(1) It may be incredible history; but it is impossible drama. I defy Mr. Robertson to say how it could have been represented on the stage, or why it should have been given a place in a drama at all. And he is searching for evidence of drama. (2) The incident exists only in Mr. Robertson's imagination. The Greek phrase in Mk. xiv, 55, is the regular phrase for sifting evidence, and does not imply or suggest any hunting up of witnesses throughout Jerusalem. We have here three propositions:-- 1. The midnight search for witnesses is impossible in drama. 2. It is impossible to give a reason why it should have been put in a drama. 3. The record does not say that it took place. The first is at once annihilated by briefly dramatizing the alleged procedure:-- Priest (or other official, to officials). Go and bring the witnesses to convict this fellow. [Exeunt Officials. Priest consults with his fellows. Enter Officials with a witness. Exeunt Officials. Witness is examined: the evidence is confused. Enter Officials with another witness. Exeunt. Witness is examined: evidence conflicts with that already given. (And so with a series of witnesses.) Enter Officials with two more witnesses. Witnesses, examined, testify, with some contradictions in detail, "This man said"--etc. High Priest (standing). Answerest thou nothing? etc. Where is the difficulty? It is precisely in drama, and in drama alone, that the impossible narrative can pass as possible. Action on the stage is always telescoped: time is always more or less ignored, because the selected action must go on continuously. Again and again in Shakespeare (or rather in pseudo-Shakespeare) we find irrelevant and futile scenes interposed to create the semblance of a time interval; but in Othello and Measure for Measure, to name no other plays, the action is impossibly telescoped. The explanation is that in the psychology of the theatre time is disregarded, save by the most critical. The simple-minded audience of devotees which witnessed the Christist mystery-play would never ask "How did they hunt up those witnesses in Jerusalem at midnight?" Solvitur ambulando, so to speak: they saw the trial. It is when the play is transmuted to dead narrative, wherein a number of questions and answers are reduced to a few bald statements, that the impossibility obtrudes itself.