Luther, Cranach, and the Passional Christi und Antichristi

Abstract

Martin Luther was convinced that due to its corruption and distortions of Christ's message, the office of the papacy - as opposed to any one particular pope - had become the biblically-prophesied Antichrist. In 1521, a 26-page pamphlet was released (with Luther's prior knowledge and approval) entitled "Passional Christi und Antichristi" with woodcuts by Lucas Cranach the Elder, that illustrated for lettered and unlettered alike the specific ways in which the papacy had become Antichrist. Each set of facing pages in Passional depicts Christ on the left side and the Pope on the other, doing the opposite of whatever Christ is doing. The text accompanying the images of Christ is from scripture, while that below the images of the Pope is taken from canon law - using the words of the papacy to indict the papacy. This work explores how the propagandistic elements of Passional functioned in the context of images of Christ taken from the German devotional print tradition, and the unique qualities of Passional that make it one of the most-recognized examples of early Lutheran Flugschriften.