Cosmas, the Melodist

Cosmas, St., The Melodist. (Died circ. A.D. 760.) The second among the Greek ecclesiastical poets. He was adopted by the father of St. John of Damascus, and educated with him by a Sicilian monk also named Cosmas, who had been redeemed from slavery by his adopted father. The two foster-brothers retired together to St. Sabas, and there stimulated, assisted and vied witii one another in the composition of hymns. It is not certain whether some of the Canons, Triodia, and Idiomela under the name of Cosmas may not be the work of the elder Cosmas. He was elected Bishop of Maiuma in A.D. 743, and is commemorated in the Greek Calendar on Oct. 14. The story of Cosmas the elder is beautifully told in Milman's Lat. Christ., vol. ii. 364. Daniel, vol. iii., gives 12 pieces by him, and Dr. Neale has translated in his Hymns of the Eastern Church, 1862, the Canon for Christmas Day, and a cento from that for the Transfiguration. To English readers he is known through the translation of this cento, "The choirs of ransom'd Israel," and its abbreviated form, "In days of old on Sinai." [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)