Cosmas
Κοσμᾶς
(Κοσμᾶς), of JERUSALEM, a monk, the friend and companion of John of Damascus, and afterwards bishop of Maiuma in Palestine (about A. D. 743).
Works
Hymns
He was the most celebrated composer of hymns in the Greek church, and obtained the surname of μελῳδός. Among his compositions was a version (ἔκφρασις) of the Psalms of David in Iambic metre. Several of the hymns of Cosmas are acrostics.
Editions
Many of his hymns exist in MS., but no complete edition of them has been published. Fabricius mentions, as a rare book, an Aldine edition of some of them. Thirteen of them are printed in Gallandi's Biblioth. Patrum.
Further Information
Suid. s. v. Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. xi. pp 173-181, 8.596.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.