A study of the table of incidents printed in an appendix will show the general scope of the cyclical plays[373]. My comments thereon must be few and brief. The four northerly cycles have a kernel of common matter, which corresponds very closely with just that dramatic stuff which was handled in the liturgical and the earliest vernacular dramas. It includes the Fall of Lucifer, the Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel; then the Annunciation and the group of scenes, from the _Pastores_ to the Massacre of the Innocents, which went to make up the _Stella_; then the Passion in the narrower sense, centring in the _planctus Mariae_ and extending from the Conspiracy of the Jews to the Descent from the Cross; then the Resurrection scenes, centring in the _Quem quaeritis_ and ending with the _Peregrini_ and Incredulity of Thomas; then the Ascension, the Pentecost, and finally the _Iudicium_ or Doomsday. Almost equally invariable is something in the way of a _Prophetae_. But at York this is thrown into narrative instead of dramatic form; and at Chester the typical defile of prophets, each with his harangue, is deferred to almost the close of the cycle (Play xxiii), and in its usual place stand two independent episodes of Balaam and of Octavian and the Sibyl. Two other groups of scenes exhibit a larger measure of diversity between the four cycles. One is that drawn from the history of the Old Testament Fathers, out of which the Deluge and the Sacrifice of Isaac are the only incidents adopted by all four. The other is the series taken from the missionary life of Christ, where the only common scenes are the Raising of Lazarus and the Feast in the House of Simon the Leper, both of which can be traced back to the liturgical drama[374].