Chapter II
, Vol. I. p. 62, _supra_.
Footnote 951:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 18, for the passage in St Jerome in which these degrees are enumerated. They all appear in the inscriptions given by Cumont, except that of Miles or Soldier. An inscription by two “soldiers” of Mithras has, however, lately been found at Patras and published by its discoverers, M. Charles Avezou and M. Charles Picard. See _R.H.R._ t. LXIV. (1911), pp. 179-183.
Footnote 952:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. pp. 315 _sqq._
Footnote 953:
Tertullian, _de Corona_, c. 15.
Footnote 954:
Porphyry, _de antro nymph._ c. 15.
Footnote 955:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 322. Gregory of Nazianza (A.D. 320-390) is the first authority for these tortures (κολάσεις) in point of time. Nonnus the Mythographer gives more details, but is three centuries later.
Footnote 956:
Renan, _Marc-Aurèle_, p. 577.
Footnote 957:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 73.
Footnote 958:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 294, Fig. 149; p. 298, Fig. 154; p. 300, Fig. 156; p. 304, Fig. 161; p. 488, Fig. 421.
Footnote 959:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 175, Fig. 10.
Footnote 960:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 39, n. 6, quoting the _Arda Viraf namak_. A quotation from Arnobius, _adv. gentes_, which follows, merely says that the Magi boast of their ability to smooth the believers’ passage to heaven.
Footnote 961:
See Chap. VIII, p. 74, n. 3, _supra_.
Footnote 962:
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.
Footnote 963:
Lafaye, _L’Initiation Mithriaque_, p. 106.
Footnote 964:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 56.
Footnote 965:
Porphyry, _de Abstinentia_, Bk IV. c. 16 says this was so.
Footnote 966:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 318, n. 1, points out that an initiate might become Pater Patrum immediately after being made Pater or Pater sacrorum simply. This appears from the two monuments both dated the same year of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, _op. cit._ II. p. 95.
Footnote 967:
See Ammianus Marcellinus Bk XXII. c. 7, for his life under Julian. His career is well described by Dill, _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_, 1899, pp. 17, 18, 30, 154, 155.
Footnote 968:
Cumont, _T. et M._ II. p. 100, inscr. 35; p. 98, inscr. 24.
Footnote 969:
_Op. cit._ II. p. 130, inscr. 225; p. 132, inscr. 239; p. 134, inscr. 257. The two decurions may of course have been decurions of the rite only, as to which see _op. cit._ I. p. 326.
Footnote 970:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 324: Tertullian, _Praescpt._ c. 40.
Footnote 971:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 65. Thirty-five seems to be the greatest number belonging to any one chapel.
Footnote 972:
_Op. cit._ I. p. 327.
Footnote 973:
Amm. Marcell. _passim_.
Footnote 974:
Neander, _Ch. Hist._ III. p. 136.
Footnote 975:
Marinus, _vita Procli_, pp. 67, 68; Neander, _op. cit._ III. p. 136.
Footnote 976:
Witness the reduction of Mitra, who plays such an important part in the religion of the Vedas, to the far lower position of chief of the Izeds or Yazatas in the Sassanian reform.
Footnote 977:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 250, for authorities.
Footnote 978:
Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_ (Bury’s ed.), I. p. 260 n. 106.
Footnote 979:
Reville, _Religion sous les Sevères_, p. 102.
Footnote 980:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 347.
Footnote 981:
Dill, _Last Century_, etc. p. 29, n. 2.
Footnote 982:
Cumont, _T. et M._ I. p. 347.
Footnote 983:
_Op. cit._ I. pp. 329, 330; Dill, _Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 624.
Footnote 984:
Cumont, “L’aigle funéraire des Syriens et l’apothéose des empereurs.” _R.H.R._, 1910, pt ii. pp. 159 _sqq._
Footnote 985:
Cf. the “solitary eagle” of the Magic Papyrus quoted on p. 265 _supra_.
Footnote 986:
Maury, _La Magie et L’Astrologie_, _passim_. The Zend Avesta also denounces magic as did the later Manichaeism. See p. 342 _infra_.
Footnote 987:
As in Shakespeare’s _Macbeth_.
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