No. 145. The Music of the Demon.
The reformers, however, were more than a match for their opponents in this sort of warfare. Luther himself was full of comic and satiric humour, and a mass of the talent of that age was ranged on his side, both literary and artistic. After the reformer’s marriage, the papal party quoted the old legend, that Antichrist was to be born of the union of a monk and a nun, and it was intimated that if Luther himself could not be directly identified with Antichrist, he had, at least, a fair chance of becoming his parent. But the reformers had resolved, on what appeared to be much more conclusive evidence, that Antichrist was only emblematical of the papacy, that under this form he had been long dominant on earth, and that the end of his reign was then approaching. A remarkable pamphlet, designed to place this idea pictorially before the public, was produced from the pencil of Luther’s friend, the celebrated painter, Lucas Cranach, and appeared in the year 1521 under the title of “The Passionale of Christ and Antichrist” (Passional Christi und Antichristi). It is a small quarto, each page of which is nearly filled by a woodcut, having a few lines of explanation in German below. The cut to the left represents some incident in the life of Christ, while that facing it to the right gives a contrasting fact in the history of papal tyranny. Thus the first cut on the left represents Jesus in His humility, refusing earthly dignities and power, while on the adjoining page we see the pope, with his cardinals and bishops, supported by his hosts of warriors, his cannon, and his fortifications, in his temporal dominion over secular princes. When we open again we see on one side Christ crowned with thorns by the insulting soldiery, and on the other the pope, enthroned in all his worldly glory, exacting the worship of his courtiers. On another we have Christ washing the feet of His disciples, and in contrast the pope compelling the emperor to kiss his toe. And so on, through a number of curious illustrations, until at last we come to Christ’s ascension into heaven, in contrast with which a troop of demons, of the most varied and singular forms, have seized upon the papal Antichrist, and are casting him down into the flames of hell, where some of his own monks wait to receive him. This last picture is drawn with so much spirit, that I have copied it in the cut No. 146.
No. 146. The Descent of the Pope.
No. 147. The Pope-ass.
The monstrous figures of animals which had amused the sculptors and miniaturists of an earlier period came in time to be looked upon as realities, and were not only regarded with wonder as physical deformities, but were objects of superstition, for they were believed to be sent into the world as warnings of great revolutions and calamities. During the age preceding the Reformation, the reports of the births or discoveries of such monsters were very common, and engravings of them were no doubt profitable articles of merchandise among the early book-hawkers. Two of these were very celebrated in the time of the Reformation, the Pope-ass and the Monk-calf, and were published and republished with an explanation under the names of Luther and Melancthon, which made them emblematical of the Papacy and of the abuses of the Romish church, and, of course, prognostications of their approaching exposure and fall. It was pretended that the Pope-ass was found dead in the river Tiber, at Rome, in the year 1496. It is represented in our cut No. 147, taken from an engraving preserved in a very curious volume of broadside Lutheran caricatures, in the library of the British Museum, all belonging to the year 1545, though this design had been published many years before. The head of an ass, we are told, represented the pope himself, with his false and carnal doctrines. The right hand resembled the foot of an elephant, signifying the spiritual power of the pope, which was heavy, and stamped down and crushed people’s consciences. The left hand was that of a man, signifying the worldly power of the pope, which grasped at universal empire over kings and princes. The right foot was that of an ox, signifying the spiritual ministers of the papacy, the doctors of the church, the preachers, confessors, and scholastic theologians, and especially the monks and nuns, those who aided and supported the pope in oppressing people’s bodies and souls. The left foot was that of a griffin, an animal which, when it once seizes its prey, never lets it escape, and signified the canonists, the monsters of the pope’s temporal power, who grasped people’s temporal goods, and never returned them. The breast and belly of this monster were those of a woman, and signified the papal body, the cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, &c, who spent their lives in eating, drinking, and incontinence; and this part of the body was naked, because the popish clergy were not ashamed to expose their vices to the public. The legs, arms, and neck, on the contrary, were clothed with fishes’ scales; these signified the temporal princes and lords, who were mostly in alliance with the papacy. The old man’s head behind the monster, meant that the papacy had become old, and was approaching its end; and the head of a dragon, vomiting flames, which served for a tail, was significative of the great threats, the venomous horrible bulls and blasphemous writings, which the pontiff and his ministers, enraged at seeing their end approach, were launching into the world against all who opposed them. These explanations were supported by apt quotations from the Scriptures, and were so effective, and became so popular, that the picture was published in various shapes, and was seen adorning the walls of the humblest cottages. I believe it is still to be met with in a similar position in some parts of Germany. It was considered at the time to be a masterly piece of satire. The picture of the Monk-calf, which is represented in our cut No. 148, was published at the same time, and usually accompanies it. This monster is said to have been born at Freyburg, in Misnia, and is simply a rather coarse emblem of the monachal character.
No. 148. The Monk-Calf.