360 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



his action. Justice is amply satisfied when he is formally 

 executed by Beelzebub, when Lucifer announces that he 

 intends to ride him round hell, or declares that 1 



Er muss sein mein spilhundt ; 



Tieff in der helle grundt 



Da muess er prinnen und pratten ; 



Es wirt sein nimer ratten. 



Ich wil in tieff verseneken, 



Mit schwevel, pech wil ich in trencken 



Und wil ein feur geben zu essen 



Und sein mit keiner pein vergessen. 



Judas not only despatches himself with much realism, 

 but is afterwards roasted and eaten by the devils for 

 morgensuppe. 



Pilate 2 possesses more individuality than Judas. 

 Occasionally he is represented as the bitter foe of Christ 

 who takes council with the Jews on how the false 

 Messiah may be destroyed. 3 Generally, however, we 

 have the Pilate of Christian tradition a judge who 

 is fully convinced of the innocence and, after the 

 resurrection, of the divinity of the man he has con- 



1 See F, pp. 188, 189. The Devil sits on Judas in a picture of the Last Judg- 

 ment by Meister Stephan ; see the frontispiece. Alongside are the fatal pence. 

 Dante represents Judas champed between Lucifer's teeth (L : 'Inferno, c. xxxiv. 11. 

 51-59). The general mediaeval conception is well expressed in the fourteenth- 

 century song : 



du armer Judas was has tu gethan, 

 Das du deinem Herrn also verrathen hast ! 

 Darumb mustu leiden in der Helle pein, 

 Lucifers Geselle mustu ewig sein. Kyrie eleison ! 



2 Pilate, like Judas, had, according to tradition, led a disreputable life, 

 references to which occur in the plays. He was the son of King Atus, his 

 mother being the miller's daughter Pila (" Kyng Athus gate me of Pila," Town- 

 ley Mysteries, p. 233. For the reputation of the mill in mediaeval times see 

 p. 150). The same etymological explanation of Pilate's name will be found in 

 a twelfth-century German fragment, Pilatus, in Massmann, Deutsche Gcdichte d. 12. 

 Jahrh. pp. 145-152. For Pilate's life and crimes the reader may consult this 

 fragment, and Das alte Passional, pp. 85 et seq. 



3 For example, the Vienna Easter-play, L, vol. ii. p. 299. 



