act thus in respect of their quotations from the councils and the Fathers of the Church, as we have already repeatedly shown.
St. Gregory continues:
"As your Holiness, whom I particularly venerate, well knows, this title of universal was offered by the holy Council of Chalcedon to the Bishop of the Apostolic see, which, by God's grace, I serve. But none of my predecessors would use this impious word, because, in reality, if a Patriarch be called universal, this takes from all the others the title of Patriarch. Far, very far, from every Christian soul be the wish to usurp any thing that might diminish, however little, the honour of his brethren! When we deny ourselves an honour that has been offered to us, consider how humiliating it is to see it violently usurped by another."
Roman theologians have carefully avoided calling attention to this passage, where St. Gregory considers himself a Patriarch equal to the other Patriarchs; where he clearly says, if one of the Patriarchs may claim to be universal, the others are, ipso facto, no more Patriarchs. This doctrine perfectly agrees with that of the primacy granted to the Patriarch of Rome, for St. Peter's sake, and in remembrance of the martyrdom suffered by this first of the Apostles at Rome; but does it agree with a universal sovereignty, coming by divine right to the Bishops of Rome, through Peter, their assumed predecessor? Assuredly not.
St. Gregory continues to unfold a teaching contrary to the modern Papal system:
"Therefore," he says, "let your Holiness not give to any one in your letters the title of universal, lest you deprive yourself of your own due, by offering to another an honour that you do not owe to him. For my part, though separated from you by great distance of land and sea, I am, nevertheless, closely bound to you in
