1523–1529

Zwingli, the Supper controversy and the Marburg Colloquy (1529)

German and Swiss Reformers together rejected transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass, but diverged in their positive teaching. Zwingli, having adopted by 1523 Cornelius Hoen's proposal to read "est" in "hoc est corpus meum" as "significat," taught that a sacrament is a pledge of loyalty to the community and the Supper a thankful remembrance of Christ's death; the body of Christ is at the right hand of the Father and cannot be in two places. Luther held to the literal sense of the words of institution and taught that "the right hand of God" is everywhere and the body of Christ is ubiquitous. In 1529 Landgrave Philip of Hesse brought Luther, Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer and Melanchthon together at Marburg: agreement was reached on fourteen articles and on five points of the fifteenth, but not on the presence of Christ's body and blood in the bread and wine. Protestantism remained divided into Lutheran and Reformed branches.