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Peter Damian

Peter Damian OSB (Latin: Petrus Damianus; Italian: Pietro or Pier Damiani; c. 1007 – 21 or 22 February 1072 or 1073)[1] was an Italian reforming Benedictine monk and cardinal in the circle of Pope Leo IX. Dante placed him in one of the highest circles of Paradiso as a great predecessor of Francis of Assisi and he was declared a Doctor of the Church on 27 September 1828. His feast day is 21 February.

Saint

Peter Damian

OSB

c. 1007
Ravenna, Papal States

22 February 1072 or 1073[1]
Faenza, Papal States

Roman Catholic Church
Eastern Orthodox Church[2]

21 February
earlier 23 February (General Roman Calendar, 1823–1969)

represented as an Italian cardinal bearing a knotted rope in his hand; also as a pilgrim holding a papal Bull; Cardinal's hat, Benedictine monk's habit

Early life[edit]

Peter was born in Ravenna around 1007,[3] the youngest of a large but poor noble family. Orphaned early, he was at first adopted by an elder brother who ill-treated and under-fed him while employing him as a swineherd. After some years, another brother, Damianus, who was archpriest at Ravenna, had pity on him and took him away to be educated. Adding his brother's name to his own, Peter made such rapid progress in his studies of theology and canon law, first at Ravenna, then at Faenza, and finally at the University of Parma, that, around the age of 25, he was already a famous teacher at Parma and Ravenna.[4]

Papal envoy and cardinal[edit]

During his illness the pope died, and Frédéric, abbot of Monte Cassino, was elected pope as Stephen IX. In the autumn of 1057, Stephen IX determined to make Damian a cardinal. For a long time, Damian resisted the offer, for he was more at ease as an itinerant hermit-preacher than as a reformer from within the Curia, but was finally forced to accept, and was consecrated Cardinal Bishop of Ostia on 30 November 1057.[9]


In addition he was appointed administrator of the Diocese of Gubbio. The new cardinal was impressed with the great responsibilities of his office and wrote a stirring letter to his brother-cardinals, exhorting them to shine by their example before all. Four months later Pope Stephen died in Florence, and the church was once more distracted by schism. Peter was vigorous in his opposition to the antipope Benedict X, but the force was on the side of the intruder and Damian retired temporarily to Fonte Avallana.

Veneration[edit]

Peter Damian is venerated as a saint and was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XII on 27 September 1828 with a feast day which is now celebrated on 21 February (Ordinary calendar).[9] In 1970, his feast was moved there from its prior date of 23 February.


Peter Damian is also venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. His feast day is 24 February in the Antiochian Orthodox Church. [10]


His body has been moved six times. Since 1898, Peter Damian has rested in a chapel dedicated to the saint in the cathedral of Faenza. No formal canonization ever took place, but his cult has existed since his death at Faenza, at Fonte-Avellana, at Monte Cassino, and at Cluny.


The saint is represented in art as a cardinal bearing a knotted rope (the disciplina) in his hand; also sometimes he is depicted as a pilgrim holding a papal Bull, to signify his many legations.

His most famous work is De Divina Omnipotentia, a long letter in which he discusses God's power. The De Divina Omnipotentia purports to be a letter from Peter Damian to Desiderius, of Monte Cassino. Peter develops a position he had taken in an earlier discussion with Desiderius on the claim of St. Jerome that, although God can do all things, he cannot restore virginity to a woman who had lost it. Desiderius had sided with Jerome; Damian had claimed that God could indeed restore lost virginity. In this letter Peter defends his views, an undertaking that takes him into the discussion of the scope of divine power, the possibility of God's annulling the past, and the problems that arise from using the language of human temporality to describe divine possibilities in an eternal present. The central question of the nature and scope of divine power is related to previous discussions of the question and to the more sophisticated debates of the later Middle Ages. Damian's apparent claims that the law of contradiction does not apply to God and that God is able to annul the past deserve recognition. In these discussions Damian shows himself the equal of any of the dialecticians that he so severely criticizes.

abbot

In the short treatise Dominus vobiscum (The Book of "The Lord be with You") (PL 145:231-252), he questions whether a hermit praying in solitude should use the plural; Damian concludes that the hermit should use the plural, since he is linked to the whole church by faith and fellowship.

His Life of Romauld and his treatise The Eremitical Order demonstrate his continuing commitment to solitude and severe asceticism as the ultimate form of Christian life.

He was especially devoted to the , and wrote an Officium Beatae Virginis.

Virgin Mary

, the treaty about sodomy and insiders of the Catholic Church

Liber Gomorrhianus

De Institutione monialis, which had the aim of safeguarding Western Christians from the decadent uses of the East. Notable in this work, among other things, Damiani, then Bishop of , condemned Maria Argyre's use of a golden fork to eat. Forks were a new invention at the time.[12][13][14]

Ostia

Disceptatio synodalis, in defense of against Antipope Honorius II

Pope Alexander II

De Sancta Simplicitate

Liber Gratissimus, against

simony

Anselm of Canterbury

Saint Peter Damian, patron saint archive

David Berger, "St Peter Damian. His Attitude Toward the Jews and the Old Testament", The Yavneh Review, 4 (1965) 80-112.

Owen J. Blum, Saint Peter Damin: His Teaching on the Spiritual Life, Washington, 1947.

Owen J. Blum, "The Monitor of the Popes: St. Peter Damian", in Studi Gregoriani vol. 2 (1947), pp 459–76.

John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality Chicago, 1980.

Pierre J. Payer, Book of Gomorrah: An Eleventh-Century Treatise against Clerical Homosexual Practices, Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1962

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Damiani, Pietro". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

public domain

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry