venture to utter a word."

And Gregory, referring just before to the pride of this one man, who had
the audacity to put in a letter to the Pope himself, a superscription in
which, according to the Pope's judgment, he claimed to be sole bishop in
the Church, used words which will serve to indicate what Gregory conceived
his own authority to be, as well as the source on which it rested: "I
beseech you, by Almighty God, not to permit your Majesty's time to be
polluted by one man's arrogance. Do not in any way give your consent to so
perverse an appellation. By no means let your Majesty in such a cause
despise me the individual, for the sins of Gregory are indeed so great as
to deserve such treatment, but there are no sins of the Apostle Peter that
he should deserve in your time such treatment. Wherefore, I again and again
entreat you, by Almighty God, that as former princes, your progenitors,
have sought the favour of the holy Apostle Peter, so you also would seek
it and preserve it for yourselves. Nor let his honour be in your mind the
least diminished by our sins, his unworthy servant: that he may be now your
helper in all things, and hereafter be able to pardon your sins."

I quote the following passage from a letter[188] to the emperor Mauritius
himself, not only because Gregory alleges as the root of his own authority
the three great words spoken by our Lord to Peter, but for the description
of the times in which he lived, and the vast importance of union between
the two great powers. This, he says, if faithfully maintained on both
sides, would have protected them from such calamities.

"Your Majesty, who is appointed by God, watches, among the other cares of
your empire, with the uprightness of a spiritual zeal over the preservation
of sacerdotal charity. For, with piety as well as truth, you think that no
one can rule well the things of this world unless he knows how to treat
divine things, and that the peace of the human commonwealth depends on the
peace of the universal Church. For, most gracious emperor, what power of
man, what masterful arm of flesh, would presume to lay unholy hands upon
the dignity of your most Christian empire, if the bishops were with one
accord of mind to beseech their Redeemer for you by their words, and, if
need be, by their deservings? Is there any nation so ferocious as to use
its sword so cruelly for the destruction of the faithful, unless our life,
who are called but are not bishops,