Marburg Colloquy (1529): Luther and Zwingli Fail to Agree

The Marburg Colloquy was a meeting of leading Protestant reformers held at Marburg Castle in Hesse from 1 to 4 October 1529. Landgrave Philip I of Hesse brought together Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli in the hope of uniting the German and Swiss reform movements. They agreed on almost every point of doctrine, but their failure to agree on the Lord’s Supper left Protestantism permanently divided into Lutheran and Reformed traditions.

Background

By the late 1520s the Reformation had two main centres. In Wittenberg, Luther and his colleague Philip Melanchthon led the German movement. In Zurich, Zwingli had led a separate reform since the early 1520s, as described in the article on Zwingli and the Zurich Reformation, and it had spread to Basel, Bern and several cities of southern Germany.

From about 1525 the two sides argued bitterly in print about the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist. Luther insisted that Jesus’s words “This is my body” meant that Christ’s body was truly present in the bread. Zwingli and Johannes Oecolampadius of Basel argued that the words were figurative and that Christ’s body was in heaven.

The dispute had political consequences. At the Second Diet of Speyer in April 1529, the Catholic majority moved to restrict reform, and the evangelical princes and cities issued a formal protest, from which the name “Protestant” comes. The young Philip of Hesse wanted to unite all Protestants in a defensive alliance against Emperor Charles V, but the Saxons would not ally with anyone they considered heretical about the sacrament.

The meeting

Philip invited both sides to his castle at Marburg. On the Wittenberg side came Luther, Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, Andreas Osiander, Johannes Brenz and Stephan Agricola. The Swiss and south German delegation included Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Martin Bucer and Caspar Hedio of Strasbourg.

Preliminary talks took place on 1 October, with Luther paired with Oecolampadius and Melanchthon with Zwingli. The main debate followed on 2 and 3 October before a small audience. According to accounts of the meeting, Luther wrote the words Hoc est corpus meum (“This is my body”) in chalk on the table and repeatedly returned to them.

Zwingli argued from John 6:63, “the flesh profiteth nothing”, that Christ’s words must be understood spiritually, and that a human body could be in only one place. Luther replied that God’s word must be taken as it stands and that Christ’s glorified body was not bound by ordinary limits. Neither side moved, though the debate remained more courteous than their earlier pamphlets.

The Marburg Articles

To save something from the meeting, Luther drafted fifteen articles of faith, which all the participants signed on 4 October. They agreed on the Trinity, the person of Christ, original sin, justification by faith, the role of Scripture, baptism and other points.

The fifteenth article on the Lord’s Supper recorded agreement that both bread and wine should be given to the laity and that spiritual eating of Christ’s body was necessary. It then stated that they had not agreed whether the true body and blood of Christ were bodily present in the bread and wine, and that each side should show Christian love to the other as far as conscience allowed.

Key people

• Philip I of Hesse (1504–1567): landgrave who organised the colloquy in pursuit of a Protestant alliance.
• Martin Luther (1483–1546): Wittenberg reformer who defended Christ’s real presence in the Supper.
• Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531): Zurich reformer who taught a symbolic understanding of the Supper.
• Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531): reformer of Basel and Zwingli’s closest ally in the debate.
• Martin Bucer (1491–1551): Strasbourg reformer who later worked to reconcile the two sides.

Timeline

• 1529, 19 April: Evangelical estates issue the Protestation at the Diet of Speyer.
• 1529, 1 October: The colloquy opens at Marburg with preliminary talks.
• 1529, 2–3 October: Main debate between Luther and Zwingli.
• 1529, 4 October: The fifteen Marburg Articles are signed.
• 1530, 25 June: The Augsburg Confession is presented without the Swiss.
• 1531, 11 October: Zwingli is killed at the Battle of Kappel.
• 1536, May: The Wittenberg Concord unites Luther with Bucer and the south German cities.

Consequences

The colloquy did not produce the alliance Philip had hoped for. When Charles V summoned the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, the Lutheran princes presented their own confession, while four south German cities submitted the separate Tetrapolitan Confession and Zwingli sent his own statement of faith.

The Schmalkaldic League formed in 1531 joined the Lutheran princes with several south German cities, but not the Swiss. The Swiss Protestants were left without German allies when war broke out with the Catholic cantons later that year. Martin Bucer continued to work for compromise and achieved the Wittenberg Concord with Luther in 1536, but the Swiss did not join it.

Why it matters

Marburg showed that the reformers shared most of their core beliefs yet could not overcome one central disagreement. The split over the Lord’s Supper became the defining difference between Lutheran and Reformed churches for centuries, and it weakened the political unity of Protestant Europe at a critical moment.