THE UNITY OF THE PASSION-PLA Y 267 



following string of incidents and of characters precedes the 

 birth of the Virgin and the usual New Testament scenes : 

 (i. ) The Creation of the Universe, (ii. ) the Fall of the 

 Kebellious Angels, (iii.) the Creation of Adam and Eve, 

 (iv.) the Fall of Mankind, (v.) the Murder of Abel by 

 Cain and of Cain by Lamech, 1 (vi.) the Flood, (vii.) 

 the Sacrifice of Isaac, (viii.) the Golden Calf, (ix.) David 

 and Goliath, (x.) Solomon's Judgment, and (xi.) the 

 Prophets. The events which these scenes foreshadow 

 are not directly stated, but an audience well acquainted 

 with the usual prefigurations would at once realise their 

 bearing on the incidents of the Passion. 



Still a fourth group makes prefiguration the very 

 framework of the play. The Heidelberg passion-play 

 might be described as an acted Biblia Pauperum. Here 

 prefigurations do not precede but are interspersed with 

 the incidents of the Passion. Of the thirty-six New Testa- 

 ment scenes, the twelve most important from that of the 

 woman of Samaria to the entombment have each their 

 characteristic prefiguration. Thus the woman of Samaria 

 and Christ at the well is foreshadowed by Eliezer and 

 Kebekah at the well an incident acted at considerable 

 length and the Last Supper by the feast of Ahasuerus. 

 The intimate relation between the pictorial and dramatic 

 arts is again brought out by the correspondence between 

 the prefigurations of this play and those of the Wolfen- 

 biittel BMia Pauperum (see Laib und Schwarz, Biblia 

 Pauperum nacli clem Original zu Constant, Synopsis, 

 p. 9). 



1 On the mediaeval legend of Cain as a part of ' history ' see Fasciculus Tem- 

 porum, Coin, 1480, folio 2 a and 2 b ; BucJt, der Clironiken, folio ix b and x a ; and 

 Franck's Geschychtbibel, folio ix a . 



