Charles Davidson — English Mystery Plays. 135 



flock attended theaters on holy days. That they should go for aid 

 to the classic plays, which were still used for closet study, is no 

 stranger than that they should adopt the Roman basilica for a 

 church type, or plant Christmas' upon the Roman Saturnalia. The 

 church had need of these things, and used them so wisely that 

 it made out of the skeleton of the Clementine Liturgy an artis- 

 tically complete symbolical drama in the St. Chrysostom Liturgy. 

 The symbolical character of their worship was emphasized by his- 

 torical, typical, and allegoricaP pictures, among which ' Adam and 

 Eve,' the ^Adoration of the Magi,' and the 'Shepherd who carries 

 the Lost Lamb upon his Shoulders ' are enumerated.^ Some of these 

 were passing out of use by the middle of the fourth century, as 

 discarded molds, no longer suitable for the thought of the church. 

 Furthermore, the readiness with which the church assimilated Greek 

 culture is easily accounted for when we reflect that* " to Justin 

 Martyr, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria, Greek philosophy was 

 the bridge to the Christian faith." 



However, the distance from the symbolical drama to the tragic 

 is not easily passed. It cannot be bridged by any development of 

 symbolism itself. The difference is essential and intrinsic. In the 

 first place, abstract thought that does not admit of concrete presenta- 

 tion cannot form even a symbolical drama. Hence where philoso- 

 phy, as in India, has dominated thought since the rise of literature, 

 there can be no true drama. 



The Hindoos' one attempt to form a mystery play, the Prabodha- 

 Chandrodaya,^ the Birth of Ideas, shows, through the superlative 

 hideousness of its allegorical actors, the violent forcing of material 

 into unnatural expression. Even in the florescence of Attic tragedy 

 the authors recognized vaguely that the rising schools of philosophy 

 were their foes. When the domination of Attic thought by philos- 

 ophy was finally complete, the drama forsook its ideals, and sought 

 for motive in society and intrigue. 



In the Christian liturgy, symbolism presented at second hand the 

 concrete embodiment of the profoundest ethical philosophy, since 

 the tableaux and allegories pictured, the story of Clirist, who offered 

 in his own life and action a solution of the ethical problems of the 

 race. The true literary expression of this material was found in the 

 allegorical poems so abundant in the Middle Ages, which ultimately 



1 Wilken, pp. 1, 3. 2 Schaff, vol. 2, p. 274. 



3 1 tind no evidence of living tableaux in the church at this date, as given by Klein, vol. 

 4, p. 11. 4 Schaflf, vol. 1, p. 78. s Klein, vol. 3, p. 15. 



