universalis_: and in 595 Gregory the Great strongly condemned the use
of such a phrase, at the same time repudiating its use for his own see.
"The Council of Chalcedon," he wrote, "offered the title of universal
to the Roman pontiff, but he refused to accept it, lest he should seem
thereby to derogate from the honour of his brother bishops." [6] And
to the emperor Maurice he said still more distinctly, "I confidently
affirm that whosoever calls himself _sacerdos universalis_, or desires
to be so called by others, is in his pride a forerunner of Antichrist."
But the patriarchs continued to use the title, and before a century had
elapsed, the popes followed their example.

[Sidenote: The province of Illyricum.]

The relation of Gregory with the Church of Illyricum gives opportunity
for mention of that anomalous patriarchate. Somewhat apart from the
general Church history of the early Middle Age stands the province of
Illyricum. Its ecclesiastical status was even more ambiguous than its
political. On its borders, or within its limits, the patriarchate of
Rome touched that of {67} Constantinople, and the claims of the two,
sometimes at least conflicting, were complicated by the privileges
given by Justinian to his birthplace. In the tenth century it was
undoubtedly under the jurisdiction of Constantinople, in the seventh it
appears to have been under that of Rome. In the Councils at
Constantinople in 681 and 692, the Illyrian bishops appeared as
attached exclusively to Rome; and so, it has been noticed, did those of
Crete, Thessalonica, and Corinth. In the sixth century there are
instances, though not numerous ones, of papal interference, in the
nature of the exercise of judicial power, in the province of Illyricum;
and at the end of the century Gregory the Great was especially active
in his correspondence with the bishops. It would seem from one of his
letters that he counted even Justiniana Prima as under his authority,
though the intention of the emperor was certainly not to make it so.
This edict--for so it practically is--is interesting also because it
appears to deal with all the ecclesiastical provinces of the empire
which depended immediately on the Roman patriarchate. It omits Africa,
and the fact that the popes did not send the pallium to the Bishop of
Carthage (the North African Metropolitan) shows that the popes did not
claim to confer jurisdiction, but merely to recognise a special
relationship, by th