THE " MYSTERY" OF THE " PASSION." 
373 
much emphasis on the canon that natura non agit per saltum. The 
theory threw little or no additional light on the relation of man's 
physical structure to that of the lower animals. Recent discoveries 
respecting the greater antiquity of man were open to much 
scientific doubt, and required much further investigation before 
being finally received; and those discoveries had entirely failed to 
reveal any intermediate shades of cerebral structure, connecting 
man with the inferior creatures. 
THE "MYSTERY" OE THE " PASSION," AT AMMERGAU 
AND IN CORNWALL. 
ABSTRACT OF THE REV. DR. BANNISTER'S PAPER. 
(Read January 16th, 1873.) 
The Doctor began by giving the history of the religious plays, 
called "Mysteries," from their treating on and expounding the 
mysteries of the Christian religion, and also "Miracle Plays," 
from the number of miracles the principal dramatis persona are 
represented as performing. He traced them to the early ages of 
Christianity, when an attempt was made to supply the place of 
the heathen classics of antiquity, prohibited alike by the doctors 
of the Church and the Emperor Julian the Apostate, by a 
Christian literature. Gregory of Nazianzen, in the fourth cen- 
tury, wrote several mysteries. His mystery of " The Passion " has 
alone survived, and is the oldest extant. 
After treating on the mediaeval mysteries, more particularly the 
English ones — those of Coventry, Chester, &c, commonly per- 
formed in the open air — he proceeded to the consideration of the 
ancient mysteries of Cornwall, especially that of " The Passion," 
and the modern mystery at Ammergau, which originated in the 
17th century, his principal object being to draw from the well- 
known representation of the latter some additional light on the 
representation of the Cornish mysteries, about which little is 
known. He said — 
The Cornish mysteries, written in the old Celtic vernacular of 
Cornwall, with a considerable intermixture of English words, 
