In the flashback to Jimmy's college lecture, he reads from John Webster's The White Devil. He reads a quote by Flamineo, an ambitious young man who helps his adulterous sister murder her husband. There are many parallels between The White Devil and the series: Flamineo is attending university to better himself. Everyone is corrupt and trying to grab power. The kingpin has his lover's husband killed and is put on trial. Flamineo's mother hates the woman he is seeing.
Van Alden's reply to Doyle's attempt to bribe him, "I prefer not to," is a direct l'homage to Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener."
The title is an allusion to the Princeton motto: Dei Sub Numine Viget.