to what Gregory says about the Council of Chalcedon offering this title,
Thomassin says,[143] "It authorized at least by its silence the title of
Ecumenical (Patriarch), which was given to Pope Leo in several requests
there read." It appears these requests really were the complaints of two
Alexandrian Deacons against Dioscorus.[144] How very different it was to
pass over without reprobating a title bestowed in documents which came
before it, from itself conferring that title, is plain at once. In just the
same way it had been given at the Latrocinium to Dioscorus. However, the
title Ecumenical has been constantly since, and is now, borne by the
Patriarch of Constantinople; no doubt a very innocent meaning may be given
to it. The remarkable thing is, that Gregory has pointed out in such
precise unmistakeable language a certain power and claim, which he
inferred, rightly or wrongly, would be set up on this title Ecumenical, and
which he pronounces to be a corruption of the whole constitution of the
Church.

Perhaps, however, the most remarkable passage remains yet to be quoted. It
is in a letter to the Patriarch John himself. "Consider, I pray you, that
by this rash presumption the peace of the whole Church is disturbed, and
the grace, poured out upon all in common, contradicted. And in this,
indeed, you yourself will be able to increase just so much as you purpose
in your own mind; and become so much the greater, as you restrain yourself
from usurping a proud and foolish name. And you profit in the degree that
you do not study to arrogate to yourself by derogating from your brethren.
Therefore, most dear brother, with all your heart love humility, by which
the harmony of all the brethren and the unity of the holy universal Church,
may be preserved. Surely the Apostle Paul, hearing some say, I am of Paul,
I of Apollos, I of Cephas, exclaimed, in exceeding horror at this rending
of the Lord's Body, by which His members attached themselves, as it were,
to other heads, saying, Was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in
the name of Paul? If he then rejected the members of the Lord's Body being
subjected to certain heads, as it were, besides Christ, and that even to
Apostles themselves, as leaders of parts, what will you say to Christ, _who
is, as you know, the Head of the Universal Church, in the examination of
the last judgement_,--_you, who endeavour to subject to yourself under the
name of Universal, all His members_