The Life of Abba Cosmas the Eunuch
This story was told to us by Abba Basil, priest of the monastery of the Byzantines: When I was with Abba Gregory the Patriarch at Theoupolis, Abba Cosmas the Eunuch of the Lavra of Pharén came from Jerusalem. This man was most truly a monk, orthodox and of great zeal, with no small knowledge of the holy Scriptures. After being there a few days, the elder died.
Wishing to honor his remains, the patriarch ordered that he should be buried at a spot in the cemetery where a bishop lay. Two days later, I came to kiss the elder’s grave. A poor man stricken with paralysis was lying on top of the tomb, begging alms of those who came into the church. When this poor man saw me making three prostrations and offering the priestly prayer, he said to me: “Oh Abba, this was indeed a great elder, sir, whom you buried here three days ago.” I answered him saying: “How do you know that?” He told me: “I was paralysed for twelve years and, through this elder, the Lord cured me. When I am distressed, he comes and comforts me, granting me relief. And now you are about to hear yet another strange thing about this elder. Ever since you buried him, I hear him at night calling and saying to the bishop: ‘Touch me not; stay away! Come not near, thou heretic and enemy of the truth and of the holy catholic Church of God.’”
Having heard this from the man cured of his paralysis, I went and repeated it to the patriarch. I besought that most holy man to let us take the body of the elder and lay it in another tomb. Then the patriarch said to me: “Believe me, my child, Abba Cosmas will suffer no hurt from the heretic. This has all come about that the virtue and zeal of the elder might become known to us after his departure from this world; also that the doctrine of the bishop should be revealed to us, so that we do not hold him to have been one of the orthodox.”
The same Abba Basil also told us this concerning Abba Cosmas: I visited him when he was staying at the Lavra of Pharén, and he said to me: “A doubt once perplexed me concerning the saying of the Lord to his disciples: ‘He who has a garment, let him sell it and buy a sword,’ and they said to him: ‘Here are two swords.’ After agonizing unsuccessfully over the meaning of this passage, I went from my cell out into the heat of the midday sun, driven by a compulsion to go to the Lavra of Pyrgia, where Abba Theophilos was, to ask him about the matter. When I came into the desert, near Calamén, I saw an exceedingly large dragon coming down from the mountain towards Calamén. It was so large that it made a great vault of itself as it moved. I suddenly realized that I was passing through its vault unharmed. I knew, he said, that the devil was trying to frustrate my purpose but that the prayer of the elder had prevailed.
I went my way, he said, and recited the passage of scripture to Abba Theophilos. He told me the explanation of the two swords is this: the active and the contemplative (τὸ πρακτικόν καὶ τὸ θεωρητικόν). If a person has these two virtues, he is approaching perfection.
I visited Abba Cosmas at the Lavra of Pharén and stayed there for ten years. Whilst he was speaking to me about the salvation of the soul, we came across an opinion of Saint Athanasios, Archbishop of Alexandria. The elder said to me: “When you come across a saying of Athanasius the Great, if you have no paper, write it on your clothing”—so great was the appetite of this elder for our holy fathers and teachers.
They also said this about him: that on the eve of the holy Lord's Day, he would stand from vespers to dawn, singing and reading, in his cell or in church, never sitting down at all. Once the sun had risen and the appointed service had been sung, he would sit reading the holy Gospel until it was time for the Eucharist.