Note 962 — Chapter XII · THE WORSHIP OF MITHRAS

That those who had taken the degree of Pater were called ἀετοί or eagles appears from Porphyry, de Abstinentia, Bk IV. c. 16. Cumont doubts this; see T. et M. I. p. 314, n. 8. The idea probably had its origin in the belief common to classical antiquity that the eagle alone could fly to the sun, from which the Mithraist thought that the souls of men came, and to which those of perfect initiates would return. Cf. op. cit. I. p. 291.