Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian

Under the empire of Diocletian and Maximian, Lysia Lysias Governor or president at Aigai who ordered the martyrdom of the saints. s being seated on his tribunal in the city of Aegea Égèse City in Cilicia where the martyrdom took place. (Cilicia), some of his officers said to him: "There are here certain Christians very skilled in the medical art. They travel through the cities and villages, healing various sick people and delivering those possessed by unclean spirits, in the name of him who is called Christ; they thus do many wonderful things; but they do not allow men to go to the temple to honor the gods with sacrifices." The president, at this news, sent satellites to seize their persons and bring them to his tribunal. When they were before him, he said to them: "You travel through the cities and villages, to persuade the inhabitants not to sacrifice to the gods? Tell me then where you are from, and what is your fortune and your name." The blessed Cosmas replied: "If you wish to know that, president, we will tell you boldly: we are Arabs; we have no fortune, for Christians do not know it, they do not even name it. Here now are our names: I am named Cosmas; my brother is called Damian. There are three others: if you desire, we will also tell you their names." The president: "Well! tell me their names." The blessed Cosmas: "Anthimus, Leontius, Euprepius." The president said to his officers: "Let them be brought before the tribunal."

The soldiers immediately went to fetch them and brought them to the president. Looking at them, he said: "Listen to my orders: you have to choose what is advantageous for you, do not disobey. If you yield to my advice, you will receive great and magnificent honors from the emperors; if, on the contrary, you do not acquiesce to my invitation, I will torment you with various kinds of tortures; and after you have suffered much, you will deny your Christ." The holy martyrs said to him with one voice: "Do what you will; for we have Christ who will help us. We do not sacrifice to idols; they are without eyes and without any feeling." The president ordered them to be stretched on the ground and struck with ox-hide whips. The holy martyrs, in the midst of this torture, said: "Lord, you are our refuge from generation to generation. Before the mountains were formed, before the creation of the earth and the universe, you exist from age to age. Do not turn away from us in our lowliness; for you have said: Convert, children of men. Turn to us, Lord, and hear the prayer of your servants." Praying in this way, the blows did them no harm; and they said to the president: "Make us undergo even more cruel torments, so that you may know the strength of the virtue of God that is in us: for the tortures you have inflicted upon us have not reached us: you see that our bodies are as healthy as before."

The president said to them: "I hoped that you would yield: that is why I did not want to make you endure too rigorous torments. Now I see that you persist in your impiety and that you do not want to sacrifice to the gods; I will therefore have you bound with chains and thrown into the sea." The holy martyrs replied: "Do what you will, president; in that very thing you will know the power of our God." The soldiers chained them all and led them to the shore. The martyrs went there joyfully singing psalms, and they said: "We delight, Lord, in the way of your commandments, as in the midst of immense riches; and even though we walk in the shadows of death, we will fear no evil, because you are with us, Lord. Your rod and your staff have comforted us. You have prepared a table before us against those who afflict us. You have anointed our head with oil, and your intoxicating chalice, how delicious it is! Your mercy will follow us all the days of our life. O God, you have led us to the port of your will." Praying thus, the martyrs arrived at the shore, and the soldiers immediately threw them into the sea. But, at the same moment, the angel of the Lord approached them, broke their bonds, and pulled them from the waves safe and sound.

The quaestors, witnesses to the event, went in all haste to announce to the president what had happened. Lysias ordered the martyrs to be brought before him and said to them: 'Your sorceries surpass all those of the magicians: teach me, therefore, this art as well.' The blessed Cosmas said to him: 'We are not magicians, but Christians; and it is in the name of our God that we destroy the power of your divinities. And you yourself, if you become a Christian, will see that all these things are performed by Him, and you will know the virtue of Christ.' The president added: 'In the name of my god Hadrian, I will follow you wherever you may be.' He was still speaking when two evil spirits rushed upon him; and for an hour they did not cease to strike him on the jaw. Then he cried out: 'I beseech you, servants of God, pray for me, so that I may be delivered from this punishment.' The Saints having begun to pray, the demons withdrew immediately. The president then said to the martyrs: 'You see how the gods have punished me for having wanted to abandon them, and to what torment they have delivered me.' The Saints replied: 'Fool! How do you not recognize that it is a mercy that God has shown you? But you prefer to believe that you owe your healing to blind and deaf idols, which you call gods. Recognize, therefore, rather the Lord Jesus Christ, He who has restored your health, and do not place your trust in these gods that you worship.' The president, irritated by the firmness of the confessors, said to them: 'I swear by the gods that I will not yield to your persuasions; but, on the contrary, I will make you suffer various tortures, and I will deliver you to the beasts, in order to teach you to obey the orders of the emperors.' And he ordered them to be kept in prison until he had decided their fate. As they were being led there, they sang thus: 'Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. You have delivered us, O Lord, from those who afflict us, and You have confounded those who hate You. You remember Your mercy toward Jacob and the truth of Your promises to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.' And they spent the whole night in hymns and prayer.

The following day, Lysias having ascended his tribunal, had the holy martyrs brought before him. As they were being led, they said: "Give us, O Lord, your help in tribulation; for vain is the salvation that comes from man. As for us, we will show strength in God, and He will bring our enemies to nothing." When they had arrived before the president, he said to them: "Are you decided to sacrifice, or do you persist in your folly?" The martyrs replied: "We are Christians, and we do not deny our God. Do now what you will; we do not sacrifice to idols." The president, seeing their admirable composure, gave the order to bring dry wood, to light a great fire, and to throw them into it. The servants hastened to execute their master's orders. The holy martyrs stood in the midst of the flames and said: "We lift up our eyes to You, O Lord, who dwell in the heavens. As the eyes of servants are fixed on the hands of their masters, those of the handmaid on the hands of her mistress, so our eyes are turned to the Lord our God, until He has mercy on us. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, because we are overwhelmed with contempt. Send us help, O Lord, and deliver us from those who rise up against us, lest those who do not know You say: Where is their God?" As they prayed thus, a great earthquake occurred, and the flame, leaping from the pyre, burned a crowd of pagans who were present. The martyrs emerged intact, to the point that not one of their hairs was touched by the fire; and they presented themselves thus before the spectators. The president, astonished at the wonders he saw, restrained himself for an hour; then, calling the martyrs, he said to them: "I swear by the gods, I am very worried for you; for obviously it is your magic art that has extinguished such ardent flames." The holy martyrs said to him: "How long, O impious one, will you refuse to recognize the mercy that God shows toward us? You want to force us to sacrifice to your stones devoid of feeling! Know then that we do not abandon our God, and that we do not sacrifice to foul idols." The president, enraged, gave the order to raise them on the rack, and to strike them without respite. But the angel of the Lord, who stood near them, made the pain disappear. The president, seeing that the quaestors were about to succumb from exhaustion, commanded them to untie the martyrs and bring them to him. They came immediately, and presented themselves to him full of the grace of God and their faces radiant with joy. The president said to them: "I attest by the gods, I will not let myself be defeated by your sorcery; but I will inflict upon you various other kinds of torments, and I will end by delivering your bodies to the birds of prey." The martyrs replied: "As we have in heaven an eternal king, Our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not fear your torments. Do everything you wish, just as we have already told you."

Then the president Lysias rendered a sentence by which he condemned Cosmas and Damian to be crucified, then stoned by the people. As for the blessed Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius, after having them scourged, he had them taken back to prison. The quaestors having therefore crucified Cosmas and Damian, the people began to stone them; but the stones fell back upon those who threw them. The president, seeing his satellites all covered in bruises, was outraged with fury, and ordered four soldiers to pierce the martyrs with arrows. At the same time, he had the saints Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius brought out of prison, and ordered them to stand near the cross. But the arrows, like the stones, returned upon those who launched them. The president, finally perceiving that all his efforts against the martyrs obtained no result, commanded that their heads be cut off.

The executioners immediately seized the holy martyrs and led them to the place of torment. While going there, these blessed ones praised God, saying: "It is good to praise the Lord and to sing to your name, O Most High, to proclaim your mercy in the morning, and your truth during the night; for you have magnificently signaled your mercy upon us. The senseless man does not know these things, and the fool does not understand them. When the sinners are burned like grass, all those who work iniquity will also be scattered. They have humiliated your people, they have afflicted your inheritance: they will perish for ever and ever. As for you, Lord, you are eternally the Most High." After this canticle, the blessed martyrs raised their hands toward heaven, and having prayed inwardly, they said: "Amen." The executioners then approached and cut off their heads. And it is thus that, in tranquility and peace, they rendered their souls to God, to receive from the Savior the crown of victory.

The glorious martyrs Cosmas and Damian, Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius, suffered in the city of Aegea, on the 5th of the kalends of October (September 27), under the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be honor and glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

In a 6th-century mosaic in Ravenna, they are depicted holding what appears to be a scroll. They are also painted sometimes decapitated, sometimes with a young child kneeling between them. Each holds a vial. — Saint Cosmas alone is represented seated, holding a kind of medicine box; the same, holding an arrow and a small vial, and near him Saint Damian holding the same objects.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

A good portion of the sacred relics of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian has since been brought to Rome and deposited in the catacomb located near the ancient temple of Romulus and Remus, at the Forum. At the end of the 5th century, Pope S aint Felix III erect pape saint Félix III Predecessor of Gelasius I on the See of Saint Peter. ed over the tomb and under the invocation of Saints Cosmas and Damian the beautiful church that one sees today, and which was greatly embellished in the 17th century by Urban VIII. The choir is adorned with old and curious mosaics. A coffered ceiling covers the nave, which is decorated with interesting frescoes representing the life of Saint Felix.

God performed several miracles through their intercessi on. The Emperor Just L'empereur Justinien Byzantine emperor who persecuted Pope Vigilius and Saint Datius. inian, having been cured of a dangerous illness by their merit, erected a magnificent basilica in their names in Constantinople. He also had another built in Pamphylia, at Cyrrhus, which he fortified out of respect for their sacred remains. The great Saint Sabas, abbot, converted his paternal home into a temple, which he had consecrated in their memory. The book entitled The Spiritual Meadow speaks, in chapter cxxvii, of a very famous pilgrimage that took place at a church dedicated to them in Palestine; and the cult rendered to them in Rome was so great that some believed they had endured martyrdom there. The Greeks themselves, in one of their manuscript Menologies, are of this opinion, and place their death on July 1st. Jean de Beaumont, a French lord, upon his return from the Holy War under the pontificate of Alexander III, brought some of their sacred bones to France, a portion of which can be seen in Luzarches, seven leagues Luzarches A place in France that preserves relics of saints. from Paris, in a collegiate church under their name: these were two large whole bones and several fragments. The whole was enclosed in two solid silver chairs. Everything was destroyed and profaned in 1793; and the other, in the metropolitan church of Paris. The Parisians also signaled their devotion to these holy Martyrs by the erection of a parish church dedicated in their honor. The church of Longpont preserves an illustrious relic of these Saints, as do the churches of Saint-Germain and Saint-Médard, in the diocese of Meaux.

The four ordinary martyrologies make mention of them. Cardinal Baronius did not omit them in his Notes.

We have borrowed these acts from the Acta Sanctorum, translated by the Benedictines, and we have supplemented them, regarding the cult and the relics, by means of Notes provided by the parish priest of Longpont and by Abbé Tresvaux, vicar-general of Paris.