The English Moral Plays 345 
stage. These personifications sometimes leave their trivialities in order 
to debate themes strikingly similar to the subjects of the moralities. 
The Synagogue and the Church, for example, in one Old French 
poem, and the Jew and the Christian in another almost identical 
piece, after a few rude personalities, argue seriously on the proper 
interpretation of [saiah’s prophecy and on the significance of Christ’s 
Passion.! In the latter debate the Jew is converted to the true 
faith. If these poems suggest comparison with those plays which, 
with a more or less liberal admixture of abuse, conveyed instruc- 
tion in points of doctrine, often with immediate good results, the 
dull little piece, Warguet Convertie, offers resemblance to some of 
the more purely ethical sacred plays which deal with the contrast 
between the unlicensed desires of youth and the experience and 
premonitions of age. The young woman who at first taunts an old 
man for his physical weakness, is finally brought by his warnings 
to see her wrong-doing and repent. Finally, to offer but one more 
example, the Debate of the Body and the Soul, in its simple yet 
noble piety, would have given inspiration to the best of the morality 
plays. In general, the religious debate and the moral play enforce 
the same doctrine, the same warnings, and the same faith.” 
This correspondence, however, in spirit and subject-matter between 
certain debates and the typical moral play does not indicate that 
one was derived from the other, for the same correspondence marks 
all phases of medieval religious feeling. For instance, the last lines 
of The Body and the Soul, the closing scenes of many moralities, 
the carvings on the portals of the cathedrals, all tell the same 
story of the fate of the damned. Giving direct expression, as they 
do, to the teachings of the church, they naturally are in agreement. 
This is all that can be postulated as to the connection between the 
religious debate and the moral play: as the debate in general, 
apart from the few instances of direct influence now known, encouraged 
the use of the dramatic form, so the debate on sacred subjects must 
have done something to spread the lessons of the church, and thus 
to supplement and strengthen the teachings of the moral plays. But 
this indirect support was hardly necessary, so familiar were the 
authors of the plays with their proper subject-matter, and at most 
the debate’s influence on this branch of the drama was slight. 
The influence of John Heywood, however, established a clearly 
marked cross-influence between the debate and the less serious 

‘See Bibliography, and Ast. Lrtt., 23. 216-17. 
* For the controversial debate of the sixteenth century see chap. 6. 
