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. [Illustration: _No. 146. The Descent of the Pope._] [Illustration: _No. 147. The Pope-ass._]