The Emperor, meanwhile, concluded a final treaty with the Pope on June 29, and on August 5 made peace with King Francis. By this treaty of Barcelona he pledged himself to provide a suitable antidote to the poisonous infection of the new opinions. By the peace of Cambray he renewed the promise, given in the treaty of Madrid, of a mutual cooperation of the two monarchs for the extirpation of heresy.
At Marburg the meeting now actually took place between the theological champions of that great religious movement which strove to set up the gospel against the domination of Rome, and was therefore condemned by Rome as heretical. It was now to be decided whether the anti-Romanists could not become united among themselves; whether the two hostile parties in this movement could not, at least in face of the common danger, join to make a powerful united Church. Zwingli's political conduct, and the cheerful and submissive readiness with which he had complied with the Landgrave's proposal, afforded ground for expecting that, while steadfastly adhering to his own doctrine, he would embrace such an alliance, notwithstanding their doctrinal differences. Everything now really depended upon Luther.
Zwingli and Oecolampadius met the Strasburg theologians, Butzer and
Hedio, and Jacob Sturm, the leading citizen of that town, on
September 29, at Marburg. The next day they were joined by Luther
and Melancthon, together with Jonas and Cruciger from Wittenberg and
Myeonius from Gotha; and afterwards came the preachers Osiander from
Nüremberg, Brenz from Schwäbish Hall, and Stephen Agricola from
Augsburg. The Landgrave entertained them in a friendly and sumptuous
manner at his castle.
On October 1, the day after his arrival, Luther was summoned by the Landgrave to a private conference with Oecolampadius, towards whom he had always felt more confidence, and whom he had greeted in a friendly manner when they met. Melancthon, being of a calmer temperament, was left to confer with Zwingli. As regards the main subject of the controversy, the question of the Sacrament, no practical result was arrived at between the parties. But on certain other points, in which Zwingli had been suspected by the Wittenbergers, and in which he partly differed from them—for instance, concerning the Church doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, and the Godhead of Christ, and the doctrine of original sin—he offered explanations to Melancthon, the result of which was that the two came to an agreement.
The general debate began on Sunday, October 2, at six o'clock in the morning. The theologians assembled for that purpose in an apartment in the east wing of the castle, before the Landgrave himself, and a number of nobles and guests of the court, including the exiled Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg. Out of deference to the audience, the language used was to be German. Zwingli had wished, instead, that anyone who desired it might be admitted to hear, but that the discussion should be held in Latin, which he could speak with greater fluency. The four theologians last mentioned, who were to conduct the debate, sat together at a table. Luther, however, assumed the lead of his side; Melancthon only put in a few remarks here and there. The Landgrave's chancellor, Feige, opened the proceedings with a formal address.
Luther at the outset requested that his opponents should first express their opinions upon other points of doctrine which seemed to him doubtful; but he waived this request on Oecolampadius's replying that he was not aware that such doubts involved any contradiction to Luther's doctrine, and on Zwingli's appealing to his agreement recently effected with Melancthon. All he himself had to do, said Luther, was to declare publicly, that with regard to those doubts he disagreed entirely with certain expressions contained in their earlier writings. The chief question was then taken in hand.
The arguments and counter-arguments, set forth by the combatants at various times in their writings, were now succinctly but exhaustively recapitulated. But they were neither strengthened further nor enlarged. The disputants were constrained to listen during this debate to the oral utterances of their opponents with more deference than they had done for the most part in their literary controversy, with its hasty and passionate expressions on each side.
Luther from the outset took his stand, as he had done before, on the simple words of institution, 'This is my Body.' He had chalked them down before him on the table. His opponents, he maintained, ought to give to God the honour due to Him, by believing His 'pure and unadorned Word.'
Zwingli and Oecolampadius, on the contrary, relied mainly, as heretofore, on the words of Christ in the sixth chapter of St. John, where He evidently alluded to a spiritual feeding, and declared that 'the flesh profiteth nothing.' Honour must be given to God, he said, by accepting from Him this clear interpretation of His Word. Luther agreed with them, as previously, that Jesus there spoke only of the spiritual partaking by the faithful, but maintained that in the Sacrament He had, in his words of institution, superadded the offer of His Body for the strengthening of faith and that these words were not useless or unmeaning, but of potent efficacy through the Word of God. 'I would eat even crab-apples,' said Luther, without asking why, if the Lord put them before me, and said "Take and eat."' He fired up when Zwingli answered that the passage in St. John 'broke Luther's neck,' the expression not being as familiar to him as to the Swiss: the Landgrave himself had to step in as a mediator and quiet them.
In the afternoon Luther's opponents proceeded to argue 'that Christ could not be present with His Body at the Sacrament, because His Body was in heaven, and the body, as such, was confined within circumscribed limits, and could only be present in one place at a time. Luther then asked, with reference to the objection that Christ was in heaven and at the right hand of God, why Zwingli insisted on taking those words in such a nakedly literal sense. He declined to enter upon explanations as to the locality of the Body, though he could well have disputed for a long time on that subject: for the omnipotence of God, he said, by virtue whereof that Body was present everywhere at the Sacrament, stood above all mathematics. Of greater weight to him must have been the argument of Zwingli, which at any rate had a Christian and biblical aspect, that Christ with His flesh became like his human brethren, while they again at the last day are to be fashioned like unto his glorified Body, though incapable, nevertheless, of being in different places at the same time. Luther rejected this argument, however, on the ground of the distinction he was careful to draw between the actual attributes which Christ possessed in common with all Christians, and those which He did not so possess at all, or possessed in a manner peculiar to Himself, and exalting him far above mankind. For example, Christ had no wife, as men have.