“... Both Clement and Tertullian endorse Phoenix as a powerful symbol that enables them to render the idea of the resurrection probable. [...] Some other texts point in the same direction but they take the understanding even further by identifying Phoenix with Christ. In the Greek Physiologos—the dating of which remains uncertain—the Phoenix symbolises Christ. After a period of 500 years the Indian bird leaves for the trees of Lebanon in order to collect aromates for its future immolation. It informs a priest of Heliopolis about its forthcoming arrival in the new month of Nissan. The rebirth of the bird is said to last three days. Both statements mirror a move towards an identification with Christ which is explicitly made in the final morale of the story. Phoenix has adopted the countenance of the saviour ...”

“... When do reliable witnesses first appear? According to Scott (1998: 433), the first hard evidence of the Physiologus’ use is in the second half of the fourth century, and here there is a solid phalanx of witnesses. It is apparent, as van den Broek notes, that Epiphanius has used the Physiologus in his Panarion (written by 377), because in Epiphanius’s version of the phoenix story, the worm reborn in the ashes becomes a mature bird on the third day, a detail otherwise only known in the Physiologus; the same may again be true in the detail that the phoenix shows itself to the priests who had served it. ...”