ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the major devices Chester employs in its presentation of the events of the passion, to follow the emotional parabola the patterning of those techniques describes, and to argue that Chester's dramatic principles are controlled by a vision of Christ's mission clearly different from the visions of the other cycles. Three notable characteristics of Chester's dramatization of the passion stand out: its unification of all the events of the passion into one play, or "pagina," the brevity of that play itself, and the deliberate speed with which it moves from one major event to the next. In Chester's presentation of the buffeting, examinations, and scourging, Christ's exposure to vilification and his endurance of physical punishment are the center of dramatic focus, and the horrors of his torments are unalleviated by diversion into the private lives and motives of His persecutors.
