Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/281

POPULAR POETRY 269 Besides these dramatic elements which we find in the Church services from the earliest ages, there were religious plays composed by the ecclesiastics. As they were meant for the instruction and edification of the people, they were acted in the church itself, or else in the churchyard or cloisters. The origin of those plays (called Mystery Plays) was the use of simple dramatic representations to illustrate the great truths of religion.. For instance, at Christmas there was a representation of the infant Saviour with His blessed mother bending over Him. On Good Friday a crucifix was buried in the ground and taken up again on Easter morning. This symbolical treatment of festivals and Scriptural truths concluded with living representations, into which allusions to local occurrences crept ; and later even any comic element which had reference to the subject was introduced. At the latter end of the Middle Ages each part of our Lord's career on earth, from the Nativity to the Ascension, used to be made the subject of sacred repre- sentation. But the story of the Passion and the Eesur- rection held the most prominent position. The Easter plays were the most carefully worked up, and displayed the greatest variety of illustration, for their object was to develop the great plan of the world's redemption. They began with the fall of Lucifer and his angels, and their expulsion from heaven. The tree of knowledge was made the type of the Cross — Adam, dying, sent Seth to the Garden of Paradise to procure him a fruit from the tree of life. The latter receives a twig from the tree from a cherub who sits at the gate which will cure his father and give him eternal life ; but in the meantime Adam having expired in his absence, Seth