Saints Cosmas and Damian: Unmercenary Healers of Humans and Animals. By Dr Chapman Chen
- Chapman Chen
- Nov 1
- 4 min read
Saints Kosmas and Damian of Mesopotamia, the twin physician-saints known throughout the Christian East as the Holy Unmercenaries, were born in the province of Cilicia, probably in the city of Ægeæ, in the third century, to a pagan father and a profoundly devout Christian mother, Saint Theodotē, whose faith, compassion, and instruction shaped the whole course of their lives. Theodotē taught her sons to receive the healing arts as a gift from God and to offer medical care freely.
1. “Freely You Have Received, Freely Give”
Their medical training was extensive, and their fame for not only their skill but their refusal to accept remuneration for any treatment quickly spread through the towns and villages of Syria. They sought to embody Christ’s instruction, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8), understanding healing not as a commodity exchanged for silver, but as a sacrament of mercy.
2. Christ-like Healing of the Poor
They travelled widely and ministered among the poor, the wounded, widows and orphans, travellers and labourers—those who could least afford medical care. They travelled widely and ministered among the poor, the wounded, widows and orphans, travellers and labourers—those who could least afford medical care. Just as Jesus made the blind see (Mark 8:22–25), the lame walk (John 5:8–9), the lepers clean (Luke 17:12–14), and even raised the dead (Mark 5:41–42), so too did Cosmas and Damian restore sight to the blind, cool fevers, enliven the joints of the paralysed, destroy parasites such as intestinal worms, and set broken bones, among many other works of healing granted through the grace of Christ.
3. Treatment of Working Animals Yet the breadth of their compassion extended beyond the human. The earliest Vita of Cosmas and Damian preserves an account of their treatment of working animals, describing how they healed oxen that had collapsed from exhaustion, and asses that had been wounded by blows and burdens. These animals were not pets, but the beasts of labour upon whom the agricultural economy depended. To heal such animals was not to perform a sentimental kindness, but to intervene directly in the ordinary violence of daily life—the violence of overwork, domination, and forced servitude.
4. Compassion for the Voiceless
This aspect of their ministry is echoed and confirmed in the Greek Synaxarion and the Orthros canon for their feast day, which praise them as healers who “extended mercy not only to humankind but even to the dumb animals.” In Byzantine liturgical language, this is not metaphor. The phrase ἄλογα ζῷα, “the animals who cannot speak,” signifies real creatures of flesh and breath, whose suffering is noticed, addressed, and relieved. The saints’ sanctity is therefore remembered in terms of interspecies compassion. Their healing is not anthropocentric, and their charity is not limited by the boundaries of the human form.
4. Compassion for the Voiceless
This aspect of their ministry is echoed and confirmed in the Greek Synaxarion and the Orthros canon for their feast day, which praise them as healers who “extended mercy not only to humankind but even to the dumb animals.” In Byzantine liturgical language, this is not metaphor. The phrase ἄλογα ζῷα, “the animals who cannot speak,” signifies real creatures of flesh and breath, whose suffering is noticed, addressed, and relieved. The saints’ sanctity is therefore remembered in terms of interspecies compassion. Their healing is not anthropocentric, and their charity is not limited by the boundaries of the human form.
5. Martyrdom
Their Christly commitment to mercy over transaction marked them as a living critique of the economic and social assumptions of the Roman Empire. During the Diocletian persecution they were arrested by Lysias, the Roman governor of Cilicia. They were ordered under torture to recant; yet they remained steadfast, enduring being hung upon a cross, stoned, and shot with arrows, until at last they were beheaded. Their younger brothers—Anthimus, Leontius, and Euprepius—who had remained inseparable from them throughout life, shared in their martyrdom.
6. The Grateful Camel
The most striking testimony to the saints’ relationship with animals then came to pass. Per the Greek Vita (Life) of them, as included in Patrologia Graeca (Vol. 98, cols. 45–64), when the brothers were martyred by Lysias, their bodies were to be disposed of separately, in an attempt to erase their memory. But a camel whom the saints had once healed—just as Christ is said to have healed a mule in the Coptic Bible—came forward, roaring and refusing to be driven away, and by its cries publicly accused the governor of murder. The animal’s resistance prevented the desecration of the martyrs’ bodies and ensured that they were buried together. In the tradition, the camel’s act is not presented as a magical oddity, but as a recognition rooted in gratitude and relationship.
7. The True Mark of Christ’s Followers
Their lives are a reminder that the true mark of the followers of Christ is not sacrifice, consumption, or dominion understood as control, but compassion, offered freely to every living creature. Their principal Eastern Orthodox feast day is November 1. They are regarded as the patrons of physicians, surgeons, and pharmacists. They are also regarded as the patron saints of twins.
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