7. Broken Body: Zwingli and Luther
SEVEN BROKEN BODY
ZWINGLI AND LUTHER
Huldrych Zwingli’s relationship with Martin Luther is a story of many parts.1 Since the nineteenth century, narratives of their antagonism have been freighted with issues of identity and confessional pride. The laser-like German focus on the person and thought of Martin Luther could only assume that Zwingli had in some form derived his theology from the Wittenberg doctor. Such an unquestioned article of faith naturally rankled with Swiss sensibilities, particularly in an age of patriotic, especially Protestant, pride. In reply, they insisted on Zwingli’s independence. As we shall see, many nineteenth-century historians of the Reformation were fascinated by comparisons of the two men in thought and character, often finding in Luther the mystical monk and in Zwingli the social, communal reformer. Indisputably, the Wittenberger has remained the pre-eminent figure in the triumphal narrative of Protestantism’s victory over a corrupt medieval Church. Zwingli was at best Batman’s Robin. At worst, the Joker.
If we leave behind old narratives of Luther and Zwingli as the clash of the titans, it is to acknowledge that the story was more complex, involving a much larger cast of characters whose convictions and hopes were not one. Certainly, the dispute over the Lord’s Supper tore the curtain of the Reformation, but that alone was not the tragedy. The Reformation had never enjoyed an arcadian age of peace and unity. As Luther had predicted, the renewal of the Word brought tumult and conflict. When Luther returned to Wittenberg after his time in the Wartburg castle, he found churches vandalized by followers who were convinced that they had faithfully followed his words. In Zurich, once-close friends felt deeply betrayed by Zwingli on several fronts, and by early 1525 some were baptizing one another against the will of the magistrates and the reformer. Zwingli’s godly community had no place for them, and the response was banishment. The catastrophe of the Peasants’ War threw a harsh light on the disharmony among the evangelicals, their discordant voices offering plenty of grist for Catholic mills. The house of the heretics was divided.
Optimistic, liberal and ecumenical-minded views of the Reformation that arose in the nineteenth century and retain their force cannot paper over the real differences between Luther and Zwingli. Their paths diverged intellectually, spiritually and existentially, although they shared a foundational conviction that the Word of God alone is authoritative and that men and women are saved by faith in Christ. Both had rejected the papacy and the Roman Church, abhorred the Anabaptists and held to the authority of temporal rulers in matters of religion. Christ had instituted two, not seven, sacraments. It is misleading to find some Manichean divide between the two men: their words often expressed unity of emphasis and expression.
Their story was not simply theological, but all too human. Zwingli and Luther did not have the personal relationship they had experienced with many others who became bitter opponents. They never corresponded, communicating only through their tracts and colleagues, and they possessed remarkably little knowledge or understanding of each other. Zwingli’s grasp of affairs in the German lands was partial, tendentious and often determined by religious aspirations. Luther, in turn, knew little about the Swiss nation – and cared even less. The polemic and politics of the age, with doctrinal statements often forged in the heat of battle, can tempt us into essentializing differences, believing there were only polarities. We forget that Zwingli and Luther lived and worked within friendship networks that extended across the German-speaking lands, from Saxony to Strasbourg to Basel and Bern, where committed reformers such as Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Bucer and Johannes Oecolampadius crafted theological arguments that moderated, tempered and nuanced the debates.
HERO TO FOE
Without question, Zwingli was influenced by both Luther’s thought and his life story, but that reality does little justice to his formation as a reformer.2 The Wittenberg professor had no singular influence on the Swiss priest, whose distinctive spiritual vision arose from a scholastic education, the model of Erasmus and years of reading the church fathers, and was influenced by contemporaries such as Melanchthon and Oecolampadius, alongside Luther. To this, naturally, we must add his Swiss culture, artistic gifts and charismatic nature. Until at least 1522, Zwingli regarded Erasmus as the leading theologian and the scholar who had opened his eyes to the possibilities of a renewed Christianity. His stay at Einsiedeln, as we have seen, offered the priest an extraordinary library and time to study the church fathers, notably Augustine and Jerome, whose influence on his conception of God’s justification through faith was pivotal.
Zwingli was certainly aware of Luther by the end of 1518, although he may have known of the indulgence controversy before that.3 By 1519, he was clearly well informed about the rising tide in Germany, as the humanist epistolary network in which he was active buzzed with news, rumours and prognostications. Luther’s works were printed in Basel and soon arrived in Zurich. Zwingli actively encouraged early reading circles in the city to take up Luther, emphasizing that the two men spoke in the same tones. Luther was for Zwingli proof that his own convictions about the Bible were neither isolated nor eccentric. Beatus Rhenanus, humanist friend of Erasmus, enthused to the Zurich priest that soon Luther’s works should be in every Swiss household.4 In June 1519, Zwingli wrote back that he had no fear that Luther’s writing on the Lord’s Prayer would not please him, adding that many copies should be purchased, particularly if the German wrote against the veneration of saints. Zwingli claimed that he had already forbidden the invocation of the blessed, and that it would be good to have a second, supportive voice, as the people were so attached to the practice.5 Several days later, he ordered a large number of Luther’s works from printers in Basel.6
In February 1520, Zwingli reported that Johannes Fabri, vicar general of the diocese of Constance, had been in Zurich and had encouraged him to write against Luther, which he politely declined to do.7 An early shared concern was the vexed issue of the tithe, which Zwingli had initially declared to be without scriptural warrant. Kaspar Hedio in Strasbourg, who had procured a Luther book for Zwingli, wrote: ‘you will find everything here about interest and tithes’.8 In July 1520, the Zurich priest maintained to Myconius that he had read almost nothing by Luther – although following the 1520 condemnation of the German by the scholastic theological faculties at Louvain and Cologne, he was certainly aware of the sharp reply from Wittenberg.9 Although it is difficult to prove, there is good reason to believe that Zwingli was reading as much Luther as he could get his hands on.
MARTIN LUTHER THROUGH ZWINGLI’S EYES
In a rare autobiographical passage in his 1523 Exposition of the Sixty-Seven Articles, Zwingli retold the story of his conversion in 1516 to an Erasmian view of Christ and the gospel. His account runs to his arrival in Zurich and the beginning of his preaching in January 1519, which led to accusations that he was a ‘Lutheran’. Zwingli had good reason to fear that appellation following the 1521 Edict of Worms that made Luther an outlaw. By 1523, he was still eager to claim that his enthusiasm for the Wittenberger should not make him known as a ‘Lutheran’, and he was eager to put some distance between them. Acknowledging Luther’s decisive role in the restoration of the gospel, as a ‘fearless warrior and servant of Christ’, Zwingli sought to dispel any notion that the term ‘Lutheran’ covered anyone preaching the gospel. Ask, he continued, not whether someone is a ‘Lutheran’, but whether he is a Christian, ‘an untiring worker towards God and people’.10 As to Luther’s influence, Zwingli was clear that it far exceeded his own, for ‘through him [Luther] a far greater number of people are led to God than through me and others (whose measure God increases and diminishes as he pleases)’.11
Zwingli was adamant that he had never been in contact with Luther, and that they had never corresponded, although the Zurich preacher did make oblique reference to having been accused of writing letters in the name of the Wittenberg professor.12 His purpose in maintaining a distance, Zwingli claimed, arose not out of fear of Luther, but rather to demonstrate that their similarities were the work of the Holy Spirit, which had delivered the same message through two men separated by geography and dialect. The very fact that he and Luther had preached the gospel in harmony demonstrated the verity of their calling. They were ‘of one voice in teaching the doctrines of Christ without prior consultation’. Nevertheless, Zwingli made no claim to equality, and he continued to speak of Luther’s lofty status: ‘I am not to be compared to him,’ he wrote, ‘for everyone does what God directs him to do.’13
Matters had certainly been turned on their head within a few years. By 1527, as we shall see, the well had been poisoned by conflict over the Lord’s Supper. Luther was no longer a hero, but the divider of the Church, who violated the unity of the gospel by hurling at the Swiss accusations of heresy and apostasy. Zwingli stressed how he and his colleagues had borne the assault with good will and faithfulness. The German, he noted sarcastically, would not be so ‘stubborn’ and ‘implacable’ if he had actually read what was sent to him by others. At the same time, Zwingli would not step back from a fight. Indeed, he asserted that in all their ‘skirmishes’ he had emerged as victor. ‘For so far as I understand your position,’ Zwingli addressed Luther, ‘you seem to be wholly ignorant of my arguments. For those which I have brought forward are enough to demolish without any trouble, begging your pardon, all that you offer to the contrary.’14 If Luther had intentionally not read Zwingli’s work, then he could only be considered a ‘deceiver of the people’.
Zwingli did not relent, pointing to Luther’s reputation for having a fiery temperament. You, he told Luther, speak in the ‘heat of your anger’ against others, while failing to show ‘good and innocent men the consideration that was due to them and worthy of yourself’.15 In a remark likely to have enraged Luther, Zwingli advised the German reformer to remain calm and consider how ‘men of piety’ have refuted error without passion:
Everyone knows how much violence has been done to the Church by greed and ambition, by guilt and hypocrisy, and are we to fancy that no harm will arise from hatred, jealousy, contention, rivalry and even bitterness, anger and impulsiveness? Are these not passions? Yes, they are fiercer ones than the others. There is no cause, then, to boast greatly of the Spirit, if we are overborne by these. Let bygones be bygones, then, and let us begin our exchange in a pleasant and light-hearted mood.16
Mapping the development of relations between Zwingli and Luther is challenging, for virtually all of the Zurich reformer’s accounts appear later, and are coloured by their bitter feud. Zwingli clearly had a keen interest in Luther, but it was not reciprocated until the Swiss had emerged as one of the ‘fanatics’ – even the chief devil – who corrupted Christ’s words. Luther never had anything positive to say about Zwingli.
The debate with Luther was never limited to the question of real presence in the Lord’s Supper. The broader picture was Zwingli’s interpretation of the Bible and his vision of the Christian community. His 1525 liturgy had emphasized the simplicity of the common meal, with the minister among the people, not at some distant altar. The bread and wine were taken in remembrance of the Passover meal that Jesus shared with his disciples. At heart was an unshakeable conviction that Christ could not be physically present in the bread and wine of the meal. For Zwingli, Oecolampadius and their colleagues, after his resurrection the Son ascended to the right hand of the Father, as the creeds of the Church declared. Nothing Zwingli said or wrote was more controversial, with its rejection of any physical presence of Christ, or would have such enduring influence on the history of Protestantism. He had declared the mass, the very heart of medieval worship, to be an idolatrous fabrication, in which the priest at the altar supposedly repeated Christ’s sacrifice. For Zwingli, that abomination implied that the crucifixion, a once-performed act, was insufficient and required repetition in human hands. The medieval Church, in Zwingli’s view, had diminished the saving work of Christ and arrogated to itself what belonged only to God.
In recasting Christ’s own words ‘this is my body’ and ‘this is my blood’, Zwingli’s view lacked any clear precedent. The bread and wine remained unchanged in their properties: they were symbols of the faith by which the people were transformed, lifted out of their locality by the Spirit to become the body of Christ. Zwingli emphasized the metamorphosis of the faithful, not the elements. This claim undermined not only the theology of the West, but also the devotional practices of the people, most of whom rarely received the wafer, but fell on their knees when it was consecrated in the hands of the priest. The presence of Christ in churches small and great was venerated in the host, visible to the faithful. The late-medieval world had produced the most elaborate and beautiful monstrances to display Christ’s physical presence.17 The streets of cities and towns were made sacred spaces by Corpus Christi processions.
Whatever the accusations of his opponents, Zwingli’s intention was not to denigrate the sacrament, but to reclaim its place at the heart of worship. The bread and wine feed only those who believe; in 1523 he wrote:
For the body and blood of Christ is none other than the word of faith. His body is given for us and his blood shed for us that we are redeemed and reconciled to God. If we believe that confidently, our soul has its food and drink in the flesh and blood of Christ.18
Without faith, Zwingli declared, one could be baptized repeatedly and gorge on the bread and wine to no effect. Rituals have no power to convey God’s grace and to stir the individual to repentance and thanksgiving. Faith, following on from election, must first be present, working as the operative agent. Whether one possesses that necessary faith, however, was entirely up to God. Christ’s body is given to men and women, but to receive it fully they had to believe that he had saved them because they were chosen by God.19 Zwingli had radically shifted the sacrament away from being the objective work of priests to being the subjective experience of the people.20
The meal, Zwingli believed, was a memorial to Christ’s passion and resurrection, to the salvation of the faithful. But what did it mean to come to the table as a memorial? To remember or commemorate was not merely an intellective act or simply observation of the event. Following Plato, Augustine and Erasmus, memory or recollection was a unitive act, in which the person is drawn to the object recalled. It was closely related to the Renaissance understanding of imitation, whereby a person is transformed into that which is imitated.21 Remembrance for Zwingli was inseparable from becoming one with Christ and his body, which consisted of the faithful through all the ages. It was the bond of heaven and earth.
Zwingli’s sacramental thought significantly developed in the summer of 1525, when he published his Subsidiary Tract on the Eucharist.22 Here he began to connect the Lord’s Supper with the Passover of ancient Israel, with particular reference to the command in Exodus that ran: ‘This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord’ (Exodus 12:11). Christ’s death, Zwingli was clear, was foreshadowed in the Exodus story, and Christ was the Pascal lamb.23
The linking of the Passover and the Lord’s Supper changed everything. The Israelites had celebrated the Passover as a symbol, a sign and remembrance of their deliverance from enslavement in Egypt. Just as Jews celebrated the meal before leaving Egypt, so, too, Christ had instituted the Last Supper before his death. The Lord’s Supper, like the Passover, brought the people together to commemorate a historical act of liberation. For Christians, that moment was Christ’s reconciling of humanity with God. In the same way, baptism was the sign of entry into the covenant, as circumcision had been for the Israelites. For centuries, Christian theologians had rejected the Passover as having no place in the Church. For Zwingli, it was the key to understanding Christ’s meal.
Zwingli’s revelation that the Lord’s Supper was the Passover came to him in a most extraordinary form of theological creation. He dreamt it.24 The claim to have received instruction in a vision was enduringly controversial. Was the truth of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ really revealed in sleep? Long after Zwingli was dead, Catholic and Lutheran critics would continue to mock the event, claiming that a nocturnal demon had visited an inveterate heretic.25 Nevertheless, in August 1525 the Zurich reformer made the extraordinary claim in print that during the night before the first celebration of the Reformed sacrament in the Grossmünster in Zurich, a figure had appeared to him in his sleep to exhort him to declare the true doctrine of the table.26
The little-known incident of Zwingli’s dream, rarely mentioned in biographies, is remarkably ambiguous, sustaining multiple interpretations and fraught with the anxieties expressed by Protestants about the nature of revelation in a somnolent state. Its verity, however, was resolutely maintained by both Zwingli and those of his successors who chose to mention the incident. For the reformer, the dream was of great significance, confirmation of his prophetic state. Although he wrote of it only the once, his account in the Subsidiary Tract – written four months after the event – was full and carefully crafted.
Heinrich Bullinger’s son-in-law, Ludwig Lavater, who had a great interest in ghosts and visions, left a comprehensive account of the dream which he may have received orally. The opening moment of the dream was a horror: it recalled an imaginary encounter between Zwingli and the Catholic Joachim am Grüt, who had fiercely argued against the reformer when the mass was to be abolished. The setting was a debate before the Council, and Zwingli recalled that in his dream he was unable to answer the questions put to him about the Lord’s Supper. At a crucial moment, a mysterious figure appeared, descending from a structure, and told Zwingli off for not having cited a crucial text from Exodus: ‘das ist das Phase’ (‘It is the Lord’s Passover’) (Exodus 12:11).27 In recalling the dream, Zwingli was unsure whether the mysterious figure was dressed in white or black. When he woke, Zwingli spoke of how he immediately flew from bed and, after his prayers, consulted the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) to confirm the passage to which the figure had referred. A clear indication of the truth was the reference to the Septuagint, which was Zwingli’s favoured version of the Hebrew scripture. He then went to the church to preach and, he wrote, all who had doubts or were unable to understand the passage comprehended.
Zwingli spoke of how, at first, he had thought the dream was a demonic manifestation of the night, but as the figure spoke to him he became increasingly aware that it was God’s will.28 He assured his readers that although he had been asleep, he could recall the details with precision. He had not wished for the dream and would gladly have ignored it, but God had spoken to him: he had been chosen to reveal the nature of the Supper as the Passover. He, as a human, had failed in the debate; only divine intervention had prevailed. Dreams had a long history in the Bible as channels through which God spoke. The fact that the mysterious figure had pointed him to the crucial text in Exodus was sufficient evidence of his divine purpose.
THE SACRAMENTAL DEBATE
Previously largely unaware of events in the Confederation, Luther first turned his attention to Zwingli in the late summer of 1524. He had been alerted by reports that Zwingli in Zurich and Oecolampadius in Basel were following the errors of his reviled former colleague and friend Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, who, to Luther’s horror, had rejected the physical presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper. Although the two Swiss reformers were sympathetic to Karlstadt’s position, the Saxon was not the author of their beliefs. Zwingli was explicit that his primary influence was Erasmus, who, he believed, taught a symbolic understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This was of no consequence to Luther, who quickly placed the Swiss in the camp of those who had been deceived by the devil and were enemies of the gospel. However they had come to their perverse views, the Wittenberg reformer was repelled by their rejection of the truth that Christ is physically present in the bread and wine.29
By 1525, Luther was aware that Karlstadt, Zwingli and Oecolampadius did not always sing from the same hymn sheet. And indeed, where Zwingli emphasized that when Christ said ‘this is my body’ the verb is meant signifies, Oecolampadius modified that view by claiming that Christ’s words meant ‘this is a figure of my body’.30 Luther was convinced that their disunity was a sure sign of error and regarded Zwingli as the prime culprit – he took a more charitable view of Oecolampadius, in whom he placed greater hope.31 But the somewhat protective friendship between Philipp Melanchthon, Luther’s colleague in Wittenberg, and Oecolampadius was soon also on the rocks.32 The Swiss had developed an understanding of Christ’s presence in the world that was fundamentally at odds with that held in Wittenberg. For the Germans, Zwingli and Oecolampadius were wrenching apart flesh and spirit – dividing Christ’s two natures, as the ancient heretical Nestorians had done.33
The debate over the sacraments exposed a growing chasm between the Swiss and the reformers of Wittenberg. The issue of the physical presence carried with it a bundle of other problems relating to the nature and purpose of the sacraments, the divine and human natures of Christ, and the role of flesh and spirit in the human person. Those differences demonstrated that even as all the reformers looked at the Bible, they found very different things, confirming Erasmus’ concern that their confidence in interpreting scripture against the consensus of the Church would only cause division – and, further, that they had betrayed him.34 This fragmentation of the Reformation was observed with a certain satisfaction by the Catholics, for whom the house of the heretics was always divided.
Zwingli and Oecolampadius were not alone. Their teaching on the spiritual presence of Christ in the sacrament was embraced elsewhere, particularly in the German cities of the southern Empire, notably Strasbourg and Augsburg.35 In fuelling strong anti-clerical and hierarchical sentiments, Zwingli’s sacramental theology was evidently deeply embedded in the social and economic lives of the people, and not limited to rarefied debate. His symbolic interpretation of the Lord’s Supper appealed to communal civic identities by moving the focus away from the priest to the people. The sacramental teaching of the Swiss reinforced the communal identity, for through baptism, a child was said to enter into the community that gathers around the table in an expression of equality.36 The reformers in these cities were in a precarious position, perched as they were between the emerging Lutheran and Reformed camps, while threatened by Catholic opposition. Men such as Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito in Strasbourg, together with the leading magistrate Jakob Sturm, while largely in agreement with Zwingli, wanted to mediate.37 ‘For our lamented adversaries,’ the Strasbourg preachers wrote, ‘are only beginning to have some new hope, persuading themselves that we are about to destroy ourselves in empty contentions and mutual recriminations.’38
Luther did not calm the nerves of the Strasbourgers, chiding them instead for their support of the Swiss and defending himself against charges of provoking conflict. He had preached the gospel for many years and never sought to promote himself or seek quarrels with others. His only purpose was Christ. But he gave no ground:
At the moment I do not intend to write against Zwingli or Oecolampadius . . . I know that they think that I do not yield because of shame. They are certainly mistaken. For there is God’s Word from which I know the conquering argument.39
Luther and Zwingli shared the conviction that the truth should be preached and disseminated, and that God would resolve any conflict. They also both rejected all compromise, casting the other in the role of Satan’s minion and breaker of the body of Christ.
By the summer of 1526, Luther was taking aim at Zwingli and Oecolampadius, writing two prefaces in which he named them as false prophets. Oecolampadius’ response charged the German reformer with erring in his teaching on the Lord’s Supper and with possessing an irascible temper that led him to denounce the Swiss as in league with the devil. Oecolampadius acknowledged that, as the great prophet of the Reformation, Luther was to be esteemed for his labours; but that did not put him above criticism when he behaved abysmally and without charity.40
During the summer of 1526, Luther became infuriated by the appearance of two works that attempted to ameliorate the growing conflict by suggesting unity where the Wittenberger saw none. First, Martin Bucer in Strasbourg produced an edition of Luther’s sermons, into which he dared to introduce changes that made the Wittenberg professor sound as though he were in sympathy with the spiritual eating of the Lord’s Supper advocated by the Swiss. Secondly, Leo Jud, Zwingli’s friend and colleague in Zurich, managed to enrage both Luther and Erasmus when he sought to demonstrate that Erasmus had written in Latin and Luther in German, but both were in agreement with Zwingli. Like Bucer, Jud had engaged in some fancy footwork to bring the discordant voices together. Both Erasmus and Luther were persuaded that their names and reputations were being traduced to justify heresy. ‘What will happen to us after we are dead,’ Luther despaired, ‘if such things take place while we are still alive?’41
During 1527, Zwingli and Luther continued to contend, with work that included the Zurich reformer’s ‘Friendly Exposition of the Eucharist Affair, to Martin Luther’, while from Wittenberg came ‘That These Words of Christ “This is My Body” Still Stand Firm against the Fanatics’. Luther was adamant that Zwingli and Oecolampadius belonged to a long tradition in which scripture was basely distorted for private means. ‘So once more,’ Luther attacked, ‘I shall set myself against the devil and his fanatics, not for their sake, but for the sake of the weak and simple.’ Zwingli, Oecolampadius and the others were lost; Luther’s goal must be to save the Church.
Luther roundly rejected the Swiss argument that Christ’s words ‘this is my body’ could be interpreted symbolically. Christ had meant what he said, he insisted. The logic of Zwingli’s argument that Christ could not be in the world, because he sat at the right hand of the Father was false: such a position depended on human reason that could prove no article of faith. Christ is present in the Supper in his fullness, feeding both soul and body.42 When Christ said that the flesh profits nothing, he was not referring to his own. The Swiss had misunderstood what was meant by spiritual: ‘Thus, Spirit consists in the use, not in the object, be it seeing, hearing, speaking, touching, begetting, bearing, eating, drinking, or anything else.’43
Zwingli replied with his most aggressive statements about Luther to date. He denounced the way in which Luther combined his erroneous arguments with personal abuse, regarding himself as far superior to his opponents. That arrogance further combined with extreme sensitivity, which for Zwingli indicated insecurity. Although Luther had been the great warrior against the papacy, his teaching on the Lord’s Supper demonstrated that he had in the end held to the doctrine of transubstantiation.
When Luther responded a year later with his ‘Against the Heavenly Prophets’, he once more took aim at the central arguments of Zwingli and Oecolampadius, but it was for the former that he reserved his venom. He described the Zurich reformer as ‘perverted’ and ‘lost to Christ’. And he went on: ‘I testify on my part that I regard Zwingli as un-Christian, with all his teachings, for he holds and teaches no part of the Christian faith rightly. He is seven times worse than when he was a papist.’44 Luther continued that he had never agreed with or held any of Zwingli’s positions. Significantly, when he turned to Oecolampadius, Luther was less aggressive, holding out more hope for the Basel reformer and pointing out that he disagreed with Zwingli on key points. This was Luther’s last statement on the Swiss reformers before he met them in person in Marburg in 1529. When Zwingli and Oecolampadius replied in the autumn of 1528 they were met by silence.
ENCOUNTER
The only personal encounter between Zwingli and Luther came in the autumn of 1529. It was not a success and never could have been. It was hardly conceivable, after a crescendo of vitriol, that during a short meeting the two sides would miraculously resolve a serious theological difference on which hung disparate views of God, scripture and humanity. For Luther, the stakes were not high and he expected little of Zwingli or Oecolampadius and had no interest in an alliance with the Swiss. Zwingli, however, had much to gain by even a cessation of hostilities. Zurich and the Swiss had no role in imperial religious politics, as they sat on the periphery. Yet, it had become all too clear to Zwingli that a German alliance might realize his goal of reformation in the Confederation. Zwingli believed that for him – unlike for Luther – the Rubicon had not yet been crossed and that he had a chance of finding some form of agreement.
In April 1529, following the Diet of Speyer, where evangelical principalities and cities had issued their protestation against the imposition of the Edict of Worms in the Empire, Landgrave Philipp of Hesse (1504–1567) showed himself keen to form an alliance between the evangelical states in the Empire and the Swiss, creating a union that would extend from the Alps to the Baltic Sea. He had enjoyed good relations with Zwingli and sought to bring the Zurich reformer into the discussions, but the sacramental dispute was a formidable obstacle. Luther could not imagine an alliance with ‘those who strive against God and the sacraments’ with their ‘wickedness and blasphemy’. Such abuse of the gospel could lead only to damnation: for Luther and his followers, it ruled out any notion of conciliation. Indeed, Luther saw the creation of an alliance along the lines envisaged by Philipp as yet another of Satan’s wiles. The city of Strasbourg was crucial: influential and wealthy, it was a key ally of Philipp of Hesse through the politician Jakob Sturm (1489–1553) and the reformers Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito. They formed the essential link between the Swiss and the Germans, although Luther remained deeply suspicious of their motives. From the spring of 1529, Zurich had formed an alliance with the city. As one historian observed, ‘without Strasbourg there would have been no Marburg’.45
Resolution of the sacramental dispute was, however, the prerequisite for a political alliance, as Philipp of Hesse, Elector Johann of Saxony (1468–1532) and other leading political figures in the Empire recognized. Initially, the Wittenberg doctor treated Philipp of Hesse’s suggestion of a personal meeting with the Swiss like the plague, but he was under considerable pressure to attend. In drawing up the Schwabach Articles in the summer of 1529, Luther and his followers stated their bottom line for agreement: the Swiss and their allies would have to concede. When Luther did agree to attend, he assumed that he would meet the more acceptable Oecolampadius, rather than Zwingli. By this point, the friendship between Oecolampadius and Melanchthon was deeply troubled by the split over the Eucharist. As Oecolampadius sought to patch up their relationship, Melanchthon warned him against the views of the Zwinglians and was eager to encourage his friend against any alliance with them.46
Philipp sent out the invitation to the reformers in the expectation that Luther and Melanchthon would face Zwingli and Oecolampadius. Other reformers were to be present only as spectators. The invitation was taken up enthusiastically in Zurich, although it was recognized that caution would be required. Zwingli’s departure from Zurich was a secret known only to the Council, and not even to his wife, Anna. The dangers of the journey were considerable: it was perilous for Zwingli to leave the walls of the city – not that he was free of threats even within the city’s limits. Catholics were only one possible adversary, for Zwingli had a reputation in the German lands as Luther’s opponent. Philipp had arranged for him to travel through safe locations until he arrived at Marburg in Hesse.
Having travelled via Strasbourg, Zwingli arrived in Marburg before the party from Wittenberg. We have no written record of this relatively small and private affair, for which more intimate surroundings were deemed suitable. The discussions were held in German, not least because Latin would have excluded Philipp of Hesse and other notable participants; but the use of the vernacular did not mean that Luther and Zwingli could easily understand one another. The Wittenberger’s Saxon dialect was virtually incomprehensible to a speaker of Swiss Alemannic, and Luther complained that he struggled to comprehend Zwingli.
The meeting was suffused with political consequences. Philipp of Hesse used the opportunity to announce to the Swiss his plans for a southern German alliance against the Habsburgs.47 Accompanied by Jakob Sturm from Strasbourg and Duke Ulrich of Württemberg (1487–1550), he offered the Swiss military aid should they join the fraternity. Indeed, he would personally come to the Confederation, along with the northern German princes.
The discussions opened with Luther meeting Oecolampadius, while Zwingli met Melanchthon. Luther had, against Swiss wishes, insisted on no written record. Disagreements surfaced quickly – Oecolampadius told Zwingli that in Luther he had met another Johann Eck.48 Debates focused on the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and throughout the day the two sides exchanged views on the questions of spirit and flesh, the location of Christ’s body and the weight of scriptural evidence. But Luther and Zwingli, together with Oecolampadius, Melanchthon and Bucer, largely restated their established views, making the level of disagreement vividly clear. There was a robust exchange on the question of whether Christ’s body could be present in more than one place, with Luther rejecting the Swiss argument that it could not. Once again, Zwingli and Oecolampadius turned to John 6:63 – ‘The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.’ Luther appealed to the language of ‘mystery’, a word that Zwingli was loath to use.49 At one point, Luther lifted the tablecloth to read aloud the words he had written in chalk on the table: ‘This is my body.’ With little progress made, at the end of the day Zwingli despondently asked: ‘Should, then, everything go according to your will?’
Attempts were made to reach some form of agreement. The parties could at least concur that Christ’s words ‘this is my body’ indicate that He is present. Further, the Wittenbergers accepted that the Swiss had not fully rejected the presence of Christ, while the Swiss acknowledged that Luther had not meant that Christ’s body was locally present in flesh and blood.50 Both sides avoided the language of transubstantiation, drawing instead on Aristotle for terms to express how the people received the body and blood in the bread and wine. But in the end, the Swiss would not agree, citing pastoral concerns about the complexity of such an agreement. They knew that much of the attraction of their arguments lay in their relative simplicity and coherence. How were they to adopt a formula consisting of contorted language?
Luther stated his scepticism about the meeting, claiming that he only attended on account of Landgrave Philipp of Hesse. He agreed to lay out the true foundations of the faith and to challenge Zwingli and Oecolampadius to respond. The Swiss were bewildered: they thought they had come to debate the Lord’s Supper, not the whole of Christian doctrine. As a final gasp, Luther reworked his Schwabach Articles in a less polemical form to demonstrate the orthodoxy of the evangelical faith, its continuity with the early Church and its foundation in scripture. The screeds against the ‘fanatics’ were discreetly removed.
The 15 Articles of Marburg were signed by all the major figures at the meeting and printed across the German and Swiss lands. Representing the greatest achievement of the meeting, they contained agreement on the major principles of the Christian faith, including the Trinity, Christology, sin, scripture and salvation by faith alone.51 Article 15 addressed the Lord’s Supper and was deliberately vague, making a statement about receiving the sacrament in both kinds and the importance of spiritual eating:
And although at this time, we have not reached an agreement as to whether the true body and blood of Christ are bodily present in the bread and wine, nevertheless, each side should show Christian love to the other side insofar as conscience will permit and both sides should diligently pray to Almighty God that through his Spirit he might confirm us in the right understanding. Amen.52
The disagreement was acknowledged and the opaque statement would later be diversely interpreted. Any real reconciliation was illusory. Famously, Zwingli broke down in tears when expressing a fervent desire for friendship.53 Luther’s judgement in a letter to his wife, Katherina, was brutal: ‘We do not want them as brothers and members [of Christ], although we wish them peace and good things.’54
The conflict between Luther and the Swiss was never limited to whether Christ is physically present in the sacrament.55 Their disagreement concerned nothing less than God and his Word, with Luther believing that Zwingli and Oecolampadius had wilfully denied the teaching of scripture. Luther held that God was hidden, beyond human perception and manifested in physical signs. Zwingli, in contrast, held that God is simple and evident, unable to deceive.56 He was repeatedly optimistic: God is good and benevolent, inviting humanity into his revelation. Men and women can have absolute assurance in divine providence, which orders all things for the good and without doubt. God is absolutely provident or is not God.57 That was Zwingli’s ultimate comfort and source of hope. God is not bound to the sacraments in any way: they are symbols of his initiation, his providential care. Zwingli’s thought resided in that certainty, and he never shifted.
Zwingli had arrived several days early for the meeting at Marburg, and planned to use the time to rest and prepare for the sessions with Luther and Melanchthon. On 29 October, two days after his arrival, he preached in the castle chapel, choosing as his theme not primarily the sacraments, but the providence of God.58 Several months later, in January 1530, Philipp of Hesse wrote to Zwingli requesting that he publish the sermon.59 The reformer, who never spoke from prepared notes, had to reconstruct his words from memory, writing a text that appeared in the summer of 1530 as ‘On Providence’.
We find in the sermon Zwingli’s most emphatic and poetic evocation of a God who is simple and good, and who orders all creation according to his pleasure:
His decrees remain unalterable, because He is Himself unalterable and unchangeable. Hence, we may infer that what God once was towards His creatures, He is also today, so that if He ever showered His goodness upon the good and pursued the wicked with righteousness, He maintains the same attitude today also in the freedom of His will. Therefore, as He once was toward the elect, so He is now, and likewise toward the rejected.60
The ancients bore witness to God’s providence:
Caesar seizes a monarchy, Brutus destroys one, the first sending headlong to ruin the Roman power already tottering to its fall, the other to tear out the tyranny of a Tarquin and make room for justice in a future democracy. Thus God uses for good all deeds both good and ill, though with the distinction that He turns to good for the elect even the evil they do, and the contrary for the rejected, while we meanwhile complain through impatience or ignorance. Thus, all things happen, because all things are done by His dispensation and command.61
The sermon was Zwingli’s most philosophical work, drawn from the thoughts of Plato and directed against Stoic fatalism. While the ancients had glimpsed this God, he was only truly known through scripture, from which humanity knows that it has been saved by his sheer goodness.62 As the highest good, God cares for his own. Zwingli invoked Christ’s words: ‘Why do you call me good? There is none good but God.’ Anything else that is good is so only through participation in the divine. God foresaw the fall and even permitted it, but to humanity’s ultimate benefit: to possess true knowledge of good and evil. Goodness is God’s essence and the substance of his revelation: it is the source of joy.
Zwingli’s reworking of his sermon at Marburg following the bitter harvest of no agreement was a full-throated prophetic declaration, a bold claim that the Swiss spoke God’s Word. Zwingli had not gone to Marburg to change his mind or to find an easy path to agreement. It was evident that he and Luther shared common ground; but ultimately, they could not coexist. Their views of God and humanity, their differences as Swiss and German and their self-understandings as prophets rendered agreement impossible. Zwingli once wrote to Luther ‘for if we are true prophets we shall listen to each other, and if we are in error upon any matter we shall yield the point’.63 That never happened, and nor could it have; and neither man was either the hero or the villain. They were irreconcilable. Zwingli may have cried when he and Luther parted, but he did not beg. Providence, he believed, had put him where he was, and he led the true cause.