COSMAS PRESBYTER. - Bulgarian author of the 10th century. He composed a treatise against the Bogomils (v.) of the first Bulgarian empire, which is our principal source on that heresy and on himself.

According to Vaillant, he was almost a contemporary of John the Exarch: he would have lived under Peter (927-69), son of Simeon the Great, and would have written immediately after the collapse of Bulgaria under Byzantium (972).

The purpose of the book is to check the enormous danger of the heresy and to combat abuses. The Treatise against the Bogomils is the principal work of ancient Bulgarian literature and, such as it is, awkward but alive and sincere, it surpasses its fluent Greek models. It seems to ignore the Byzantine masters, while its horizon extends as far as Jerusalem and Rome. The title of proszviter which the author himself seems to attribute to himself would designate, according to Vaillant, the high clergy. Since C. also uses it to designate holy Fathers, such as St. Athanasius, the title would even confirm the arguments of Gagov, according to whom C. was a bishop.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: J. Gagov, Teologia antibogomilistica, Rome 1942; H.-Ch. Puech-A. Vaillant, Le traité contre les Bogomiles de Cosmae le Prêtre, Paris 1945; on the Bogomils cf. now the fundamental work: D. Obolensky, The Bogomils: a study in Balkan Neo-Manicheism, Cambridge 1948.

Federico Talliez

@incollection{ec4_cosmas_presbyter, author = {Tailliez, Federico}, title = {Cosmas Presbyter}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {688}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cosmas-presbyter} }

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