Context

The Pamphlet was published in 1521 in Wittenberg, Holy Roman Empire, modern-day Germany. The Pamphlet was contrarily to popular beief, not created by Martin Luther, and he was not involved in the process of writing it, he however encouraged the Authors Johann Schwertfeger and Philipp Melanchthon. They indended for it to show the hypocrisy that he saw in the modern catholic church and the discrepancy that there was between what the bible taught and how the church was acting in the time. This came 4 years after Luther's first work, the '95 Thesen', in which he also presented what he saw as being wrong in the modern Catholic Church, that it was too corrupt and centralized around the pope. His criticism of the Pope would continue into his later life, as would his quest of presenting what chrisitianity really taught, which he completed in 1534 with the full translation of the Bible for all people. Due to the proximity to the trial of Worms, Luther was given credit for the work.

It was published in a time, when the Catholic church played a major role in the state, and the Emperor of the HRE saw himself as the defender of the Catholic faith. Any criticism of the state religion was unwelcome. Therefore, a pamphlet such as this one, which outright called the Pope the antichrist was very unwelcome. Luther had over the past years developed into the main critic of the Catholic Church in the empire, which came to a spearhead at the Reichstag in Worms in 1521, the same year as the publishing of this pamphlet. At this Reichstag, the Emperor gave Luther a show trial and evicted him from the country and the Church. He then went on to try to prevent any of Luther's work from being spread within the empire, thereby endangering all of Luther's work, including this pamphlet.