376 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



on the state of the dead. 1 This miracle is usually made 

 the basis of the hostility of the Jewish priesthood. 

 Several scenes often follow in which the Jewish leaders 

 take counsel as to how they may destroy Jesus. 



Here we may note that besides Annas, Caiaphas, and 

 a multitude of Jews given by name, we have a personified 

 Synagoga, who is not only the chief enemy of Christ, 

 but often the representative of Judaism, in somewhat 

 wearisome discussions with a personified Ecdesia, or 

 champion of Christianity. These discussions appear at 

 least as early as the twelfth century, and in the fifteenth 

 were made the subject of separate plays. The effect 

 which these mock discussions must have had in increas- 

 ing racial hatred since the most villainous opinions 

 are put into the mouths of the Jews, and all sorts of 

 persecution are commended can scarcely be overrated 

 by the student of mediaeval Jewish history. 2 To the 

 assistance of Synagoga in her desire to destroy Jesus 



1 'Er stincktt sere, ich weys es woll' (E, p. 109, and C, p. 71, pointing to a 

 common source). Compare B, vol. ii. p. 95 ; Chester Plays, p. 229. In Hilarius's 

 Suscitatio Lazari (circa 1130) we have the same notion : "Fetorem non poteris 

 sustinere mortui, namque ferens graviter fumus est quatridui " (p. 32). In the 

 same play the ' Jewish ' comforters of the two sisters are naively bald in their 

 sympathy: "Talis lamentacio, Talis ejulacio, non est necessaria." 



2 A striking example is the carnival - play of the Nurnberg barber and 

 mastersinger Hans Folz, entitled Die alt und neu ee (see Keller's Fastnachtspiele, 

 No. 1). A long Disputacio Ecclesiae cum Sinagoga occurs at the end of the 

 second day's performance in the Alsf elder Spiel (C, p. 143). There is another in 

 the Kilnzelsauer Fronleichnamsspiel (see Bartsch's Germania, Bd. iv.) The 

 Frankfurter Spiel ends also with such a dispute, and with the baptism of Jews by 

 St. Augustine. A certain ' Christiana,' with a red banner and gold cross, and a 

 ' Judea,' with a banner and black idol, abuse each other in the Donaueschingen 

 Spiel (B, ii. pp. 328, 329). Mone's note as to the French origin of the dispute 

 (ibid. p. 1 64) is, I believe, hardly justified ; compare the German-Latin play in 

 the Carmina Burana (J, p. 94). The Church is often personified as a female 

 figure crowned and with a nimbus ; she holds a chalice in one hand and a cross 

 in the other (see Didron, Christian Iconography, p. 85). For the dress of 

 Ecclesia see the twelfth-century drama De adventu Christi (N, p. 220). There 



