BASEL, CONFESSION OF. The Reformation was some what stormily introduced at Basel in 1529; and in 1531 a Con fession was drafted by Oecolampadius, the friend and follower of Zwingli; and adopted in a revised form by the city authorities in and shortly afterwards by the city of Miihlhausen in Alsace. It is known as the First Confession of Basel (or the Confession of Miihlhausen), and must be distinguished from the First and Second Helvetic Confessions (the former of which is sometimes called the Second Confession of Basel). It gives in 12 articles a moderate statement of the Zwinglian doctrine : declaring, for example, that in the Lord's Supper Christ is present as the food of the soul to everlasting life. It held its place in the Church of Basel down to 1872, when its use was discontinued.
See ZWINGLI (with reff.) ; W. A. Curtis in Hastings, Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, s.v. "Confessions," sec. 15; Schaff, Creeds of the Evangelical Protestant Churches (5th ed., 1887) ; Muller, Syznbolik, pp. 95 ff. (1896).