El poder y el Papa. Aproximación a la filosofía política de Marsilio de Padua

Abstract

This paper explains the meaning of Marsilius of Padua’s work, the first medieval non-clerical theory of the State. Marsilius intends to fight the pontifical doctrine called plenitudo potestatis, which he says to be the cause of the civil war in Italy in the beginning of the 14th century. Then his thought is based on the unity of the sovereignty, in opposition to dualism, characteristic of other authors who defend the secular power, as John of Paris, Ockham or Dante. Marsilius states that there are no spiritual grounds to maintain a temporal power different from the power of the human legislator and that is why the only supreme power or plenitudo potestatis does not belong to the Pope, but to the secular ruler. From that follows the complete absorption of Church by the State and the secular ruler’s authority on the whole ecclesiastical organization. The Marsilius’s thought represents an effort with no precedents to base the power on rational grounds, but it is far from the modern idea of sovereignty, as well as from liberalism and from Rousseau’s general will. Even though it was not successful in his time, it had a great influence on Anglican Reformation and «English erastianism», specially on Hobbes.