Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/529

 The Popes and the Councils 493 The third part of the Defensor Pads contains a brief summary of the main arguments of the book. It is pos- sible that this resume was not prepared by Marsiglio himself, but it furnishes a clear analysis of the whole treatise. It opens as follows : In our preceding pages we have found that civil discord Marsigiio's and dissension in the various kingdoms and communities is own sum ". due, above all, to a cause which, unless it be obviated, will ork. continue to be a source of future calamity, namely, the claims, aspirations, and enterprises of the Roman bishop and of his band of ecclesiastics, bent upon gaining secular power and superfluous worldly possessions. The bishop of Rome is wont to support his claim to supreme authority over others by the assertion that the plenitude of power was delegated to him by Christ through the person of St. Peter, as we showed at the end of Part I, and in several chapters of Part II. But in reality no princely authority, nor any coercive jurisdiction in this world to say nothing of supreme authority belongs to him or to any other bishop, priest, or clerk, whether jointly or severally. This we have proved by sound human arguments in Part I, chapters xii, xiii, and xv. We have, in Part II, chapters vi and vii, further supported our conclusions by the testimony of eternal truth and by the discussions of the saints and learned men who have inter- preted this truth. Then in the sixth and seventh chapters we established from the Scriptures and by sound reasoning what was the character and extent of the legitimate authority of the priests and bishops. We demonstrated that the plenitude of power to which the clergy, especially the Roman bishop, lays claim belongs neither to the clergy as a whole nor to any of its members. In this way the foundations of the bishop of Rome's malign assumptions would seem to be completely undermined. Now, in order that this plague which has scattered the seeds of discord and strife in kingdoms and communities,