Reformation Propaganda
The Reformation in the early 16th century started with Martin Luther questioning the authority of the Catholic Church by condemning the Pope for selling religious offices, letting religious leaders go against their vows, and selling indulgences; indulgences were contracts sold by the church to the people, to reduce people’s punishment for their sins. Luther proceeded to publicly confront and challenge the church and started his religion, Lutheranism, which only followed the Bible, not the Pope. At the time, people couldn’t read the Bible for themselves so they did not question the Catholic church’s supremacy and saw the clergy as delivering the word of God (Iordache 64). However, Martin Luther wanted people to read the
…show more content…
One of these pieces of propaganda is Luther’s 95 Theses. Many scholars argue that Luther wrote his theses to condemn the Catholic church, the Pope, and indulgences. One researcher for The Library of Congress, David Morris, pulls together multiple sources to argue that Luther intended to condemn the church. Despite researchers claiming Luther wrote his theses for those reasons, this essay will argue that although Luther does argue the Pope and indulgences are corrupt, he also writes his theses to save the souls of the German laypeople. In Luther’s theses, he writes about the corruption of the Catholic Church, specifically that the Pope is the antichrist because he sold …show more content…
In the woodcuts, the two are depicted as portraying opposite actions, in treating their disciples differently. By displaying evidence of the Pope and Christ's contrasting behaviors, Cranach is counting on people to see the logical reasoning and to come to the conclusion themselves, that Pope is the opposite of Jesus, the Antichrist, and he will obliterate Christianity. Cranach is attempting to put the Pope in perspective to Jesus. Jesus was seen as the embodiment of God and therefore he was the prime example of a good Christian. Thus when Cranach shows that the exemplary Christain and the Pope act opposingly, he leads people to see that the Pope is a corrupt Christian. Furthermore, Cranach is depicting a real scene; as Whittford explains, Pope Gregory once said that kings should kiss all Pope’s feet (45). This makes his argument all the more reliable, which, therefore, proves that Cranach had real evidence that he used to support his depiction of the two religious figures acting in opposite ways, in his woodcuts. Cranach’s display of straightforward and firm evidence in his woodcut uses logic that is easy for people to understand so that the people can conclude on their own, that the Pope will be the collapse of the