[158]. It is also a panther that Dante encounters at the entrance of the forest which is the commencement of the mysterious realm of Death. The Egyptian texts mention also the lion, of which the Catholic liturgy retains the remembrance in the Offertory for the Mass for the Dead: Domine Jesu Christe, libera animas defunctorum ... de ore leonis, ne absorbeat eas Tartarus.
[159]. Each hour of this night has a name, according to the mystery accomplished in it. The eighth hour is characterized by the defeat of the great serpent, cast into the abyss. One of his names is Apep—he who lifts the head, the proud one, represented by a serpent pierced with arrows.
[160]. “In that day, fear ye before the sword; the vengeance of the sword is burning; that ye may know that there is a judgment” (Job xix. 29).
[161]. Cat. of Egypt. MSS., Book of the Lower Hemisphere, p. 15.
[162]. Osiris surrounded his children with so much solicitude that he is represented as even sending his attendants to visit their sepulchres. We find, for instance, the following in papyrus 3283 of the Louvre: “Said by Osiris to the gods of his suite: Go, then, and see this dwelling of the departed, that it may be thus constructed; hasten it for the moment of his heavenly birth with you; respect him; salute him, for he is honorable.” It is curious to find so early the dies natalis of our martyrologies.
[163]. “How often would the Catholic faith have hopelessly foundered amidst the innovations which the heretics and sectaries of all times have attempted to foist upon her, had not an infallible authority watched over her and secured her integrity! I know nothing more convincing as to the necessity of this doctrinal magistracy than the incessant variation of the religions of antiquity. From a distance, and at first sight, they seem to have changed the least; whereas, on the contrary, their history has been nothing but a gradual and perpetual change, the laws of which it may not be impossible some time to discover.”—Le Rédempteur et la Vie Future.
[164]. Chap. xii.
[165]. V. Alcuin in Vita Willibrordi ap. Mabillon. Acta Sanctorum, Ord. S. Benedicti, t. iii. p. 567, Venetian edition.
[166]. Wilwerwiltz is a contraction of Willibrordswiltz. As to Kleemskerk (Clement’s Church), we know that in Rome Willibrord received the name of Clement, as did Winfrid that of Boniface, under which he is venerated.
[167]. This, at least, is the plausible conjecture of a scholar of the first rank—F. Alexander Wiltheim—in his fine book, Luxemburgum Romanum.