AD 382

Council of Rome (382)

Roman synod under Damasus and Jerome’s Gospel revision

Most Eastern bishops answered Rome’s invitation with a letter and three delegates: too little notice, too long a journey, churches still recovering.

Who actually came to Rome in 382

Bishops assembled at Rome under Damasus I in 382, and a surviving Eastern synodical letter addresses Damasus, Ambrose and the other bishops gathered there.

Most Eastern bishops were meeting at Constantinople and said the short notice, the long journey and the needs of their recovering churches prevented them from travelling. They sent Cyriacus, Eusebius and Priscian instead.

Those three carried their synod’s doctrinal and episcopal settlement to Rome — the business the Western bishops wanted joined, after the disputes left by the Constantinopolitan council of 381.

The canon the synod may never have issued

The synod’s existence in 382 is well supported, but its precise meeting dates and complete acts do not survive.

The biblical catalogue called the Damasine list survives only through the much later manuscript tradition of the Decretum Gelasianum, and scholars disagree over whether its opening sections preserve acts of this synod.

No surviving fourth-century evidence shows that the synod commissioned an entire Latin Bible, or that its members prescribed a canon for Jerome to translate.

Four Gospels, and only four

Jerome returned to Rome during this conciliar activity, attracted Damasus’s confidence, and was prompted to revise the Latin Gospels against Greek manuscripts.

His own preface promises a revision of the four Gospels only, correcting readings that altered the sense while retaining most of the familiar Latin wording. Scholars date the work to 382–384.

Jerome knew that readers might call him a forger or sacrilegious merely for correcting familiar Gospel wording.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

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Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The Roman synod’s existence in 382 is well supported, but its precise meeting dates and complete acts do not survive.
The biblical catalogue called the Damasine list survives through the much later manuscript tradition of the Decretum Gelasianum. Scholars disagree over whether its first sections preserve acts of the 382 synod.
No surviving fourth-century evidence shows that the synod formally commissioned an entire Latin Bible or that its members prescribed a canon for Jerome to translate.
Because the listed event makes the disputed canon decree central, the combined claim is classified as disputed even though the year of the synod is secure.