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The disruptive eucharistic controversy that split the Lutherans from the South Germans and the Swiss also began at this time. In answer to the Swiss, Luther defended his literal reading of the words “This is my body” in various works, especially The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ in 1526 and That These Words of Christ “This is my Body” Still Stand in 1527. Unfortunately Luther adopted in this debate a coarse and vituperative style that did little to win over his opponents or commend his teaching. Philip of Hesse tried to achieve agreement at Marburg in 1529, but in the discussions Luther showed from the first a rigidity that doomed the effort to failure. Later Luther accepted the uneasy concord with Bucer and the South Germans at Wittenberg (1536). No progress was made with the Swiss, however, although it has been thought that if Luther had lived, Calvin might have broken the deadlock. Luther’s concern was that in the saying “This is my body” the word “is” should be given its true force, but he opened the door to controversy by admitting a special mode of Christ’s presence in the relation to bread and wine. The controversy became christological when, in reply to the truth that Christ in the body is now in heaven, Luther claimed that the body enjoys omnipresence through the communicating of the attributes of Christ’s deity to his humanity. As a result christological as well as eucharistic differences continued between the Reformed and the Lutherans long after the death of Luther himself.

Luther ran into other difficulties, too. He hoped at first that the renewing of the gospel would open the way for the conversion of the Jews. When this hope was not realized, he made intemperate attacks on the Jews, thus putting a dark blot on his record. Philip of Hesse, the great champion of the Reformation, became a serious embarrassment when he secured the unwilling assent of Luther to his bigamous marriage in 1540. The development of armed religious alliances in the empire also worried Luther, for while he accepted the divine authorization of princes and valued their help in practical reformation, he struggled hard for the principle that the gospel does not need to be advanced or defended by military power. He was mercifully spared the conflict that came so soon after his death.