I've already written about one of Sayers books on this site, Are Women Human? Her detective fiction is some of my favorite. I return to Whimsey novels even when I know who-dun-it.
But this series of radio plays deserves to be read and reread. In fact, C. S. Lewis said that he reread it every Holy Week.
What makes it so phenomenal? Partly because Sayers herself was a scholar. She arranges the gospels in chronological order, attempting to harmonize the various accounts in her retelling. In her notes before each play, she often refers to the Greek. For example, in the final play about the resurrection and what follows, she comments on that scene between Jesus and Peter where Christ asks Peter, "Do you love me?" Sayers comments, "Temple translates agapes 'do you love?' and phileis 'are you my friend?' but I have ventured to reverse this--- 'friendship' seems to me to suggest, in the context, something more of an equality than 'love.'" In this sense, you can read these plays as a commentary on the gospels.
But besides a scholar, Sayers is also a story-teller. She wants to make these characters, what they were, real people. She describes one of the Sadducees who questioned Jesus in the temple as having "the impertinent manner of a conceited undergraduate." Caiaphas is a politician as real as the politicians we see playing out in the news today.
She is able to take things that our mentioned in Scripture, like the dream of Pilate's wife, and using a holy imagination, flesh out the story while holding to good theology. In fact, she describes this dream as Pilate's wife hearing voices throughout history in hundreds of languages, repeating the same phrase, "he suffered and died under Ponticus Pilate."
And yet, it is when she sticks closest to Scripture that the pathos of the life of Christ becomes clearer. In her notes on the plays, she describes the difficulty of writing a radio drama over the trial and death of Jesus. He is the central character, but He says almost nothing. And yet, when He speaks, His words have greater weight and dramatic effect than any Greek or Shakespearean tragedy:
"THE EVANGELIST: And when he had received the vinegar, Jesus cried with a loud voice:
JESUS: (loudly): It is accomplished! (softly) Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.
THE EVANGELIST: And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
(Earthquake)
And the earth did quake, and the vail of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the Centurion, and they that were with him, saw this, they were afraid."
What does Hamlet have on that?
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