Luther Visualized 13 – Sacramentarian Controversy

The Sacramentarian Controversy

Left: Hans Asper, Huldrychus Zvinglius (Ulrich Zwingli), woodcut, 1531. Right: Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) wins the award for longest book title in the Sacramentarian Controversy: That These Words of Jesus Christ, “This Is My Body Which Is Given for You,” Will Forever Retain Their Ancient, Single Meaning, and Martin Luther With His Latest Book Has by No Means Proved or Established His Own and the Pope’s View: Ulrich Zwingli’s Christian Answer (Zurich: Christoffel Froschouer, June 1527).

Martin Luther often cited the German proverb, “Wherever God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel nextdoor.” Nowhere was that more noticeably true in Luther’s lifetime than in the Sacramentarian Controversy. The two most public opponents of Luther in the controversy were Ulrich Zwingli, a priest in Zurich, Switzerland, and Johannes Oecolampadius, a professor and preacher in Basel, Switzerland. Both of them at first publicly declared their agreement with Luther’s teachings, including his teaching on the Lord’s Supper. But around 1524 and 1525, they began teaching that Christ was not really present, but only symbolically present in the Supper. When a literature battle between both sides ensued, Luther continually based his sacramental teaching on the clear words of Jesus and the apostle Paul in passages having to do with the Lord’s Supper, while Zwingli and Oecolampadius based their sacramental teaching on John 6 (where Jesus’ discourse predates his institution of Lord’s Supper and speaks of faith, not the Sacrament) and on human reasoning.

The controversy culminated at the Marburg Colloquy on October 1-4, 1529. While the in-person meeting did take the vitriol out of the controversy, it also confirmed that an irreparable rupture had divided the evangelical camp. Those present agreed to the first 14 of the so-called Marburg Articles that Luther drew up at the end of the meeting, but the Lutherans and the Zwinglians disagreed on the last point concerning the essence of the Lord’s Supper. As a result Luther said the Zwinglians did not have the same spirit, and Luther and his followers refused to acknowledge them as brothers and members of the body of Christ. And as it turned out, the unity on the other 14 articles was not as strong as it first appeared. The sixth, eighth, ninth, and fourteenth of the Marburg Articles affirmed God’s word and baptism as means of grace, but in the seventh point of the personal presentation of faith (fidei ratio) that Zwingli drew up for Emperor Charles V the following year, he rejected the concept of any means of grace.

Sources
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 293-334

Ulrich Zwingli, Das dise wort Jesu Christi / Das ist min lychnam der für üch hinggeben wirt / ewigklich den alten eynigen sinn haben werdend / vnd M. Luter mit sinem letsten buoch sinen vnd des Bapsts sinn / gar nit gelert noch bewaert hat. Huldrych Zuinglis Christenlich Antwurt. (Zurich: Christoffel Forschouer, June 1527)

“Die Marburger Artikel” in Weimarer Ausgabe 30/3:160-171

Ulrich Zwingli, Ad Carolum Romanorum Imperatorem Germaniae comitia Augustae celebrantem, Fidei Huldrychi Zuinglii ratio (Zurich: Christoffel Froschouer, July 1530)

Woodcut of Marburg from Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographiae universalis Lib. VI. (Six Books of Universal Cosmography) (Basel: Henrich Petri, March 1552)

The Marburg Colloquy was held in the Royal Castle, pictured here on a hill in the center background. The city of Marburg is viewed from “Der Leynberg” or the Lahnberge, Striped Mountains, in the foreground (east), with St. Elizabeth Church on the right (north) and St. Mary’s Parish Church beneath the castle. The university is to the left (south) of St. Mary’s. The hill behind the castle to the southwest is identified as “Der Geyne” (in a 1572 woodcut from a different atlas, “Der Geine”), and the hill to the south of that as “Der Kesselberg” or Copper Mountain.

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Luther Visualized 12 – Marriage and Family

Luther’s Marriage and Family

Oil paintings on panel by Lucas Cranach the Elder’s studio, on display at the Lutherhaus in Wittenberg. Left: Martin Luther, 1528. Right: Katharina von Bora, 1528 or later.

Martin Luther and Katharina von Bora, a runaway Cistercian nun, were betrothed and married on June 13, 1525. Neither had a strong physical or emotional attachment to the other at first, but these eventually blossomed from their commitment to each other. Martin would eventually praise his wife highly and famously said in 1531, “I wouldn’t give up my Katy for France or for Venice…” They had six children together – Johann (or Hans), Elizabeth, Magdalena (or Lena), Martin, Paul, and Margarethe – but the two older girls died prematurely.

Sources
Weimarer Ausgabe, Tischreden 4:503-504, no. 4786 (recorded by an anonymous source in the 1530s and copied by Pastor Kaspar Khummer)

Gustav Kawerau, ed., Der Briefwechsel des Justus Jonas, first half, vol. 16 of Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen und angrenzender Gebiete, ed. Historische Commission der Provinz Sachsen (Halle: Druck und Verlag von Otto Hendel, 1884), p. 94, no. 90 (14 June 1525)

Gottfried G. Krodel and Helmut T. Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 49:116-117

Theodore G. Tappert and Helmut T. Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967), 54:7-8, no. 49 (recorded by Veit Dietrich in the Summer or Fall of 1531)

Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, trans. James L. Schaaf (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 195-204

Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church, trans. James L. Schaaf (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 237-238

16th century copy of Portrait of a Girl, an oil painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder. This copy hangs in the Lutherhaus in Wittenberg. It is based on the original in the Louvre in Paris, which is dated to between 1520 and 1528. For years the sitter was identified as Magdalena Luther (rf., e.g, the “Album of Photographs” in Schwiebert’s Luther and His Times [St. Louis: CPH, 1950]). But this identification is erroneous, since this sitter is about 10 years old and even the latest dating, 1528, predates Magdalena’s birth.

The account of the illness and death of Luther’s 13-year-old daughter Magdalena in 1542 is so heart-rending and touching that it almost demands a human face. Perhaps that is why this portrait has been linked to her for so long. The account perhaps bespeaks the qualities of Luther as a father better than any other. During her illness Martin asked his daughter whether she was willing to go to her Father above, to which she replied, “Yes, dear father, whatever God wills.” She died in his arms not long thereafter.

A funeral was held the same day Lena died, September 20, at which Luther broke down in tears. However, as the casket was being closed, Luther gathered himself enough to express his sure hope that his daughter would rise again on the Last Day. The Christian bond and character of the Luther family serves as a model to this day.

Luther Visualized 11 – German Peasants’ Revolt

German Peasants’ Revolt (1524-1525)

Title page of Martin Luther’s addendum to Admonition to Peace, titled Against the Murderous and Plundering Peasant Hordes. This is a reprint of just the addendum by Johann Weyßenburger (Landshut, 1525), available from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

In early May 1525 Martin Luther returned to Wittenberg from a trip to Thuringia, during which he had seen firsthand the rebelliousness and violence of the protesting peasants. He promptly wrote and published an addendum to his earlier work, Admonition to Peace, entitling it Against the Murderous and Plundering Peasant Hordes. He urged swift and decisive action against the “poisonous” rebels. This woodcut, from the cover page of a Landshut reprinting of the addendum, depicts a peasant with a sword and his plundered goods. The fluttering paper says, “Esteem God.” This woodcut is doubtless meant to be an indictment against the rebellious peasants, in harmony with the work itself. They ought to esteem God, not the things of this world. “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Matthew 6:24). The verse beneath the woodcut is Psalm 7:16: “His intrigue will meet up with himself, and his ill-will will be vented on him.”

The German Peasants’ Revolt and the Sacramentarian Controversy (yet to be covered in this series) hindered the momentum of the Reformation more than anything else. With his Admonition to Peace, Luther strained his relationship with the nobility, and with his addendum Against the Murderous and Plundering Peasant Hordes, he isolated himself from many of the peasants. On the whole Luther, as usual, was simply walking the narrow biblical path: On the one hand, “rulers are not appointed to exploit their subjects for their own profit and advantage, but to be concerned about the welfare of their subjects.” On the other hand, God clearly forbids rebellion against the government (Romans 13:1-5; 1 Peter 2:13-17) and arbitrarily taking the law into one’s own hands (Matthew 26:52). If Christians are being persecuted by their government, they can either use the legal channels available to address the wrongs (while patiently enduring in the meantime), or they can flee somewhere else (Matthew 10:23). But “rebellion is intolerable.” Luther would later accurately describe their attempt to advance the kingdom of God through opposition to the governing authorities as “fishing for the net” (i.e. going about things completely backwards).

However, even though Luther claimed to be writing Admonition to Peace “in a friendly and Christian spirit,” he presented his correct biblical position in harsh language in both that work and especially in the addendum. Luther also went too far in the addendum and actually contradicted himself when he advised “everyone who can” to “smite, slay, and stab” the rebellious peasants, “secretly or openly,” since he had correctly said in Admonition to Peace that “no one, by his own violence, shall arrogate authority to himself.” Even though a dispassionate reading of the rest of the addendum strongly suggests that he is giving this advice to the ruling authorities alone, that is not the impression given at the beginning.

Sources
Luther’s Works 46:3-55

Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 172ff

Martin Luther, Luther at the Manger (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 2017), p. 51

Title page of Johann Fundling’s book Demonstration of Luther’s Two False Tongues—How He Has Misled the Peasants with the One and Condemned Them with the Other. This is a reprint by Johann Weyßenburger (Landshut, 1526).

In the wake of Luther’s Admonition to Peace and Against the Murderous and Plundering Peasant Hordes, Johann Fundling, a Franciscan monk from Mainz, penned a scathing critique of these two works, sometimes also called Fifty-Five Astonishing Things. The woodcut on the cover page portrays Luther on the left attempting to seduce the peasant on the right with his teachings. Above the woodcut Ecclesiasticus 28:13 is cited: “The whisperer and the double-tongued is cursed, for many who have had peace he has troubled and perplexed.”

Initially styling himself anonymously as “Admiratus [Latin for astonished] the Wonderer,” Fundling attempted to point out all of Luther’s contradictions in these two works, both within the works themselves and when compared to his previous works. Fundling called Luther’s teachings “mouse crap” and questioned, for instance, how Luther could call Andreas Karlstadt and Thomas Müntzer “prophets of murder” when he had previously spoken highly of them. Perhaps the climax comes when Fundling begins addressing Luther’s addendum. First he quotes Luther:

But before I could even inspect the situation, [the peasants] forgot their promise and violently took matters into their own hands and are robbing and raging like mad dogs. … [They] are violently robbing and plundering monasteries and castles which are not theirs.

Then Fundling, speaking as “the Wonderer” astonished at Luther’s words, responds:

Listen here, you traitorous and unfaithful Metius Fufetius,* isn’t that exactly what you instructed and told not only the peasants but the whole world to do? Long ago, in your propositions on vows (or reproaches of them) that you addressed to the heretical men at Wittenberg that you have made out to be bishops, you said: “This is the sense of the monastic vow: I vow to you, God, that I will lead an irreligious and sacrilegious or God-ignoring life all my days” [#34 of Luther’s Theses on Vows of 1521]. Therefore, you say, the monastic vows should not only be shattered and dissolved, but also severely punished, and all the cloisters of the earth likewise, since they are idol temples and Satanic whorehouses of the devil.

To this day, Luther’s biblical distinction between the two kingdoms, Church and State, and the means for carrying out God’s work in each continue to be misunderstood.

Endnote
* A general of the army of Alba Longa known for his treachery; he violated a treaty with Rome by withdrawing his troops from a battle between Rome and Fidenae and then waiting to see which side would win.

Luther Visualized 10 – Return to Wittenberg

Luther’s Return to Wittenberg

Anonymous, Witenburg, watercolor, 1537, from Das Reisealbum des Pfalzgrafen Ottheinrich

The city of Wittenburg is viewed from the south, with the Elbe River in the foreground. On the far left is the palace suburb outside the Coswig Gate. Prominent on the left, in the city itself, is the Electoral Castle or Palace, of which the famous Castle Church was a part. To the east, along the south wall, you can see the Dragon Head Turret at the Elbe Gate. Prominent in the center of the city is the Parish Church of St. Mary, where Martin Luther preached more than 2000 sermons. The University of Würzburg identifies the large building to the east of St. Mary’s as the town hall, but it was inaccurately located by the artist. (It was west of St. Mary’s.) Proceeding east from there, the two notable buildings are the so-called Old Frederickian College of the University of Wittenberg (built in 1503) and the Luther House, respectively.

Upon Luther’s return from the Wartburg in 1522, he preached a series of eight consecutive sermons in the Parish Church, starting on March 9, Invocavit Sunday or the First Sunday in Lent, in order to rectify the prevailing unrest and the spirit of extreme reform. They remain some of his finest sermons, and showcase Luther’s biblical, balanced, and level-headed approach to reform.

In November 1536 Count Palatine Otto Henry departed from Neuberg with a retinue of about 50 persons. Threatened with bankruptcy, he traveled to Krakow to collect on his Polish grandmother Hedwig’s dowry, which had never been paid. Succeeding in his purpose, he began his return trip on January 17, 1537, and took a circuitous route home. He is documented as being in Wittenberg on February 11-12, during which time an anonymous artist in his retinue sketched the city, as he had done with all the other rest stops. The sketch was later made into an ink drawing and finished with watercolors and coating paints. (The mountains were added for effect.) It is the earliest known representation of Wittenberg in humanity’s possession today.

Sources
“Die Reise des Pfalzgrafen Ottheinrich 1536/1537” (University of Würzburg Library)

John W. Doberstein and Helmut T. Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works, trans. A. Steimle, rev. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 51:67ff

You can also view the more detailed 1744 woodcut by Johann Wilhelm Bossögel, Accurate Depiction of the Highly Distinguished City of Wittenberg in AD 1611, the Famous Home of Electoral Saxony, the Mother and Propagatrix of the Restored Light of the Saving Faith. Here is a guide to the lettering:

A. The Electoral Castle or Palace
B. The Castle Church
C. The Town Hall
D. The Parish Church of St. Mary
E. New Frederickian College (university building completed in 1511)
F. Old Frederickian College (university building built in 1503)
G. Philipp Melanchthon’s House
H. Augusteum or Augustan College (university building completed c. 1571)
I. Augustinian Cloister or Dr. Luther’s House
K. The Elster Gate
L. The Cemetery
M. The Chapel on the Churchyard
N. The Elbe Gate
O. The Dragon Head Turret
P. The Gray Cloister (Franciscan monastery)
Q. Jurists’ College
R. The Town Mill
S. The Ramparts and Ditches
T. The Castle or Palace Gate, or Coswig Gate
V. The Suburbs

Luther Visualized 9 – At the Wartburg

Luther at the Wartburg Castle

Luther Room at the Wartburg Castle, © Red Brick Parsonage, 2013

This was Martin Luther’s room at the Wartburg Castle, after he was “kidnapped” for his own safety on his way home from Worms. He lived here from May 4, 1521, to March 1, 1522, with the exception of a secret trip to Wittenberg in the first half of December 1521. It was also in this room that Luther translated the entire Greek New Testament into German in less than 11 weeks, between December 1521 and February 1522. None of the furniture is original except the whale vertebra, which Luther used as a footstool.

Sources
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 1,29-30,41-42,46-47

Wolfram Nagel, “Outlawed and unrecognized at Wartburg Castle”

Matthäus Merian der Ältere, Eisenach, woodcut, 1650 (coloring subsequent)

On May 3, 1521, on his way home from Worms, Luther preached in Eisenach and then headed south for a short stay with relatives in Möhra. Johann Petzensteiner, a fellow Augustinian monk, and Nikolaus von Amsdorf, a colleague at the University of Wittenberg, accompanied him. On May 4 Luther and his companions took leave of his relatives and rode east in their covered wagon, circling around Fortress Altenstein to the south through the village of Steinbach. As they were headed north through the ravine, the party was attacked by armed horsemen. Petzensteiner immediately jumped from the wagon and fled. Luther just had time to grab his New Testament and Hebrew Bible before being snatched from the wagon. He ran alongside the horsemen until they were out of sight, and then was given a mount. The horsemen took lengthy detours in order to mislead any pursuers before leading their captive to the Wartburg south of Eisenach at 11 p.m. This woodcut of Eisenach, the city where Luther also attended school from 1498-1501, appeared in Martin Zeiler’s famous Topographia Germaniae series, specifically Topographia Superioris Thüringiae, Misniae, Lusatiae etc (Frankfurt am Main: Matthaeus Merian, 1650), between pages 48 and 49. The city is viewed from the north-northeast, with the Wartburg Castle, built in 1069 according to Zeiler, on the hill overlooking the town. Note how different the castle looked in 1650 from the present day castle. (The various changes undergone by the castle are well documented by models on display there.) The numbers in the woodcut identify the following:

1. Royal Residential Castle
2. City Church of St. George
3. Town Hall
4. The Kloeÿ [?]
5. St. Nicholas Church
6. The Bell-House
7. The Royal Shooting Ditch
8. Dominican Monastery
9. Foundation of St. Mary
10. St. Anne Hospital
11. Our Lady’s Gate
12. Clachs [?] Gate
13. St. George’s Gate
14. Dominican Gate
15. The Nuss [Nesse] and Hersel [Hörsel] Rivers
16. Wartburg Castle
17. The Modelstein, where a castle once stood
18. Here the Eisenach Fortress once stood

Luther Visualized 8 – The Diet at Worms

Luther’s Stand Before the Diet at Worms

Anton von Werner, Luther at the Diet at Worms, oil on canvas, 1877

This painting depicts Luther’s famous stand before the Holy Roman Emperor on April 18, 1521. The emperor, Charles V, sits beneath the curtained canopy, with bishops and cardinals surrounding him. The presiding official, Johann von der Eck, is holding a parchment in his right hand. Luther tells the assembly, “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures…I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything…”

Sources
Weimarer Ausgabe 7:814ff, esp. p. 838

Luther’s Works 32:101ff

Some Diet at Worms Trivia

1. Two contemporaries of Luther, Daniel Greser and Helius Eobanus Hessus, record that when Luther preached at the Augustinian church in Erfurt on his way to Worms, “the church was so full of people that the balcony groaned and everyone thought it was going to collapse, and so a few people also knocked the windows out and would have jumped out onto the churchyard if Luther had not reassured them and told them to stay put. He said the devil was up to his usual mischief and they should just stay put; nothing bad was going to happen.” He may have even addressed the devil himself: “I know your tricks, you bitter enemy!” The people did stay put, there was no accident, and Luther went on to deliver a beautiful gospel sermon (available in English in Luther’s Works 51:60ff).
2. A diet back then had nothing to do with food. In basic terms, a diet was a regular, representative imperial business meeting for the Holy Roman Empire. These meetings or assemblies were attended by the Holy Roman Emperor and the Imperial Estates of the empire. The Imperial Estates were divided into three chambers—the Council of Electors, the Council of Princes, and the Council of Free and Imperial Cities. These representatives would hold discussions and make decisions pertaining to the problems, reform, and maintenance of the empire.
3. On the first day of Luther’s trial at Worms, April 17, he was much more subdued and seemed to be nervous. It seems that he was still hoping to get a fair hearing. He quickly realized, however, that as an excommunicated man he was only going to be asked to acknowledge his writings and to retract them. It was a deciding moment and Luther requested time for thought; he was granted one day. He was much more prepared, confident, and bold on the second day.
4. Before Luther gave his famous summary speech concluding with “I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand,” etc. on the second day of his trial (April 18), he gave a much longer speech in which he classified his books into three categories, in order to show that they could not all be treated the same, even by his opponents. He actually gave this speech in German first, and then repeated it in Latin. He may given his famous summary speech in both languages too. By the time he was finished with all that talking at the end of the day’s proceedings, Luther was sweating heavily in the hot and overcrowded hall.
5. Among those in attendance at the Diet at Worms was the somewhat famous Renaissance composer Ludwig Senfl, who eventually began a correspondence with Luther in 1530 and even sent him one of his motets. Scholars are divided, however, on whether Senfl became a Protestant.
6. Even many Lutherans think that Luther exited the Diet at Worms in the metaphorical blaze of glory after his famous “Here I stand” speech. While the proceedings for that day (April 18) did conclude shortly after Luther’s remarks, there were more private negotiations between Luther and a specially formed commission of ten men on the days following. Since Luther refused to back down from his biblical position and no agreement could be reached, Johann von der Eck visited him for the last time on April 25, warned him that the emperor was going to take action against him, and told him he should return home within 21 days.
7. The resulting Edict of Worms, issued on May 25 and backdated to May 8, was the fiercest edict ever issued by a German emperor. It said that Luther and his sympathizers could be arrested or killed, and that his followers should be driven from their homes and anyone who wished could appropriate their belongings.
8. There have always been behind-closed-doors aspects of politics that will remain shrouded in mystery until Judgment Day: Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, Luther’s governing prince, requested that he be exempted from enforcing the Edict of Worms, and Emperor Charles V inexplicably granted his request.

Luther Visualized 7 – Trial and Excommunication

The Papal Bull Threatening Luther’s Excommunication

Manuscript of the papal bull Exsurge Domine in which Luther is threatened with excommunication (Vatican Secret Archives, Reg. Vat., 1160, f. 251r)

This is a manuscript of the infamous papal bull (edict) threatening to excommunicate Martin Luther, proclaimed on July 24, 1520. It begins:

Leo etc. For future memory of the matter. Arise, O Lord, and judge your cause. Recall to memory your reproaches of those things that are perpetrated by senseless men all day long. Bend your ear to our prayers, for foxes have arisen seeking to demolish the vineyard whose winepress you alone have trodden. … A wild boar from the forest is endeavoring to destroy it…

Luther had 60 days from September 29 to send a certified retraction of his errors to Rome. Instead, on December 10, Luther appeared with the bull, trembling and praying, before a pyre lit in the carrion pit at Holy Cross Chapel outside the eastern gate of Wittenberg. He cast the bull into the fire with the words, “Because you have confounded the Holy Place [or truth] of God, today he confounds you in this fire [or may eternal fire also confound you]. Amen.”

Pope Leo X issued the actual bull of excommunication, Decet Romanum Pontificem (It Is Proper for the Roman Pontiff), on January 3, 1521.

Sources
Vatican Secret Archives, “The Bull Exsurge Domine by Leo X with Which He Threatens to Excommunicate Martin Luther”

Weimarer Ausgabe 7:183ff

Max Perlbach and Johannes Luther, “Ein neuer Bericht über Luthers Verbrennung der Bannbulle,” in Sitzungsberichte der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin, 1907), 1:95ff

Luther’s Works 48:192

The Vineyard of the Lord

Lucas Cranach the Younger, The Vineyard of the Lord, oil on panel, 1569 (photo by the Stiftung Luthergedenkstätten in Sachsen-Anhalt)

When Paul Eber (8 Nov 1511 – 10 Dec 1569) was 13, his horse bolted, throwing him from the saddle and dragging him along on the ground for half an hour, leaving him somewhat crooked for the rest of his life. He went on to be professor of Latin at the University of Wittenberg (1541), head preacher at the Castle Church (1557), head pastor of the City Church and general superintendent of the district (1558), and the most influential hymn writer of the Reformation after Luther. When he died, his children commissioned an epitaph from Lucas Cranach the Younger, who chose a vineyard as the theme of the accompanying painting (pictured), which is still on display in the City Church (St. Mary’s) in Wittenberg. In the painting, Eber and his family, including 13 children, are kneeling at the fence on the right hand side. Eber, whose name means “wild boar” (from the Latin aper meaning the same), is holding an open Bible which he has helped to translate. Luther (called a “wild boar” in the papal bull above), Melanchthon, Bugenhagen, and other fellow reformers labor faithfully in the Lord’s vineyard, while the pope and his cardinals, bishops, monks, and nuns do their best to ruin the vineyard.

For more on this painting, read here.