6. The Spirituality of the Church: Scripture, Salvation, and Sacraments

The Church in Marsilius of Padua's Defensor pacis can be examined from two perspectives. First, and most typically in modern commentaries and second, and less commonly in Marsilian scholarship, one can treat the Church as spiritual, that is the Church's otherworldly mission, absent of any claim to coercive power. The definition of spirituale in the Defensor pacis II.ii provides a preliminary guide to the boundaries of the temporal and the eternal, the philosophical and the theological, in Marsilius' ecclesiology. Marsilius breaks decisively with the preceding medieval tradition with regard to Scripture: by deallegorizing Scripture, Marsilius de-mystifies it. Marsilius' treatment of the spiritual Church, however, is much broader, for he reflects on the nature of salvation, both its history and its causality. Marsilius begins by noting the twofold ministry of the priesthood to teach the new law and to administer the sacraments. Keywords:Church; Marsilius of Padua; sacraments; salvation; scripture; spirituale