the all-powerful Lord, who will fulfil the promise he has made, 'Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased.'" (Luke 14:11.)
No one could more wisely estimate than does St. Gregory the serious inconveniences that the Church might suffer from a central authority assuming to represent and sum up the Church. Man, whatever he may be, and frequently from the superiour dignity itself with which he is invested, is subject to errour: if the Church be summed up in him, the Church falls with him. Such is St. Gregory's reasoning. He foresaw but too well; and the Roman Church has fallen into endless errours, with a Pope who claims to sum her up in his own person, and to be her infallible personification.
Happily the Church of Jesus Christ is neither that of one time nor that of one place, and she may always be distinguished by the Catholic criterion so clearly set forth by the Fathers of the Church. Otherwise, we must cease to believe the promises of Christ, and must say in an absolute sense what St. Gregory said hypothetically. The universal one has fallen, the whole Church has fallen!
They said at the court of Constantinople, that Gregory only made such fierce war against the title of universal from jealousy of the Bishop of the New Rome, and to debase him. The Emperor and Cyriacus wrote thus to him with all the respect that was his due; but Gregory made Cyriacus clearly understand that he had misjudged him. He sent to him and to the Emperor a deacon, Anatolius by name, to undeceive them, giving him letters for the Emperor and the Patriarch. To the latter, after thanking him for his flattering words, he says:[1]
"It must be not only by words, but by deeds, that
- ↑ Book VII. Ep. 81.
