A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

651to teach himself, even when I implore him.Consider, I pray thee, that by this rash presumption the peaceof the whole Church is disturbed, and that it is in contradictionto the grace poured out on all in common; in which grace thouthyself wilt be able to grow so far as thou thyself wilt determineto do so. And thou wilt become by so much the greater asthou restrainest thyself from the usurpation of proud and foolishtitles; and thou wilt advance in proportion as thou art not benton arrogation by the humiliation of thy brethren.… CertainlyPeter, the first of the Apostles, was a member of the holy anduniversal Church; Paul, Andrew, John—what are they but theheads of particular communities? And yet all are members underone Head. And to bind all together in a short phrase, the saintsbefore the Law, the saints under the Law, the saints under grace,all these making up the Lord's body were constituted as membersof the Church, and not one of them has ever wished himself tobe called “universal.”…Is it not the fact, as your fraternity knows, that the prelates ofthis Apostolic See, which by the providence of God I serve, had [595]the honor offered them by the venerable Council of Chalcedonof being called “universal”? 248 But yet not one of them has everwished to be called by such a title, or seized upon this rash name,lest, if in virtue of the rank of the pontificate, he took to himselfthe glory of singularity, he might seem to have denied it to allhis brethren.(c) Gregory the Great, Ep. ad Phocam, Reg. XIII, 31. (MSL,77:1281.)Epistle to Phocas congratulating him on his accession.Phocas (602-610) was a low-born, ignorant centurion whomchance had placed at the head of a successful rebellion248 See Gieseler, KG, Eng. trans. I, p. 396, n. 72.