Marsilius of Padua: The Defender of the Peace

The remaining and final matter for this discourse is to resolve the reasons that we introduced, also in chapter 3 of this discourse, in support of the error of those who say that priests or bishops, as such, have coercive jurisdictions, and that the highest of all coercive jurisdictions in this world belongs to the Roman bishop, again as such.

To the first objection, then, when it was said: Just as is the body in relation to the soul, so is the prince of the body to the prince of the soul; this proposition is false taken as having universal application. For although the soul is distinct from the body because the soul is not the body, there is however no prince of the body who is not also in some way a prince of the soul, and vice versa, if we take prince strictly; as is apparent in chapters 8 and 9 of this discourse.

If indeed by ‘the prince of the body’ we are to understand, by way of metaphor, a physician who undertakes the care of it as a doctor in an operative sense and in respect of the acts of its irrational and nutritive part; and if by ‘the prince of the soul’ we are to understand one who is a physician and a learned doctor or instructor in a practical sense with regard to the acts of the rational and appetitive part, both in and for the status of this present world (such as are the doctors of the human sciences or disciplines) and for the status of the future world (such as are pastors and priests); then the proposition just-stated, taken as having nonspecific application, can be conceded – since taken as having universal application it would always be open to many objections. For the soul in relation to the body, and again the rational in relation to the irrational, have many differences which the doctor or carer in respect of the one does not have in relation to the doctor or carer in respect of the other.