258 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



Mysteries as but the consecutive scenes of one con- 

 tinuous passion-play, stretching from the creation to 

 the day of judgment. 1 The Coventry Mysteries and the 

 York Corpus Christi plays certainly covered all time from 

 creation to doomsday. Another German play, built up 

 by Kriiger in the sixteenth century from older material, 

 takes us from the fall of Lucifer to the day of judg- 

 ment. It is characteristically entitled : "A right fine 

 and merry new ' Action ' of the beginning and end of 

 the world, embracing therein the whole story of our 

 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." The whole of history 

 is thus regarded as a unity working up to and onward 

 from the birth of Christ. In his life history finds a 

 justification for the world's existence. The modern 

 philosophical historian may smile at a treatment which 

 links the history of the world to one phase of civilisa- 

 tion. Yet we must not measure the value of the 

 mediaeval theory solely by its outward garb of fable and 



1 I leave out of account the last two pieces printed under the heading of 

 the Townley Mysteries (Surtees Society, 1836), namely, the Suscitatio Lazari 

 and Suspensio Jtidae, both of which I suspect to be additions by a later hand, 

 and intended to be introduced in their proper places. A strong argument in 

 favour of the unity of these mysteries in a single passion-play is the appear- 

 ance of the Te Deum only at the end of the Juditium (p. 321). It naturally 

 concluded every complete play (see all the plays in the Mysteres inedits of 

 Jubinal, the plays of Hilarius, Weinhold's Weihnachtspiele, the Ludus de 

 adventu Antichristi, etc. ) This customary conclusion probably originated in 

 the religious dramas having in early times been played between the third 

 response and the Te Deum. Looked at in the light of a complete passion-play, 

 the Townley Play for its freedom from tradition, for its flow of language, and 

 general treatment, compares most favourably with its German rivals. Another 

 play of some originality is the Low German Sundenfall, which, starting from the 

 fall of Lucifer, ends (probably as a fragment) with the consecration of the 

 infant Mary. A curious metaphysical conception of the freedom of the will, 

 as associated with the fall of man, runs through this play ; the Creator takes a 

 more important part in it than in the other dramas, and, to judge from his 

 language, must have made a close study of Augustine, Peter the Lombard, and 

 the Vulgate ! 2 H, Bd. ii. 



