The Marburg Colloquy in perspective: its origin and significance

Any study of the Marburg Colloquy must center around this Eucharistic controversy. Although primarily motivated by the political desires of Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and Duke Ulrich of Wiirttemberg to effect a Protestant defensive coalition, the'colloguy failed to conclude such a union. Marburg ultimately culminated from a series of theological clashes between Luther and his three antagonists: Desiderius Erasmus the humanist, Bodenstein von Carlstadt the sacramentarian, and eventually Ulrich Zwingli, the "humanistic sacramentarian." The doctrinal lines had clearly been drawn and the battlefield chosen for what was to become the Protestants' first experiment in ecumenicity--the Marburg Colloquy.