The Chester Plays | Jean Q. Seaton (essay date 1992)
Jean Q. Seaton (essay date 1992)
SOURCE: "'What Have I Offended Unto Thee?': God as Three-in-one in the Chester Mystery Cycle," in English Studies, Netherlands, Vol. 73, No. 4, August, 1992, pp. 300-10.
[In the following excerpt, Seaton discusses the unorthodox dramatization of the Holy Trinity in the Chester plays, stressing the necessity of the Chester author's using "trinitarian attributes both to characterize God and to show how unable Lucifer is to take God's place. "]
In the opening pageant of the Chester cycle, God is presented as reacting to Lucifer's attempted usurpation of the throne with lines that, from the realistic stand-point, simply express hurt feelings. Upon discovering Lucifer seated on his throne, God asks:
Lucifer, who set thee here when I was goe?
What have I offended unto thee?
I made thee my frende; thou art my foe.
Why haste thou tresspassed thus to me?
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