CHARACTERISA TION IN THE PASSION-PLA Y 357 



So much for the divine side of the Virgin's character, 

 she appears as the all-powerful divine mother of the 

 primitive German faith. The human side, as we have 

 already remarked (p. 272), is stamped by the well-known 

 lamentations with considerable beauty and tenderness. 



A third important part which must now occupy our 

 attention is that of the Devil. In the Gospel of Nico- 

 demus we already find a considerable cohort of demons. 

 Beelzebub is prince of hell and Satan his right-hand 

 man ; there are " legions of devils," and " impious Death 

 and her cruel officers " are of the company. 1 At what 

 time Lucifer began to usurp the place of Beelzebub, 

 owing to the strange interpretation of Isaiah xiv. 12, is 

 not very clear. 2 It must suffice to say that in the 

 mediaeval plays Lucifer is the chief devil, Satan his 

 1 antient,' and Beelzebub, if he appears at all, only one 

 of the numerous crowd. 3 The mediaeval Lucifer was 



165. In the fifteenth -century Weihnachtsspiel, published by Piderit, the Virgin, 

 after identifying herself with the stella marts and stating that she is fed miracu- 

 lously by the Holy Ghost, continues (1. 189) : 



Min ist auch alles vnderdan, 

 Son, sterne vnd auch der mone, 

 Vnd alles das in der werlt lebet, 

 Vnd in des meres grunde strebet, 

 Vnd die cleynen fogellin. 

 Dar vmb mogen, mir, wol frolich sin, 

 Das mir alle die dieneu gar 

 Mit der vier elementin schar 

 Erden, lofft, fier vnd wasser tzwar. 



1 See chaps, xvii. 1, 9 ; xviii. 1. 



2 See, however, Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 823, where it is suggested that 

 Eusebius originated Lucifer. 



3 In the plays the Devil in paradise was usually represented by a woman, or 

 a figure with a woman's head, e.g. M, p. 30, in specie virginis. The stage- 

 direction in one of the Weihnachtspiele given by Weinhold is that the serpent 

 is to be acted by a girl. " A werm with an aungelys face," Coventry Mysteries, p. 

 29; "manner of an edder ... a medens face," Chester Mysteries, p. 26. This 

 conception is frequent in the engravings. In the Spiegel 'menschlicher Behdltniss 

 (Zainer, Augsburg, circa 1470) there is a woodcut of the serpent as a clothed, 

 winged, and crowned woman ; her body terminates, however, in a dragon's tail. 



