222 FOURTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
was no doubt to secure the protection and aggrandizement of the Roman see. He did not forget to remind the empress of the papal proof-text : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church," and to add : " I do not doubt that you will take care to oblige and bind him to you, by whom you desire to be loosed from your sins."
The murderer and usurper repaid the favor by taking side with the pope against his patriarch (Cyriacus), who had shown sympathy with the unfortunate emperor. He acknowledged the Roman church to be <( the head of all churches." l But if he ever made such a decree at the instance of Boniface III., who at that time was papal nuntius at Constantinople, he must have meant merely such a primacy of honor as had been before con ceded to Rome by the Council of Chalcedon and the emperor Justinian. At all events the disputed title continued to be used by the patriarchs and emperors of Constantinople. Phocas, after a disgraceful reign (602-610), was stripped of the diadem and purple, loaded with chains, insulted, tortured, beheaded and cast into the flames. He was succeeded by Heraclius.
In this whole controversy the pope's jealousy of the patriarch is very manifest, and suggests the suspicion that it inspired the protest.
Gregory displays in his correspondence with his rival a sin gular combination of pride and humility. He was too proud to
bloody means of the elevation. The same ignorance must be assumed in the case of his flattering letters to Brunhilde, the profligate and vicious fury of France. Otherwise we would have here on a small scale an anticipation of the malignant joy with which Gregory XIII. hailed the fearful slaughter of the Huguenots.
1 The words run thus : " Hie [Phocas'] rogante papa Bonifacio statuit sedem Romance et apostolicce ecclesice CAPUT ESSE OMNIUM ECCLESIARUM, quia ecclesia Constantinopolitana primam se omnium ecclesiarum scribebat." Paulus Diaconus, De Gest. Lomb. IV., cap. 7, in Muratori, Rer. Ital, I. 465. But the authen ticity of this report, which was afterwards frequently copied, is doubtful. It has been abused by controversialists on both sides. It is not the first declara tion of the Roman primacy, nor is it a declaration of an exclusive primacy, nor an abrogation of the title of " ecumenical patriarch " on the part of the bishop of Constantinople. Comp. Greenwood, vol. II. 239 sqq.
§ 51. GREGORY AND THE UNIVERSAL EPISCOPATE. 223
concede to him the title of a universal bishop, and yet too hum ble or too inconsistent to claim it for himself. His arguments imply that he would have the best right to the title, if it were not wrong in itself. His real opinion is perhaps best expressed in a letter to Eulogius of Alexandria. He accepts all the com pliments which Eulogius paid to him as the successor of Peter, whose very name signifies firmness and solidity; but he ranks Antioch and Alexandria likewise as sees of Peter, which are nearly, if not quite, on a par with that of Rome, so that the three, as it were, constitute but one see. He ignores Jerusalem. " The see of the Prince of the Apostles alone," he says, " has acquired a principality of authority, which is the see of one only, though in three places (quce in tribus locis wiius est). For he himself has exalted the see in which he deigned to rest and to end his present life [Rome], He himself adorned the see [Alexandria] to which he sent his disciple [Mark] as evangelist. He himself established the see in which he sat for seven years [Antioch]. Since, then, the see is one, and of one, over which by divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you I impute to myself. If you believe anything good of me, impute this to your own merits ; because we are one in Him who said : ' That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that all may be one in us' (John xvii. 21)." >
When Eulogius, in return for this exaltation of his own see, afterwards addressed Gregory as " universal pope," he strongly repudiated the title, saying : " I have said that neither to me nor to any one else (ncc niilii, nee cuiquam alteri) ought you to wrrite anything of the kind. And lo ! in the preface of your letter you apply to me, who prohibited it, the proud title of universal pope; which thing I beg your most sivcct Holiness
1 Ep. VII. 40 (Migne III. 899). This parallel between the three great sees of Peter — a hierarchical tri-personality in unity of essence — seems to he entirely original with Gregory, and was never used afterwards by a Roman pontiff. It is fatal to the sole primacy of the Roman chair of Peter, and this is the very essence of popery.