Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of the Peace

Now with regard to what we said in chapter 15, and likewise in other chapters subsequently, someone might quite well raise doubts and show, first of all, that the dignity of a bishop is greater and different in type from that which belongs solely or simply speaking to a priest; and that a bishop's dignity does not exist purely as a result of the human institution that we called ‘separable’, but rather by divine ordination as well, which we earlier called ‘essential’. It seems that this can be convincingly established from Luke 10, where we find this passage: ‘After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face’. On this Bede writes: ‘Just as no one doubts that the twelve apostles prefigure the bishops, so likewise these seventy prefigured the priests of the second order of priests.’ The same thing can be shown from I Timothy 5, when the Apostle said: ‘Against a priest receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses.’ Therefore Timothy was superior in dignity to the other priests, but not by an election on the part of priests or the multitude of the faithful; therefore by divine ordination. Again, the same thing is apparent from the Letter of Pope Clement, headed ‘to James the brother of the Lord’. This seems also to have been the opinion of almost all bishops who are said to have succeeded Peter or Paul in the episcopal see of Rome, as is clear from the abovementioned Codex of Isidore.

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Secondly, it seems that it can be shown that Saint Peter was superior to the rest of the apostles by a power or authority that was given him directly by Christ and not by another man or men; and in consequence that his successors are superior to the successors of the others.