350 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
Jewish people.1 He was to be born in the city of Babylon of a 
Satanic woman of the tribe of Dan. In his thirtieth year he would 
go to Jerusalem, where he would rebuild the temple and proclaim 
himself king. Through gifts, or force, or miracles, he would compel 
the whole world to acknowledge him the Christ. But after three 
and one half years of this rule, the angel Michael would be sent 
by God to slay the impostor, and to usher in the short period of 
peace that would precede the end of the world. 
It was of course the concrete, rather than the psychological, 
interpretation of the prophecy, that proved most suitable for art.? 
Of the several dramatic versions of the story, only the twelfth- 
century Ludus de Antichristo, the earliest play in which allegorical 
characters appear, need be considered. Being based on the treatise 
of Adso, it embraces all the incidents mentioned above, but shows 
in its political signification modifications due to the revival of the 
western empire.’ This historical bearing of the plot has been clearly 
analyzed by Creizenach,* and it remains to point out only the re- 
spects in which the play seems a forerunner of the morality. 
In the Ludus de Antichristo there are seven strictly religious or 
ethical personifications, Mercy and Justice, Hypocrisy and Heresy, 
Heathenism, Synagogue, and Church, and in addition one or two 
historical personifications, such as Babylon. In word and deed they 
resemble the similar characters of the moralities. Notice in the first 
place that the religious teaching of the play is presented by these 
abstractions as though such matter were perfectly suited for the 
drama. The play opens with this characteristic combination of dra- 
matic action and moral instruction. Heathenism and Babylon enter 
singing, but their theme is a strictly argumentative defense of poly- 
theism. To believe in one God is to suppose foolishly that from 
a single source emanate all those widely different manifestations 
of divine power that man experiences. Gifts as diverse as the 
blessings of peace and the horrors of war force one in all reason 
to recognize deities of unlike will and power. In the same fashion, 
Synagogue and her party of Jews express in song their faith in 
one God, but their distrust and detestation of the self-professed 
Saviour of men who could not save himself. And so also Holy 
Church, who appears as a queen in armor, attended by Mercy with 
1 Bousset-Keane, 128-30, 184-87. Wadstein, 125-36, gives a good 
review of the church’s teaching. 
2 Cf. the painting of Signorelli at Orvieto. 
3 Bousset-Keane, 131, and also 47—50. 
al S1—S6- 

