Saints Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs

SAINTS COSMAS AND DAMIAN, Martyrs. - The information about their life and their martyrdom is scanty and uncertain. It can only be affirmed with certainty that they perished in the persecution of Diocletian at Cyrrhus in Syria, where a basilica was erected over their tombs, later enlarged by Justinian. The Passio belongs to the genre of hagiographic legends in which the supernatural plays a great part; according to it, C. and D., after having endured the torments of fire, of stoning and of arrows, all of which proved vain, were beheaded. Feast on September 27; they are considered patrons of physicians.

Their cult spread very quickly in the East and in the West: their relics were widely distributed and numerous churches were dedicated to them. Famous above all was the Basilica built at Constantinople in the first half of the 5th century; in it the faithful went to ask for the healing of their ailments, practicing the rite of incubatio. Collections of the prodigies worked by the martyrs (Θαύματα) were soon made, the first redaction of which goes back to the 6th century; and since it was related in them that the martyrs generally came to the aid of the devout by prescribing natural remedies rather than healing miraculously and directly, there arose the belief that C. and D. had been in life physicians who took no payment (v.), since they would have practiced their profession out of charity. The spread of their cult also led to the multiplication of the persons of the martyrs, so much so that in the Hieronymian Martyrology they are commemorated as martyrs of different places and on different days: but it is certainly a question of the same group. At Rome the pope Symmachus (498-514) dedicated an oratory in their honor at St. Mary Major, and Felix IV (526-30) the Basilica near the Roman Forum obtained from the union of two pagan temples: one round, generally known by the name of Templum divi Romuli, the young son of Maxentius who died in 307, which came to form the atrium of the Basilica; the other commonly regarded as the temple of the Penates or Templum sacrae Urbis; it constitutes the actual hall of the Basilica, in whose apse was executed the grandiose mosaic depicting the Apostles Peter and Paul presenting to the Redeemer the two martyrs C. and D., and the inscription was placed there, still in situ, which records the event. Probably on the same occasion C. and D. were also inserted into the canon of the Mass. Six other small churches were dedicated in Rome to the two martyrs. - See plate XXXVIII.

Agostino Amore