TARDELLINO对《Inferno》的笔记(2)

In the year 1300 Good Friday fell on April 8 (though some commentators opt for the historical anniversary of Christ’s death, March 25). This would place the night in the dark wood at Thursday night, April 7, the night before Good Friday; would allot the day of Good Friday, April 8, to the encounter with the three animals and Virgil; and would assign the entry into Ante-Hell to nightfall (II, 1–3) on Good Friday. Dante is in the Fourth Circle by midnight (VII, 98), in the Sixth Circle by 4 A.M. (XI, 113–114), in the fourth pouch of Malebolge by 6 A.M. (XX, 124–126), and, here, in the fifth pouch of Malebolge by 7 A.M.of Holy Saturday, April 9.

Dante is not to be called an unequivocal Thomist, but Thomas’s is the other epic (here used more loosely) achievement of Dante’s centuries. Where Bonaventura had seen the inventions of the poets as fragile, Aquinas saw poetry as infima doctrina, a lesser mode of teaching (and more vulgar—and some unvulgar—theologians saw only lies).