Upon this follows _The Raising of Lazarus_; next _The Council of the Jews_, to which the devil appears as a Prologue, dressed in the extreme of the fashion of the day, which he sets forth minutely enough in his speech also. _The Entry into Jerusalem; The Last Supper; The Betrayal; King Herod; The Trial of Christ; Pilate's Wife's Dream_ come next; to the subject of the last of which the curious but generally accepted origin is given, that it was inspired by Satan, anxious that Jesus should not be slain, because he dreaded the mischief he would work when he entered Hades or Hell, for there is no distinction between them either here or in the Apocryphal Gospel whence the _Descent into Hell_ is taken. Then follow _The Crucifixion_ and _The Descent into Hell_--often called the _Harrowing of Hell_--that is, the _making war upon_ or _despoiling of hell_,[16] for which the authority is a passage in the Gospel of Nicodemus, full of a certain florid Eastern grandeur. I need hardly remind my readers that the Apostles' Creed, as it now stands, contains the same legend in the form of an article of faith. The allusions to it are frequent in the early literature of Christendom. The soul of Christ comes to the gates of hell, and says: Undo your gates of sorwatorie; _place of sorrow._ On man's soul I have memorie; There cometh now the king of glory, These gates for to breke! Ye devils that are here within, Hell gates ye shall unpin; I shall deliver man's kin-- From woe I will them wreke. _avenge._ * * * * * Against me it were but waste To holdyn or to standyn fast; Hell-lodge may not last Against the king of glory. Thy dark door down I throw; My fair friends now well I know; I shall them bring, reckoned by row, Out of their purgatory! _The Burial; The Resurrection; The Three Maries; Christ appearing to Mary; The Pilgrim of Emmaus; The Ascension; The Descent of the Holy Ghost; The Assumption of the Virgin_; and _Doomsday_, close the series. I have quoted enough to show that these plays must, in the condition of the people to whom they were presented, have had much to do with their religious education.