218 FOUETH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
says of Gregory I. that he ruled as the consul Dei. He was the chief bishop of the republic of the church, the fourth doctor ecclesice, beside the three other powerful theologians and columns of the Latin church : Am brose, Augustine, and Jerome. He is justly called the pater ceremoniarum, the pater monachorum, and the Great. What the preceding centuries had produced in the Latin church for church government and dogmatics, for pastoral care and liturgy, he gathered together, and for the coming cen turies he laid down the norms which were seldom deviated from."
To this we add the judgment of James Barmby, the latest biographer of Gregory (Greg., p. 191) : " Of the loftiness of his aims, the earnestness of his purpose, the fervor of his devotion, his unwearied activity, and his personal purity, there can be no doubt. These qualities are conspicuous through his whole career. If his religion was of the strongly ascetic type, and disfigured by superstitious credulity, it bore in these respects the complexion of his age, inseparable then from aspiration after the highest holiness. Nor did either superstition or asceticism supersede in him the principles of a true inward religion — justice, mercy, and truth. We find him, when occasion required, exalting mercy above sacrifice ; he was singularly kindly and benevolent, as well as just, and even his zeal for the full rigor of monastic discipline was tempered with much gentleness and allowance for infirmity. If, again, with singleness of main purpose was combined at times the astuteness of the diplomatist, and a certain degree of politic insincerity in addressing potentates, his aims were never personal or selfish. And if he could stoop, for the attainment of his ends, to the then prevalent adulation of the great, he could also speak his mind fearlessly to the greatest, when he felt great principles to be at stake."
§ 51. Gregory and the Universal Episcopate.
The activity of Gregory tended powerfully to establish the authority of the papal chair. He combined a triple dignity, episcopal, metropolitan, and patriarchal. He was bishop of the city of Rome, metropolitan over the seven suffragan (afterwards called cardinal) bishops of the Roman territory, and patriarch of Italy, in fact of the whole West, or of all the Latin churches. This claim was scarcely disputed except as to the degree of his power in particular cases. A certain primacy of honor among all the patriarchs was also conceded, even by the East. But a universal episcopate, including an authority of jurisdiction over the Eastern or Greek church, was not acknowledged, and, what is more remarkable, was not even claimed by him, but emphati-
2 51. GREGORY AND THE UNIVERSAL EPISCOPATE. 219
cally declined and denounced. He stood between the patriarchal and the strictly papal system. He regarded the four patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, to whom he announced his election with a customary confession of his faith, as co-ordinate leaders of the church under Christ, the supreme head, corresponding as it were to the four oecumenical councils and the four gospels, as their common foundation, yet after all with a firm belief in a papal primacy. His correspon dence with the East on this subject is exceedingly important. The controversy began in 595, and lasted several years, but was not settled.
John IV., the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople, repeatedly used in his letters the title " O3cumenical " or a universal bishop." This was an honorary title, which had been given to patriarchs by the emperors Leo and Justinian, and confirmed to John and his successors by a Constantinopolitan synod in 588. It had also been used in the Council of Chalcedon of pope Leo I.1
1 Gregory alludes to this fact in a letter to John (Lib. V. 18, in Migne's ed. of Greg. Opera, vol. III. 740) and to the emperor Mauricius (Lib. V. 20, in Migne III. 747), but says in both that the popes never claimed nor used "hoc temerarium nomen." ..." Certe pro beati Petri apostolorum principis honore, per venerandam Olialcedonensem synodum Romano pontifici oblatum cst \_nonien istud blasphemies]. Sed nullus eorum unquam hoc singular itat is nomine uti consemit, ne dwn privation aliquid daretur uni, honore debito sacerdotes privarentur universi. Quid cst ergo quod nos hujtis vocabuli gloriam et oblatam non qucerimus, et alter sibi Acme arripere et non oblatam prcesumitf" Strictly speaking, however, the fact assumed by Gregory is not quite correct. Leo was styled otKov/Lteviicbe apxte- TriaKOJTos only in an accusation against Dioscurus, in the third session of Chal cedon. The papal delegates subscribed : Vicarii apostolici universalis ecclesm PAPTE, which was translated by the Greeks : r^f oiKov/aeviKr/c; eKK^.rjata^ iTriaKoirov, The popes claimed to be popes (but not bishops) of the universal church. See Ilefele, Concitienyesch. II. 526. Boniface III. is said to have openly assumed the title universalis episcopus in GOfi, when he obtained from the emperor Phocas a decree styling the see of Peter " caput omnium ecdesiarum." It appears as self-assumed in the Liber Diurnus, A. D. 682-'5, and is frequent after the seventh century. The canonists, however, make a distinction between " universalis ecclesice episcopns." and " epiwopus universalis" or t( cecumenicus," meaning by the latter an immediate jurisdiction in the diocese of other bishops, which was formerly denied to the pope. But according to the Vatican system of 1870, he is the bishop of bishops, over every single bishop, and over all