The Passion in art

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The Passion in liturgy and music

The Passion of Christ has featured in Christian liturgy since the 4th century.

It became an institution in the 5th century when Pope Leo the Great laid down that the St Matthew Passion should be part of the mass on Palm Sunday and the Wednesday of Holy Week, and the St John Passion should be part of the Good Friday service.

From the 7th century the service on the Wednesday of Holy Week featured the St Luke Passion, and from the 10th century the Roman Catholic Church used the St Mark Passion on the Tuesday of Holy Week.

From quite early the Passion was chanted in a dramatic way, with the reader representing the different voices in the story: the Evangelist as Narrator, the voice of Christ, and other speaking parts. Very often the words of Christ were chanted while the rest was spoken.

The texts were originally chanted by a single person, but from around the 13th century different voices took the different parts.

The first polyphonic Passion settings date from the 15th century.

As music became more sophisticated various forms of Passion were developed, ranging from straight narratives with music through to oratorios anchored to a greater or lesser extent in the text of scripture.

The St Matthew Passion of J S Bach is probably the best-known of the musical settings of the Passion.

The Passion in drama

'Passion plays' have been staged since the 12th century. The earliest play (so far) is one found at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. Two 13th century German passion plays are known, and Passion plays were more popular during that century and the one that followed.

The Passion of Christ was also portrayed in the English 'cycle plays'.

Passion plays often give a detailed portrayal of Christ's physical suffering and many of them include explicit dramatisations of the beating and execution of Christ.

There were at least two reasons for this: since all Passion plays emphasise the humanity of Christ and identify this with his physical experiences, a realistic Crucifixion brought the point home to the audience. Secondly, making the action as realistic as possible demonstrated to the audience that the death of Christ was a real historical event.

The most famous Passion play is the one that has been staged at Oberammergau in Upper Bavaria in Germany since 1634.

The villagers of Oberammergau had promised God that if he saved them from a plague epidemic they would commemorate it by staging a dramatic representation of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection every ten years.

The Oberammergau Passion play is particularly notable for involving the participation of the most of the villagers, with over 800 people in the cast.

The Passion in art

The Passion is one of the most common subjects in art. Paintings of the Crucifixion were much in demand for church use.

Detail taken from the Isenheim altarpiece ©

The earliest paintings of the Crucifixion date from the 5th century.

Among the most famous paintings is the Isenheim altarpiece (1515) by Mathias Grunewald. The painting of the Crucifixion is gruelling in both its detailed treatment of the physical anguish of Jesus, and the visual language used.

The Crucifix as a sculpted cross with the figure of Jesus dates from the 10th century (the Gero Cross of Cologne Cathedral).

In many churches a Crucifix stands on the choir screen, in the arch between the nave and the chancel. These are often known as 'roods' and the screen as a 'rood screen'. Rood comes from the Saxon word for a crucifix.

The Passion in plants

In this radio programme, Paul Morrison, a naturalist, explores the symbolism of flowers and plants in the crucifixion story. He goes in search of the plant the soldiers may have used to make Jesus' crown of thorns.