Medieval western Europe had access to remarkably little Greek literature; the text of even such a central work of literature as Homer’s epics was hardly known until the fifteenth century. Few scholars had any more than the vaguest knowledge of the Greek language. If they knew a learned language other than Latin, it was likely to be Hebrew, for the good reason that while there were virtually no Greeks in the west, there were plenty of argumentative and ingenious Jewish rabbis with an awkward ability to question Christianity, forcing refutations with reference to their own Hebrew literature.
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