The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four BooksOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
History
The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four Books
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Rome (Italy) -- History -- 476-1420
this I weep that the holy man, the Lord John, a man so renowned for
self-sacrifice, should so act. Certainly Peter was first in the whole
Church. Andrew, James, and the others were but heads of the people;
yet all made up one body, and none were called Universal."
[Illustration: THE FORUM.
_To face page 170._]
The argument with which Gregory replies to a letter from Eulogius,
Bishop of Alexandria, who had wished him to assume himself a similar
title, is curious. The Apostolical See, he says, consists of three
bishoprics, all held by St. Peter, that of Antioch, that of
Alexandria, and that of Rome, and the honour of the title is shared
between them. "If you give me more than my due," he adds, "you rob
yourself. If I am named Pope, you own yourself to be no pope. Let no
such thing be named between us. My honour is the honour of the
Universal Church. I am honoured in the honour paid to my brethren."
Nothing could be more determined than this oft-repeated refusal. Yet
he never fails to add that it was Peter's right. The Council of
Chalcedon, he says, offered that supreme title to the Church of Rome,
which refused it. How much greater then, was the guilt of John, to
whom it was never offered, but who assumed it, injuring all priests by
setting himself above them, and the Empire itself by a position
superior to it? Such were the sentiments of Gregory, in which the
wrath of a natural heir, thus supplanted by a usurper, gives fervour
to every denunciation. The French historian Villemain points out, what
will naturally occur to the reader, that many of these arguments were
afterwards used with effect by Luther and his followers against the
assumptions of the Church of Rome. It will also be remembered that
Jerome put the case more strongly still, denouncing the Scarlet Woman
with as much fervour as any No-Popery orator.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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