"It is," remarks M. Douhaire, in his eleventh lecture on the History of Christian Poetry before the Renaissance,—"it is a great central sea into which flow all the streams of a common poetic region. From the refreshing pictures of the patriarchal life of Joachim and Ann to the sublime scenes of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the saints of the ancient law, all, or nearly all, that has caught our eyes before is here found anew, sometimes as a reminiscence, sometimes in the lifelike and spirited form of a dialogue. The legend of the death of the Holy Virgin, the legends of the apostles, of Pilate, and of the Wandering Jew, have alone been omitted; whether because they appeared to the authors of the mystery to break the theological unity of their work, or because their length excluded them from a composition already swollen far beyond reasonable limits."
The mystery opens with a council held in heaven upon the redemption [{579}] of the human race. On the one side Mercy and Peace, in allegorical character, implore pardon for our first parents and their posterity. On the other, Justice and Truth demand the eternal condemnation of the guilty. To conciliate them, there must be found a man without sin who will freely die for the salvation of all. They go forth to seek him on the earth. To the council of heaven succeeds that of hell. Lucifer in terror convokes his demons to oppose the redemption of the world. During their tumultuous deliberation the four virtues return in despair to heaven. They have failed to find the generous and pure victim necessary for expiation. The Son of God offers himself, and the mystery of the incarnation is decreed. [Footnote 114] St. Joachim espouses St. Ann, and Mary is born of the union so long sterile. Then follows the scenic display of all the legendary and gospel narratives of her education, her marriage with St. Joseph, the incarnation of the Word, the birth of Jesus Christ, and all the wonders of his infancy up to his dispute in the temple with the doctors. It is at this point that the great drama completes its first part, which is entitled "The Mystery of the Conception." It is adapted, after the style of the time, for ninety-seven persons.
[Footnote 114: This is the idea of St. Bernard dramatized. In festo Annunciationis B.M.V. Sermo primus, No. 9; vol. i., p. 974.]
The second part, which has given its name to the entire drama, is the "Mystery of the Passion of Jesus Christ." It is divided into four "days," each of which has its appropriate actors. The first day, which is for eighty-seven persons, extends from the preaching of St. John the Baptist, in the wilderness, to his beheading. The second requires a hundred persons. It comprises the sermons and miracles of our Saviour, and ends with the resurrection of Lazarus. The third commences with the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and ends with Annas and Caiphas. This day is for eighty-seven persons, like the first. The fourth requires five hundred. It is the representation of all the scenes in the tribunal of Pilate and at the court of Herod, at Calvary and at the holy sepulchre.
The third part, entitled "The Resurrection," represents Jesus Christ manifesting himself to his disciples in different places after he has risen from the tomb; then his ascension and entrance into heaven in the midst of concerts of angels; and finally, the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles assembled together in an upper chamber. We have two different forms of this third part. One is in three days; the other in one. The former has only forty-five persons; one hundred and forty are needed for the latter.
These three dramas, of which the trilogy of the Passion is composed, were played for a century and a half, sometimes together, sometimes separately. When represented at Paris, in 1437, at the entrance of Charles VII., they closed with a spectacle of the final judgment. [Footnote 115] There are even found amplifiers who carry it back as far as the origin of the world. It will be difficult to say how much time the performance of this agglomeration of dramas required. Some idea, however, can be formed from a representation of the Old Testament, arranged about 1500, which set out with the creation of the angels and did not arrive at the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ until after twenty-two days. Was the trilogy of the two Angevin poets sometimes preceded by this immense prelude? We cannot tell. But the length of the spectacle would render this conjecture incredible, since the "Triumphant Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles," played at Bruges, in 1536, lasted forty days, morning and afternoon. [{580}] These spectacles commenced ordinarily at nine in the morning. Then at eleven o'clock the people went to dinner, and returned again two hours after.
[Footnote 115: "All along the great Rue St. Denis," according to Alain Chartier, "to the distance of a stone's throw on both sides, were erected scaffoldings of great and costly construction, where were played The Annunciation of Our Lady, The Nativity of our Lord, his Passion, his Resurrection, Pentecost, and the Last Judgment, the whole passing off quite well." (Beauchamps' Recherches sur les théâters de France, t. i., p. 254-256).]
This drama, thirty or forty times longer than our longest classical tragedies, contains, at the least, sixty-six thousand verses. It was printed for the first time, in 1537, in two volumes folio, and proved its popularity by three different editions within four years. The emphasis of its title attests, moreover, the immense success of its representation at Bruges the year before. It was the composition of two brothers, Arnoul and Simon Greban, born at Compiegne. Arnoul, by whom it was conceived and commenced about 1450, was a canon of Mans. He died before he had finished versifying it. Simon, monk of St. Riquier, in Ponthieu, completed it during the reign of Charles VII., and, consequently, before 1461. Their dramatic composition is divided into nine books. They have left to the "directors" of the spectacle the care of dividing it into more or fewer days, according to circumstances.
The first book commences with the assembling of the disciples in the upper chamber, and represents the election of St. Matthias, the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the earlier preaching of the apostles when braving the persecutions of the synagogue. The second book extends from the martyrdom of St. Stephen to the conversion of St. Paul. The third is filled with the legendary traditions concerning the apostleship of St Thomas in India. The fourth brings back the spectacle to Jerusalem, where Herod dies after having cut off the head of St. James the Greater; then the scene is transferred to Antioch, where St. Peter, at the solicitation of Simon the Magician, is put into prison, and obtains his liberty by restoring to life the son of the prince of that city who had been dead ten years. The fifth book contains, first, the preaching of St. Paul at Athens, where he converts St. Denis, the future apostle of France; then, the death of the Blessed Virgin, at which the apostles are present, brought together suddenly by a miracle. The sixth book is consecrated to the apostleship and martyrdom of St. Matthew in Ethiopia, of St. Barnabas in the Isle of Cyprus, of St. Simon and St. Jude at Babylon, and, finally, of St. Bartholomew, whom Prince Astyages flayed alive. In the seventh book, St. Thomas ends his apostleship in India, slain by the sword; St. Matthias is stoned to death by the Jews; St. Andrew is crucified by the provost of Achaia; the Emperor Claudius dies and Nero succeeds him. In the eighth book, St. Philip and St. James the Less suffer martyrdom at Hierapolis. The two princes combine with the apostles against Simon the Magician and bring his miracles to naught. St Paul recalls Patroclus to life, who had fallen from a high window while sleeping over the apostolic sermon. In the ninth and last book, Simon the Magician, availing himself of his most powerful enchantments in order to deceive the Romans, having caused himself to be lifted into the air by the demons, falls at the voice of St. Peter and is killed. Nero avenges him by imprisoning St. Peter and St. Paul—puts to death Proces and Martinian, their gaolers, whom they had converted and by whom they were set at liberty—arrests the two apostles anew, and condemns one to be crucified, the other to be beheaded. Then, terrified by the successive apparitions of the two martyrs, who announce to him the vengeance of heaven, he invokes the demons, demands their counsel, kills himself, and the devils bear away his soul to hell.
When we add that each book is filled with striking conversions, that some terminate with the baptism of a whole city or a whole people, and that the apostles insure the triumph of the gospel even in death, a sufficient idea will have been given of the historic procession and the moral unity of this drama, or rather of this epic worked up in dialogue and arranged for the [{581}] stage. But in order to get a clearer notion of its theatrical power and poetic features, it is necessary to direct our attention, in the first place, to the interest of the legends which are here blended constantly with history; and, in the second place, to the fairy art and the magnificence of the spectacle.