Dates 1 Oct 1529 – 4 Oct 1529 | Location Marburg, Germany | |
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The Marburg Colloquy was a meeting at Marburg Castle, Marburg, Hesse, Germany which attempted to solve a disputation between Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli over the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. It took place between 1 October and 4 October 1529. The leading Protestant reformers of the time attended at the behest of Philipp I of Hessen. Philipp's primary motivation for this conference was political; he wished to unite the Protestant states in political alliance, and to this end, religious harmony was an important consideration.
Contents
After the Diet of Speyer had confirmed the edict of Worms, Philipp I felt the need to reconcile the diverging views of Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli in order to develop a unified Protestant theology. Besides Luther and Zwingli, the reformers Stephan Agricola, Johannes Brenz, Martin Bucer, Caspar Hedio, Justus Jonas, Philipp Melanchthon, Johannes Oecolampadius, and Andreas Osiander participated in the meeting.
If Philip wanted the meeting to be a symbol of Protestant unity he was disappointed. Both Luther and Zwingli fell out over the sacrament.
Background
Philip of Hesse had a political motivation to unify all the leading Protestants because he believed that as a divided entity they were vulnerable to Charles V. As a unified force, they would appear to be more powerful. Religious harmony was vital amongst the Protestants for there to be a unification.
The Colloquy
Although the two prominent reformers, Luther and Zwingli, found a consensus on fourteen theological points, they kept differing on the last one pertaining to the Eucharist: Luther maintained that by Sacramental Union, the consecrated bread and wine in the Lord's Supper were united to the true body and blood of Christ for all communicants to eat and drink; Christ was mysteriously present 'in, with, and under' the bread an wine. In contrast, Zwingli believed that the communion service was a commemoration of Christ’s sacrifices and that the bread and wine were purely symbolic. On this issue, they parted without having reached an agreement.
Underlying this disagreement was their theology of Christ. Luther believed that the human body of Christ was ubiquitous (present in all places) and so present in the bread and wine. This was possible because the attributes of God infused Christ's human nature. Luther emphasized the oneness of Christ's person. Zwingli, who emphasized the distinction of the natures, believed that while Christ in his deity was omnipresent, Christ's human body could only be present in one place, that is, at the right hand of the Father. Because of the differences Luther initially refused to acknowledge Zwingli and his followers as Christians, though following the colloquy the two Reformers showed relatively more mutual respect in their writings.
Near the end of the colloquy when it was clear an agreement would not be reached, Philipp asked Luther to draft a list of doctrines all that both sides agreed upon. The Marburg Articles, based on what would become the Articles of Schwabach, had 15 points, and every person at the colloquy could agree on the first 14.
Aftermath
At the later Diet of Augsburg the Zwinglians and Lutherans again explored the same territory as that covered in the Marburg Colloquy, and presented separate statements which showed the differences in opinion.