a temporary suspension of theii* connection with Rome. He issued a letter to the whole Christian world, in which he declared his entire agreement with the first fom- general councils, and then vindicated the fifth as in no way de- parting from the Chalcedonian dogma. But only by the mili- tary aid of I^arses could he secure subjection ; and the most refractory bishops, those of Aquileia and Milan, he sent as prisoners to Constantinople. In these two Justinian-made popes we see how much the power of the Koraan hierarchy was indebted to its remoteness from the Byzantine despotism, and how much it was injured by contact with it. • "With the descent of the Arian Longobards into Italy, after 568, the popes again became more independent of the Byzan- tine court. They continued under tribute indeed to the ex- archs in Ravenna, as the representatives of the Greek emperors (from 554), and were obliged to have their election confirmed and their inauguration superintended by them. But the feeble hold of these oflicials in Italy, and the pressure of the Arian barbarians upon them, greatly favored the popes, who, being the richest proprietors, enjoyed also great political consider- ation in Italy, and applied their influence to the maintenance of law and order amidst the reigning confusion. In other respects the administrations of John IH. (560-573), Bexkdict I. (574-578), and Pelagius II. (578-590), are among the darkest and the most sterile in the annals of the papacy. But with Gregory I. (590-604) a new period begins. Next to Leo I. he was the greatest of the ancient bishops of Rome, and he marks tlie transition of the patriarchal system into the strict papacy of the middle ages. For several reasons we prefer to place him at the head of the succeeding period. § 64. THE PAPACY FROM LEO I. TO GEEGORY I. 329 He came, it is true, with more modest claims than Leo, who sm'passed him in boldness, energy, and consistency. He even solemnly protested, as his predecessor Pelagius II. had done, against the title of uyiiversal bishop, which the Constantino- politan patriarch, John Jejmiator, adopted at a council in 587 ; ' he declared it an antichristian assumption, in terms which quite remind us of the j^atriarchal eqilality, and seem to form a step in recession from the ground of Leo. But when we take his operations in general into view, and remember the rigid consistency of the papacy, which never forgets, we are almost justified in thinking, that this protest was directed not so much against the title itself, as against the bearer of it, and proceeded more from jealousy of a rival at Constantinople, than from sincere humility.' From the same motive the Ro- man bishops avoided the title ai jpatviarch^ as placing them on a level with the Eastern patriarchs, and preferred the title of ^ope^ from a sense of the specific dignity of the chair of Peter. Gregory is said to have been the first