s Gregory quotes the three words said to Peter, with application of them
to his own see, it seems needless to repeat other passages in which he says
the same thing. But there is a letter to Eulogius,[189] patriarch of
Alexandria, which begins by saying that this patriarch had written to him
much concerning the See of Peter, and that he sat in it in his successors
down to Gregory's own time. Whereupon Gregory, before himself citing the
three words, says: "Who does not know that holy Church is founded on the
solidity of the chief Apostle, whose name expressed his firmness, being
called Peter from Petra". Then he calls the attention of Eulogius to the
fact that all the three patriarchal sees were sees of Peter, with this
remarkable inference, that "though there were many Apostles, only the see
of the prince of the Apostles, which is the see of one in three places,
received supreme authority _in virtue of its very principate_".[190]

Let us attempt to gather the meaning of the various statements quoted from
St. Gregory, and see whether they do not form a coherent whole.

He claims, like all his predecessors, the three great texts concerning
Peter, as conveying the charge of the whole Church, the Principate, to
Peter and his heirs, that is, the Popes preceding him.

He contrasts in the most pointed manner this charge with the name of
Ecumenical, which he translates universal, patriarch, as assumed by the
bishop of Constantinople, and he contrasts not the name only, but the thing
which he conceives to be meant by the name and carried in it.

He contrasts likewise the moderation of his predecessors, who, though
inheriting Peter's charge over the whole Church, declined to accept a name
which seemed to exclude other bishops from their proper honour.

Peter's charge over the whole Church, then, in the judgment of Gregory, had
descended to himself, as he wrote to the empress, "though the sins of
Gregory, who is Peter's unworthy servant, are great, the sins of the
Apostle are none," to justify the treatment he has met with in this
assumption by another of the title Ecumenical. In a word, the _charge_ is a
command of the Gospel, the _assumption_ is "a name of blasphemy and
diabolical pride, and a forerunner of Antichrist".

I conceive that we may interpret St. Gregory's mind in this way. When he so
wrote he had behind him rather more than five full centuries since St.
Peter and St. Paul had given up their lives in Rome for the Ch