Cosmas the Monk was a 7th-century clergyman who features in

Chalcedonian Chalcedonian Christianity is the branch of Christianity that accepts and upholds theological and ecclesiological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon, the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held in 451. Chalcedonian Christianity accepts the Christolo ...

traditions. Any knowledge of Cosmas comes from the notably unreliable 10th-century

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies migh ...

of John of Damascus. He was a scholar who became the teacher to

John of Damascus John of Damascus ( ar, يوحنا الدمشقي, Yūḥanna ad-Dimashqī; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός, Ioánnēs ho Damaskēnós, ; la, Ioannes Damascenus) or John Damascene was a Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and a ...

and his foster brother. To the Chalcedonians he is known as Cosmas the Sicilian (''fl.'' late 7th century). a slave of the Saracens rescued from execution in 664AD in Sicily by a judge from Damascus called Ibn Mansur, the Father of John of Damascus who employed him as the tutor of John and his orphan foster brother

Cosmas of Maiuma Saint Cosmas of Maiuma, also called Cosmas Hagiopolites ("of the Holy City"), Cosmas of Jerusalem, Cosmas the Melodist, or Cosmas the Poet (d. 773 or 794), was a bishop and an important hymnographer in the East. He is venerated as a saint by th ...

who became the Poet of the Holy City. Apparently, John's father met Cosmas, a scholar who knew

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

, on the shores of Sicily when the latter was about to be executed. He was crying loudly and when asked why a monk would cry in the face of death, answered that he was bemoaning the loss of the knowledge he had gathered, "for he knew nearly everything under the sun." In response, John's father (a judge) had him released and appointed him as tutor for his son.

References

7th-century Christian monks Sicilian Christian monks {{RC-clergy-stub