Unmercenary Physicians

  • cosmos-and-damian.jpg

    “On this day, we com­mem­o­rate the holy and wonder-working Unmerce­nar­ies Cos­mas and Damian, who were per­fected in mar­tyr­dom in Rome.”

    This is how today’s synaxar­ion begins the read­ing about the saints of the day. I wasn’t too famil­iar with these saints, other than that “unmerce­nary” means that they were doc­tors who prac­ticed their heal­ing arts with­out charg­ing. I had a ques­tion about that, which I never did find the answer to, but learned a lit­tle more about the saints. And so I thought I’d pass it along — what’s blog­ging for if not to share a lit­tle knowl­edge?

    So for starters, it turns out there is more than one pair of unmerce­nary saints named Cos­mas and Damian. There are three pairs, com­ing from Rome, Cili­cia (Ara­bia) and Mesopotamia. Now really, what are the odds of that? But it occurs to me that the odds might be really good, con­sid­er­ing that once saints are known, they become com­mon names for patron saints. If the pair we com­mem­o­rate today were an inspi­ra­tion, oth­ers might incline toward their min­istry of heal­ing the sick with­out charg­ing, and they might take their names. I don’t know if that’s what hap­pened, but any­way, here’s more from the synaxarion:

    The Holy Mar­tyrs, Won­der­work­ers and Unmerce­nary Physi­cians Cos­mas and Damian were born in Rome in the third cen­tury, broth­ers by birth, and physi­cians by pro­fes­sion. Though they inher­ited great wealth, they gave most of it to the poor and needy, only set­ting aside enough for them­selves to devote their lives to the ser­vice of Christ. As Chris­t­ian physi­cians, they freely per­formed their heal­ing ser­vices for men and for beasts, ask­ing the healed only to believe in Christ in thanks for their healing.

    They ended their lives in mar­tyr­dom. Accord­ing to the Pro­logue, They were sum­moned before the Emperor Galerius, who inter­ro­gated them and com­manded them to wor­ship the pagan gods. The broth­ers refused to do so, but to show the truth of the Chris­t­ian faith, they healed the Emperor of a grave infir­mity. At this he pro­claimed the truth of Chris­tian­ity and released them.

    But a doc­tor and a for­mer teacher who envied their rep­u­ta­tion lured them into the coun­try­side on the pre­text of col­lect­ing herbs, then killed them.

    On July first the Unmerce­nar­ies strove in stoning.

    “Strove in ston­ing,” I assume means that their for­mer teacher killed them with stones. That’s borne out as well by the short tropar­ion in this reading:

    The stones with their blows could not sun­der the brethren,
    Who like a sin­gle stone were both joined together.

    But my unan­swered ques­tion is about hav­ing the title “unmerce­nary” at all. After all, there aren’t that many dif­fer­ent des­ig­na­tions of saints — this Ortho­doxWiki page lists 21. It’s cer­tainly note­wor­thy and pious to heal peo­ple for free, but is it enough to set you apart even in the ranks of saints? I felt like I was miss­ing something.

    As I said, I still don’t know, so if some­one does, please chime in. I sup­pose the clos­est I can get is just to con­sider that doc­tor­ing peo­ple (and ani­mals?) in the third cen­tury prob­a­bly wasn’t what we think of it now. With the prim­i­tive con­di­tions and high chance for catch­ing con­ta­gious dis­eases, it might have seemed more like the occu­pa­tion of angels than men, and if so, for two broth­ers to not only prac­tice their art but not to charge any­thing may have seemed to have made them a great source of amaze­ment and inspi­ra­tion.
    All guess­work, of course. The tropar­ion for Cos­mas and Damian is a generic one for unmerce­nar­ies and doesn’t give much background:

    O holy Unmerce­nar­ies and Wonder-Workers, visit our infir­mi­ties; freely ye received, freely give to us.

    but this hymn in Orthros offered more speci­ficity, as well as remind­ing us that we don’t just honor their mem­ory but ask their help.

    Since ye made the brutish pas­sions sub­ject unto the fac­ul­ties of the soul, O ye saintly pair, ye grant unto man and beast every bene­fac­tion; for ye are made rich with the gra­cious gift of Christ our God to work all man­ner of heal­ings for the sick. For this cause, as we keep your sacred and most radi­ant fes­ti­val, we beseech you that ye bestow your enlight­en­ment on our souls.

    And yes, it is hard to chant that many “ye’s” in a short space with­out blow­ing it. But then, per­haps that’s a lit­tle of what I would be peti­tion­ing them for?

    Any­way, may their mem­ory be eternal.


    Related posts:

    1. Saints of the Boxer Rebellion
    2. 9/11, Kat­rina and St. Euphrosynos

    July 1st, 2007 | Grace | 3 Comments |

3 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 07.01.2007

    Holy Sts, pray to God for us.

    I have to admit, that the title “unmerce­nary” makes me gig­gle, it sounds so mean.

  • Sean

    Well, I read their story as them hav­ing imme­di­ate heal­ing pow­ers, such as the apos­tles were granted. This would give their free heal­ing a greater impact because they could heal at-will, imme­di­ately, any dis­ease, mal­ady, pain, or fever. Imag­ine how much money they could charge for hav­ing a bless­ing like that, what with all the fatal dis­eases that were abun­dant in that day and age.

    For instance, when they healed the Emperor, the story con­veys a sense of imme­di­acy in the act of heal­ing the “grave infir­mity”. My read on it is that the Emperor demanded them to wor­ship the idols, but they refused and treated him just like any of their other “patients”, by heal­ing him of his infir­mity in the name of Jesus Christ.

    So I think the rea­son they have the title of Unmerce­nary is fit­ting because with the power that was bestowed upon them by God could have eas­ily been sold to the high­est bid­der. By giv­ing away their inher­i­tance and heal­ing for free, their humil­ity and gen­eros­ity is rewarded by such a title.

    I could be com­pletely wrong.

  • Grace

    Could be com­pletely wrong: Well, you and me both. My incli­na­tion is to think that say­ing specif­i­cally that they were “physi­cians by pro­fes­sion” is to say that their heal­ing wasn’t mirac­u­lous, just unpaid for. But I’m hav­ing to read into what they’ve said and just make assumptions.

    Actu­ally, I just hap­pened across some­thing this morn­ing by acci­dent that may shed some light on this, so I’ve got a place to do a lit­tle inves­ti­gat­ing. If it pans out, I’ll post the results.

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