220 FOUKTII PEKIOD. A.D. 590-1049.
But Gregory I. was provoked and irritated beyond measure by the assumption of his Eastern rival, and strained every nerve to procure a revocation of that title. He characterized it as a foolish, proud, profane, wicked, pestiferous, blasphemous, and diabolical usurpation, and compared him who used it to Lucifer. He wrote first to Sabinianus, his apocrisiarius or ambassador in Constantinople, then repeatedly to the patriarch, to the emperor Mauricius, and even to the empress ; for with all his monkish contempt for woman, he availed himself on every occasion of the female influence in high quarters. He threatened to break off communion with the patriarch. He called upon the empe ror to punish such presumption, and reminded him of the con tamination of the see of Constantinople by such arch-heretics as Nestorius.1
Failing in his efforts to change the mind of his rival in New Rome, he addressed himself to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, and played upon their jealousy; but they regarded the title simply as a form of honor, and one of them addressed him as oecumenical pope, a compliment which Gregory could not consistently accept.2
After the death of John the Faster in 596, Gregory instructed his ambassador at Constantinople to demand from the new pa triarch, Cyriacus, as a condition of intercommunion, the renun ciation of the wicked title, and in a letter to Maurice he went so far as to declare, that " whosoever calls himself universal priest, or desires to be called so, was the forerunner of Antichrist."3
bishops put together, and all bishops are simply his vicars, as he himself is the vicar of Christ. See my Creeds of Christendom, I. 151.
1 See the letters in Lib. V- 18-21 (Migne III. 738-751). His predecessor, Pelagius II. (578-590), had already strongly denounced the assumption of the title by John, and at the same time disclaimed it for himself, while yet clearly asserting the universal primacy of the see of Peter. See Migne, Tom. LXXII. 739, and Baronius, ad ann. 587.
2 Ep. V. 43 : ad Eulogium et Anastasium episcopos ; VI. 60 ; VII. 34, 40.
3 Ep. VII. 13: " Erjo autem confidenter dico quid quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in elatione sua Antichristum prcecurrit, quia superbiendo se cceteris prceponit"
\ 51. GREGORY AND THE UNIVERSAL EPISCOPATE. 221
In opposition to these high-sounding epithets, Gregory called himself, in proud humility, " the servant of the servants of God."1 This became one of the standing titles of the popes, although it sounds like irony in conjunction with their astounding claims.
But his remonstrance was of no avail. Neither the patriarch nor the emperor obeyed his wishes. Hence he hailed a change of government which occurred in G02 by a violent revolution.
When Phocas, an ignorant, red-haired, beardless, vulgar, cruel and deformed upstart, after the most atrocious murder of Mau rice and his whole family (a wife, six sons and three daughters), ascended the throne, Gregory hastened to congratulate him and his wife Leontia (who was not much better) in most enthusiastic terms, calling on heaven and earth to rejoice at their accession, and vilifying the memory of the dead emperor as a tyrant, from whose yoke the church was now fortunately freed.2 This is a dark spot, but the only really dark and inexcusable spot in the life of this pontiff. He seemed to have acted in this case on the infamous maxim that the end justifies the means.3 His motive
*J
1 " Servus servorum Dei." See Joa. Diaconus, Vit. Greg. II. 1, and Lib. Diurnus, in Migne, Tom. CV. 23. Augustin (Epist. 217, ad Vital-em) had before subscribed himself: ''Servus Ckristi, et per ipsurn servus servorum ejus." Comp. Matt. xx. 26; xxiii. 11. Fulgentius styled himself "Serrorum Christi famulus." The popes ostentatiously wash the beggars' feet at St. Peter's in holy week, in imitation of Christ's example, but expect kings and queens to kiss their toe.
2 His letter (i ad Phocam impcratorem," Ep. XTIT. 31 (III. 1281 in Migne) begins with "Gloria in exc.elsis Deo, quijuxta quod script nm est, immutat tempora et transfert rcgna" Cornp. his letter ''ad Leontiam imperatricem" (Ep. XIII. 39).
3 Gibbon (oh. 46) : "As a subject and a Christian, it was the duty of Gregory to acquiesce in the established government; but the joyful applause with which lie salutes the fortune of the assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of the saint." Milman (II. 83): ''The darkest stain on the name of Gregory is his cruel and unchristian triumph in the fall of the Emperor Maurice — his base and adulatory praise of Phocas, the most odious and san guinary tyrant who had ever seized the throne of Constantinople." Montalembert says (II. 116) : "This is the only stain in the life of Gregory. We do not attempt either to conceal or excuse it. . . . Among the greatest and holiest of mortals, virtue, like wisdom, always falls short in some respect." It is cha ritable to assume, with Baronius and other Roman Catholic historians, that Gregory, although usually very well informed, at the time he expressed his extravagant joy at the elevation of Phocas, knew only the fact, and not the