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 inextricably interwoven with religious objects throughout his career. He hoped for a union both spiritual and temporal between Zurich and Bern and the cities of South Germany, by means of which Emperor and Pope should alike be eliminated, and a democratic republic established; aristocracy, he declared, had always been the ruin of States. Under the influence of this idea a civic affiliation had been arranged between Constance and Zurich in 1527, and extended to St Gallen, Basel, Miilhausen in Elsass, and Biel in 1529; and it was partly to further this organisation and to counteract the alliance of Austria with the five Catholic cantons that Zwingli journeyed to Marburg.

But the primary objects of the conference were theological, and it was on a dispute over the Eucharist that the differences between the two parties came to a head On all other points Zwingli went to the limit of concession, but he could not accept the doctrine of consubstantiation. Luther chalked on the table round which they sat, the text "This is my Body, and nothing could move him from its literal interpretation. Zwingli, on the other hand, explained the phrase by referring to the sixth chapter of St John, and declared that "is" meant only "represents"; the bread and the wine represented the body and blood, as a portrait represents a real person. Christ was only figuratively "the door" and the "true vine"; and the Eucharist instead of being a miracle was, in his eyes, only a feast of commemoration. This doctrine was anathema to Luther; at the end of the debate Zwingli offered him his hand, but Luther rejected it, saying " Your spirit is not our spirit." As a final effort at compromise Luther was induced to draw up the fifteen Marburg Articles, of which the Zwinglians signed all but the one on the Eucharist; and it was agreed that each party should moderate the asperity of its language towards the other. But this did not prévent the Lutheran divines from denying that Zwinglians could be members of the Church of Christ, or Luther himself from writing a few days afterwards that they were " not only liars, but the very incarnation of lying, deceit, and hypocrisy, as Carlstadt and Zwingli show by their very deeds and words." The hand which had pulled down the 'Roman Church in Germany made the first rent in the Church which was beginning to grow up in its place. Zwingli went back to Zurich to meet his death two years later at Kappel, and the Lutherans returned home to ponder on the fate which the approach of Charles V had in store.

Their stubborn determination to sacrifice everything on the altar of dogma was as fatal to plans for their internal defence as it had been to their alliance with Zwingli. A few weeks after the Marburg Conference a meeting was held at Schwabach to consider the basis of common action between the north German Princes and the south German cities. As a preparation for this attempt at concord Luther drew up another series of seventeen articles in which he emphasised the points at issue