Constantinople wrote that she was the first of all the churches."
Such is for the Church of Rome the official origin of the title of chief of the universal Church, which she claims for her bishop. It had been given to him occasionally before, but only in flattery, and without attaching to it any other meaning than that of head of the episcopate, or of first bishop; it was occasionally given to the Roman Church itself, and then the word caput only meant chief in the sense of head. She had been called head of the Church, that is, first of the churches. This title, becoming official, thanks to Phocas, soon changed its signification. "Chief" no longer meant head, but sovereign prince; to-day it means absolute monarch, infallible autocrat. Such is the progress of this title of caput, given to the Roman Church by Phocas, one of the vilest men that ever occupied a throne.
Some years later (633) arose the quarrel of the Monothelites, which gives us further proofs against the Papal system, and demonstrates that in the seventh century the self-styled universal authority of the Bishops of Rome was not recognized.[1]
An Arabian bishop, named Theodore, starting from this Catholic truth, defined at Chalcedon, that there is but one person in Christ, inferred that there was in Christ but one will and one operation. He thus neglected the distinction of the two natures, divine and human, which are hypostatically united in Jesus Christ, but not mingled, and which retain their respective essence, each consequently with its own will and its own proper action or operation, since will and action are as necessary attributes of the human being as of God. Theodore thus confounded being with personality. Sergius, Bishop of Constantinople, consulted by Theodore,
- ↑ See Theoph. Eccl. Hist., and Labbe's Collection of the Councils, vol. vi. for the documents. See also Histoire du Monothélisme, par Combefis.
