1. The first of the nether regions visited by Dante is that set apart for such souls as have done neither good nor evil. To this place Dante gives the name of “limbo.”⁠[143]

The Latin noun “limbus,” the origin of which is obscure, is used by classical writers, such as Virgil, Ovid, and Statius, with the meaning of “fringe or border adorning the lower part of a garment.” In the sixth century it is used with the meaning of “coast.” In the Bible and ecclesiastical writings the abode of indifferent souls is named the “Bosom of Abraham,” but never the “limbo”; and it is not known who introduced the term into Christian literature. It appears suddenly in the works of the commentators of Peter the Lombard, contemporaries of Dante, who designate by it both the abode of unbaptised children (limbus puerorum) and the dwelling of the patriarchs of the Old Testament (limbus patrum).⁠[144]

Dante places this abode immediately above hell, as if it were an antechamber of the latter, and divides it into two parts—the ante-inferno, a wide plain inhabited by the indifferent souls,⁠[145] and the angels that remained neutral in Lucifer’s rebellion against God,⁠[146] and the limbo proper, a deep and shaded valley, in the midst of which stands a fortress surrounded by seven walls with seven gates leading to a pleasant meadow.⁠[147]

The limbo is inhabited by children that died innocent, but unbaptised, and, in addition, by a host of men and women who, though righteous, were either pre-Christian pagans or true followers of Mahomet and who, moreover, are famous as poets, moralists, philosophers, or heroes.⁠[148]

The suffering of these spirits is purely moral, and arises from their insatiable longing to behold God. Debarred from the joys of paradise, and exempt from the physical punishment of hell, they may be said to be in suspense (sospesi) between heaven and hell.⁠[149] This intermediate state would appear to give them special opportunities of knowing and dealing with both the blessed and the damned. Thus Virgil is in direct communication, from the limbo, with Beatrice⁠[150]; and, as he guides Dante through hell and purgatory, he names and describes to him the sinners and fiends, whose features are evidently well known to him.

2. The absence of almost all Biblical or theological precedents for Dante’s picture need hardly be insisted upon. The name, the picturesque description of the place, the exact classification of the dwellers, who are pagans and at times even Moslems, the many details of their life and condition—none of these can find full justification in Catholic dogma, which is as discreet on these as on most other points of eschatology.⁠[151]

In Islam it is otherwise. The absence of any one and unquestionable authority to distinguish between matters of faith and of free thought enabled a large number of myths and legends to be introduced from other Oriental religions—especially Judaism, Mazdaism, and Eastern Christianity—and, being attributed to the Prophet and his companions, to acquire a weight almost equal with the text of the Koran.

A search in this direction may perhaps provide a clue to the reading of the riddle of Dante’s limbo, which Christian theology leaves unsolved.

3. The Koran (VII, 44, 46) speaks of a mansion “Al Aaraf” that separates the blessed from the wicked. The word “Aaraf” by derivation means “the upper part of a curtain or veil”; it is also used to denote “the mane of a horse, the crest of a cock and, in general, the highest or most prominent part of anything”; in its wider sense it is applied to “any limit or boundary between things.”⁠[152] Thus, it is similar to the classical limbus; but, whereas limbus did not acquire the meaning of a region beyond the grave until the thirteenth century, the Arabic word had this meaning, in addition to its ordinary meaning, as early as the time of Mahomet.⁠[153]

The Moslem limbo is variously described in the legends—as a pleasant vale studded with fruit trees; as a valley lying behind a lofty mountain; as a circular wall of great height, with battlements and a gate, rising between heaven and hell; or simply as an eminence or mount. These conceptions, grouped together, present a picture not unlike that of Dante’s limbo; especially, if the picture is completed with the description, recurrent in the Miraj, of the Garden of Abraham and the entrance to the Moslem hell, which, like the castle that forms the antechamber of Dante’s hell, also has seven gates. Again, this castle, surrounded as it is by seven walls with seven gates, is an almost exact reproduction of the Islamic castle of the garden of paradise, which is surrounded by eight walls with eight gates⁠[154]; as if Dante, in blending the Moslem designs of heaven and hell, had sought to symbolise the neutral nature of the souls dwelling in the limbo.

The Moslem limbo has, on the authority of Algazel himself, been shown to be the abode of those that lived neither in virtue nor in vice. In keeping with this doctrine, Moslem tradition specifies the following groups: Martyrs of holy warfare who are denied the reward of paradise through having disobeyed their parents; men of learning whose merit was nullified by their vanity; infant children of Moslems and infidels; and, finally, angels of the male sex or genii that believed in the Prophet. These groups correspond very fairly to the groups in Dante’s limbo of the unbaptised children and the heroes, poets and philosophers whose virtues and talents were neutralised by their lack of faith. As regards the angels of male sex, they are indeed as enigmatical as Dante’s neutral angels.

The only suffering that, according to the Koran and the theologians, is inflicted on the inhabitants of the Moslem limbo is a vain longing to enter paradise: “They cannot enter for all their longing.”⁠[155] As the good they have done is balanced by their sins, they neither sink into hell nor rise to heaven, but remain in suspense between the two.⁠[156] Thus placed, they are acquainted and converse with both the blessed and the damned.⁠[157]