Cosmas the Melodist

COSMAS THE MELODIST. - The date and place of C.'s birth are unknown; it is known only that he was the brother of John Damascene and that in his father's house he had as a teacher a monk named C., who had been made a slave by the Saracens and deported from Calabria to Damascus.

Tradition says that both Cosmas of Calabria and C. the Melode were authors of ecclesiastical hymns. C. the chanter became a monk in the laura of St. Sabas near Jerusalem and in 743 bishop of Mayuma, the port of the city of Gaza (cf. the Arabic Life of John Damascene, published by G. Graf in Katholik of 1913, p. 183). Like John, so too C. wrote Gonones, after the model of Andrew of Crete, for the great feasts, each consisting of nine odes, which were much admired by Byzantine writers (Theodore Prodromus, in the Suda, and others). The 14 canons were published by Christ-Paranikas in their collection: Anthologia graeca carminum christianorum, Leipzig 1871, p. 161-204. The commentary of Theodore Prodromus was (in part) published by H. M. Stevenson, senior, Theodor. Prodromi Commentaria in Carmina sacra melodorum Cosmae Hierosolymitani et Ioannis Damaszeni, Rome 1885. Mai also published under the name of C. an extensive Collectio et interpretatio historiarum quorum meminit Divus Gregorius in carminibus suis (cf. Spicilegium Romanum, II, 1839, II, pp. 1-373 or PG, 38, 339-680). The source of this compilation was a commentary on 4 orations of Gregory of Nazianzus by the monk Nonnus.

Erik Peterson