxxvi), still preserved in the Vatican crypts. This subterranean region he drained in order that the bodies buried there (juxta sepulcrum beati Petri) might not be affected by stagnant or overflowing water. His extraordinary devotion to the Roman martyrs is now well known, owing particularly to the labours of Giovanni Battista De Rossi. For a good account of his architectural restoration of the catacombs and the unique artistic characters (Damasan Letters) in which his friend Furius Dionysius Filocalus executed the epitaphs composed by Damasus, see Northcote and Brownlow, "Roma Sotterranea" (2nd ed., London, 1878-79). The dogmatic content of the Damasan epitaphs (tituli) is important (Northcote, Epitaphs of the Catacombs, London, 1878). He composed also a number of brief epigrammata on various martyrs and saints and some hymns, or Carmina, likewise brief. St. Jerome says (Ep. xxii, 22) that Damasus wrote on virginity, both in prose and in verse, but no such work has been preserved. For the few letters of Damasus (some of them spurious) that have survived, see P.L., XIII, 347-76, and Jaffé, "Reg. Rom. Pontif." (Leipzig, 1885), nn. 232-254.

NAVARRE BIBLE COMMENTARY (RSV)

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)

From: Sirach 48:1-14

Elijah
---------
[1] Then the prophet Elijah arose like a fire,
and his word burned like a torch.
[2] He brought a famine upon them,
and by his zeal he made them few in number.
[3] By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens,
and also three times brought down fire.
[4] How glorious you were, 0 Elijah, in your wondrous deeds!
And who has the right to boast which you have?
[5] You who raised a corpse from death
and from Hades, by the word of the Most High;
[6] who brought kings down to destruction,
and famous men from their beds;
[7] who heard rebuke at Sinai
and judgments of vengeance at Horeb;
[8] who anointed kings to inflict retribution,
and prophets to succeed you.
[9] You who were taken up by a whirlwind of fire,
in a chariot with horses of fire;
[10] you who are ready at the appointed time, it is written,
to calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in fury
to turn the heart of the father to the son,
and to restore the tribes of Jacob.
[11] Blessed are those who saw you,
and those who have been adorned in love;
for we also shall surely live.

Elisha
--------
[12] It was Elijah who was covered by the whirlwind,
and Elisha who was filled with his spirit;
in all his days he did not tremble before any ruler,
and no one brought him into subjection.
[13] Nothing was too hard for him,
and when he was dead his body prophesied.
[14] As in his life he did wonders,
so in death his deeds were marvellous.

*******************************************
Commentary:

48:1-16. This passage is a summary of the lives of the prophets Elijah and Elisha. The author highlights Elijah's mission to turn the heart of the father to his sons, to placate God's wrath (v. 10). In the New Testament these same words are applied to John the Baptist, with reference to his mission of preparing the way of the Lord (Lk 1:17; cf. Matt 4:5-6). Thanks to the preaching of those prophets, Sirach reminds us, a remnant of the people remained faithful (v. 16), and the continuation of the history of salvation was assured.

Matthew
	English: Douay-Rheims	Latin: Vulgata Clementina	Greek NT: Byzantine/Majority Text (2000)
10.	And his disciples asked him, saying: Why then do the scribes say that Elias must come first?	Et interrogaverunt eum discipuli, dicentes : Quid ergo scribæ dicunt, quod Eliam oporteat primum venire ?	και επηρωτησαν αυτον οι μαθηται αυτου λεγοντες τι ουν οι γραμματεις λεγουσιν οτι ηλιαν δει ελθειν πρωτον
11.	But he answering, said to them: Elias indeed shall come, and restore all things.	At ille respondens, ait eis : Elias quidem venturus est, et restituet omnia.	ο δε ιησους αποκριθεις ειπεν αυτοις ηλιας μεν ερχεται πρωτον και αποκαταστησει παντα
12.	But I say to you, that Elias is already come, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they had a mind. So also the Son of man shall suffer from them.	Dico autem vobis, quia Elias jam venit, et non cognoverunt eum, sed fecerunt in eo quæcumque voluerunt. Sic et Filius hominis passurus est ab eis.	λεγω δε υμιν οτι ηλιας ηδη ηλθεν και ουκ επεγνωσαν αυτον αλλα εποιησαν εν αυτω οσα ηθελησαν ουτως και ο υιος του ανθρωπου μελλει πασχειν υπ αυτων
13.	Then the disciples understood, that he had spoken to them of John the Baptist.	Tunc intellexerunt discipuli, quia de Joanne Baptista dixisset eis.	τοτε συνηκαν οι μαθηται οτι περι ιωαννου του βαπτιστου ειπεν αυτοις

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Memorial of St. Damasus, Pope

Readings at Mass

The prophet Elijah will come again

Elijah has come already and they did not recognise him

Catena Aurea by St. Thomas Aguinas

Matthew CHAP. 17