Passional Christi und Antichristi

Martin Luther (1483–1546).
Der Erste Theil der Bücher, Schrifften, und Predigten.
Eisleben: Urban Gaubisch, 1564. (BRA0128)

This 1564 reprinting of Luther’s Passional Christi und Antichristi includes 26 woodcuts by Lucas Cranach the Elder that were first printed in 1521. These highly effective polemical prints compared the ministry of Christ against the corruption of the Antichrist, identified as the pope in Rome. Exhibited is Cranach’s pair of woodcuts that contrasts Christ’s expulsion of the moneychangers from the temple and papal endorsement of the sale of indulgences. This monetary dimension of salvation was one of the key issues that led so many of Dürer’s German contemporaries away from the Church of Rome. Although Dürer sided with Luther on matters of faith, his art never conveyed such anti-ecclesiastical statements.