ABSTRACT
The drama had broken away from its purely literary context as the pre-Shakespearean precursor. An obvious consequence of this concern is to recognize the need for an emphasis on the visual as well as the verbal. The ambiguity of the Latin is useful. God's introduction of himself attempts to confront a major problem of drama, the conflict in the figure of God between theatrical performance, or performative event, and theology. Paradoxically, the literalism embodied in the Arian doctrine, by which the three figures of God are distinct, is reinforced necessarily in the plays by giving God visible form. But within that quotation the introduction of a Latin-based word 'essention' produces a more complicated expression. The movement from God's self-definition to his role as creator seems. The speech serves, therefore, a more structural purpose than the equivalent speeches in the other three cycles. Chester may have had a play of the trinity at an earlier date.
