Albrecht Dürer for the Reformation

We have been watching the great Francis Schaeffer's video on Church history in the pre-service fellowship meeting at Trinity. Last Sabbath, he looked at the Reformation and told us a most interesting fact: that the great Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer was a supporter of Luther.

This seems to be true from his diary, despite claims to the contrary. The fact is he died within the Catholic Church because he died in 1528 prior to the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, when Lutheranism became a separate movement.

Here is a quotation from his diary at a time when he didn't realise that it was actually Luther's supporter Frederick of Saxony who had kidnapped him:

"On Friday before Whitsunday in the year 1521, tidings come to me at Antwerp that Martin Luther had been so treacherously taken prisoner.... [They] carried away the pious man, betrayed into their hand, a man enlighted by the Holy Ghost, a follower of Christ and the true Christian faith. [He] suffered this for the sake of Christian truth and because he rebuked the unchristian Papacy.... May every man who reads Martin Luther's books see how clear and transparent is his doctrine, when he sets forth the Holy Gospel. Oh God, if Luther be dead, who will henceforth expound to us the Holy Gospel with such clearness?"

Click here and here to see more of the great master's work, and by the way, the engraving on this other post is by Dürer.

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