PASSIONS
534
PASSIONS
age of enlightenment, efforts were made in Catholic
Germany, particuliirly in Bavaria and the Tyrol, to
destroy "even thi- ri-iiiii;ints of the tradition of incdii'-
val plays. I'ublio interest in tlio Passion Play awolve
anew during the last decades of the nineteenth cen-
tury, and since then Brixlegg and Vorderthiersee in
the Tyrol, Iloritz in soutliern Bohemia, and above
all, Obcrammergau in Upper Bavaria attract thou-
sands to their plays. The text of the play of Vor-
derthiersee (Gespiel in der Vorderen Thicrsec) dates
from the second half of the seventeenth century, is
entirely in verse, and comprises in five acts tlic events
recorded in the Gospel, from the Last Supper to the
Kntombraent. A prelude (Vorgespicl),^ on the Good
Shepherd, precedes the play. After being repeatedly
remoilelled, the text received its present classical form
from the Austrian Benedictine, P. Weissenhofer. Pro-
ductions of the play, which came from Bavaria to
the Tyrol in the second half of the eighteenth cen-
tury, were arranged at irregular intervals during
the first half of the nineteenth century; since 1855
they have taken place at regular intervals, at Brix-
legg everj' ten years. The Horitz Passion Play, the
present text of which is from the pen of Provost
Landsteiner, has been produced every five years,
since 1893.
The chief survival, however, of former times is the Passion Play of Oberammergau. The first mention we find of it is in 1633, when it is referred to in con- nexion with a vow made to obtain relief from the Black Death, when the people of Ammergau vowed to produce the play every ten years. As early as 16.34 the Passion was enacted (tragiert). Since this Passion Play was then well-known, productions must have taken place before that date. The oldest text still in existence was written about 1600 and con- tains traces of two older dramas, one of which was preserved at St. Ulric, the other at St. Afra, Augsburg. In 1662 a Passion te.xt by the Augsburg Meistersinger, Sebastian Wild, was woven into it, together with parts of the VVeilheim Passion Play of Rector Johann Aelbel (c. 1600). About the middle of the eighteenth century the text was revised by the Benedictine Rosner, after the model of the Jesuit drama; in 1780 this bombastic version was again reduced to a simpler form by the Benedictine Knipfelberger. Finally, P. Otmar Weiss and M. Daisenberger gave it its present simple and dignified form, and transcribed the verse into prose. Stage and costuming are adapted to modern require- ments. The music is by Rochus Dedler. (See also Miracle Plats and Mysteries.)
Wbight, English Mysteries (London, 1838); Pollahd, English Miracle Plays (London. 1904) ; Chambers. The MediiFval Stage (Oxford, 1903); Tunison. Dramatic Traditions of the Dark Ages (Cincinnati, 1907); Schelling, Hist, of English Drama (Boston, 1908) ; Collier, Hist, of English Dramatic Poetry (London, 1879) ; Do M^RIL, Thealri liturgici (Paris. 1849) ; Coussemakeh. Drames liturgiques du moyen &ge (Rennes, 1860) ; Griffith, Origin of Cits- toms of Easter Day in Potter's Am. Mag, X (1878), 306; Hampson, Medii ^vi Kalendarium('LoTidon, 1847); Mone, AUdeutsche Schau- apiele (Quedlinburg, 1847); Idem, Schatispiele des Mittelalters (Karlsruhe, 1846); Devrient. Geschichte der deutschen Schau- spielkunst, I (Leipzig, 1848) ; Holland, Die Entwicklung des deut- schen Schau«vieles im Mitlelalter und das Ammergauer Passions- spiel (Munich, 1861); Wilken, Geschichte der geistlichen Spicle in DeuUchland (Gottingcn, 1872); Callenberg, Das geistliche Schauspiel des Mittelalters in Frankreich (Mtihihausen, 1875); ^Iilchback, Die Oster- und Pasaionsspiele (Wolfenbuttel, 1880) ; Gactieb. Histoire de la poisie liturgique an moyen Age (Paris, 1886); Lanoe, Die Laleinischen Oslerfeitrn (Munich, 1887); Creizenach. Geschichte des neueren Dramas, I (Halle, 1893); Fboniso. Das Drama des Mittelalters (Berlin, a. d.); Wirth, Die Osier- und PassionsspieU bis rum IS Jahrhundert (Halle, 1889); Wackebsell, AUdeutsche Passionsspiele aus Tirol (Graz, 1897) ; Wilmotte, Les passions allemands du Rhin dans leurs rapports avec I'ancien thi&tre fran^ais (Paris, 1898) ; Trautmann, Oberam- mergau undsein Passionsspiel (Bamberg, 1890); Text des Oberam- mergauer Passionaspieles (Munich, 1910); Heinzel, Abhandlungen rum altdeutschen Drama (Vienna, 189.5); Haoffen, Ueber das Hdriizer Passionsspiel (Prague, 1894); Text des Hdritzer Passions- apieles f,StuttKart, 1908) : Text des Passionsspieles in Vorderthiersee (ilunich, 1905); Weber, Geistliches Schauspiel und christliche Kurut (Stuttgart, 1894).
Anselm Salzer.
Passions. — By passions we are to understand here
motions of the sensitive appetite in man which tend
towards the attainment of some re.al or apparent good,
or the avoidance of some evil. The more intensely
the object is desired or abhorred, the more vehement
is the passion. St. Paul thus speaks of them: "When
we were in the flesh, the passions of sin, which were
by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth
fruit unto death" (Rom., vii, 5). They .are called
passions because they cause a transformation of the
normal condition of the body and its organs which
often appears externally. It may also be noted that
there is in man a rational appetite as well as a sen-
sitive appetite. The rational appetite is the will ; and
its acts of love, joy, and sorrow are only called pas-
sions metaphorically, because of their likeness to the
acts of the sensitive appetite. They are classified by
St. Thomas and the Schoolmen as follows: The sensi-
tive appetite is twofold, concupiscible and irascible,
specifically distinct because of their objects. The ob-
ject of the concupiscible is real or apparent good, and
suitable to the sensitive inclination. The object of
the irascible appetite is good qualified by some spe-
cial difficulty in its attainment. The chief passions
are eleven in number: Six in the concupiscible ap-
petite — namely, joy or delight, and sadness, desire
and aversion or abhorrence, love and hatred — and
five in the irascible — hope and despair, courage and
fear, and anger.
To explain the passions in their relation to virtue it is necessary to consider them first in the moral order. Some moralists have taught that all passions are good if kept under subjection, and all bad if unrestrained. The truth is that, as regards morality, the passions are indifferent, that is, neither good nor bad in them- selves. Only in so far as they are voluntary do they come under the moral law. Their motions may some- times be antecedent to any act of the will ; or they may be so strong as to resist every command of the will. The feelings in connexion with the passions may be lasting, and not always under the control of the will, as for example the feelings of love, sorrow, fear, and anger, as experienced in the sensitive appetite; but they can never be so strong as to force the consent of our free will unless they first run away with our reason.
These involuntary motions of the passions are neither morally good nor morally bad. They become volun- tary in two ways: (1) by the command of the will, which can command the inferior powers of the sensi- tive appetite and excite its emotions; (2) by non- resistance, for the will can resist by refusing its con- sent to their promptings, and it is bound to resist when their promptings are irrational and inordinate. When voluntary, the passions may increase the in- tensity of the acts of the will, but they may also lessen their morality by affecting its freedom.
In regard to virtue the passions may be considered in the three stages of the spiritual life: first, its ac- quisition; secondly, itsincrease; thirdly, its perfection. When regulated by reason, and subjected to the control of the will, the passions may be considered good and used as means of acquiring and exercising virtue. Christ Himself, in whom there could be no sin nor shadow of imperfection, admitted their influ- ence, ;for we read that He was sorrowful even unto death (Mark, xiv, 34), that He wept over Jerusalem (Luke, xix, 41), and at the tomb of Lazarus He groaned in the spirit, and troubled Himself (John, xi, 33). St. Paul bids us rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep (Rom., xii, 15). The sensitive appetite is given to man by God, and therefore its acta have to be employed in His service. Fear of death, judgment, and hell prompts one to repentance, and to the first efforts in acquiring virtue. Thoughts of the mercy of God produce hope, gratitude, and correspon- dence. Reflection on the sufferings of Christ moves
