The Life
Cosmas was born around 675, possibly in Damascus, and was orphaned at a young age. He was adopted by Sergius (Sarjun ibn Mansur), the wealthy father of Saint John of Damascus, and was raised together with Saint John as his foster-brother. Their tutor was an elderly Sicilian monk also named Cosmas, who had been ransomed from Saracen slavery by Sergius. Cosmas the Monk taught the two boys grammar, philosophy, astronomy, music, and geometry. When Cosmas and John came of age, they went together from Damascus to Jerusalem and entered the Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified. Both received the monastic tonsure there. During the Iconoclast persecution that began in 726, the two foster-brothers came forward together to defend the apostolic Faith of the icons. In 743 Cosmas was elected Bishop of Maiuma, the port of ancient Gaza. He continued his hymnographic composition as bishop. His canons for Holy Week, Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday, and many feasts of the Lord, the Theotokos, and the saints are still sung in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He outlived Saint John of Damascus by many years and reposed in great old age around 773–787.
Saint Cosmas was born around the year 675, possibly in Damascus or in Jerusalem. The precise circumstances of his birth and early childhood are not preserved. What is known is that he was orphaned at a young age. The practical Christian piety of the early eighth-century Damascene Christian community provided for orphans through the adoption practices of the wealthier Christian families. Saint Cosmas was adopted into the wealthy and high-ranking Christian household of Sergius (Sarjun ibn Mansur), the father of Saint John of Damascus. Sergius was a senior official in the Arab Muslim caliphate that ruled Damascus, holding the position of chief tax collector. Despite his position in the Muslim administration, Sergius was a devout Christian who used his wealth and social position for the service of the Christian community. Adopting the orphaned Cosmas was one expression of his Christian charity. Saint Cosmas was raised together with Sergius’s biological son John as foster-brothers. The two boys grew up together as brothers in the same Christian household.
The teacher of Cosmas and John was an elderly Sicilian (or Calabrian) monk also named Cosmas, known as “Cosmas the Monk” to distinguish him from his famous pupil. Cosmas the Monk had been a monk in his native Sicily before being captured by the Saracens during a raid on the island. He had been brought to the slave market of Damascus and offered for sale. Sergius, recognizing the captured monk’s theological learning and his monastic dignity, purchased him from his Saracen captors and freed him from slavery. Sergius then employed Cosmas the Monk as the tutor of his foster-son Cosmas and his biological son John. The elderly monk taught two boys grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, astronomy, music, geometry, and theology. In a short time two pupils had a complete knowledge of all these subjects.
When Saint Cosmas and Saint John came of age, two foster-brothers went together from Damascus to Jerusalem and entered the great Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified (Mar Saba) in the Judean wilderness southeast of the holy city. The Lavra had been founded by Saint Sabbas in the late fifth century and had become one of the great monastic centers of the entire Christian East. The two foster-brothers received the monastic tonsure together at Mar Saba. They pursued the rigorous Sabaite ascetical discipline, giving themselves to unceasing prayer, liturgical participation, ascetical discipline, and theological composition. The great library and scriptorium of the Lavra of Mar Saba provided them with the theological resources they would later need for their hymnographic work. Saint Cosmas attained the heights of grace through his ascetic labor at Mar Saba.
During the period of the great Iconoclast persecution that began under the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian in 726, Saint Cosmas and Saint John of Damascus came forward together to defend the apostolic Faith of the icons against the imperial Iconoclast heresy. Saint John of Damascus composed the three famous Treatises in Defense of the Holy Icons, which provided the theological articulation of the apostolic doctrine of icon-veneration that would later be confirmed at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787. Saint Cosmas contributed to the iconodule defense through his hymnography and his public preaching. The two foster-brothers worked together as theological collaborators throughout these crucial decades of the first wave of Iconoclasm. Saint Cosmas’s hymnographic work, however, was the particular distinctive contribution that he made beyond the iconodule defense. He composed the solemn canons for the Matins of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday, the famous Triodes for the first three days of Holy Week, canons for the Nativity of Christ, the Theophany, the Transfiguration, the Dormition of the Theotokos, and many other feasts.
In the year 743 Saint Cosmas was elected and consecrated Bishop of Maiuma, the port city of ancient Gaza on the southern coast of Phoenicia (modern Israel/Palestine). He left the Lavra of Mar Saba to take up the responsibilities of his new episcopal see. Maiuma had been an important port for many centuries; in the early Christian period it had been the seat of a Christian diocese serving the Christian population of the southern coastal region. As Bishop of Maiuma, Saint Cosmas continued his defense of the orthodoxy of the holy icons against the continuing Iconoclast persecution. He governed his diocese with apostolic care, preaching the apostolic Faith, administering the sacraments, caring for the flock entrusted to him. He also continued his hymnographic composition, writing the canons and other liturgical hymns that have shaped the Eastern Christian liturgical tradition for thirteen centuries.
Saint Cosmas’s hymns were originally intended to add to the interest of the liturgical services at Jerusalem during his monastic years at Mar Saba and the services in his diocese of Maiuma. But their beauty caused them to spread quickly through the influence of the imperial capital of Constantinople, until their use became universal in the Eastern Orthodox Church across the entire Mediterranean world. Many of his canons are still used today in the liturgical services of the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially for the major feast days and in the services of Holy Week. He has been called “a vessel of divine grace” and “the glory of the Church” in the Eastern Christian tradition. As a learned prose-author Saint Cosmas wrote commentaries (scholia) on the poems of Saint Gregory the Theologian. The theological scholia he composed demonstrate the deep depth of his patristic learning and complement his hymnographic work.
The biblical foundation of Saint Cosmas’s hymnographic vocation is the apostolic teaching of Saint Paul that Christians should speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in the heart to the Lord. The apostolic Christian community from its earliest days has been a singing community; the liturgical hymnography is the ordinary form in which the apostolic Faith is expressed and transmitted in the ongoing devotional life. Saint Cosmas’s hymns continue this apostolic tradition. The canons he composed for the major feasts of the Eastern Christian liturgical year express the apostolic Faith in poetic form and transmit it to the ordinary Christian community in the ongoing devotional life of the parish church.
Saint Cosmas reposed in great old age at Maiuma around the year 773 (some sources say 787 or 794). He had outlived his foster-brother Saint John of Damascus by many years; Saint John had reposed around 749. Saint Cosmas had spent the last decades of his life in faithful service as Bishop of Maiuma, continuing his hymnographic composition until the end of his life. He was buried at Maiuma. His feast day is commemorated on October 12 in the Slavic usage of the Eastern Orthodox Church and on October 14 in the Greek usage. Both dates commemorate the same saint and the same liturgical and theological achievement.
Cosmas gives the Christian Church a particular gift: the early Eastern dramatization that the providence of God uses the practical Christian charity that we extend to others as the foundation of providential collaborations that shape the future of the Christian community. He was orphaned at a young age and adopted by Sergius the father of Saint John of Damascus. He was educated by Cosmas the Monk who had been ransomed from Saracen slavery by Sergius. He went with his foster-brother John to the Lavra of Saint Sabbas. He defended icons against the first wave of Iconoclasm. He was made Bishop of Maiuma in 743. He composed the canons for Holy Week, Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday, and the major feasts that the Eastern Church still chants. He reposed in great old age around 773–787. We may not be hymnographers. But we are all called to extend practical Christian charity to others, trusting that the providence of God will use that charity for purposes we cannot foresee.