Anti-Semitism, surrogacy, and the invocation of Mohammed in the Play of the Sacrament

Comparative Drama, Spring, 2007 by Michael Mark Chemers

Scholars have made little of the strange habit of Jewish characters who invoke Mohammed in early modern drama. Christian playwrights of the period, we have assumed, merely project the common European practice of calling out to Jesus and the saints to Muslims, incorrectly inferring that the Prophet of Islam was the god of the Muslims, and they compound this error by placing the trumped-up blasphemy in the mouths of their fictitious Jews. When seen within the complex history of both the collision and collusion of early modern Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures, however, this phenomenon may indicate a more complicated process of surrogacy and erasure, a cultural practice that strategically blurs certain distinctions among particular groups and exacerbates others to revise fundamental, defining narratives of social origin and unity. Contextualized within a tradition of medieval anti-Semitism, the invocation of Mohammed by Jewish characters in be Play of be Conuersyon of Ser Jonathas be Jewe by Myracle of be Blyssed Sacrament (or the Play of the Sacrament as it is also known) may be evidence that, even in the official absence of actual Jews, distant sources of social tension could cause anti-Jewish feelings to erupt violently.

Unique in the corpus of early English drama, the Play of the Sacrament has received much attention from scholars in recent years. Failing to fit neatly into any of the usual categories, the play balks at being placed into a progressive genealogy of Jewish characters in Christian drama. Very little is known for certain about the text: it was almost certainly written sometime between 1461 and 1546; it is probably of East Anglian origin, and it was probably performed by a professional touring troupe. (1) The plot purports to be a re-enactment of an historical event that allegedly occurred in 1461 in the city of Heraclea in Spanish Aragon. A Christian merchant, Aristorius, is bribed by Ser Jonathas, a Jewish merchant from Syria, to steal a consecrated host from a local church. Having obtained the wafer, Jonathas and his Jewish compatriots congregate in his house, where they intend to conduct experiments in order to disprove the doctrine of transubstantiation. At length, Jonathas proposes that "thys bred I wold myght be put in a prefe / Whether bis be he that in Bosra of vs had awe." (2) The Jews merrily stab the wafer with their knives, but are much disturbed when the object of their violence miraculously begins to bleed. As he tries to staunch the flow of blood, Jonathas's hand becomes inexplicably affixed to the host. Even when Jonathas and the host are nailed together to a pillar they cannot be separated. Once extricated from the pillar, the miserable Jonathas exits with his cabal to try more extreme measures on the miraculous object. A short interlude ensues, featuring a comic Flemish doctor and his servant Colle. The Jews return, violently rebuff the doctor's offer of help, and reveal that Jonathas has freed himself from the wafer by severing his own hand. The hand is then thrown into a pot of oil, which overflows with boiling blood. Emerging unscathed, the host is thrown into an oven. The oven explodes, streaming blood from every crack, and an image of a child with bloody wounds emerges from the wreckage to speak as Christ to the Jews:

Jhesus: Oh ye merveylows Jewys, Why ar ye to yowr kyng onkynd, And [I] so bytterly bowt yow to my blysse? (719-21)

Having had their conclusive "prefe" of the wafer's sacred embodiment of Christ, the Jews immediately repent their violence. Jhesus heals the wounds of Jonathas, witnesses his contrition before a bishop, and transforms himself back into bread. The bishop then informs Aristorius that in penance for his crimes he may no longer operate as a merchant. Finally, the prelate baptizes the Jews, who leave to travel the world expiating their wickedness. Aristorius announces he will return to his country to spread the word of the miracle; possibly the performance itself is meant to be understood as part of his mission.

One aspect of this play that has not been specifically investigated is that the Jews repeatedly invoke Mohammed in the context of a curse or an oath. Jonathas' first speech, in which he lists his valuables (as many a wicked merchant in English drama is wont to do), begins with a long invocation:

Jonathas: Now almyghty Machomet, marke in by mageste, Whose lawes tendrely I have to fulfyll, After my dethe bryng me to thy hyhe see My sowle for to save, yff yt be thy wyll! For myn entent ys for to fulfyll, As my gloryus god the to honer, To do agen thy entent, yt shuld grue me yll, Or agen thyn lawe for to reporte. (149-56)

His fellow Jew, Jasdon, later responds to Jonathas' proposal that they steal and test a host:

Jasdon: Now, be Machomete so myghty, pat ye doon of meue I wold I wyste how pat we myght yt gete; I swer by my grete god, and ellys mote I nat cheue, But wyghtly the[r]on wold I be wreke. (209-12)

Jonathas seals the deal with Aristorius, paying him "an hundder pownd, neyther mor nor lasse, / of dokettys good" (315-16) to steal a host from an unsuspecting priest.When the deal is struck, Jonathas praises his Christian accomplice with "Syr, almighty Machomyght be with yow!" (322). Aristorius then plies his friend, the Clericus Isoder, with "lyght bred" (342) and a "drawte of Romney red" (340), in an eerie allusion to the Eucharist ceremony; Isoder sleeps, and Aristorius steals a host and smuggles it to the Jews. Soon after, Jasdon anticipates striking the host with his dagger, saying "Now, by Machomyth so mighty, that mevith in my mode!" (453).