Points of Friction
larity in Italian art has perhaps blinded us to the brevity of her Biblical rôle. But when this most dramatic narrative was cast into dramatic form, Joseph's splendid loyalty to his master, his cold and vigorous chastity, were nullified by giving him an Egyptian sweetheart. Lawful marriage with this young lady being his sole solicitude, the advances of Potiphar's wife were less of a temptation than an intrusion. The keynote of the noble old tale was destroyed, to assure to woman her proper place as the guardian of man's integrity.
Still more radical was the treatment accorded to the parable of the "Prodigal Son," which was expanded into a pageant play, and acted with a hardy realism permitted only to the strictly ethical drama. The scriptural setting of the story was preserved, but its patriarchal character was sacrificed to modern sentiment which refuses to be interested in the relation of father and
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