medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On 09/26/11, I wrote, apropos a mention of "the originally thirteenth-century church of Ag. Anargyroi at the village of
Kipoula in Oitylo (Lakonia prefecture) on the Peloponnese":
> Earlier this year the township's name was changed from Oitylo to East Mani.
East Mani is of course not the township's name in Greek. That -- as one might expect -- is Anatoliki Mani.
On 9/26/11, Jim Bugslag wrote:
> >Cosmas and Damian:
> Their cult originally disseminated from their burial shrine at Cyr, north of Antioch, I believe.
Cyr (the town's standard name in French; Anglophone students of early church history and theology seem to prefer one or the other of the Latinizations Cyrus and Cyrrhus) is certainly these saints' earliest attested cult center. Delehaye (in his _Les origines du culte des martyrs_) makes a very strong case for its being the cult's place of origin. But this is not universally accepted, esp. by those who believe that saints were martyred in or near Aegae in Cilicia (so, e.g., Yvan Azéma, ed., Théodoret de Cyr, _Correspondance_, vol. 4 [Paris: Cerf, 1998; SC 429], p. 268, n. 1), where by the sixth century they had a famous cult center at which healing miracles reportedly occurred during incubation. I'm with Jim on this (the evidence for the cult center at Aegae is relatively late and the evidence specifically for their martyrdom there comes from a suspect form of their Bios). But when so much has been lost one has to be cautious.
> One thing that has been puzzling me lately is that the Hotels-Dieu in both Paris and Chartres were dedicated to St Cosmas, but Damian appears to have got left out. It makes sense for such an institution to be dedicated to doctor saints, but does anyone have any suggestions as to why both saints were not included in these dedications, as was usual?
Is this sole dedication actually recorded as such in the institutions' own documentation? Or is it instead simply a manner of speaking in which the name of the first of the pair is used to represent both? Another instance, by the way, is the prieuré Saint-Cosme at La Riche (Indre-et-Loire), just west of Tours.
A parallel occurs with Bacchus of the equally well-known pair Sergius and Bacchus (7. October), whose rapid spread of cult from a center in Syria (Resafa) is contemporary with that of Cosmas and Damian. Sergius -- who in their early Passio not only outlasts Bacchus but also outranks him -- sometimes had, or seems to have had, the sole dedication: cf. the originally fourth-century monastery of Mar Sarkis (St. Sergius) at Ma'lula (Maalula), Syria. A western example of omitting Bacchus would be the original dedication to Sts. Sergius and Medard of the abbey at Angers later called Saint-Serge et Saint-Bach. Presumably, relics of Sergius sometimes traveled without companion relics of Bacchus. On the other hand, Resafa's early Byzantine renaming as Sergioupolis is surely a case of one name standing for two saints.
Best again,
John Dillon
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