A Brief Note on Dialogus, Defensor minor, and the Problem of Ecclesia Graecorum
A Brief Note on Dialogus, Defensor minor, and the Problem of Ecclesia Graecorum

Summary/Abstract: Both texts—the Dialogus as well as Defensor minor—were produced during the Bavarian stay of their authors, that is after the beginning of the 1320s. Thus far, scholars have accepted a more or less simple scheme describing the rough chronological order of the treatises. Marsiglio’s Defensor pacis was completed in 1324; its true authorship having been disclosed shortly thereafter, in 1326 Marsiglio fledtoGermanyacceptingtheprotectionofLudwigIV.Foradifferentreason, so did Ockham join Ludwig’s court in May 1328 and, as widely accepted, it was at this point that he turned to political philosophy for the purely concrete and practical reasons concerning the ongoing controversy within his own order and the conflict with John XXII.Atdifferent stages between 1334 and 1347, Ockham produced the different parts of an ambitious political project—the Third Part of the Dialogus. It was here, in its First Tract, that Ockham attacked also Marsiglio on numerous points. Tracing the common topics of disagreement is a matter of no difficulty: Ockham rejected Marsiglio’s position on the internal equality of the apostolic community, his interpretation concerning the „power of the keys“, as well as the infallibility of the general church council as an option of the rejection of the jurisdictional primacy of the pope. In the meantime, towards 1340 (a year earlier or later, by 1342 he was already dead6) Marsiglio finished the first twelve chapters of Defensor minor, a shorter treatise intended to respond to the numerous criticisms against Defensor pacis in general.

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