[238] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 4; Ib., c. 27; Aeneid, I. 178, 179; Ovid's Met., VII.
[239] Inferno, XXXI. 92.
[240] Purgatorio, VI. 118, 119. Pulci, not understanding, has parodied this. ("Morgante," Canto II. st. 1.)
[241] See, for example, Purgatorio, XX. 100-117.
[242] We believe that Dante, though he did not understand Greek, knew something of Hebrew. He would have been likely to study it as the sacred language, and opportunities of profiting by the help of learned Jews could not have been wanting to him in his wanderings. In the above-cited passage some of the best texts read I s' appellava, and others Un s' appellava. God was called I (the Je in Jehovah) or One, and afterwards El,—the strong,—an epithet given to many gods. Whichever reading we adopt, the meaning and the inference from it are the same.
[243] Inferno, IV.
[244] Dante's "Limbo," of course, is the older "Limbus Patrum."
[245] De Monarchia, Lib. II. § 8.
[246] Faith, Hope, and Charity. (Purgatorio, XXIX. 121.) Mr. Longfellow has translated the last verse literally. The meaning is,
"More than a thousand years ere baptism was."