But Dante distributes his pagans without prejudice throughout the successive circles, from the “Nobile Castello” in Limbo[315] to the central seat of infamy in the Giudecca; and, as a matter of fact, a pagan, Curio, is partner of Mohammed’s doom in the penultimate “bolgia” of Malebolge. Obviously “scisma” must not be taken too technically from Mohammed’s lips, supplemented as it is by the more general phrase “seminator di scandalo.”[316] The “schism” of which the False Prophet is guilty is rather that introduction of discord and strife into the civilised world which makes “Macometto cieco” in the eighteenth canzone a personification of the factious spirit of Florence. Yet if it had fallen to Dante’s lot to judge the Founder of Islam by the spirit of this Mohammedan Gospel, he might have shared that milder and more optimistic view of Mohammedanism which, according to a recent writer,[317] inspired Saint Francis when he set out upon his Egyptian mission. For here he would have found, side by side with the inevitable denial of our Lord’s Divinity, an attribution to him not only of the Gospel miracles, but of others beside. He would have found deep teachings on prayer and fasting and almsgiving; on humility, penitence[318] and self-discipline; on meditation and mystic love. He would have found an asceticism in some ways as extravagant as any to be discovered in mediaeval legend, yet tempered with saving humour and common sense; a tolerant and charitable spirit which rivals even that of the “Cristo d’ Italia,” and “a succession of noble and beautiful thoughts concerning love of God, union with God, and God as Himself the final reward of faithful service, which it would be difficult to match in any literature.”[319] * * * * *