Fourteen Articles of Agreement

Philip of Hesse called the colloquy for reasons that were as much political as theological. The reformers at Marburg represented cities and territories whose military cooperation Philip judged essential if Protestant Europe was to withstand pressure from the Catholic emperor Charles V, and doctrinal division between the Lutheran and Swiss Reformed movements stood in the way of any such alliance. Philip Melanchthon drafted a set of articles beforehand, and the delegates worked through them one by one over three days: on the nature of God, original sin, Christ's person and work, justification by faith, the authority of scripture, baptism and much else, the Lutheran and Reformed positions proved close enough to produce agreement without great difficulty.

By the time discussion reached the Lord's Supper, the fifteenth and final article, the two sides had spent themselves finding common ground everywhere else, which if anything sharpened the contrast when they could not find it here. Zwingli reportedly wept at the failure to reach full agreement despite the extent of what had been settled, and both sides left Marburg still willing to call each other fellow Christians while remaining unable to share communion together on the basis of what each held that sacrament actually to be.