Some days after his decease, Bishop William, or Guillaume, praying by night, after matins, in his cathedral, beheld before him the hideous and frightful figure of a man. He made the sign of the cross, and said to him, "If you are sent by God, speak." He spoke, and said: "I am that wretched chancellor, and have been condemned to eternal punishment." The bishop having asked him the cause, he replied, "I am condemned, first, for not having distributed the superfluity of my benefices; secondly, for having maintained that it was allowable to hold several at once; thirdly, for having remained for several days in the guilt of incontinence."
The story was often preached by Bishop William to his clerks. It is related by the Bishop Albertus Magnus, who was a cotemporary, in his book on the sacraments; by William Durand, Bishop of Mande, in his book De Modo celebrandi Concilia; and in Thomas de Cantimpré, in his work Des Abeilles. He believed, then, that God sometimes permitted the reprobate to appear to the living.
Here is an instance of the apparition of a man and woman who were in a state of reprobation. The Prince of Ratzivil,[[401]] in his Journey to Jerusalem, relates that when in Egypt he bought two mummies, had them packed up, and secretly as possible conveyed on board his vessel, so that only himself and his two servants were aware of it; the Turks making a great difficulty of allowing mummies to be carried away, because they fancy that the Christians make use of them for magical operations. When they were at sea, there arose at sundry times such a violent tempest that the pilot despaired of saving the vessel. A good Polish priest, of the suite of the Prince de Ratzivil, recited the prayers suitable to the circumstance; but he was tormented, he said, by two hideous black spectres, a man and a woman, who were on each side of him, and threatened to take away his life. It was thought at first that terror disturbed his mind.
A calm coming on, he appeared tranquil; but very soon, the storm beginning again, he was more tormented than before, and was only delivered from these haunting spectres when the two mummies, which he had not seen, were thrown into the sea, and neither himself nor the pilot knew of their being in the ship. I will not deny the fact, which is related by a prince incapable of desiring to impose on any one. But how many reflections may we make on this event! Were they the souls of these two pagans, or two demons who assumed their form? What interest could the demon have in not permitting these bodies to come under the power of the Christians?
Footnotes:
[[395]] Greg. Mag. lib. iv. Dialog. c. 55.
[[396]] Cor. xi. 14.
[[397]] Rev. xxi. 14.
[[398]] Bodin, Dæmon. tom. iii. c. 6.
[[399]] Rev. xxi. 27.