Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/22

io PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH rant which became a proverbial characteristic of that personage. 1 One other liturgical play can be traced to an independent starting-point in the office, this time not a chant, but a c lectio.' A highly rhetorical passage from the pseudo-Augustinian sermon on the prophecies of Christ, which figured in different uses on a variety of occasions during the Advent and Christmas seasons, apparently came to be chanted instead of read, and was later recast in metrical dialogue. Each prophet is summoned in turn and repeats his prophecy of the coming of the Messiah. Costumes and symbols appear, and the choir comments on the utterance of each. Later Balaam was introduced, and his dialogue with the ass expanded into a miniature drama. This was almost certainly not, as has often been asserted, the origin of the ' festum asinorum,' or Feast of Fools, but is much more likely to have been a deliberate and ingenious attempt to turn the established presence of an ass in the church to the purposes of edification. Anyhow, in this 'processio pro- phetarum ' we have an anticipation of the Old Testament plays of the later cycles. There were, indeed, other liturgical plays plays, that is, designed for performance in church during intervals of the service. But while in the case of those we have been considering it is possible to 1 It should be mentioned that a semi-dramatic ceremony of the descent of a white dove from the roof of the church attached itself to the dialogued gospel for the feast of the Annunciation, and that later, as is not surprising, this rite came to be associated with the festivities of Advent, and was thus absorbed into the Christmas dramatic cycle.