Commentary Purg XXII 148-154

The inhabitants of the golden age of Saturn are described by Ovid (Metam. I.103-106), in which men, before tillage, happily consumed berries and acorns.  Once again a classical group is paired with a Hebrew individual, John the Baptist, similarly temperate.  Shoaf (Shoa.1978.1), p. 197, refers to 'the hunger of Temperance' in another context, but the phrase is apt here.

      It is possible that Daniello (DDP Daniello.Purg.XXII.153-154) was the first to cite, in support of John's 'greatness,' the apt passage in Matthew 11:11 (some others will later also cite the nearly identical one in Luke 7:28): 'Among those who are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.'  It is striking that no commentator gathered in the DDP who cites this passage ever goes on to cite its concluding sentence, which fits the context here so very well, where Virgil has served as prophet of Christ for Statius but not for himself (for Virgil's role in the poem as reflecting that of John the Baptist, see C.Inf.I.122): 'But he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.'