that because he thought that a firm peace could be made, as indeed it had been made, with Ariulf of Spoleto, he was a fool. Fool indeed was he to suffer what he suffered in Rome among the swords of the Lombards; but still he was a servant of the truth, and grave injustice was it to the priesthood that he should be deemed a liar. On behalf of all priests he made dignified protest, recalling the action and words of the great Constantine as a rebuke to his successor in the Empire. "Where all is uncertain I betake myself to tears and prayers that Almighty God will rule with His own hand our most pious lord, and in the terrible judgment will find him free from all offences, and so cause me to please men that I may not offend against His grace."
How the Emperor received this letter we do not know; but already there were other causes of dispute between Rome and Constantinople. His experience had not made the pope very cordial towards Church or State in the New Rome. Useful at Constantinople Gregory must undoubtedly have been, but the fact that he never learned Greek shews at least that there were limits to his usefulness. The information he received would often be inadequate, the means of communication with the people among whom he dwelt incomplete. Official interpreters do not always represent meanings faithfully. Gregory had to deal most with the imperial Court, where his ignorance of Greek may not have been so great a barrier; but, in his relations with the Patriarch, it would at least serve to prevent any strengthening of the friendship between Churches which were already beginning to drift apart.
That the Church was under the rule of five patriarchs was a familiar view, and at least from the time of Vigilius (537-555) it had been accepted in official language at Rome. Thus Gregory had announced his own election to the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Antioch. His letters shew traces of another theory, that of the three patriarchates, Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, sharing, as it were, the throne of St Peter. But Constantinople had long asserted a pre-eminence. Justinian had recognised its precedence as second of the great sees, superior to all others save Rome, and had declared the Church of Constantinople to be "the head of all the churches." In doing this no doubt the Empire had claimed no supreme or exclusive dignity for the New Rome, nor asserted any indivisible or unalterable jurisdiction. But what the law recognised had encouraged further expansion of claim. At first the relation between Constantinople and the elder see was regarded as parallel to that between the two capitals: they represented not diversity but unity: as there was one Empire, so there was one Church. When John the Patriarch accepted the formula of faith drawn up by Pope Hormisdas he prefixed to it an assertion of the mutual relation: "I hold the most holy Churches of the old and the new Rome to be one. I define the see of the Apostle Peter and this of the imperial city to be
