Arrr

THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX
ACCORDING TO CLASSICAL
AND EARLY CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS
ETUDES PRELIMINAIRES
AUX RELIGIONS ORIENTALES
DANS L'EMPIRE ROMAIN
PUBLIEES PAR
M. J. VERMASEREN
TOME VINGT-QUATRIEME
R. VAN DEN BROEK

LEIDEN
E.J.BRILL
1972
Phoenix from Old St . Peter's, Rome
R. VAN DEN BROEK

WITH A FRONTISPIECE, 40 PLATES

AND 2 FOLDING MAPS
LEIDEN
E.). BRILL
1972
The translation of this book was made possible by a grant from the
Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research
(Z.W.O.). The translation was done by Mrs. I. Seeger.
Copyright 1972 by E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche
or any other means without written permission from the publisher
PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
CONTENTS
Preface VII
Abbreviations IX
PART ONE
PRELIMINARIES
I. Introduction . 3
11. The Egyptian benu and the Classical phoenix 14
Ill. A Coptic text on the phoenix . . . . . . . 33
PART TWO
ANALYSIS OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX
IV. The name phoenix. . . . . . . . . . . . . 5I
V. Lifespan and appearances
I. The age of the phoenix and the Great Year. 67
2. Hesiod, frg. 304. . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3. Hesiod,Jrg. 304, the Great Year and the phoenix. 98
4. The appearances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lI3
5. Hesiod, frg. 304, and the phoenix as symbol of the
soul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I32
VI. The death and rebirth of the phoenix
I. The two principal versions of the myth. I46
2. The preparation for death . . . . . . I6I
3. The genesis from the decaying remains of the pre-
decessor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I86
4. The genesis from the ashes of the predecessor. I98
VII. The phoenix as bird of the sun
I. External appearance. 233
2. Escort of the sun 26I
VIII. The abode 305
IX. The food 335
X. The sex. . 357
VI CONTENTS
PART THREE
RESULTS
XI. The development of the myth of the phoenix. Some con-
clusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
The phoenix in Classical and Early Christian art

Documentation and Plates I-XL. . . . . . 42 3
Indices
I. Biblical and Jewish texts . . . . . . . . . . . 465
11. Greek and Latin texts . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Ill. Egyptian, Coptic, Syriac and other Oriental texts . 480
IV. Names and Subjects 481
Corrigenda et addenda . 487

Maps I and 11 at the end of the book
PREFACE
The Dutch manuscript of this book was completed in the spring of

1969. Since then, only a few minor additions or changes have been
made.
During its preparation-for submission to the Theological Faculty
of the University of Utrecht as a doctoral thesis-I received advice
and help from many quarters. Now that it is appearing, it is my
privilege to thank all those who assisted me in any way, with special
mention of Professor G. Quispel, Professor J. Zandee, and Professor
M. J. Vermaseren. I am particularly indebted to Professor Vermase-
ren for his advice in the period during which I was collecting the
material used for the Plates and for his decision to include the book
in his "Etudes preliminaires".
The origin of the photographs is indicated in the documentation
accompanying the Plates; I wish to add an expression of my
gratitude to all the persons and institutions mentioned there.
Several particularly elusive photographs could not have been
obtained without the mediation of Professor M. Avi-Yonah (Jeru-
salem), Professor Ph. Derchain (Cologne), and Professor A. Ferrua
(Rome).
My thanks are also extended to Mrs. I. Seeger, who did the trans-
lation, to Mrs. F. Derksen, who prepared the maps, and to the staff
of Brill, who devoted so much time and effort to the realization of
this edition.
Breukelen, December 20th, 1971

ABBREVIATIONS
A. WOYks cited by authOY's name only, or by author's name and abbreviated title
Bin Gorion, M. ]., Die Sagen der juden, 2nd ed., Frankfurt, 1962
Bonnet, H., Reallexikon der agyptischen Religionsgeschichte, Berlin, 1952
Bousset, W., Die Religion des judentums im spathellenistischen Zeitalter, 3rd
rev. ed. by H. Gressmann, (Handb. zum N.T., 21), Tiibingen, 1926
Burkert, W., Weisheit und Wissenschaft. Studien zu Pythagoyas, Philolaos und
Plato, (Erlanger Beitr. zur Sprach- und Kunstwiss., X), Nuremberg, 1962
Charles (ed.), R H., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
in English, I, II, Oxford, 1913
Crum, W. E., A Coptic Dictionary, Oxford, 1939
Cumont, F., Textes et Monuments figures relatifs aux mysteres de Mithra, I, II,
Brussels, 1896, 1899
- , Etudes syriennes, Paris, 1917
-, After life in Roman paganism, 2nd ed., New York, 1959 (1st ed. 1922)
-, Recherches sur le symbolisme fUn6raire des Romains, Paris, 1942
- , Lux perpetua, Paris, 1949
Detienne, M., La notion de DAIM6N dans le Pythagorisme ancien, (Bibl. de
la Fac. de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Univ. de Liege, CLXV), Paris, 1963
Fitzpatrick, MaryC., Lactanti "De ave Phoenice", with introduction, text, trans-
lation and commentary, Thesis Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1933
Forstner, D., Die Welt der Symbole, Innsbruck-Vienna-Munich, 1961
Ginzberg, L., The Legends of the jews, 7 vols, Philadelphia, I, 11th impr.
1961; II, 7th impr. 1954; Ill, 4th impr. 1954; IV, 6th impr. 1954; V,
7th impr. 1955; VI, 4th impr. 1959; VII, 2nd impr. 1946
Ginzel, F. K., Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, I,
II, Ill, 1906-1914
Harnack, A., Neue Studien zur jungst entdeckten lateinischen Vbersetzung des
1. Clemensbriefs, in Sitzungsber. der kngl. Preus. Akad. deY Wiss. zu Berlin,
1894, no. 31, Berlin, 1894, 601-621
Hennecke, E., Neutestamentliche ApokYYPhen in deutscheY Vbersetzung, 3rd
rev. ed. by W. Schneemelcher, I, II, Tiibingen, 1959, 1964
Henrichsen, R J. F., De phoenicis fabula apud Graecos, Romanos et populos
orientales commentatio, I, II, Hauniae, 1825, 1827
Hubaux J., and Leroy, M., Le mythe du pMnix dans les litteratures grecque et
latine, (Bibl. de la Fac. de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Univ. de Liege,
LXXXII), Liege-Paris, 1939
Jaeger, W., Die Theologie der frUhen griechischen DenkeY, Darmstadt, 1964
(reprint = Stuttgart, 1953)
James, M. R, The apocryphal New Testament, rev. ed., Oxford, 1953
Kautzsch (ed.), E., Die ApokYyphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testa-
ments, I, II, Tiibingen, 1900 (reprint in one volume, 1921)
Koehler, L., and Baumgartner, W., Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros,
Leiden, 1953
x AB BREVIATIONS
Koestermann, E., Cornelius Tacitus. Annalen, I1, Heidelberg, 1965

Kubitschek, W., Grundriss der antiken Zeitrechnung, (Handb. der Altertumsw.
I, 7), Munich, 1928
Lantschoot, A. van, .A propos du Physiologus, in Coptic studies in honour of
Waiter Ewing Crum, (Bulletin of the Byzantine Institute, 2), Boston, 1950
Lassus, J., La mosaique du pMnix provenant des fouilles d'Antioche, in
MMAI, 36, 1938, 81-122
Leclercq, H., PMnix, in DACL, XIV, I, 1941, 682-691
Liddell, H. G., and Scott, R., A Greek-English Lexicon, new rev. ed. by H. St.
Jones, Oxford, 1953
Nilsson, M. P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion, (Handb. der Altertumsw.,
V, 2), 2nd ed., I, I1, Munich, 1955, 1959
Perdrizet, P., La tunique liturgique historiCe de Saqqara, in MMAI, 34,1934,
97-128
Quasten, J., Patrology, I, I1, Ill, Utrecht-Antwerp-Westminster, 1950, 1953,
1960
Rapisarda, E., Il carme "De ave Phoenice" di Lattanzio, 3rd ed., Catania, 1959
Roscher, W. H., (ed.), Ausfuhrliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen
Mythologie, Leipzig-Berlin, 1884-1937
Rusch, A., Phoinix, in RE, 20, I, 1941,414-423
Sbordone, F., La fenice nel culto di Helios, in Rivista indo-greca-italica di
filologia-lingua-antichita, 19, 1935, 1-46
Schippers, A., Avitus. De mundi initio, Thesis Free Univ. Amsterdam 1945,
Kampen, 1945.
Tiirk, G., Phoenix, in Roscher, Lexikon, Ill, 2, 1902-1909, 3450-3472
Walla, Marieluise, Der Vogel PhOnix in der antiken Literatur und die Dichtung
des Laktanz, Thesis Vienna, 1965
Wilpert, J., Die romischen Mosaiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten
vom 4. bis I3. Jahrhundert, 2nd ed., 4 vols, Fribourg, 1917
-, I sarcofagi cristiani antichi, I, n, Ill, Rome, 1929-1936
B. Other abbreviations
AC L' Antiquite Classique
AJPh American Journal of Philology
BiOr Bibliotheca Orientalis
BJ Bonner J ahrbiicher
CBM The Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, ed.
by H. Mattingly, London, 1923 ff.
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
DACL Dictionnaire d' Archeologie Chretienne et de Liturgie
ERE Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
FGrH Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, ed. by F. Jacoby,
Leiden
FVS Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, ed. by H. Diels and W. Kranz,
I, 9th ed., Berlin, 1960
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahr-
hunderte
ABBREVIATIONS XI
JThSt The Journal of Theological Studies

MDAI Mitteilungen des deutschen archaologischen Instituts
MGH, a.a. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores antiquissimi
MGH, scr. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores
MMAI Monuments et Memoires publies par l' Academie des Inscrip-
tions et Belles-Lettres (Fondation Piot)
MVG Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft
PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca
PL Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina
PO Patrologia Orientalis
PS Patrologia Syriaca
RAC Reallexikon fUr Antike und Christentum
RE Real-Encyc1opaedie der c1assischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed.
Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll et al.
REG Revue des Etudes Grecques
REL Revue des Etudes Latines
RHR Revue de I'Histoire des Religions
RIC The Roman Imperial Coinage, ed. by H. Mattingly, E. A.
Sydenham, et al., London, 1923 ff.
RIN Rivista Italiana di Numismatica
RhMPh Rheinisches Museum fUr Philologie
SBE The Sacred Books of the East
ThWNT Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament
TS Texts and Studies
TU Texte und Untersuchungen
VC Vigiliae Christianae
zA.s Zeitschrift fiir agyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde
ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft
PART ONE
PRELIMINARIES
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
The Classical myth of the phoenix has been the subject of many
studies since the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Human-
ists had published so many original texts that it became possible to
make a systematic study of the Classical heritage. At that time, the
main question was whether the phoenix was to be considered a real
bird or belonged entirely to the realm of fable. 1 The learned dis-
cussions on this problem were full of citations of Classical and Early
Christian passages in which the bird was mentioned. Consequently,
as early as 1599 the Italian physician and naturalist Ulisse Aldro-
vandi .could give a detailed discussion of the phoenix myth in his
Ornithologia, with numerous quotations. 2
The question of whether the phoenix must be considered a fabu-
lous bird was reopened in 1633, in all seriousness, 3 when Patricius
1 Hieronymus Cardanus, De subtilitate libri XV, nunc demum recogniti
atque per/ecti, Basiliae, 1554,337, could already say: "At phoenicem praedica-
runt multi avem, tabulae quam veritati propriorem". He referred to the Indian
bird semenda as possible source of the Classical phoenix myth. The same was
done by Julius Caesar Scaliger in his Exotericarum exercitationum libri XV de
subtilitate, ad Hieronymum Cardanum, Francofurti, 1601 (1st ed. 1557), 731,
although he had more reservations about the semenda than Cardanus; see also
below, p. 201, n. 4. Pierre Belon, in his L'histoire de la nature des oyseaux ... ,
Paris, 1555, 329-331, and Les observations de plusieurs singularitiz et choses
memorables ... , Paris, 1588 (1st ed. 1553), 421, identified the phoenix with the
rhyntaces mentioned by Ctesias (see below, p. 337, n. 2). According to Belon,
the ornamental bunches of feathers worn by the Turks and which became
high style in the French salons of the sixteenth century originated from the
phoenix-rhyntaces. From the illustrations of this bird given by Belon, these
feathers must have derived from the bird of paradise; see also D' Arcy Went-
worth Thompson, A glossary 0/ Greek birds, 2nd ed., London, 1936, 309, and
n. 3 here.
a Ulisse Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae hoc est De avibus historiae libri X 11, (=
Opera Omnia I), Bononiae, 1599, 816-833.
3 In popular science, belief in the reality of the phoenix persisted; see for
example Rene Franyois (= Etienne Binet), Essay des merveilles de nature et
des plus nobles artifices, Rouen, 1626, 70-73, and the remarkable book by the
Dutch Johannes Aysma, Het Ryck der Goden onder den Eenige waare God ... ,
4 INTRODUCTION
Junius published the editio princeps of the so-called First Epistle 01

Clement, 1 in which the phoenix is taken as proof of the possibility
of resurrection. There was general agreement that great authority
had to be assigned to the words of such an almost apostolic man as
Clement of Rome (ca. 100 A.D.). Furthermore, it was considered
impossible that a man of Clement's stature could be so mistaken
that he would use a fable to gain acceptance for one of the basic
tenets of Christian belief. Some scholars then unconditionally ac-
cepted the phoenix myth as true, since Clement evidently did so;
others rejected the whole epistle as spurious on the basis of the myth 2 •
Amsterdam, 1686, 382-384; for the latter compare also A. M. Lamend, Fan-
tastische wezens, in Volkskunde, 53, 1952, 68-70. Real phoenix feathers were
believed to be in circulation: according to William Camden, Brittaniae ...
chorographica descriptio, Londini, 1607, 783, Pope Clement VIII sent a phoe-
nix feather to the Irishman HughO'Neil, who had defeated the troops of
Elizabeth I at Blackwater in 1598. In the middle of the seventeenth century
feathers from the wings of the phoenix were exhibited in the Tradescant
Museum at London; see John Evelyn's Diary for Sept. 17, 1657 (ed. E. S. de
Beer, The diary ot John Evelyn, Ill, Oxford, 1955, 199). According to Sir
Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia epidemica, or Vulgar errors, Ill, 12 (ed. Ch.
Sayles, The works ot Sir Thomas Browne, Il, Edinburgh, 1912, 6), however,
such feathers actually originated from the bird of paradise.
1 Patricius Junius, Clementis ad Corinthios epistula prior ... , Oxonii, 1633.
B For a rapid orientation concerning this interesting episode in the history
of patristic studies, see A. Calovius, Biblia Novi Testamenti illustrata, Il,
Dresdae et Lipsiae, 1719 (1st ed. 1672-1676), 250-256, and W. E. Tentzel,
De phoenice apud Iobum et Clementem Romanum (1682), in his Exercitationes
selectae, I, Lipsiae et Francofurti, 1692, 32-46. These scholars rejected I
Clement on the basis of the use of the phoenix myth, and therefore challenged
Junius (see p. 34 of the latter's commentary) and the later publishers of
I Clement, Johannes Mader (1654) and Johannes Fell (1669), who were of
the opinion that the Classical phoenix was a real bird because Clement had
accepted it without reservation. In a letter to Jerome Bignon dated 17 July
1634, Hugo de Groot had already stated that I Clement was authentic; see
his Epistulae ad Gallos, nunc primum editae, Lugdunum Batavorum, 1648,
418-423. After Bignon had drawn his attention to the dubious phoenix myth
Grotius stated in an unpublished letter (see the citation in Calovius, p. 256;
this letter is not mentioned in J. ter Meule-P. J. J. Diermanse, Bibliographie
de Hugo Grotius, 's-Gravenhage, 1950) that in his opinion the phoenix myth
had been generally accepted by the eruditi in Clement's time and that by
using the story of the bird Clement had intended only to indicate the possi-
bility of resurrection. For Bignon's letter, see also J. B. Lightfoot, The A pos-
tolic Fathers, I, I, London, 1890, 97. De Groot's opinion first occurs in the
scientific literature in G. J. Vossius, De theologia gentili et Physiologia chris-
tiana ... (1642) in OPera Omnia, Amstelodami, 1700, 464-465, and in J. H.
INTRODUCTION 5
It was in this discussion that the problem of the function of a

Classical mythological conception in Early Christian thinking was
raised for the first time.
Meanwhile, the phoenix myth in all its complexity was being
studied intensively. In 1663, Samuel Bochart published his Hiero-
zoicum, in which he devoted a detailed and extremely thorough
discussion to the phoenix, drawing on his remarkable familiarity
with the Classical, Early Christian, Jewish, and Arabic literature. 1
He could include the phoenix in this work on the animals in the
Bible because even in Classical times various authors had found
mention of the phoenix in Job XXiX.I8 and Ps. XCii.I2. 2 Since the
studies of Aldrovandi and Bochart, only a few new data have been
uncovered in the investigation of the myth, and all the later studies
are based on the work of these almost completely forgotten scholars.
Especially in the eighteenth century, scholars seem to have been so
deeply impressed by the earlier studies that they could add little to
them. A good illustration of this is provided by the lengthy work of
Texelius. 3
It was not until the first decades of the nineteenth century that
several excellent new studies on the phoenix appeared. In the first
place reference must be made here to the detailed treatment given
by Larcher to the problem of whether the phoenix had been an astro-
nomical symbol, and to the short but very exhaustive two-volume
study by Henrichsen on the various Classical traditions concerning
the phoenix as well as those pertaining to related birds outside the
Beoclerus, who devoted a university lecture to it in 1643 and had three of
his students debate it; see the latter's Programmata academica, XII, in Opera,
V, Argentorati, 1712, 377-381. As early an author as Photius (Bibliotheca,
126) put forward as an argument against Clement: /I'n Wt; XatvatATj~h;O"'t"a:t"<jl 't"ij'l
Kat't"&' 't"ov qlOLVLKat 't"0 Ilpve:OV {mo3dYfLat't"L dXP7l't"atL.
1 Samuel Bochartus, Hierozoici sive bipartiti operis de animalibus S. Scrip-
turae pars prior, 4th ed., in his Opera Omnia, II, Lugdunum Batavorum et
Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1712, 817-825.
2 Long before Bochart, Sixtinus Amama, Anti-Barbarus biblicus, Amstel-
rodami, 1628, 835, had pointed to the erroneous interpretation of Ps. xci. 13
(LXX, Vulg.) by certain early Christian authors; see also on this point below,
p. 57; for Job xxix. 18, p. 58-60.
3 P. Texelius, Phoenix visus et auditus, Roterodami, 1703, and Amstelae-
dami, 1706. See also the studies of Des Vignoles and Forster mentioned on
P·27·
6 INTRODUCTION
Classical world. l Mention must also be made of the brilliant compi-

lation of the information supplied by earlier investigations given by
the gifted Giacomo Leopardi, which he wrote at the age of seven-
teen. 2 In the course of the nineteenth century interest was concen-
trated mainly on the phoenix as symbol of astronomical and chrono-
logical periods and, in this context, on the relationship between the
Classical phoenix and the Egyptian benu, to which we will return
in the following chapter. 3
In the present century the phoenix myth has continued to attract
scientific interest. For studies concerned with the entire phoenix
tradition we may refer to the contributions in several comprehensive
works by Turk, Leclercq, and Rusch,4 as well as to the studies by
such authors as Zimmermann, Sbordone, Thompson, Edsman, Pag-
liaro, and Mary McDonald,5 and especially to the major works by Hu-
baux and Leroy and by Marieluise Walla. 6 In the broadly conceived
1 P. H. Larcher, Memoire sur le phenix, ou Recherches sur les periodes astro-
nomiques et chronologiques des Egyptiens, in H istoire et memoires de 1'1nstitut
imperial de France, Classe d'Histoire et de Litterature ancienne, Paris, 1815,
Memoires, 166-307. This study had already been presented on 28 Thermidor
of the year XIII (= August 16, 1805). R. J. F. Henrichsen, De phoenicis
tabula apud Graecos, Romanos et populos orientales commentatio, Hauniae, I,
1825, II, 1827.
B G. Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, Ch. XVII:
Delta tenice (ed. F. Flora, Tutte le opere di Giacomo Leopardi, 5th ed., Verona,
1957,431-441). It is evident from the title that this work was inspired by the
Pseudodoxia epidemica, or Vulgar errors by Sir Thomas Browne: see above,
p. 4, n. 3 of p. 3·
a See p. 26-29.
, G. Tiirk, Phoenix, in Roscher, Lexikon, Ill, 2, 1902-1909, 3450-3472;
H. Leclercq, Phenix, in DACL, XIV, I, 1941, 682-691; A. Rusch, Phoinix,
in RE, 20, I, 1941, 414-423.
6 F. Zimmermann, Die PhOnixsage, ihr religionsgeschichtlicher Ursprung und
ihre Verwertung in der H. Schritt und im Dienste kirchenschrittstellerischen
Argumentation, in Theologie und Glaube, 4, 1912, 202-223; F. Sbordone, La
tenice nel culto di Helios, in Rivista indo-greca-italica di tilologia-lingua-anti-
chita, 19, 1935, 1-46; Thompson (P.3, n. I above), 306-309; C. M. Edsman,
Ignis divinus. Le teu comme moyen de rajeunissement et d'immortalite, Lund,
1949, 178-204; idem very briefly also in PhOnix (religionsgeschichtlich) ,
in Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd ed., V, Tiibingen, 1961,357-
358; A. Pagliaro, It volo delta tenice, in Capitolium, 32, 1957, no. 4, 9-11;
Sister Mary McDonald, Phoenix redivivus, in Phoenix, 14, 1960, 187-206.
I J. Hubaux and M. Leroy, Le my the du pMnix dans les litteratures grecque
et latine (= Biblioth. de la Fac. de Philos. et Lett. de l'Univ. de Liege, fasc.
LXXXII), Liege-Paris, 1939; reviewed by M. P. Nilsson, in Gnomon, 19,
INTRODUCTION 7
study by Hubaux and Leroy, various aspects of the phoenix myth

are discussed in eight chapters, predominantly on the basis of the
data provided by Lactantius in his poem De ave phoenice. This is
unquestionably one of the best studies ever devoted to the phoenix,
although, as will become clear, a few fundamental objections can be
raised. Almost half of Walla's study, of which only a few copies are
available, consists of a commentary on the poem by Lactantius. In
her discussion of the Classical phoenix myth in general she gives
detailed attention to the assumed Egyptian background and comes
to quite different conclusions than those arrived at in the present
study, as will appear in due course. She adds few new data to those
given by Hubaux and Leroy.l
In addition to these general studies, certain aspects have been
treated separately.2 An occasional passage on the phoenix in a Classi-
cal or Early Christian author has elicited a more detailed commen-
tary, 3 but De ave phoenice has led to numerous pUblications, some
of which deal extensively with the Classical and Early Christian
traditions. "
1941, 212-215, and P. J. Enk, in Museum, 52, 1947, 36-39. Marieluise Walla,
Der Vogel PhOnix in der antiken Literatur und die Dichtung des Laktanz, Thesis
Vienna, 1965.
1 Walla's work first came to my attention, through a reference to it in
L'annee Philologique, 38 (1967), Paris, 1969, 331, after the manuscript of
the present book had reached completion. With the assistance of the Librarian
of the University of Vienna Library I was able to obtain one of the photo-
copies of her typewritten thesis and thus to take her considerations into
account as much as was still possible.
B E.g. M. Laurent, Le pMnix, les serpents et les aromates dans une miniature
du XIIe siecle, in AC, 4, 1935, 375-401; J. Hubaux and M. Leroy, Vulgo
nascetur amomum, in Melanges Bidez, (Annuaire de l'Inst. de Philol. et d'Hist.
Orient., II), Bruxelles, 1934,505-530; A.-J. Festugiere, Le symbol du pMnix
et le mysticisme hermetique, in MMAI, 38, 1941, 147-151, included without
modification in his Hermetisme et mystique pafenne, Paris, 1967, 256-260.
3 J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, I, 2, London, 1890, 83-89. P.
Monceau, La legende du PMnix chez Eusebe, in Bulletin de la Societe nationale
des Antiquaires de la France, 1905, 171-172; R. Knopf, Die Apostolischen
Viiter, I, (Handb. zum N.T. Erg. bnd I), Tiibingen, 1920, 88-90. B. van der
Walle and J. Vergote, HieroglYPhica d'HO'Yapollon, in Chronique d'Egypte, 17,
no. 35, 1943, 69 (ad I, 35) and ibid., 18, no. 36, 1943, 217, 219 (ad II, 57);
A. Kurfess, Phoenix quintus?, in Wurzburger jahrbucher lur die Altertums-
wissenschalt, 3, 1948, 194-195 (ad Orac. Sibyll., VIII, 139).
, Attention is paid to the poem almost without exception by the authors
of Roman and Early Christian literary histories; cl. e.g. M. Manitius, Ge-
8 INTRODUCTION
This brief sketch of the great scholarly interest the phoenix has
received in the course of the centuries makes it necessary to explain
why still another investigation of the entire tradition was under-
taken.
In the existing literature much attention has been given to the
schichte der christich-lateinischen Poesie bis zur Mitte des 8. jahrhunderts,
Stuttgart, 1891, 44-49; M. Schanz, C. Hosius, and G. Kriiger, Geschichte der
rihnischen Literatur, III (= Handb. der klass. Altertumswiss., 8.3), Miinchen,
1922, 431-433; P. de Labriolle, Histoire de la Litterature latine chretienne,
3rd ed. by G. Bardy, Il, Paris, 1947,477-479; and J. Quasten, Patrology, Il,
Utrecht-Antwerp-Westminster, 1953, 403-404. Mention may be made of the
following articles and books (those to which I was unable to gain access are
marked with an asterisk): A. Riese, Ueber den Phoenix des Lactantius (A.L.
73I) und andere Gedichte der lateinischen Anthologie, in RhMPh, NF, 31, 1876,
447-452; idem, Zu dem Phoenix des Lactantius, in RhMPh, 55, 1900,316-318;
H. Dechent, Ueber die Echtheit des PhOnix von Lactantius, in RhMPh, NF,
35,1880,39-55;* F. Schoell, Vom Vogel Phoenix, Akad. Rede, Heidelberg,
1890; S. Brandt, Zum Phoenix des Lactantius, in RhMPh, NF, 47, 1892,
390-403; C. Weymann, Zum Phoenix des Lactantius, in RhMPh, NF, 47,
1892, 640; R. Loebe, In scriptorem carminis de Phoenice, quod L. C. F. Lactantii
esse creditur, observationes, in jahrbuch. I. prot. Theol., 18, 1892, 34-65; A.
Harnack, N eue Studien zur jungst entdeckten lateinischen ()bersetzung des I.
Clemensbriels, in Sitzungsber. der kngl. preuss. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, 1894,
no. 31, Berlin, 1894,608;* A. Knappitsch, De Caecili Firmiani Lactantii Ave
Phoenice, Progr. Graz, 1896, 3-17; P. de Winterfeld, Coniectanea, in Humes,
33, 1898, 170-172, idem, Ad Lactantium, "De ave Phoenice", in Philologus, 62,
1903,478-480; C. Pascal, Sui carme "De ave phoenice" attribuito a Lattanzio,
in Rendiconto della Reale Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, NS,
18, Napoli, 1904, 221-239 and idem, Letteratura latina medievale. Nuovi saggi
e note critiche, Catania, 1909, 3-16 ("I carmi De phoenice"); P. Monceau,
Etudes critiques sur Lactance, in Revue de Phitologie, 29, 1905, 134-139; C.
Landi, Il carme "De ave phoenice" e it suo autore, in Atti e Memorie della
Reale Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padova, NS, 31, 1914-1915, 33-
72; H. Brewer, Die dem Lactantius beigelegte Dichtung "De ave phoenice", in
Zeitschr. I. kath. Theol., 46, 1922, 163-165; M. Masante, Lattanzio Firmiano 0
Lattanzio Placido autore del "De ave phoenice?", in Didaskaleion, NS, 3, 1925,
I, 105-IIO; M. Caldi, Ad versum I63 "De ave phoenice" carminis quod Lactantii
lertur, in Bollettino di lilologia classica, 33, 1926-1927, 203-205; *Mary C.
Brett, Lactanti "De ave phoenice". An introduction, translation and commen-
tary, Thesis Cath. Univ. of America, Washington, 1930; *B. Bianco, Il carme
"De ave phoenice" di Lattanzio Firmiano, Chieri, 1931; Mary C. Fitzpatrick,
Lactanti "De ave phoenice", with introduction, text, translation and commen-
tary, Thesis Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1933; M. Leroy, Le chant
du Phenix. L'ordre des vers dans le carmen "De ave phoenice", in AC, I, 1932,
213-231; C. Brakman, Opstellen en vertalingen betrel/ende de Latijnse Letter-
kunde, IV, Leiden, 1934, 234-251; M. Schuster, Der PhOnix und der Phiinix-
mythus in der Dichtung des Lactantius, in Commentationes Vindobonenses, 2,
INTRODUCTION 9
main variations of the phoenix myth, but no one has made a system-
atic analysis of the problem of why there was so much interest in
this bird in Classical times and indeed in the Middle Ages as well.
If one examines the texts with this question in mind, it very soon
becomes apparent that only a few authors have described the bird
with the intention of writing natural history. In most cases the dis-
cussion or mention of the phoenix is concerned not with the animal
world but with the human world; and it can only be concluded that
the phoenix fulfilled an important function with respect to the
meaning of human existence. It was primarily a symbol indicative
of a reality beyond that of the individual but including him and
forming the true basis of his existence. The phoenix could symbolize
renewal in general as well as the sun, Time, the Empire, metem-
psychosis, consecration, resurrection, life in the heavenly Paradise,
Christ, Mary, virginity, the exceptional man, and certain aspects of
Christian life. l
This complicated Classical and Early Christian symbolism of the
phoenix can be described only on the basis of a careful analysis of
the phoenix myth. The primary aim of the present book is to provide
this basis, since the previous studies have proved inadequate in this
respect. In the past there has been almost no appreciation of the
fact that the Classical and Early Christian traditions concerning the
phoenix cannot be studied apart from the relevant symbolism. The
phoenix not only acquired a variety of symbolic meanings but these
in turn did much to enrich the myth. In the present study, conse-
quently, considerable attention is given to the symbolism of the
phoenix, not systematically or exhaustively but to the extent re-
1936,55-70, idem, Zur Echtheits/rage und Ab/assungszeit von Lactantius' Dich-
tung "De ave Phoenice", in Wiener Studien, 54, 1936, II8-128; E. Rapisarda,
It carme "De ave phoenice" di Lattanzio, 3rd ed., Catania, 1959; S. Gennaro, It
classicismo di Lattanzio nel "De ave phoenice", in Convivium Dominicum. Studi
sull'Eucarestia nei Padri delta Chiesa antica e Miscellanea patristica, Catania,
1959, 337-356 (also printed in Miscellanea di studi di letteratura cristiana
antica, 9, 1959, 1-18); *G. Crescenti, Gli elementi cristiani del carme "De ave
phoenice" di Firmiano Lattanzio, Messina, 1960, 37 pp. (reviewed by G.
Rochefort, in REL, 38, 1960, 376-377).
1 In the cited literature the main symbolic interpretations are mentioned,
although only incidentally and without analysis in terms of a wider context.
The most extensive discussions in this respect are given by Zimmermann (see
p. 6, n. 5) and Walla ( 103-II8).
10 INTRODUCTION
quired to explain the development of the myth or certain statements

about the phoenix.
In all the variations of the phoenix myth several constant ele-
ments are to be found: a) the bird has a long life and shortly before
or directly after its death makes an appearance in the world of
man; b) by dying it obtains new life; and c) it is pre-eminently the
bird of the sun. These subjects therefore predominate in the follow-
ing analysis of the myth. An important factor in the present investi-
gation is formed by the discovery that the phoenix had a symbolic
meaning in the oldest and previously unexplained text in which the
bird is mentioned, Hesiod, frg. 304, on the basis of which the main
aspects of the Classical symbolism of the bird can be elucidated.
This discovery also threw new light on the problem of the origin
and development of the phoenix myth. Various data suggest that
the phoenix derives from the cultural complex of western Asia,
which was dominated by Mesopotamia, although this does not neces-
sarily mean that the main development of the myth did not take
place in Greece. In the scholarly literature the origin of the phoenix
and its myth have been sought chiefly in Egypt. Anyone who, like
the present writer, knows himself to be anything but a specialist in
the various cultures of the Near East, cannot help finding himself
in difficulties when he considers the problem of the origin of the
myth of the phoenix. As a consequence, the statements made here
on this point are in no sense intended as definitive. They are made
solely in the hope that others who are more competent to do so will
undertake a study of this subject, as well as to provide some cau-
tious indications, from the point of view of the Classical data, of the
direction which such studies might take.
It proved possible, however, to correct a few misconceptions that
have managed to persist among Classicists up to the present day.
This made it necessary to discuss the relationship between the
Classical phoenix and the Egyptian benu in the following chapter,
again with the provision that this discussion is not meant to be
conclusive.
In the final chapter an attempt is made to sketch the development
of the phoenix myth in Classical and Early Christian times on the
basis of the preceding analysis. A similar review is unfortunately
INTRODUCTION II
lacking in the major work of Hubaux and Leroy.l This last chapter
also gives a summary of the results of the present investigation.
An attempt has been made to consider all the Classical and Early
Christian texts concerning the phoenix. These include a small num-
ber not mentioned in the older literature on the phoenix. The outer
limits set for this attempt to exhaust the sources were taken at
Isidore of Seville in the West and Maximus Confessor in the East.
From later periods only those texts are cited which distinctly reflect
old traditions or clarify data in the earlier literature. In illustration
of this we may mention, for instance, the Disputatio Panagiotae cum
Azymita, which is of importance for the elucidation of the infor-
mation concerning the phoenix in the Greek Apocalypse 0/ Baruch
and the Slavonic Enoch, as well as in a disputed passage in Lactan-
tius' De ave phoenice. 2 A medieval Latin text which, like the Slavonic
Enoch and the Byzantine Disputatio has never been referred to in a
general study of the phoenix, is offered by Bartholomaeus Anglicus
in his De proprietatibus rerum. As his source he mentions Alanus, but
this tradition must have originated among the Jews of Hellenistic
Egypt. 3 It is remarkable to note that certain texts were mentioned
in earlier times and then evidently forgotten by later scholars. This
was the case, for instance, for the important section on the phoenix
in the Descriptio tabulae mundi by John of Gaza, which was cited
by Bochart and even by the young Leopardi.
The most interesting new data are provided by the fragment of a
Coptic sermon on the Virgin Mary and the birth of Christ, which is
preserved in the library of the University of Utrecht. The text of
this fragment, dealing almost entirely with the phoenix, is edited
and translated in the third chapter.
In studying the myth of the phoenix in Classical and Early Chris-
tian times, one cannot restrict oneself to the literary sources. One
must never lose sight of the fact that the phoenix took form in the
art of the period as well. One of the shortcomings of the work of
Hubaux and Leroy is their neglect of the problems associated with
1 This has already been pointed out by M. P. Nilsson in his review in

Gnomon, 17, 1941, 214.
2 See below, Chapter VII, 2.
3 See below, p. 117.
12 INTRODUCTION
this phenomenon. Art constitutes an independent source of know-

ledge concerning the past. It not only often confirms the literary
data but also can fulfil the function of a commentary and throw
light on matters left in obscurity by the literary sources.
Consequently, attention is also given here to the phoenix in Classi-
cal and Early Christian art. As was found to be the case for the
literary sources, here too it is impossible to restrict the investigation
to the Classical and Early Christian periods. It is occasionally neces-
sary to refer to medieval and even later representations of the
phoenix to show the continued influence of older representations or
to indicate how certain aspects given little attention in older times
finally emerged in the Middle Ages and were then first represented
in art. Much of this material has been known for several centuries,
but few attempts have been made to give a lucid interpretation of
it. 1 In recent decades especially, various representations of the
phoenix have been discovered. 2 Since almost every representation
of the phoenix has a specific symbolic meaning, its occurrences in
art are of great importance for the study of the symbolism of the
bird. This means that in this book, which is intended primarily as
an analysis of the myth itself rather than of its various symbolic
1 The most extensive collection of material is found in Turk, 3465-3472,
and Leclercq, 686-691. An excellent and highly concise treatment is given by
E. Josi, Fenice, in Enciclopedia cattolica, V, Citta del Vaticano, 1950,
1151-1152. A rather superficial account is given by P. Boschi, Un vecchio
simbolo delta nostra risurrezione, in La Civilttl Cattolica, 99, 1948, II, 19-28.
E. Dinkler-von Schu bert, PhOnix (in der K unst) , in Die Religion in Geschichte
und Gegenwart, 3rd ed., V, 1961, 358-360, unjustifiably interprets the phoenix
in art almost exclusively as a symbol of Christ. Although very out-of-date
in its details, an important work for the symbolism of the phoenix in Anti-
quity, the Middle Ages and later times is still that of F. Piper, Mythologie
und Symboliek der christlichen Kunst, I, Weimar, 1847, 446-471. Marieluise
Walla, 106-111, sees the phoenix in Classical coinage solely as expression of
the concepts of the Aeternitas and Felicitas of the Empire; her comments on
the phoenix in Christian art (116-118) go no further than those of Piper and
Turk. For the literature on the individual Classical and Early Christian re-
presentations of the phoenix, reference is made to the documentation apply-
ing to the plates on pages 425-458.
2 E.g. the liturgical garment of Saqqara (pIs. II and Ill), various gems
(pI. IX, pI. XI, nrs. 1-6), the mosaics of Antioch (pI. XXXI), Piazza Armerina
(pIs. XVIII and XIX), Edessa (pI. XIII), the graffito from the Vatican tombs
(pIs. XV and XVI), and the wall painting in the Cappella Greca of the Cata-
comb of Priscilla (pI. XII).
INTRODUCTION 13
interpretations, the representations of the phoenix are discussed

only where they contribute to the realization of the present inten-
tion.
Nevertheless, this study clearly shows the extent to which a sym-
bolic meaning was given to the phoenix. The complex Early Chris-
tian interpretation of the phoenix offers a good example of the
way in which a non-Biblical conception could function in the think-
ing and religious feelings of the Early Church. It will become evident
that these Christian interpretations of the phoenix myth were based
largely on its Classical symbolism. This is to be seen as an expression
not so much of the spiritual imperialism of the early Christians as
of their ability to preserve ancient conceptions deeply rooted in
Classical culture, adapting them to their new experience of faith
and life.
CHAPTER TWO
THE EGYPTIAN BENU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX
The Classical reports on the phoenix provide some grounds for the
assumption that the myth concerning this bird originated in Egypt
or at least that a strong Egyptian influence on its early development
must be taken into account. Herodotus says that his information
about the phoenix was based on reports of the priests of the Egyp-
tian Heliopolis.l This city also plays a large part in the traditions
concerning the death and resurrection of the bird: the young phoenix
brings his dead predecessor there to render him the last honours in
the temple of the sun or the old phoenix undergoes there his fiery
death and rebirth. 2
In the nineteenth century the thesis of the Egyptian origin of the
myth seemed to have been confirmed by the discovery that the
ancient Egyptians in Heliopolis had indeed worshipped a sun bird
that was called benu (bnw) and showed certain points of agreement
with the Classical phoenix.
In the analysis of the phoenix myth we shall be faced more than
once with the question of whether in the modern literature an Egyp-
tian background has been correctly assumed for a given detail.
Furthermore, anyone who examines the Egyptologicalliterature on
the benu will be struck by the fact that in the most recent studies
by Classicists use is made of outmoded and even quite incorrect
views about this Egyptian sun bird. It is therefore desirable to start
here by reviewing the information about the benu provided by
Egyptology. As has already been mentioned, for anyone who is
himself unable to read the sources in question, this is a precarious
undertaking, the more so since the results of the investigations
carried out by Egyptologists differ, and the translations, which in
any case offer only rather unsteady support, are mutually divergent.
Nevertheless, the attempt must be made. 3
1 Herodotus, Il, 73; see also below, p. 190-193, 401-403.
I See p. 146-15°.
a In connection with the following review I wish to acknowledge my in-
THE EGYPTIAN BENU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX IS
Just how the benu was visualized in the time of the Old Kingdom
is not entirely clear. It is usually assumed that it was thought to
resemble the yellow wagtail. At a later period it was always re-
presented as a heron bearing two long feathers at the back of its
head. 1 In Roman times the Egyptian manner of representing the
benu was merged with the Classical iconography of the phoenix. 2
The benu played a role in the creation traditions of On-Heliopolis
from the earliest times. There is a pyramid text in which it is con-
sidered, together with kheprer, the scarab (later called khepri), as
one of the forms taken by Atum, the ancient god of Heliopolis, who
was early associated with the sun god Re. In this text a relationship
is established between Atum and the benu and between the hill
which arose from the primeval waters at the creation and the so-
called benben, a roughly conical stone in the temple at Heliopolis.
The phoenix and the benben are respectively symbols of the god of
creation and the hill of creation. 3
debtedness to Professor J. Zandee (University of Utrecht). whose contri-
bution of literature references and suggestions made it possible to avoid
several serious misconceptions and omissions. Needless to say. I bear sole
responsibility for the final result.
1 For the various interpretations of the earliest and later representations
of the benu. see e.g. Bonnet. 594. Good illustrations of the benu as heron
can be found in such works as E. A. W. Budge. The Book oj the Dead. jac-
similes oj the papyri oj Hunejer. Anhai. Kerasher and Netchemet ...• London.
1899. pI. VIII; A Lothe. Chefs-d'oeuvre de la peinture egyptienne. Paris. 1954.
pI. 63 (sarcophagus of Senedjem) and pI. 152 (tomb of Irenifer; see also here
pI. I. I); G. Posener. Dictionnaire de la civilisation egyptienne. Paris. 1959.
223 (tomb of Anchorchawi). A number of vignettes from the Book oj the Dead
with representations of the benu are given in E. Naville. Das aegyptische
Todtenbuch der XVIII bis XX Dynastie. I. Berlin. 1886. pI. XXVIII (Ch. 17)
and pI. XCV (Ch. 83). See also G. Roeder. Die agyptische Religion in Text
und BUd IV: Der Ausklang der agyptischen Religion. Zurich. 1961. 342. fig.
27 (Rap. Rind).
I See below. p. 238-246.
8 Pyramid text. no. 1652; another interpretation in R. O. Faulkner. The
Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Oxford. 1969. 246. but see e.g. W. B. Kristensen.
Het leven uit de dood. 2nd ed .• Haarlem. 1949. I I I; H. Kees. Der G6tterglaube
im alten Aegypten. Leipzig. 1941. 217; R. T. Rundle Clark. The origin of the
phoenix. A study in Egyptian religious symbolism. in University of Birmingham
Historical Journal. 2. 1949-1950. 14-16; cf. also J. Zandee in BiOr. 10. 1953.
113-114. For the primeval hill in general. see e.g. Kristensen. o.c .• 89-114 and
A. de Buck. De Egyptische voorstellingen betreffende de oerheuvel. Thesis
Leiden. Leiden 1922; for Heliopolis. 23-24.
16 THE EGYPTIAN BENU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX
The words benu and benben derive from the verb wbn, "to rise
radiantly" or "to shine",1 The concept that the benu rose radiantly
from the hill of creation is also encountered in the Book 01 the Dead,
83, where the dead identifies himself with the bird and says: "I flew
upward in primeval time (variant: "as a primeval god") and origi-
nated as khepri",2 Here too, khepri and the benu are again forms of
the sun god who appeared spontaneously at the creation, An epithet
frequently applied to the sun god is "the self-generated one", and
the same holds for khepri, the dung-beetle, which according to a
wide-spread belief arose from spontaneous generation, and this de-
termined its identification with Atum-Re,3 As one of the forms of
the sun god, the benu too acquired the predicate "self-generated", 4
and was called the "ba of Re" ,5 In the Classical literature great
emphasis is also put on the spontaneous generation of the phoenix
and its close relationship with the sun,6
In the later Egyptian texts the benu is represented as perching
on the sacred willow in the temple of the sun at Heliopolis7, But
evidence that the relationship between the benu and the creation
hill of which the benben stone was a symbol had not been lost is
provided by a representation on a liturgical garment found at Saq-
qara and dating from Roman times: the benu, here unmistakably
1 Cf, e.g. Kees, o.c., 217; G. Jequier, Considerations sur les religions egyp-
tiennes, Neuchatel, 1946, 93; Bonnet, 594; W. Helck and E. Otto, Kleines
WOrterbuch der Agyptologie, Wiesbaden, 1956, 270.
I Cl. Rundle Clark, o.c., 112 and Zandee in BiOr, 10, 1953, 110, the latter
(log-1I5) argueing against the conclusions of the former.
8 Bonnet, 270; Helck and Otto, o.C., 337.
, See Bonnet, 595 and M. S. H. G. Heerma van Voss, De oudste versie
van het Dodenboek, I7a, Col/in texts spreuk 38sa, Thesis Leiden, Leiden, 1963,
58, n. 120.
& Kees, o.c., 52; Bonnet, 595; cl. also A. de Buck, De zegepraal van het
licht. Voorstellingen en symbolen uit den Oud-Egyptischen zonnendienst, Am-
sterdam, 1930, 83.
8 See below, p. 187, and chapter VII.
7 Cl. e.g. C. E. Sander-Hansen, Die religiosen Texte aul dem Sarg der
Anchnesneleribre, Copenhagen, 1937, 128: "Sie (i.e. the dead woman) ist
"Hauch seines Mundesinnern". Sie ist der grosze, geheimnisvolle Phonix, der
aul der Weide geboren ist im PhOnixhause im groszen Fiirstenhaus in Helio-
polis"; for other texts, see A. Erman, Die Religion der Aegypter, Berlin-
Leipzig, 1934,28; Kees, o.c., 86; Rundle Clark, o.c., 126-127; and Bonnet,
594-595. See also pI. I, 2.
THE EGYPTIAN BE NU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX 17
identified with the Classical phoenix, is shown standing on a high

hill that can only be taken as the primeval mount. 1 The phoenix
on a rock or hill is also a rather familiar motif in Classical literature
and art, and it was also often shown perched on a palm tree. 2
The pyramid text referred to above also says that after his spon-
taneous genesis Atum created the first divine couple by spitting
them out of his mouth: Shu, the god of air, and Tefnet, the goddess
of moisture. 3 A sarcophagus text says that at his ejection Shu was
wrapped in the breath from the throat of the benu; according to
other texts he emerged from the mouth of Atum clothed in the
breath of life. 4 Such statements provide further evidence that the
benu is one of the forms in which Atum-Re manifested himself and
that it was understood mainly as the life principle emanating from
the sun god. The life-giving power of the breath of the benu is also
alluded to in several other texts. In the Book of the Dead, 125, the
dead says: "My purity is the purity of the great benu, which is in
Heracleopolis, because I am this nose of the Lord of winds who
gives life to all men". 6
On the basis of these Shu texts, Rundle Clark regards the benu as
the primeval soul and as such as the prototype of the individual
soul. 6 However, Zandee argues, to the contrary, that this view is
based on an erroneous translation and on a rather arbitrary combi-
nation of texts. 7 He holds the opinion that these texts only show
clearly that the benu was considered to be closely related to Atum
in his work of creation. The benu, according to him, is not a spirit
1 See pIs. II and Ill. Perdrizet, La tunique, 109 and Jequier, o.c., 95,
interpreted the vegetation on the hill as small flames by which the benu-
phoenix would be consumed. The elevation on which the benu stands was
first taken as the primeval hill by Lassus, 105, n. I.
D See below, p. 178-180 (rock) and p. 52-57 (palm tree).
3 Rundle Clark, o.c., 14; ct. A. de Buck, Plaats en betekenis van Sjoe in
de Egyptische theologie, in Meded. der Kon. Ned. Akad. van Wetenschappen,
Afd. Letterkunde, N.R. 10, no. 9, Amsterdam, 1947,9 (223)·
, Rundle Clark, o.c., 118-122, and Zandee, in BiOr, 10, 1953, 115-116;
also de Buck, Plaats en betekenis van Sjoe ... , 20 (234).
5 See Rundle Clark, o.c., 122. Heracleopolis was the centre of the cult of
Osiris; ct. Kees, o.c., 32I.
8 See his conclusions in o.c., 122.
7 Zandee, in BiOr, 10, 1953, 115-116.
of life that reiterates itself from one generation to another. Al-

though the dead did identify himself with the benu, this is only a
derivative, secondary aspect, as will be shown. Primarily, the benu
is a manifestation form of the god of creation and therefore of the
sun god. It is the "ba of Re": the sacred animals were the "soul",
the manifestation, of the gods to whom they were consecrated. 1
It is possible that on the basis of its association with the sun the
benu was also taken as the morning and evening star, Venus. 2 In the
Book 01 the Dead, 122, it is said of the dead that he entered as a
falcon and came forth as the benu, "the god of the morning" (or "the
morning star"), that opens the way for him who enters the beautiful
West in peace. The various translations of this text diverge rather
strongly and show that it is possible that the direct connection with
the benu does not even exist. 3 If the bird is really identified with
Venus here, this connection must be determined by the close re-
lationship of both with the sun.'
The texts from the Book 01 the Dead cited above have already
made it clear that the dead could identify himself with the benu. In
this identification the benu could be taken as the "ba of Re" that
brings the elements of life to the realm of the dead. But in this
context the bird could also be seen as a form taken by Osiris, the
god of the realm of the dead. The New Kingdom knew a tendency
to identify Re with Osiris, and therefore the benu could also be
indicated as the" ba of Osiris".o
In this connection mention must also be made of the much dis-
cussed passage in the Book 01 the Dead, 17a: "I am this great benu,
which is in Heliopolis, the inspector of that which exists".6 Judged
from the priestly commentaries incorporated into the text, the last
1 De Buck, Zegepraal van het licht, 83; H. Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian
religion. An interpretation, New York, 1949, 96-99.
I Rundle Clark, o.c., 23-24, 123-126.
a H. Kees, Totenglauben und Jenseitsvorstellungen der alten }lgypter, 2nd
ed., Berlin, 1956, 259, translates this as: "Ich bin als Falke eingetreten, ich
bin als PhOnix herausgegangen. 0 Morgenstern, gib den Weg frei, damit ich in
Frieden in den schOnen Westen eintrete".
, The bird is here in any case not an astronomical symbol as assumed by
Brugsch and Lauth; see below p. 28, and p. 29.
6 Cl. e.g. Kees, G6tterglaube, 86, 266, 321, 407, and Bonnet, 595.
8 Heerma van Vos, o.c., 18 and 59.
THE EGYPTIAN BENU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX 19
part of this statement has been interpreted in various ways. Ac-

cording to some, it refers to Osiris; according to others, it must be
understood as "his (dead) body".1
The major problem here is what was meant by the commentary
"that is his body". The most probable explanation is that it referred
to the body of Re or, which is actually the same thing, to that of
his manifestation as the benu. 2 The expression has been taken as
referring to both Re and Osiris, the former conception apparently
having been the original one. 3
That the sun god had a body is known from several sources, among
them the Book 01 Gates: "They burn in the house of the ben ben-stone
near the place where the corpse of this god is". 4 Reference can also
be made to the Book 01 the Dead, 85: "I see my father, the lord of
the evening. It is his body that is in Heliopolis".6 Underlying these
texts is the belief that during his nocturnal journey through the
underworld the sun god inhabits a body, which he leaves behind as
a mummy when he rises in the East.
An unequivocal mention of the dead benu is found in a later
version of the Book 01 the Dead, 64, which is translated by AlIen as
follows: "I have revived him who had fallen on his back, the phoenix
whom the dwellers in their hall adore". 6 The word translated as
"revived" has the literal meaning of "to make agreeable", "cure",
1 Ibid., 19-20, 60, 61.
2 De Buck, Zegepraal van het licht, 84, remarks in this connection: "Dat is
eigenlijk het eenige spoor in de Oud-Egyptische bronnen van al de verhalen ovet'
zijn dood en opstanding, die den vogel zoo populair hebben gemaakt" (This is
actually the only trace in the Early Egyptian sources 01 all the stories about its
death and resurrection to which the bird owes its lame); see, however, below.
3 Heerma van Voss, o.C., 59.
, Translation by J. Zandee, The Book 01 Gates, in Libet' AmicOt'um. Studies
in honour 01 Prol. Dr. C. J. Bleeker, {Stud. in the Hist. of ReI. (Supplements
to Numen) , XVII), Leiden, 1969, 299; cl. also A. Piankoff, The tomb 01
Ramesses VI, Texts, (Bolingen Series, XL, I), New York, 1954, 175: "The
dead see it while burning in the Palace 01 the Obelisk, at the place where the body
01 this god is".
6 For this text as a whole, see J. Zandee, Hooldstuk 85 van het Doodenboek,
in Jaarbericht van "Ex Oriente Lux", II, 8 (1942), Leiden, 1943, 580-587,
especially 585.
8 Th. G. Allen, The Egyptian Book 01 the Dead. Documents in the Oriental
Institute Museum at the University 01 Chicago, (The Univ. of Chicago Or. Inst.
PubI., LXXXII), Chicago, 1960, 138.
20 THE EGYPTIAN BE NU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX
and was also used to describe the embalming by which life was
restored to a dead body.1 This text thus alludes to a resurrection or
an embalmment of the dead (fallen on his back) benu. 2
Although the data are scarce, it may nevertheless be concluded
that the notion of the dying and revivified benu was not entirely
unknown in Egypt. It is dominated by the fact that the benu was
one of the forms taken by Re, the god of the sun, who rises and sets
each day. It is possible that the concept of the mummified benu
formed the background of the tradition mentioned by Hecataeus-
Herodotus concerning the transportation of the phoenix in an egg
of myrrh. 3
There are no indications that ideas about the benu's manner of
dying and revival were developed in ancient Egypt. In the Classical
view, death and resurrection form the core of the phoenix myth:
the old phoenix dies and the young phoenix generates itself from its
decaying body, or the old bird burns itself and the young one arises
from its ashes.' It is clear that there are certain parallels and re-
lationships between the benu and the phoenix, but it is not possible
to demonstrate that the Classical views were based on the Egyptian,
as some authors have assumed.o The problem this poses cannot be
discussed until all aspects of the Classical phoenix myth have been
analysed. The only author who wrote in Greek and clearly based
himself on Egyptian conceptions in this connection is Horapollo,
whose report on the phoenix assumes that the priests mummified
1 Cl. A. Erman and H. Grapow, WiiYterbuch del' aegyptischen Sprache, IV,

Leipzig, 1930, 185-186, s.v. sngm.
B The text seems to be anything but clear; an entirely different translation
is found in P. Barguet, Le Livre des Morts des anciens £gyptiens, Paris, 1967,
104, who follows an older text than that used by AlIen: " .. .celle qui etait
enceinte, elle a depose son lardeau: Hyt a accoucM devant celui qui est la tete en
bas,· la lermeture dans le mur a eM renversee, c'est-a-dire le mal qui etait tomM
sur le dos du pMnix. Vois, je t'ai eM agreable ... ".
8 See p. 40 3.
, See Chapter VI, 3 and 4.
6 Bonnet, 595-596, thinks it conceivable that the burning of the phoenix
is to be traced to "Legenden ... die von dem Erscheinen des Ph. in den Gluten
des am Urbeginn aulstrahlenden Sonnengottes berichteten". Kees, Gotterglaube,
232, sees a different relationship: the myth "verriit deutlich die solare Um-
stellung aus einer Naturmythe vom uranliinglichen Erscheinen des Wasservogels
als erstes gottliches Lebewesen der Welt".
the bird. 1 This may be a late echo of the tradition concerning the
body of the benu, but it is also quite possible that Horapollo assumed
this because he knew that in ancient Egypt the sacred animals were
mummified after their death.
In Egypt it was natural for the dead to be identified with the
benu, because from early times the bird had been a symbol of the
creation of life. The original connection with Re or Osiris was not
always explicitly mentioned but always implied. 2 In the Classical
world the phoenix became a symbol of the rebirth of the soul and
later, among the Christians, of the resurrection of the flesh. 3 Here
again there are no indications that these notions developed from
Egyptian conceptions, even though it has been assumed by some
Egyptologists and others as well. 4 It is at least equally probable
that this symbolism developed spontaneously from the Classical
phoenix myth.
The name of the phoenix has also been considered to be derived
from that of the benu, which has been taken as evidence of the
Egyptian origin of the Classical phoenix myth. Sethe and Spiegel-
berg, followed by many others, have argued that the Egyptian word
benu should be pronounced *boin or *boine, on the basis of the fact
that in some texts the word is written as bjn-w. The name q>Or:VL~ is
therefore considered to be only a Greek version of the Egyptian
term for the benu. 5 Several serious objections to this conclusion can
1 Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, I, 35; see p. 198.
2 See, e.g., Bonnet, 595. For other identifications of the dead with the
benu, see the studies of Rundle Clark and Zandee, passim.
8 See below, p. 132-145, 230-232, and 382, n. I.
, E.g. by Bonnet, 595; also assumed, albeit not explicitly stated, by
Rundle Clark, o.c., 105-122.
5 W. Spiegelberg, Der Name des Phoenix, in Strassburger Pestschrilt zur
XL VI Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmiinner, Strassburg, 1901,
163-165, thought that in later times but still before Herodotus the Egyptian
words for benu and palm-tree were pronounced as *bene (cl. the Greek word
cpoi:vL~). K. Sethe, Der Name des PhOnix, in zA S, 45, 1908-1909, 84-85, point-
ed out that the n in bnw is often preceded by an i: "Diesen iigyptischen Namen
boin haben die Griechen augenscheinlich nach gewonnter Weise durch die griechi-
sche Bezeichnung q:>oivt;, die daran anklang, wiedergegeben". W. Spiegelberg,
Zu dem Namen des PhOnix, in zA S, 46, 1909-1910, 142, convinced by Sethe,
cited several Demotic texts supporting the vocalization *boin. For the spell-
ing bojnew, cl. also Roeder, Die aegyptische Religion, (see p. 15, n. I), 334
and 335. Sethe's derivation is also found, for example, in Bonnet, 594, and
be put forward, but these must also be discussed further on. 1 Sethe's
theory does explain, however, why Herodotus-or rather his source,
Hecataeus of Miletus-was able to recognize the Greek phoenix in
the benu of Heliopolis.
Lastly, we must consider the question of whether the benu, too,
was thought to appear periodically in the world of men, since this
is one of the most constant elements in the Classical tradition of the
phoenix. 2 On the basis of investigations by Egyptologists it may
now be considered certain that the benu was never a symbol of a
Great Year of any kind, either in the sense of an exactly calculable
astronomical period or in the more mythical sense of a complete
cosmic rotation. 3 But traces of this symbolism ascribed to the
phoenix in the Classical world are nonetheless to be found in the
Egyptian literature.
In the so-called Fayum papyrus the benu is spoken of as "Lord
of the Sed festivals".4 The Sed festival played an important part in
Rundle Clark, o.c., 3-4, 135. In the Bohairic translation of Rev., vii·9,
is rendered as boine. This cannot be considered a late, Coptic confir-
CPOlVLKe:C;
mation of Sethe's hypothesis, since the translator should have chosen the
word beni, "palm", (cl. Crum, 40a) because CPOlVLKe:C; indicates palm branches
here. Instead, he understood this word as the name of a stringed instrument
(cl. Liddell-Scott, 1948b, s.v. CPOLVL1;, IV) and therefore translated it as boine,
"harp".
1 See p. 61-66.
2 See p. 67-72.
8 For the Classical views concerning the Great Year, see p. 72-76.
Rundle Clark states in many places (e.g., o.c., 109, 122) that the Egyptian
texts make no mention of a periodic appearance of the benu. Nevertheless he
says (o.c., 122): "The basis 01 a beliel in a phoenix period, then, both historical
and mythological, was current during the Middle Empire il not belore". On
p. 130 of the same work he assumes a relationship between the benu and the
Sothic period (see below, p. 26-27). He finds an indication for this assump-
tion in a text from Edfu, where reference is made to the "great greeting"
spoken at the door of the temple of the benu. His views on the benu as herald
of new eras are briefly summarized in his Myth and symbol in ancient Egypt,
London, 1959,245-249; cl. 246: "the patron 01 all division 01 time", "the herald
01 each new dispensation". See also footnote below for the views of Erman
and Bonnet.
, This papyrus seems to be the only place in which the expression occurs;
cl. W. Pleyte, Over drie handschrilten op papyrus ... , Amsterdam, 1884, 32;
see also Erman, Die Religion der Aegypter, Berlin-Leipzig, 1934, 28, and
Bonnet, 596. Because it was also translated as "Lord of the Jubilees", as-
suming at the same time that the Sed festival was celebrated at thirty-year
the ancient Egyptian ideology of the ruler, and was celebrated at

irregular intervals. 1 At this festival the king renewed his royal office
and especially its priestly aspect, but the latter of course meant a
renewal of the kingship in general, because its various aspects were
inextricably related. The accession of a new king meant a renewal
of time, which was in fact a return to the beginning of creation, a
restoration of the mythical Golden Age in which the relation between
man and the gods was still hannonious. These notions also played
an important part in the renewal of the kingship, and the Sed festival
seems to have been intended to re-establish the disturbed relation-
ship with the gods. It is therefore hardly surprising that the notion
of the benu was thought of in this context, since this bird was such
an old symbol of the creation of the world and of life. But because
the Sed festival was celebrated at irregular times, it cannot have
given rise to the notion of the periodic appearance of the benu after
a fixed number of years.
The concrete representation of the primeval event also played a
role in the celebration of the first day of the new year, at the beginn-
ing of the annual flooding of the Nile. The benu was associated with
this important event2 and this relationship is quite evident: at the
creation the bird took flight from the primeval hill that was the
intervals, this expression was concluded to be an indication of a periodic
appearance of the benu. According to Erman, this name refers to "die uns
auch von den Griechen uberlieferte Vorstellung, dass der PhOnix nach langen
Zeitriiumen wiederkehrte, nach 500 oder erst nach I46I jahren". Bonnet too
is of the opinion that the 500 years of the phoenix may be based on Egyptian
conceptions, although he admits that this period could not have had any actual
significance. Helck and Otto, o.c., 271, say about the assumed Egyptian
phoenix period: "Agyptisch ist eine solche A ra nicht belegt, wie auch nicht die
Verbindung mit der Sothisperiode von I46I jahren". The assumption of an
Egyptian phoenix period goes back to hypotheses put forward in the eigh-
teenth century, when nothing was in fact yet known about ancient Egypt.
1 For the Sed festival, see e.g. Bonnet, 158-160, Helck and Otto, o.c., 164-
165, and especially C. J. Bleeker, Egyptian Festivals. Enactments of religious
renewal, (Studies in the History of Religions, XIII), Leiden, 1967, 96-123,
especially 113-114 for the rejection of the terms Jubilee and Thirty-Year
Festival (Bonnet) and 121 for the renewal of the priestly dignity of the
king as the most profound and essential meaning of the festival.
S Cf. D. Wortmann, Kosmogonie und Nilflut. Studien zu einigen Typen
magischer Gemmen griechisch-romischer Zeit aus Agypten, in Ej, 166, 1966, 103-
104, who points out that the bird was used as determinative or ideogram for
"flood".
first thing to emerge from the waters of chaos. The flooding of the
Nile recapitulated this occurrence: life could begin anew, which was
also expressed in an increased number of births. This background
clarifies the name given to children in the time between the Old and
the Middle Empires: "the benu has come (back)".1
Here too it must be concluded that the Egyptian ideas about the
benu contained in principle the notion stated explicitly in the Classi-
cal traditions of the phoenix and which formed an important aspect
of the symbolism of the bird. But here again there is no evidence
to support the assumption that the Classical views developed from
the Egyptian. When we come to discuss the Classical concept of the
Great Year we shall see that there too the notion of a return to the
joyous beginning of the world, the Golden Age, was predominant. 2
This in turn exerted an important influence on the formation of the
Classical myth of the phoenix. 3 The foregoing explains how easily
the Greek and Egyptian notions about the phoenix and the benu
could have merged in Hellenistic times. That this did occur is shown
not only by the iconographical evidence but also by the Greek
translation, made by a certain Hermapion, of the inscriptions on an
Egyptian obelisk in which the word benu is rendered as "phoenix"."
In summarization of these data on the benu and in anticipation
of the material to be presented concerning the phoenix, the following
points of agreement and difference between the two birds can be
listed:
1 H. Ranke, Zum Phoenix, in zA S, 78, 1942, 54. This author, who first
drew attention to this name, assumes that it perhaps may be concluded from
it that in Heliopolis the return of the benu was expected, but with the quali-
fication: "A uf die Vorstellung von bestimmten PhOnixperioden oder vom
A nbruch einer neuen A ra konnen wir von hieraus allein Ireilich nicht schliessen".
Cl. also Rundle Clark, Origin, 108-109 and Bonnet, 596. In Achilles Tatius
and Horapollo too, the phoenix is related to the flooding of the Nile, see p.
71.
2 See e.g. p. 105.
8 See p. 419-420.
, The translation is preserved in Ammianus Marcellinus, XVII, 4, 20:
7rA7jpooacx/O TOV VECslV TOU <pO(VLKO/O tiycx3-wv. For this point, see A. Erman, Die
Obeliskeniibersetzung des Hermapion, in Sitzungsber. der kngl. preuss. Akad. d.
Wiss. zu Berlin, 1914, 245-273. The obelisk of Hermapion came from Helio-
polis. According to Ammianus, it was the one erected by Augustus on the
Circus Maximus, which had also come from Heliopolis; it is now in the
THE EGYPTIAN BE NU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX 25
I. The benu and the phoenix are both sun birds and both have been
related to Heliopolis, although the latter is absent in a certain
Classical tradition. 1
2. The core of the myth in the Classical world, i.e. the death and
revival of the sun bird, was not entirely unknown in Egypt.
3. A spontaneous generation was ascribed to both birds, although
it is not defined in the Egyptian sources, in contrast to the major
emphasis it receives in the Classical sources.
4. The names of the benu and the phoenix show some agreement,
which may have contributed to their identification with each
other.
5. With respect to their external appearance, there is no resem-
blance whatever between the two birds. Fusion of their icono-
graphy first occurred in Roman Egypt. 2
6. Both birds were represented perched on a tree, the benu on a
willow, the phoenix on a palm, in which connection it must be
mentioned that for the phoenix this seems to have been de-
termined mainly by the homonymy between cpoi:v~~ = phoenix
and cpoi:v~~ = palm.s Both are also represented standing on a hill.
7. Both birds played a role in the symbolism of life after death.
8. Both the benu and the phoenix functioned as symbols of the
events and conditions belonging to the beginning of the world,
which repeat themselves at the commencement of each new
Piazza del Popolo in Rome (cl. E. Nash, Obelisk und Circus, in MDAI,
Roem. Abt., 64, 1957, 235-237, PI. 51; idem, Bildlexikon zur Topographie des
antiken Rom, n, Tiibingen, 1962,137-138, and C. d'Onofrio, Gli Obelischi di
Roma, 2nd ed., Rome, 1967, 173-177, photos 75-79). It also carries the words:
"der das PhOnixhaus mit seinen Herrlichkeiten lullt": cl. Erman, o.c., 260 (J.
C. RoUe, Loeb Edition, London, 1950, I, 328, erroneously translates the text
of Ammianus as "having filled his temple with the good fruits of the date palm").
It is, however, impossible that Hermapion's translation concerns this obelisk;
cl. Erman, passim, especially 269-270.
1 See p. 147-149.
2 See p. 15. Herodotus and others describe the phoenix as an eagle, and it is
also compared with the peacock; see p. 251-253. For these reasons, G. Mas-
pero, Histoire des peuples de l'Orient classique, I, Paris, 1895, 131, n. 2 and 136,
n. 5, denied the identity of the benu and the phoenix. Furthermore, S. A. B.
Mercer, in The Religion 01 Ancient Egypt, London, 1949, 247, n. 51, says it is
"questionable whether we should identily the bnw with the phoenix".
8 See p. 52-57.
period. In the case of the benu, this must be related to the im-
portant role it played in the creation traditions as a manifestion
of Atum-Re. For the phoenix, however, this symbolism is based
on its connection with the Great Year.l
9. Although a periodic appearance after a given number of years is
characteristic of the Classical phoenix, no similar phenomenon
was ascribed to the benu.
In the present study an attempt will be made to demonstrate that

the Classical myth of the phoenix is related to that of the Egyptian
benu but did not develop directly from it. 2
This review of the Egyptian ideas concerning the benu cannot be

concluded without mention of a conception frequently encountered
in the modern literature on the Classical phoenix myth, according
to which the phoenix became a symbol of the Great Year because
the benu-phoenix was a symbol of the Sothic period in ancient
Egypt. Closer study shows that this view dates from the time when
knowledge of ancient Egypt was still entirely dependent on the
information provided by the Classical sources. For the phoenix,
these were read as follows.
Herodotus states that he had heard from the Egyptian priests
that the phoenix appeared every 500 years in the temple of the sun
in Heliopolis to bury its dead father.3 From this it was concluded
that a "phoenix period" of 500 years played an important part in
the thinking of the ancient Egyptians.
A somewhat conflicting but closely related view was found in
Tacitus, who stated that the phoenix appears in Egypt at an interval
of 1,461 years. 4 From another source this period of 1,461 years was
known as the so-called Sothic period, which was indeed important
in Egypt. The period of the Dog-star was considered to start when
the first day of the ordinary civil calendar year of 365 days coincided
1 See p. 4 1 4-4 1 7.
2 See p. 397-399.
8 Herodotus, II, 73; see also p. 68.
, Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28; see also p. 70.
with that of the solar year of 36s1 days, which occurred after 1,461
ordinary years or 1,460 solar years. This astronomical period was
named after the Dog-star (Sidus caniculare, Sirius, or Sothis) be-
cause in the first four years of the cycle this star rose on New Year's
Day, at the first flooding of the Nile in the month of ThoU The
Sothic period was considered to be the Egyptian Great Year.2 Ac-
cording to Tacitus and other sources, in Greco-Roman times the
phoenix was apparently seen as a symbol of this Egyptian period,
while on the other hand it was considered as a symbol of the Great
Year.3 Combination of these data led to the hypothesis-which be-
fore long was accepted as an established fact-that from very an-
cient times the phoenix had been a symbol of the Sothic period and
that its association with the Great Year in the Classical world was
based on this fact. It will be useful here to give a brief description
of the history of this misconception.
In 1738, Alphonse des Vignoles formulated the hypothesis that the
Egyptians had known an ancient Dog-star period of 487 years (the
soo-year lifespan of the phoenix being a rounding off of this figure)
as well as a later, great Dog-star period of 1,461 years, the one
Tacitus related to the phoenix in agreement with the Egyptian
practice. 4 Forster was of the opinion that the soo-years lifespan
was to be attributed to an early, careless copyist of Herodotus,
the original figure having been 1,500 years, representing a round-
ing off of the 1,461 years of the Sothic period. 5 This led to the
concept "phoenix period", which haunts the nineteenth century
literature-even the publications of Egyptologists-like a ghost. A
1 For the Sothic period, see for example Ginzel, I, 181-195; Kubitschek,
93-97: R. Baker, Zeitrechnung, I, in RE, 2 Reihe, 9, 2, 1967, 2386-2394.
For the chronological possibilities and difficulties offered by the Sothic
period, see in addition to Baker's article also E. Drioton and J. Vandier,
Les peuples de l'Orient mediteraneen, Il: 1'11gypte, 4th ed., Paris, 1962, 11-13,
15-17 and E. Hornung, Untersuchungen zur Chronologie und Geschichte des
Neuen Reiches, (Agyptologische Abhandlungen, 11), Wiesbaden, 1964, 17-19;
cl. also R. A. Parker, The Calendars 01 Ancient Egypt, (Studies in Ancient
Oriental Civilization, 26), Chicago, 195 0 , 7, 51-54'
8 Censorinus, De die natali, 18, 10.
a See p. 75.
, A. des Vignoles, Chronologie de I' histoire sainte et des histoires etrang~res
qui la concernent..., Il, Berlin, 1738, 671-675.
& G. Forster, Le phCnix, in Kleine Schrilten, V, Berlin, 1796, 151-172.
great many studies were devoted to the exact determination of this

period before it became evident that a false scent was being followed.
The theory put forward by des Vignoles was adopted by Ideler in
his authoritative chronological handbook, the phoenix period of 500
years being considered as constituting a third of the Sothic period. 1
When ancient Egypt began to yield up its intriguing secrets, it
seemed as though current assumptions concerning the phoenix were
about to be confirmed: it was discovered that a sun bird called
benu had been worshipped in Heliopolis from ancient times. Brugsch
was the first to undertake a serious investigation of the relationship
between the benu and the phoenix on the basis of the available
sources. He viewed the benu as an astronomical symbol of the planet
Venus and identified it with the Classical phoenix. He stated em-
phatically that the phoenix was a mythological bird, whereas the
benu was a heron that was worshipped especially in Heliopolis and
was the living symbol of Osiris. But he nevertheless assumed that
many Classical data on the phoenix were also applicable to the bird
benu. 2 This reasoning was repeated in Wiedemann's thorough study
of the Egyptian phoenix in which he assumed, for instance, that
the Egyptians had also known the burning of the sun bird. He made
no reference to the so-called phoenix period, however, except to
state that it is not mentioned in any of the Egyptian texts. s
But this valuable observation was not sufficient to eradicate the
then almost ISO years old idea of an Egyptian phoenix period. A few
1 L. Ideler, Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie, I,
Berlin, 1825, 183-191; cl. also n, Berlin, 1826, 596. R. Lepsius, Die Chrono-
logie der Aegypter, I, Berlin, 1849, 180-196, gave a variant of Forster's view:
he calculated a period of 1,505 or, rounded off, 1,500 years, of which the
phoenix period constituted one-third. Unfortunately, the study by P. H.
Larcher, Memoire sur le phenix (see p. 6, n. I) has attracted almost no
attention; had this not been the case, much wild speculation could perhaps
have been avoided. Larcher offers solid grounds for his argument that the
phoenix was never the symbol of a chronological period.
S H. Brugsch, Aegyptische Studien. Zur Chronologie der Aegypter, I: der
Planet Venus, in ZDMG, 10, 1856, 650-653. There was also an even earlier
treatise on the phoenix, based on the discovery of the benu, by G. Seyffarth,
Die Phoenixperiode, in ZDMG, 3, 1849, 63-89, the most bizarre piece ever
written about the phoenix.
8 A. Wiedemann, Die PhOnix-Sage im alten Aegypten, in zAs, 16, 1878,
89-106 and idem, Herodots zweites Buch mit sachlichen Erliiuterungen, Leipzig,
1890, 312-315.
years later, Lauth published a detailed discussion of this period,

which he interpreted as a correction of the Sothic period. The burn-
ing of the phoenix, furthermore, was considered to represent the
eclipse of the planet Venus by the sun. 1 Remarkably enough, these
views held by Lauth had great influence on the modern Classical
studies devoted to the phoenix, even though the extent to which
the scientific work of this scholar was clouded by his unbridled
imagination is rather generally known. 2
Gradually, however, the lack of Egyptian and-on closer exami-
nation-also of Classical sources for the assumed astronomically
computable phoenix period had its effect, and discussion of the
subject ceased. This is reflected in Ginzel's extensive chronological
handbook: he rejected all the relevant hypotheses and did not trace
the Classical identification of the lifespan of the phoenix with the
Great Year to the Sothic period, interpreting the equation with the
Great Year at most as a general indication of a long lifespan.3
Thus, even before 1900, Egyptologists had determined that the
benu had never been a symbol of the Sothic period in Egypt or of
any other astronomical period. This has been confirmed by all the
later investigations. We have already mentioned that on the basis
of the available sources certain points of agreement can be found
between the benu and the phoenix, but that this does not permit
the conclusion that the Classical phoenix myth was developed from
Egyptian notions about the benu. Nevertheless, this conclusion is
continually accepted in the modern literature on the phoenix, just
as is the old idea that the benu-phoenix was the symbol of the Sothic
period even in ancient Egypt.
In 1936, the Classicist Sbordone published a study devoted to the
1 F. J. Lauth, Die PhOnixperiode, in Abh. d. kngl. bayer. Akad. der wiss.,

Philos.-philol. Classe, XV, 1881, 309-396. Also E. Mahler, Die Sothis- und
die PhOnixperiode bei den alten Agyptern, in zA 5, 28, 1890, 121-124, saw in
the phoenix period an astronomical allegory related to a period of 500 years.
2 The fraud of the so-called Benan letter was easily exposed because of its
author's diligent use of many of Lauth's errors; cl. C. Schmidt and H.
Grapow, Der Benanbriel. Eine moderne Leben-Jesu-Fiilschung des Herrn E.
E. von Planitz, (TU, 44), 1921, passim; cl. also Brugsch's evaluation of
Lauth cited ibid., 18-19; on the phoenix in the Benan letter, ibid., 72 (also
influence of Lauth).
8 Ginzel, I, 177-180.
30 THE EGYPTIAN BE NU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX
phoenix in which virtually the entire myth was derived from the
Egyptian data on the benu. 1 According to this author, the Classical
view that the age of the phoenix and the duration of the Great Year
were the same was determined by the ancient Egyptian view of the
benu as a symbol of the Sothic period. He also uncritically adopted
the theory of Brugsch and Lauth that the benu was a symbol of the
planet Venus, even though Ginzel had already shown that this con-
cept was astronomically inconceivable. 2
It must be considered unfortunate that in their major work on
the phoenix the Belgian scholars Hubaux and Leroy drew a great
deal of their Egyptian material from the data collected by Sbordone
from outdated Egyptological studies. They consider that the Egyp-
tians knew not only the daily appearance of the benu-Venus but
also the appearance of the bird at the commencement of the Sothic
period. According to them, the Classical equation of the lifespan of
the phoenix with the Great Year was based on the latter concept of
the Egyptians,3 and they cited Blochet, who in 1937 still maintained
that the phoenix myth was an expression of the astronomical con-
cept of the Sothic period.' With Sbordone, they read in the Book
of the Dead, 64, that the benu, too, brought its dead father to Helio-
polis, accompanied by a reverent escort of other birds!5
Rusch was another author who paid little attention to the results
of the serious analysis of the Egyptian material. He reports that
the Egyptians took the lifespan of the benu as coinciding with one
1 F. Sbordone, La fenice, 31-46.

2 Ginzel, I, 178.
B Hubaux and Leroy, 14-20. However, they call the 500 years given by
Herodotus a datum (p. 15) "qui n'a de significance dans aucun domaine de la
chronologie egyptienne" (with reference to Wiedemann and Ginzel). They
attempted to explain (18-20) how the Egyptian phoenix came to be
identified with both Sothis and Venus: in Egypt, Sothis was consecrated to
Isis, but in syncretism Venus too was equated with Isis. Consequently, the
identification with Venus could not have taken place until Hellenistic times;
they assumed, however, that this was the case in ancient Egypt too.
, E. Blochet, Sur le pMnix, in Le Museon, 59, 1939, 123-144; cf· 137:
"C'est le concept du cycle Sothiaque qui est traduit par le mythe du pMnix".
6 Hubaux and Leroy, 162; Sbordone, La fenice, 36. The text is supposed
to read: "Fardeau agreable que celui qui est pose en equil-ibre sur les epaules
du bennu, a la vue des oiseaux qui Z'escortent". For recent translations of this
text, see p. 19 and 20, n. 2.
day, with one year, and with 1,461 years, and that the Egyptian
identification of the phoenix period with the Sothic period led in
Classical times to the conception of the phoenix as a symbol of the
Great Year.l
The eighteenth century hypothesis of an Egyptian phoenix period
related in some way or other to the Sothic period possessed unusual
vitality. This is best shown by the fact that even in 1965, in his
voluminous commentary on Tacitus, Koestermann apparently
found no reason to refrain from stating that of the numbers 500 and
1,461 mentioned by Tacitus the first concerned the true phoenix
period and the second the Sothic period, the two periods having
been associated with each other because the phoenix period consti-
tuted a third of the Sothic period, i.e. was actually 487 but had been
rounded off to 500 years. 2 We are left with the impression that there
has been no serious scientific research on this point since the days
of des Vignoles and Ideler.
Once again, in a recent study on Egyptian chronology, which was
written by Baker, it is assumed that the Egyptians knew a "phoenix
period" and also that the entire later symbolism of the phoenix had
already taken form in the Egyptian notions concerning the benu. 3
Lastly, Miss Walla is of the opinion that the Classical phoenix
myth can to a great extent be explained on the basis of Egyptian
concepts relating to the benu. According to her, this holds for the
idea of the appearance of the phoenix at the start of a new era and
also for that of its resurrection after death, which must be explained
1 Rusch, 415-419. The only text cited by Rusch (418, cl. 415) for the
ancient Egyptian conception that the phoenix-benu as symbol of the sun was
related to the year, is that ofthe scholiast on Aristides, XLV, 107 (see p. 71).
For the connection between the benu and the Sothic period he refers (418)
to K. Sethe, Sethos I und die Erneuerung der Hundsternperiode, in z}l. S, 66,
1931, 3, where nothing is said about the benu as symbol of the Sothic period
in ancient Egypt, reference only being made to the phoenix-Aion coins dating
from the second and sixth years of the rule of Antoninus Pius (see also on
this point p. 70 here).
I Koestermann, Annalen, n, 307.
8 Boker, Zeitrechnung, I, (see p. 27, n. I), 2424-2425, cf. 2425: "Der
Term "Verwandlung in den Benuvogel" .,. enthielt die Vorstellung der Rein-
karnation, Metempsychose, aionische Zeitwende, die Wiedererstehung aus Ek-
pyrosis, Fegeleuer, Selbstverbrennung, Scheiterhaulen". Here too the above-
mentioned article by Lauth seems to have had its effect.
on the basis of the cult of Osiris. 1 Although she correctly denies that
the Egyptians knew a "phoenix period", she is so deeply convinced
of the Egyptian background of the phoenix that she assumes that
the speculations about the bird's lifespan and the periodic appear-
ances related to it must have originated in Egypt between 1000 and
700 B.C. (before Hesiod).2
We have gone into the old misunderstanding concerning an Egyp-
tian phoenix period and the assumed relationship between the benu-
phoenix and the Sothic period in some detail in order to demonstrate
that no information on these points can be found in the Egyptian
sources. From Tacitus and other Classical sources it is evident that
in Graeco-Roman Egypt the phoenix was seen as a symbol of the
Sothic period, but there are no indications that this was an old
Egyptian notion that gave rise to the Classical identification of the
lifespan of the phoenix with the Great Year. In the analysis of the
phoenix myth that follows, we shall reach quite different conclu-
sions. But before going on to this discussion we must first consider
a Coptic text containing a number of previously unknown data on
the phoenix.
1 Walla, 51-52.
I Walla, 41, 43. Her discussion of the Egyptian ideas concerning the benu
(I-51), which I first became aware of after this chapter had been completed
(see p. 7, n. I), gave me no reason to modify my conclusions.
CHAPTER THREE
A COPTIC TEXT ON THE PHOENIX
In January of 1956, the Utrecht University Library purchased a

number of papyri and parchments from the estate of Prof. Carl
Schmidt, the well-known student of Coptic literature. 1 This material
included five parchment sheets written by the same hand and com-
prising pages 31-34, 41, 42, and 67-70 of the codex to which they
had originally belonged. The last four of these pages contain part
of an already known sermon ascribed to Theophilus of Alexandria
(A.D. 385-412), on the assumptio Mariae. 2 The text on pages 31-34,
41 and 42 is part of a sermon on the Virgin Mary and the birth
of Christ which requires our attention since it contains a remarkable
1 The most important part of this collection was published and translated
in the same year: G. Quispel, An unknown Iragment 01 the Acts 01 Andrew,
in VC., 10, 1956, 129-148 (with fascimile), a German translation by G.
Quispel and J. Zandee, is found in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, 11, 281-285.
Also published: G. Quispel and J. Zandee, A Coptic Iragment 01 the lile 01
Eupraxia, in VC, 13, 1959, 193-203; J. Zandee, Iosephus contra Apionem.
An apocrYPhal story 01 Joseph in Coptic, in VC, 15, 1961, 193-213, G. Quispel
and J. Zandee, Some Coptic fragments from the Martyrdom of St. Pantoleon, in
VC, 16, 1962, 42-52 (all with Coptic text, a translation and a facsimile).
I Published by W. H. Worrell, The Coptic manuscripts in the Freer collec-
tion, (= Univ. of Michigan Studies, Hum. Ser., X), New York, 1923, 249-
322 (text), 359-380 (trans). This sermon is also in the Morgan Collection,
Copt. Ms. 600; see facsimile-edition in BibZiothecae Pierpont Morgan codices
coptici photographice expressi, XVI, Rome, 1922; it is discussed by C. D. G.
Miiller, Die aZte koptische Predigt, Thesis, Heidelberg, 1954, 190-191, 195-204
(see below, p. 38, n. 2 on the spuriousness of this text). The Utrecht pages
67-70 correspond to Freer, Washington Copt. Ms. no. 2, p. 67, col. a, 1.10-
p. 71, col. b, 1.2 (ed. Worrell, 262-271) and with Pierpont Morgan, Copt. Ms.
fol. 48v, col. b, 1.18-fol. 52r, col. b, 1.29 (facs.-ed. tab. 96-103). The Utrecht
sheets were, according to a letter from Mrs. E. M. Husselman, dated 7-II-
1956, to Professor G. Quispel, were offered for sale in 1930 to Enoch Peterson
of the Univelsity of Michigan, who had them photographed but did not take
up the offer. These photographs were sent to W. E. Crum, who used them
for his Copt. Dict.: Utrecht, p. 41-42 mentioned e.g. on p. 363a, S.V. C. TO
and p. 568b, S.V. ~Ht{, cl. ibid., XI under En. Peterson, with the comment
"oJ'iginals not now traceable". The photographs in Michigan indicate that in
1930 the sheet with p. 71-71 had been included, but its present whereabouts
are unknown.
3
34 A COPTIC TEXT ON THE PHOENIX
passage on the phoenix covering most of page 41 and all of page 42.
Three versions of this Coptic Sermon on Mary are known, all of
them in manuscripts written in the Sahidic dialect and all of them
fragmentary, but together forming a coherent section of the sermon
that gives a good idea of the whole.! The greater part of this frag-
ment is provided by Copt. Ms. 72(36) of the John Rylands Library
at Manchester; six parchment sheets comprising pages 349-360 of
the codex to which they belonged. 2 The Utrecht University Library's
pages 31-34 coincide with Manchester, page 351, col. a, 1.17 to page
355, col. a, 1.6. The Utrecht page 41 begins at Manchester page 360,
col. a, 1.33 and starting at page 41, col. b, 1.4 gives a part of the
text not duplicated by the Manchester manuscript. Of the Manches-
ter manuscript, only the part dealing with the phoenix has been
published (page 360, starting at col. b, 1.7).3 The continuation of
the Utrecht fragment is to be found in Kopt. Ms. no. K.9666-7 of
the extensive manuscript collection of Archduke Rainer, now in the
Austrian National Library at Vienna. This manuscript was inexpli-
cably lost many years ago," but thanks to Wessely's pUblication its
contents are known.1i Only two parchment sheets of this third manu-
script of the Sermon on M ary have survived, and these are numbered
in the codex as pages 39, 40, 44, and 45. Since the text shows no
interruption, however, this numbering must be erroneous. 6 Page 39
1 If in the codex to which the Utrecht sheets belonged only the Sermon
on Mary preceded the sermon of Theophilus, the former must have occupied
61 pages of the codex. This is not an unusual length for a Coptic sermon.
The surviving fragment would then represent not quite a third of the original
text.
S See for this manuscript W. E. Crum, Catalogue of the Coptic manuscripts
in the John Rylands Library Manchester, Manchester-London, 1909, 36;
previously discussed and partially translated by F. Robinson, Coptic apo-
cryphal Gospels, (TS, IV, 2), Cambridge, 1896, XXII-XXIII, 196-197, 235-236.
3 A. van Lantschoot, Apropos du Physiologus, in Bulletin of the Byzantine
Institute, 2, (= Coptic studies in honour of Waleer EwingCrum), Boston, 1950,
356; translated by Robinson, XXIII.
, According to Dr. Helene Loebenstein, "Direktor der Papyrussammlung",
in a letter dated 13-4-1966.
5 C. Wessely, Griechische und koptische Texte theologischen Inhales, V, in
Studien zur Paliiographie und Papyruskunde, 18, 1917, 30-33 (no. 270). Also
in Van Lantschoot, 356-357 (text and trans.).
• The conclusion of the Vienna Ms., p. 40, and the beginning of p. 44
contain a quotation from Ps. xliv.17 (LXX), see Wessely, 31-32.
A COPTIC TEXT ON THE PHOENIX 35
of the Vienna manuscript begins at Utrecht page 42, col. a, 1.7, and
starting at page 39, col. b, 1.14 continues alone. The remaining part
of the Viennese page 39 contains the conclusion of the passage on
the phoenix, but unfortunately is badly mutilated.
From the foregoing it is evident that starting with page 41, col. b,
1.4 and running to page 42, col. a, 1.6, the Utrecht manuscript con-
tains a previously unknown part of the Sermon on M ary forming a
link between the Manchester and Vienna fragments. To go into the
relationship between these manuscripts would take us beyond the
scope of this discussion, l but it may be mentioned that the Manches-
ter text is written in a purer Sahidic than either of the other two
and in cases of variants often seems to give the best reading.
Little can be said with certainty about the identity of the writer;
the surviving fragment gives no indications on this point. There is
also no certainty about whether the sermon goes back to a Greek
original or was originally written in Coptic. The latter seems the
more likely, but it also seems probable that the author made use
of sources that originated in a Greek-speaking milieu. This holds in
particular for the passage concerning the phoenix. 2 For a correct
understanding of this passage we must examine in detail the dating
of this sermon and the sources on which the phoenix passage was
based.
The sermon was first delivered in a church consecrated to Mary,
on the occasion of the celebration of the Commemoration 0/ Mary.
This fact is conveyed by the words of the preacher when, after his
digression on the phoenix, he returns to his main theme: "Let us
return to our subject and glorify the holy Virgin Mary, for we are
gathered together in her sacred place because it is the day of her
Commemoration, on which we celebrate a feast for her!" 3 The
Commemoration celebration is the oldest Marian feast we know.
1 According to present plans, the text of this sermon will be published as
soon as possible after the appearance of this book, with an introduction,
translation and commentary. Attention will also be given to several short
fragments in Cairo and Paris possibly belonging to the same sermon but not
relevant to the plesent subject. Permission for this publication has been ob-
tained from the libraries in Manchester, Utrecht and Vienna.
B See below for the source of this passage and the note to the translation
of 1.22 of the text.
3 Vienna Ms., p. 40, col. a, 1.1-10, ed. Wessely, 31.
During the first decades of the fifth century it was celebrated in

Constantinople, as indicated by sermons of Atticus and Proclus. 1 It
was known in Egypt around the same time or possibly even earlier, 2
and in the course of the fifth century it was also introduced into
Asia Minor, Palestine, Syria, Italy, and Gau1. 3 Like many saints and
martyrs, therefore, Mary too had a holyday.4 The Commemoration
of saints was held on their dies natalis, i.e. on the day of their death,
the emphasis falling on the manner in which they had glorified God
by their end. The Commemoration of Mary originally lacked this
character, because neither the New Testament nor tradition provid-
ed any information about her death, but rather concerned her life,
particularly its most important event, the birth of Christ, drawing
mainly on the data on the Holy Virgin given by the Evangelists and
the Protevangelium Jacobi. 5 The oldest Marian feast was thus also a
feast of Christ, closely related to the feast of Christmas: in Constan-
1 For this celebration see M. Jugie, La mort et l'Assomption de la Sainte
Vierge, (Studi e Testi, 114). Citta del Vaticano, 1944, 58, n. I, 174-180,
containing a partial rectification of his earlier views; see J ugie, La premiere
lete mariale en Orient et en Occident. L'Avent primitil, in Echos d'Orient, 22,
1923, 129-152 and idem, Homelies mariales byzantines, PO, 19, 1926, 297-317.
Also A. Baumstark, Liturgie comparee, 3rd ed. by B. Botte, Chevetogne,
1953, 207-209 and L. Duchesne, Origines du culte chretien, 5th ed., Paris,
1920,285. The sermon of Atticus of Constantinople (A.D. 406-425) preserved
in Syriac has been published by M. Briere, in Rev. de I'Orient chretien,
29, 1933-1934, 160-187 and by J. Lebon, in Le Museon, 46, 1933, 167-202;
for the sermon of Proc1us, see PG 65, 680.
I Cf. Jugie, La premiere /Ote, 140-142; PO, 19, 305-307 and La mort, 179,
n.2.
3 Cf. Jugie, La premiere lete, 140 and PO, 19, 300-305. For Antioch, see
A. Baumstark, Das Kirchenjahr in Antiochien zwischen SIZ und SI8, in Rom.
Quartalschr., 11, 1897, 55; For the celebration in the West, see Duchesne,
285, Jugie, La premiere lete, 145-152, PO, 19,309-317 and La mort, 195, n. 2.
, The connection between this commemorative feast and that of the saints
was felt clearly, as indicated e.g. by the comparison Atticus made of the
two (trans. Briere, (see n. I), 181; cl. also Jugie, La mort, 176, and PO, 19,
300-301): "Toutes les commemorations (ou Memoires) des saints sont admi-
rabies .. pourtant, sous le rapport de la gloire, elles ne le sont pas autant que la
solennite presente". E. Porcher, Un discours sur la Sainte Vierge par Severe
d'Antioche, in Rev. de l'Orient chretien, 20, 1915-1917,416-423, published the
beginning of a sermon by Severus delivered at the Commemoration of Mary,
in which he calls upon the believers to worship the Holy Virgin as she who
surpasses all saints (prophets, apostles, martyrs); the text unfortunately
breaks off at the explanation of why she may be called a martyr.
6 Cf. Jugie, La mort, 174.
tinople it was celebrated on the 26th of December, l elsewhere on a

date shortly before of after the 25th of December or, in places where
Epiphany was still commemorated as birth day, shortly after the
6th of January.2 In the Coptic Church it fell on 21 T6bi, i.e. the
16th of January.3
But this relation to the feast of Christmas characterized the
Commemoration of Mary only briefly. Particularly after the Council
of Ephesus in 431, where homage was rendered her as Theotokos in
connection with the doctrine of the union of the two natures of
Christ, Mary became increasingly important to the devout. No
longer was she seen only in the light reflected from her Divine Son;
after 431 her Commemoration was increasingly dominated by the
holy Theotokos herself as indispensable link in the process of re-
demption. This growing independence of Mary can also be discerned
in ecclesiastical art subsequent to 431.' The separation of the
Commemoration from the celebration of the birth of Christ also
demanded a far-reaching adaptation to the older commemorations
of many saints, which shifted the emphasis from the birth of Christ
to the death and ascension of the Virgin, based on the information
provided by the Transitus M ariae apocrypha, which appeared at the
end of the fifth and the beginning of the sixth century and spread
very rapidly.s In this way the later Assumption of the Holy Virgin
developed from the original Commemoration feast.
In the Coptic Church this transition was probably effected by the
patriarch Theodosius (536-567), who on 21 T6bi in 567 delivered a
1 Cl. jugie, La mort, 177 and C. A. Tryphanis, An anonymous early Byzan-
tine Kontakion on the Virgin Mary, in Byz. Zeitschr., 58, 1965, 327-332.
2 Cf. jugie, La mort, 58, n. I and 175-177.
3 See the synaxaria mentioned in n. I of p. 39. A good example of the close
relationship between the Christmas feast and the Commemoration of Mary
is the sermon ascribed to Epiphanius of Cyprus On the holy Virgin, (ed. E.
A. W. Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic texts, London, 1915, 120-138 (text), 699-
715 (trans.)), held "on the day of her holy Commemoration, which is the
21st of the month of Tobi". The author goes in detail into the list of gener-
ations in Matth. i, the annunciation, and the contact between Mary and
Elisabeth.
, See G. A. Wellen, Theotokos. Eine ikonographische Abhandlung uber das
Gottesmutterbild in Iruhchristlicher Zeit, Thesis Nijmegen, 1960, Utrecht-
Antwerp, 1960, 139ft'.
& See jugie, La mort, 106-108.
sermon in which the idea of the Transitus M ariae is completely

worked out. He was also probably responsible for the introduction
of two celebrations marking the death and assumption of Mary, one
on 21 Tobi (the 16th of January) and the other on 16 Mesore (the
9th of August).l These two dates have been maintained in the Coptic
Church ever since, even though from about A.D. 600 on Mary's
death and assumption have been commemorated everywhere else
in the Christian world on the 15th of August. 2
1 This sermon was published by M. Chaine, Les discours de Thiodose, patri-
arche d'Alexandrie, sur la Dormition, in Rev. de l'Orient chretien, 29, 1933-
1934, 272-304; partial text and translation in Robinson, (see p. 34, n. 2),
90-127; see also James, Apocr. N.T., 198-200 and Jugie, La mort, 128-133.
From 536 on Theodosius was in exile in Constantinople, but he continued to
consider himself the patriarch of Alexandria and to occupy himself with
ecclesiastical affairs in Egypt whenever possible; see E. R. Hardy, Christian
Egypt: church and people, New YOlk, 1952, 132-135, 139, 141-142, 149. It
is therefore possible that this sermon and the inauguration of the double
Marian celebration goes back to Theodosius. J ugie offers no support for his
supposition that Theodosius was the inaugurator of the two Marian feasts.
That this sermon gives a version of matters that was not generally known
is evident from his statement that he found the story of Mary's death in old
reports from Jerusalem he has come across in the library of St. Mark in
Alexandria. This was an artifice frequently applied to ascribe an almost
apostolic authority to an unfamiliar idea. Reference was usually made to
information found in the library in Jerusalem; in the Coptic literature this
was the case, for instance, in the sermon by Timothy of Alexandria on the
angel of death Abbaton (ed. E. A. W. Budge, Coptic miscellaneous texts,
London, 1915, 513), in that of Archelaos of Neapolis on the archangel Gabriel
(ed. H. de Vis, Homelies coptes de la Vaticane, Hauniae, 1929,249) . .A similar
case is that the Apocalypse 01 Paul was supposedly found in the house of Paul
at Tarsus (see James, Apocr. N.T., 526). These are all simply variants of the
familiar book motif used so often in Antiquity to accentuate the ancientness
and the authenticity of all kinds of extraordinary ideas: see on this point
A. J. Festugiere, La revelation d'Hermes Trismegiste, I, Paris, 1950,319-324.
2 For the reasons for this date, see Jugie, La mort, 175-184. The sermon
traditionally ascribed to Theophilus of Alexandria (see p. 33, n. 2) cannot
possibly be by him because it was delivered on 16 Mesore (ed. Worrell, 317-
318 (text), 378 (trans.)). This sermon must have been composed in the time
when it first became customary to celebrate the death and ascension of Mary
on two different days, to which the writer objects (ed. Worrell, 281 (text),
367-368 (trans.)): " ... since we celebrate her feast once a year, on the day of
her holy Assumption (IiVcX.Al)\jILC;) which is the 16th of Mesore, as transmitted
to us by our blessed fathers, according to the word of the holy psalmist and
our father David" (followed by Ps. Ixxvii.3-4). It seems probable that this
sermon originated in Melkite circles in which beliefs and ecclesiastical prac-
tices were kept as close to the Greek church as possible. For the relationship
On the basis of these data on the development of the Commemo-
ration feast it is possible to date the sermon containing the passage
on the phoenix approximatively. In this text the Commemoration
still has the exclusive character of a general Marian feast in which
a close relationship with the feast of the birth of Christ is immedi-
ately evident. The entire Manchester fragment is concerned with a
detailed description of the events surrounding the birth of Christ in
which the influence of the Protevangelium ] acobi is unmistakable.
In all probability, the preceding portion of the text told of the birth
and youth of the Holy Virgin as reported by the same source. The
Utrecht fragment mentions the presentation in the temple, and in
the following section, which is given by the Vienna Manuscript, the
praises of Mary are sung with mention of many apocryphal details
about her life. All this makes it improbable that the sermon was
delivered in the period during which the Commemoration of Mary
in the Coptic Church mainly concerned the death of the Virgin. In
the sermons with the latter subject, the birth of Christ is at most
briefly mentioned and never gone into in detail.1 These consider-
ations lead to the conclusion that the sermon with which we are
concerned dates from after the rise of the Commemoration of Mary
(about A.D. 400) and before the official introduction of the Transitus
Mariae into the Coptic Church (A.D. 567).
But one of the few dogmatic statements occurring in this text
between the Chalcedonian and Monophysite groups in Alexandria and Egypt
and the history of their patriarchs in the latter half of the sixth century, see
Hardy, o.c., 149-162. It remains possible that this sermon is a reworking
of a sermon by Theophilus, which he could have delivered at the Commemo-
ration feast. Further research on this point is needed in connection with the
origin of the Assumptio Mariae.
1 In the Synaxarium Alexandrinum, for the 21th of T6bi mention is no
longer made of the life of Mary, only of her death and later assumption to
heaven; see R. Basset, Le Synaxaire arabejacobite (ddaction copte), PO, Il,
1915, 621-624, or I. Forget, Synaxarium Alexandrinum, (CSCO 78, script.
arab., 12), Louvain, 1953 (= 1922), 360-361. The well-known sermon on
Mary Theotokos ascribed to Cyril of Jerusalem (ed. E. A. W. Budge, Coptic
miscellaneous texts, London, 1915,49-73 (text), 626-651 (trans.)), reveals the
transition from the old to the new conception of the Commemoration of
Mary: considerable attention is paid to the descent and the life of the Virgin
to refute the Gnostic idea, ascribed to the Gospel according to the Hebrews,
that Mary was a celestial power; her death is then described, but her bodily
ascension to heaven is denied; see Jugie, La mort, 126-127.
makes it possible to narrow the period in which this sermon must

be dated. In the Manchester fragment (page 355, col. b, 1l.I4-24
and 1.35 to page 356, col. a, 1.8, it is said that: "The flesh which
the Son of God has assumed from the Virgin, that is it that shall
sit at the Father's right hand between those who are elevated and
that shall judge the living and the dead... God has come from
Heaven, He has assumed flesh from the Virgin Mary. God became
man, man became God; divinity and humanity became one!"
This passage proves not only that the author of the sermon be-
longed to the Monophysites but also gives an unequivocal indication
of the faction to which he adhered. Soon after the spokesmen of the
Monophysites had settled in Alexandria in 5I9 to insure their own
safety, a schism developed among them. Whereas Severus of An-
tioch, in order to maintain that Christ had been truly man, set the
deification of the flesh of Christ at his resurrection, Julian of Hali-
carnassus was of the opinion that this deification had started at the
incarnation. Their followers coalesced into two violently opposed
parties, the Severians and the J ulianists. 1 Although the many po-
sitions intermediate between the two extreme views make it difficult
to classify a given statement exactly, it seems certain that the author
of the sermon in question must have belonged to the party of the
Julianists or Aphthartodocetae, since he clearly emphasizes that the
flesh of the deified Christ who will judge the living and the dead is
the same as the flesh that he had assumed at the incarnation.
If this conclusion is correct, the sermon can be dated rather ex-
actly: it must have been composed after the deification of the flesh
of Christ had become a matter of conflict and before the Commemo-
ration of Mary became in the Coptic Church the commemoration of
the death of the Holy Virgin, which was first discussed and perhaps
was even inaugurated by the Patriarch Theodosius, who was in fact
a Severian. The sermon must therefore be dated between 5I9 (arrival
of the Monophysite leaders in Alexandria) and 567 (sermon by Theo-
dosius on the death and assumption of Mary). We shall therefore be
fairly close to the mark if we assume that the sermon dates from
the second quarter of the sixth century.
1 Cf. Hardy, o.c., 127-132 and e.g. F. Loofs, Leitfaden zum Studium
de, Dogmengescnicnte, 1-11, ed. K. Aland, Tiibingen, 1959, 239-240.
This dating of the Coptic Sermon on M aria of course says nothing

about the age of the sources used by the author. In a few cases it is
evident that he has drawn on certain concepts, belonging to an
earlier period, of whose original meaning he was ignorant. This holds
for the passage on the phoenix, the only one we shall discuss here.
The writer of the sermon must have read in an older source that
the phoenix had shown itself at the sacrifice of Abel, at the departure
of the Israelites from Egypt, and in the year of the birth of Jesus.
The significance of these appearances will be discussed in detail
below. l Here, it will suffice to remark that in these cases the phoenix
is a symbol of the development of the history of salvation and that
the appearance around the time of the birth of Christ has the same
background as the choice of the 6th of January for the celebration
of the birth (Epiphany). The earliest evidence we have of the cele-
bration of the Feast of Epiphany dates from the fourth century,
but its roots in Egypt are much older, since in the second century
the Gnostic sect of the Basilidians celebrated the baptism of Christ
in the Jordan on the 6th of January, this event having for them the
same meaning as the birth from Mary for the orthodox. 2 We may
safely assume that the connection of the phoenix with the sacrifice
of Abel, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and the birth
of Christ is at least three centuries older than the sermon in which
reference is made to it. But the Christian who first gave this inter-
pretation of history could even have used certain pre-Christian,
Jewish speculations, since as early as the second century before
Christ we find in the Alexandrian Jew Ezekiel the Dramatist the
statement that the phoenix showed itself to the Israelites after the
departure from Egypt. 3
The Coptic preacher mentioned these three appearances in his
sermon without giving any indication that he was aware of their
true meaning. He does give a symbolic interpretation of the phoenix,
1 See below p. 119-130.
I See J. Zandee, Gnostic Ideas on tke fall and salvation, in Numen, 1 I, 1964,
64-65 and J. Danielou, Les origines de l'tpipkanie et les Testimonia, in Reck.
de science rei., 52, 1964, 552. In this respect the Gnostics were probably
influenced by the Jewish Christians who taught that the man Jesus became
the Son of God at his baptism in the Jordan.
3 See p. 12I.
but one taken from the same source he drew on for several details
about the bird that he wished to share with his audience. He says
of the phoenix, "This bird points out to us the resurrection of the
Lord". This interpretation is found only in the Physiologus and texts
directly influenced by it; it has nothing whatever to do with the
story of the three appearances. 1 The idea that the phoenix comes
to life again after three days also occurs only in the Physiologus,
and this is also the case for the implied notion that the phoenix
lives in Lebanon and obtains from Paradise the perfumes with which
it burns itself to ashes. 2 The report concerning the bird's food must
derive from another source, perhaps a Jewish one: the idea that the
phoenix lives on dew is found only in the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch
and in De ave phoenice of Lactantius. 3 These data were inserted by
the preacher after the mention of the burning of the phoenix to-
gether with the sacrifice of Abel, and he then, in logical progression,
passed on to a description of the revival of the bird after three days.
Only then did he go on to speak of the phoenix in more general
terms, with the result that he was forced to mention its burning
and resurrection for the second time.
According to the source used by the preacher, the phoenix had
also appeared around the time of the birth of Christ. This must have
been the reason for his inclusion in his sermon of the story of the
three appearances, supplemented by a number of details from the
Physiologus. But in mentioning this third appearance he resumed
his report of the events surrounding Christ's birth, which had been
interrupted by his digression about the phoenix. In the preceding
part of his sermon he had gone into detail in telling the legend that
Herod had had the priest Zechariah killed by murderers because he
thought that it was the priest's son John whom the Magi had come
from the East to seek. But no one could find John, because his
mother had fled with him into the desert, and this was why Herod
had ordered the killing of all the male babies in and around Bethle-
hem. This legend about Zechariah, John, and the Massacre of the
Innocents occurs with a number of deviations in the Protevangelium
1 See p. 130-131, 21 4-21 5.
2 See p. 171-173.
3 See p. 341, 348.
] acobi, 1 in which it is also told that the priest Simeon was appointed
in the place of the murdered Zechariah. 2 This and the story that
follows, of the presentation of Jesus in the temple, are related by
the preacher in connection with the appearance of the phoenix. This
does little to clarify his argument and gives the impression that all
these events occurred at the same time. It is possible, albeit with
some difficulty, to translate the passage in this sense. 3 In the present
translation, however, the mention of Simeon as successor to Zecha-
riah, is considered as an independent remark that the preacher
thought necessary as an introduction to the presentation in the
temple and Simeon's subsequent prophecy. As the text now reads,
the appearance of the phoenix is related to the presentation in the
temple, but it remains a question whether this was the case in the
source used by the preacher, which may only have said that in the
year of Christ's birth the phoenix had appeared on the temple at
Jerusalem.
The text and the translation of the passage on the phoenix and
the section immediately preceding it are given here in full. From the
latter it is evident that the preacher related these two passages very
appropriately. In the critical apparatus the Manchester, Utrecht,
and Vienna fragments are designated as M., U., and V., respectively.
Where U. runs parallel with M. or V., the most probable or coherent
variant has been used. Minor deviations are also indicated.
1 Protevang. Jaeobi, 22-24.
S Protevang. Jaeobi, 24, 4.
3 Van Lantschoot, (p. 34, n. 3), 357, translates: "En l'annee done que Dieu
naquit a Bethleem, et le jour dans lequel le pretre Zaeharie /ut tue et Simeon
mis asa place, le phenix se brula de lui -meme sur l' aWe du temple a Jerusalem".
Van Lantschoot of course knew only the Viennese text; in his translation
the report of the tenth appearance of the phoenix after the sacrifice of Abel
is related to the appearance during the time of Moses, which is certainly
incorrect; see below, p. 123. It is clear from the Utrecht text that the tenth
appearance was the one at the time of Christ's birth: "In this year now the
Son 0/ God was born in Bethlehem". To make a temporal clause of Simeon's
succeeding Zechariah, an "and" has to be inserted before Simeon as Van
Lantschoot has done ("et Simeon"), although it does not occur in either the
Viennese or the Utrecht texts. It can preferably be assumed that for the
indicated reasons the redaction of the text is somewhat awkward.
TEXT
*M p. 360 AnpA~YE. TA,eO iiTOIKOT~E.HH THpC: E.T&E. nE.~no ~nE.A~.

col. a
nE.~Hoq ~AP tiA&E.~ lOW E.&O~ 2I:1N. nE.,eOOT E.HTAKAE.JH
,eOT&E.q WA,eOTH E.nE.~Hoq H1AAAPJA~ ~ii H~YHPE. KOTJ
E.HTAT:iTOH ~~OOT ~ti HE.TE.pHT. E.nE.J2I.H AnHOTTE. 2I:00~
5 iiA2I.A~ .'inHAT E.HTAqH02l:ij E.&0'2\ ,ei. nnApA2I.E.J~O~ ~E.
HHE.KE.WE.J E.,eOTH E.nE.JTono~ ,eH T~APl ~HTA~nApA&A
E.J~HTE.J ti~E.2I:nOK ,eH OT-'\OOT ~ti OT~ E.qOTAA&. E.T&E.
nE.A~ OTH 'iiTATnAp-&E.HO~ ~noq ,eH OT~ E.qOTAA&
AqOTWH Hiipo -'\nnApA2I.E.J~O~ MI~J iiHE.'lCTA H N.N.~YHPE.
*u p.41
10 N.tipW~E. E.20TH E.poq * -'\H TE.'1CTAH tiA&E.~ ~YAHTE.nE.q
col. a
*Mp.360 ~H.oq KA pwq. :inE.OTo:JW OTHa.) HTAA&E.~b) TA~E. -&TUA
col. b
E.,ePAIC) AntlOTTE.d) (5W!!JT E.~ti TE.q-&TUA nApAe) KAE.JH
~noHHpo~. OTH f ) OT,eA~HT E.~YAT-'\OTTE.g) E.poq ~E. 4?OJHJl.
nAI 2I.E. h) 'iiTE.PE. nKw,eT E.J E.&O~,eH TnE. HqOTW~I) iiTE.-&TUA
I5'tiA&E.~ n2l.JKAJO~J) n,eA~HT 2I.E. 2wwqk) E.T~-,\AT AnI{W,eT
HTE.-&T~JA E.T:;:~ATl) pOK,eqm) H.i'-,\A~n) AqAAq iiKE.P~E.~O).
,e.i' n-,\E.~WO~HTP) 'ii,eOOT AOTKOTJq) H&HTr) E.J E.&o~ .e:i.
nKE.p-'\E.~ ~n,eA~HT. AqnpoKOnTE. KOTJ B) KOTJ WAHTE.qpE.T
~H.eE.t) Hqp TE.~J.eE. Hwopn U ). ~omOHV) KATA tOT iiWE.
*u p. 41
20 HpO~nE. ~YAPE. nE.~OJHJlW) nE.JHOC5 *ii,eA~HTX) E.J E.q,eH~ ,e~
col. b
*M des. n~J~E. Hq&lllK E.~OTH E.nE.pnE.Y) E.2I:H TWHTE. Z) E.TOTTA~E.*
-&TUA E.,ePAJ ,eJ2I:W~. WAq&WK 'ti~opii' E.nnApA2I.J~O~ Hq~J
H!!)o-'\iiT HK~A2I.O~ ,eH' H~HH .i'nE.~tHoTqE. HqKAAT
:in,eOT E.&O~ iiT~YHTE.. tiTE.THOT WApE.nKw,eT E.J E.&O~
a) om. M b) U E.PE.A&E.~ c) U add. :inHOTTE. d) U !!JApE. nHOTTE.

e) U ~nApA f) om. U g) M E.WAT~OT h) om. M
1) U ATW AqOTW~ J) om. U k) om. M I) om. U m) M AT,eOK,eq
n) om. M 0) U tiKP~E.~ p) M n-,\E.,e!!J0~T q) U ATKOTJ
r) M HqHT B) 1\1 KOTE.J t) M !!)AHTE.qpwT :i-,\H,eE.
u) M HKu.on vI om. M w) U ~OJHJl x) M nE.~oJHJl
n,eA~HT Y) U om. E.,eOTH E.nE.pnE. z) M TWHOTE.
A COPTIC TEXT ON THE PHOENIX 4S
TRANSLATION
(I) Joy has come to the whole world (o£xou(.Lev'Yj) because of the
birth of Christ. (2) For (yocp) the blood of Abel cries from the day
that Cain (3) killed him to the blood of Zechariah1 and the young
children (4) who died together, because (e7t&L8~) God had said (5) to
Adam, when He expelled him from Paradise (7tcxpoc8&LCro~): (6) "You
shall not be able to enter this place ('t"07tO~) in the flesh (aocp~) that
has transgressed (7tCXpCX~CXLV&LV), (7) unless (d (.L~ 't"L) you are born
from water and the Holy Spirit (7tV&U(.LCX)".2 For the sake (8) now
(ouv) of Christ, whom the Virgin (7tcxp.&evo~) brought forth from the
Holy Spirit (7tV&U(.LCX), (9) He has opened the gates of Paradise
(7tCXpOC8&Lao~); He has brought there the souls (IjJUX~) of the children
(10) of men and the soul (ljJuX~) of Abel, so that his (n) blood
became silent.
At the time now (ouv) that Abel made a sacrifice (.&uaLcx), (12)
God had more (7tCXpoc) regard for his sacrifice (.&uaLcx) than for [that
of] the wicked (7tov'Yjpo~) Cain. (13) There is a bird called phoenix
(cpOr:VL~). (14) [As for] this [bird] now (8e) - , when the fire came
from heaven and consumed the sacrifice (.&uaLcx) (IS) of Abel the
righteous (8LXCXLO~), the fire (16) of that sacrifice (.&uaLcx) also now
(8e) consumed that bird at the same time [and] reduced it to ashes.
(17) On the third day a small worm came out of the (18) ashes of
the bird. It grew (7tPOX07t't"&LV) little by little until it was covered
(19) with feathers and had again assumed its former shape.
Further (Aomov), every (xcx't"oc) soo (20) years the phoenix (cpOr:VL~),
this great bird, comes flying in (21) the height, and it goes into the
temple [and places itself] on the altar where they (22) sacrifice
(.&uaLcx). It goes first to Paradise (7tCXpOC8&Lao~) and takes (23) three
1 Cl. Matth. xxiii. 35. Luke xi. 50-51.

a Literally: "a Holy Spirit" (also in 1.8). The passage contains an allusion
to John iii.5 which in the Sahidic version reads "out of a water and a spirit";
here with the addition "holy". as in the Ethiopic version. several Old-Latin
Mss., and some codices and editions of the Vulgate.
+
8 Literally: "opposite" (Gr. ~IX\I"t"L. i:7tt acc.); cl. Crum. Copt. Dict .•
718b. Since "opposite the altar" makes little sense (cl. 1. 21). it seems probable
that we are concerned here with a mistranslation of. for instance. KlXl "t"UhjaL
25 ~rt TnE. rtqo~W-'\. ttrtE.R'2\AAOc.. tic..trtO~qE. -'\.rt nc..w.4\.A

An~A·~HT. -'\.iiiic..A ~YO-'\.HT U tt~OO~ ~YMIP O~RO~I H&ttT
-'\.iiiic..wc.. rtqPE.T -'\.H~E. rtqp TE.q~E. tt~yopii. E.pE.nE.I~A'2\HT
t .4\.AE.lrt rtArt E.TArtAc..TAc..Ic.. An"AOE.Ic... RATA -&E. AnMf
HE.&llIl E.qo~I.u-'\. E.&o'2\ ~tt rtE.~PHPE. iiTc..W~E. E.~O rtMJ
*u P·4 2 30 .i-'\.O~'2\o* A~W E&O'2\ Ott tl.UTe ttTnE. E.c..o rtMJ HE.&W..l
col. a c.. <.
TAl ~wwq TE. -&E. AnE.4?oml~ E.qc..AMim E.l,lw'2\ ~tt tWTE.
*v p. 39
col. a _*ttTnE. -'\.tt rtE.~PHPE.
_ iiiilYHrt An'2\I&Artoc...
. _ _ _ _,
-'\.nE.o~oE.l~ O~rt rtTAnrtO~TE. E.lrtE.a) rtrtWHpE. -'\.nIH~
E.&o'2\ ~tt RH.4\.E. ~tt TGI"A .i..4\."..l~c..Hc.. AnE.4?olrtl~b) O~Wrt~

35 E&o'2\ ~I"A~ npnE.C) HWrt Tno'2\lc.. AnpH. RATA TAnc d )
rtrtEqpo-'\.nE. nE.q-'\.E.~-'\.HT Hc..on nE "AmTMI~I.unE. .4\.iiiic..A
TE.-&~c..IA HA&E.'2\ E~JTA'2\O A.4\.Oq E~PAI ii-&~c..JA. ~ii TE.lpO-'\.-
*u P.42 nEe) O~rt ttTA~"AnO :in~HpE.f) :i:mO~TE.g) ~H &E-&'2\EE..4\.h).
col. b
A~W ~:;: nE.~OO~ iiTA~~WT& H1AXAPIAc.. nO~HH& H~HTq
40 A~RA-&Ic..TA rtc..~-'\.Ewrt nO~HH&I) E.nE.q-'\.A. AnE.4?Olrtl~J)
pOR~q -'\.A~AM( ~~I:i nTH~ .inpnE. ~rt -&IE·~H-'\.k). ~:i
*v p. 39 n.4\.E~~Y-'\.O~rt rt~OO~"Am HTATn.tp-&Ertoc..1) E.TO~AA&m) "Ano
col b.
-'\.nE.rtc..WTHpn) Ac.."AIT~ .4\..rt IWc..H4? E.~PAl EnpnE. ETA'2\EO)
-&~c..IA E.~PAI ~ApOq ~wc.. ~pn: :i.4\..Ic..E.P) A~.4\..O~TE. E.nE.qpArt
45 "AE. ~. "Alrt TE~rtO~ O~rtq) ETA.4\.A~ :inEpW.4\..Ef) ROTq8) E.rtA~
En~A'2\HT E.TA.4\.A~ ~A~O~rt E.nOO~ ii~oo~. A~P .4\.tITpE.
rtGI rtE.rtEIOTE"AE. ~qApEnrtO~TE. "Anlo Hp~q~YE.4\..~E. IAW'2\Ort
~-'\. nE.~Oo~ An[~An?] E.T&E. nE.I~A'2\H[T E.]TA.4\..A~ "AE.
-'\.r .... ] nE.TrtrtA~E. E[nEI~A]'2\HT .4\..A~A[Aq . . . . ] ETE.~qA[pE
50 -'\.iiii]c..A ~YO.4\..rt[T rt~OO~] ~AqWrt~ [rtqp TE.q]~E. E.[pE
n~A]'2\HT O~rt E.T[:i.4\.A~] c..~.4\..ArtE rt[Art E.]TALrtA]c..T[Ac..Ic..]
O~[ . . . . . • . . ] T-&[ . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ]
a) VO~W~E. b) V AnEt1?0lrtH~ c) VnE.pnE. d) VTHnC e) V

TEpO.4\.nE. f) om. V g) VnrtO~TE h) V &H-&'2\u-'\. 1) om. V J) U
AnE.4?ml~ k) V-&I·~H-'\. 1) V"AlrtTATnArtOc.. m) om.V n) U add. K
0) V E.TA·~O p) U ~pn.4\.Ic..E. q) om. V f) om. V 8) V .i:no~RoTo~
twigs (xAoc8oc;) from the fragrant trees and lays them (24) on3 the
altar. Then the fire comes from (2S) heaven and consumes the
fragrant twigs (xAoc8oc;) and the body (!!WflCX) (26) of the bird. After
three days however (8e) there appears a small worm; (27) then it
becomes covered with feathers and assumes its former shape. This
bird (28) indicates to us the resurrection (ciVOC!!"t"CX!!LC;) of the Lord.
Just as (xcx't"oc) the bee (29) eats from the flowers of the field which
are (30) wax to it, and from the dew of heaven which is honey to
it, (3I) so too the phoenix (q>Or:VL~) lives on the dew (32) of heaven
and the flowers of the trees of Lebanon.
(33) At the time now (oov) that God brought the children of
Israel (34) out of Egypt by the hand of Moses, the phoenix (q>Or:VL~)
showed itself (3S) on the temple of On, the city (7t6ALC;) of the sun.
According to (xcx't"oc) the number (36) of its years it was its tenth
time since its genesis after (37) the sacrifice (.&U!!LCX) of Abel that
it made a sacrifice (.&U!!LCX) of itself: in this year (38) now (oov)
the Son of God was born in Bethlehem. (39) And on the day that
the priest Zechariah was killed, (40) they installed (XCX'&L!!'t"OCVCXL)
the priest Simeon in his place. The phoenix (q>Or:VL~) (4I) burned
itself on the pinnacle of the temple in J erusalem. 1 On (42) the eighth
day after the holy Virgin (7tcxp.&evoc;) had brought forth (43) our
Saviour (!!w't"'Y)p), she took him with Joseph to the temple in order
to make (44) a sacrifice ('&U!!LCX) for him as (wc;) firstborn, [and] he
was named (4S) Jesus. From that moment now (oov) no one has ever
seen (46) that bird up to this day. Our fathers have born witness: 2
(47) God shames the idol (et8wAov) worshippers (48) on the day of
judgment (?}3 because of this bird, because (49) ... you have not
looked at this same bird ... which (50) after three days lives and
assumes its former shape. (SI) This bird now (oov) indicates
(O'1JflCXLveLv) to us the resurrection (ciVOC!!"t"CX!!LC;) •.•
CXUTOUC; tnl TO &uaLCXaTI)pLOV. If this is the case, it would constitute evidence

that at least this part of the passage on the phoenix goes back to a Greek
source, probably a version of the Physiologus.
1 For the translation of this passage, see p. 43.
S Ct. Ps. xcvii. 7.
8 Cf. e.g. Shenoute, ed. Leipoldt-Crum (CSCO, 42, scr. copt., ser. 11, 4),
Ill, 1908, 207, 12.
PART TWO
ANALYSIS OF THE MYTH

OF THE PHOENIX
CHAPTER FOUR
THE NAME PHOENIX
The name "phoenix" has not yet been completely explained. Of

the various meanings the word <pOr:VL~ can have in Greek,l the follow-
ing are relevant: purple, Phoenician, and date palm. These concepts
were connected with the name of the phoenix in Classical times. In
this section, a discussion of the Classical views will be followed by a
consideration of the findings of modern etymological studies.
The explanation given by Isidore of Seville, which still finds ac-
ceptance, is that the bird was named for its purple-red colour.2 The
name is also associated with the colour purple in the medieval
glossaries, although not in the same way: the phoenix was called "the
purple one" because it was considered "the royal bird".3 This prob-
ably arose from the medieval conception of the phoenix as a symbol
of the king, representing particularly the unity of the king and his
successor. 4
A relationship between the phoenix and Phoenicia was also drawn
in various ways, because of the similarity of the names. avid says
that the Assyrians named the miraculous bird "phoenix". 5 We shall
1 See Liddell-Scott, 1948, s.v. IPOr\lL~.
2 Isidore, Etymol., XII, 7, 22: Phoenix Arabiae avis, dicta quod colorem
phoeniceum habeat; adopted by Rabanus Maurus, De universo, 8, 6 (PL I l l ,
246A) and Pseudo-Hugo of St. Victor, De bestiis et aliis rebus, I, 49 (PL 177,
48C). Ct. Honorius of Autun, Speculum Ecclesiae, De paschali die (PL 172,
936A): Foenix dicitur rubeus.
3 Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, IV, (ed. G. Goetz, Lipsiae, 1889), 75,
11: tenix avis regia; 518, 15: tenix avis regia unde tinitium id est miniatum
(nomen) accepit; idem, V (Lipsiae, 1894), 199, 27: tenix avis regia unde
tenicium id est miniatum nomen accepit.
4 See the interesting discussion of this motif given by E. H. Kantorowicz,
The King's two bodies. A study in mediaeval political theology, Princeton, 1957,
385-401; for the same notion in the seventeenth century ibid., 413-415 and
figs. 22 and 23 showing phoenix medallions of Queen Elizabeth I (1603;
inscription: Unica Phoenix) and of Charles I and Charles 11 (1649; inscrip-
tion: Ex Cineribus); for the seventeenth century, see also H. H. Verstegen,
Het phoenixmotief. Bijdrage tot de studie van de humanistische visie op de vorst.
Thesis Nijmegen, 1950, passim.
5 Ovid, Metam., XV, 393: Assyrii phoenica vocant.
52 THE NAME PHOENIX
see later that avid is almost the only one to mention the Assyrians
in this connection: the phoenix is generally assigned to Arabia,
India, or Ethiopia. 1 It seems likely that by Assyrians avid meant
the Phoenicians, since in Classical times no great distinction was
made between Phoenicia, Syria, and Assyria, particularly by the
poets. 2 It may even be assumed that avid chose the word Assyrians
for stylistic reasons, to avoid juxtaposition of the words Phoenices
and phoenica. Because of the similarity of the names, he assumed
that the phoenix would be a pre-eminently Phoenician bird. And
after him Martial, without mentioning the phoenix directly, speaks
of the fire that "burns the Assyrian nests whenever one bird has
lived ten centuries".3 In view of the fact that no other writer relates
the phoenix to Assyria, it seems justifiable to assume that Martial
was influenced by avid here and that he, too, meant the phoenix,
the Phoenician bird. 4
Whereas avid seems to have thought that the bird owed its name
to Phoenicia, Lactantius conveys the reverse. He states that the
phoenix goes to Syria to die, and that this is how the region came
to be called Phoenicia. 5 But it nevertheless seems certain that Lac-
tantius was influenced by avid, because a little further on he says
that the bird builds its nest in a high palm tree which also owes its
name to the phoenix. This is also to be found in avid, albeit without
the explanation of the name. 6 The whole story of the flight of the
phoenix to Syria and its death there in a palm tree-which does
not occur anywhere else in the phoenix literature-was developed
by Lactantius, under the influence of avid, from the homonymy of
the Greek words for phoenix, Phoenician, and palm. 7 In these texts
1 See p. 149-150, 305-307.

2 Cl. Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, 11, Lipsiae, 1906, 940-942, s.v. Assyrii.
3 Martial, Epigr., V, 7, 1-2: Qualiter Assyrios renovant incendia nidos, /
una decem quotiens saecula vixit avis.
, Lactantius Placidus, Narr. lab. Ovidianarum, XV, 37, here too follows
Ovid: Phoenix in Assyriae linibus nido ex odoribus lacto, supra recumbit.
6 Lactantius, 65-66: Dirigit in Syriam celeres longaeva volatus / Phoenices
nomen cui dedit ipsa vetus.
• Lactantius, 69-70: Tum legit aerio sublimen vertice palmam / quae Graium
phoenix ex ave nomen habet. Ovid, Metam. XV, 396-397: Ilicet in ramis tremu-
laeque cacumine palmae / unguibus et puro nidum sibi construit ore.
7 M. P. Nilsson assumes, in his review of Hubaux and Leroy, in Gnomon,
THE NAME PHOENIX 53
the relationship between the phoenix and Phoenicia does not seem
to go any further than the assumed etymological similarity. Other
than these sources, the Classical phoenix traditions contain little or
nothing related to Phoenicia. 1 The only possibly relevant point is
the statement in the Physiologus that the phoenix goes to Lebanon
for its purfumes or even lives there. But this view can be explained
by the J udaeo-Christian symbolism of Lebanon, although it may
have been influenced to some extent by the similarity of the words
phoenix and Phoenicians. 2
We have just seen that Lactantius also drew a connection between
the similar-sounding Greek words for phoenix and palm, in the sense
that the palm owed its name to the phoenix because the bird built
its nest in this tree. It is not certain but seems very likely that this
homonymy also impressed avid, who gives the same story.
Isidore of Seville too derived the Greek word for palm from the
17, 194 I, 2 14: "Syrien ist wegen del' N amensgleichheit zwischen H eliopolis-
Baalbek und Heliopolis-On hineingezogen", which seems very unlikely.
1 F. Hommel, Aulsiitze und Abhandlungen, 11, Munich, 1900, 217,333, n. I,
334, n. I and idem, Ethnologie und Geographie des alten Orients, (Handbuch
Altertumsw., Ill, I, I) Munich, 1926, 83, n. 6, 86, 138, 158, n. I, held the
view that the Greek name CPOLVL~ indicated a Phoenician bird with an old
autochthonous name. Since according to Herodotus, VII, 89, the Phoenicians
"according to their own report" originally lived beside the Red Sea, i.e. the
Persian Gulf, Hommel attempted to explain the name by all kinds of in-
genious combinations from ancient Arabic. For anyone without a thorough
knowledge of Arabic, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Sanskrit, his argumentation
is impossible to check. He derives the name phoenix from the Old-Arabian
bulah (from bunah = Eg. benu), with which the word for palm, balah (from
banah) , is said to be related; the Jewish bird Ml (the phoenix) is said to
occur in Hadramaut as a messenger of the gods (but see below). Hommel's
combinations require evaluation by a specialist; until then, a certain amount
of scepticism seems justified. It will be shown further on that modern research
too has led to a derivation of the Greek CPOLVL~ from a Semitic word, albeit
on entirely different grounds. Hommel's views, together with many new and
even bolder combinations, have been taken over by Frh. A. von Ow, Del'
sagenhalte Vogel Phoenix in seineI' Beziehung zu Christus und zum Pseudo-
Heiland Hom, in Hist.-pol. Bliitter I. d. Kath. Deutschland, 140, 1907 (11),
575-577 (an extremely fantastic and confused article). O. Gruppe, Griechische
Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, (Handb. d. klass. Altertumsw., ed. Miiller,
V, 2, I), Munich, 1906,389 (see also ibid., 254, n. 4) thought that the Phoeni-
cians had worshipped a deity called cI>OLVL~ by the Greeks, a deity to which
the phoenix and the palm were consecrated and from which they derived
their name. No supporting evidence is offered or has been found.
S See p. 3 0 7-3 0 9.
54 THE NAME PHOENIX
phoenix, but on very different grounds: the great age usually reach-
ed by the palm caused it to be named after the long-lived Arabian
bird, the phoenix. 1 The learned Spaniard here indicates one of the
actual points of agreement between the phoenix and the palm aside
from their common name. 2 Nevertheless, before him the two are
mentioned together only once in connection with their long lifespan.
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (A.D. 248-265),3 summarizes a
number of examples of long-lived animals and plants in his book on
natural history and mentions the CPOr:VL~ among the birds as well as
among the trees.;&
In Classical times, however, the relationship between the phoenix
and the palm was also viewed in the reverse sense. Pliny had been
1 Isidore, Etymol., XVII, 7, I: Hane (se. palmam) Graeei phoenieem dieunt,

quod diu duret, ex nomine avis illius Arabiae quae multis annis vivere perhi-
betur. The connection between cporvL~-phoenix and cporvL~-palm is discussed
elaborately by Hubaux and Leroy, 100-125.
B For the longevity of the palm, see Hubaux and Leroy, 103, n. I and
Steier, Phoinix, I (Palme) , in RE, 20, I, 1941, 391. Hubaux and Leroy,
103, mentioned as second point of agreement that some palms, according
to Aristotle, /rg. 267 (ed. V. Rose, Lipsiae, 1886, 210; H. & L. erroneously
give /rg. 246), were liVOPY.,OL, i.e. had no pits and were therefore sometimes
called eunuchs. This incidental report, taken over by Pliny, XIII, 41, can
hardly be interpreted as a parallel of the asexuality of the phoenix. That the
mention of the worm, which according to many texts represents the first
developmental stage of the phoenix, arose from certain traditions concerning
the fertility of the palm tree (ibid., 103-104), is indeed extremely unlikely.
Hubaux and Leroy also cite (p. 104) as points of agreement between the
phoenix and the palm, the bird's fragrant nest and the palm species found
in Saba, which, according to Strabo, XVI, 4, 19 exuded a sweet scent, plus
the fact that the phoenix is predominantly purple and some kinds of dates
are light red. These vague correspondences too convey little indication of a
strict parallelism between the phoenix and the palm.
S See e.g. Quasten, 11, 101-109.
, Dionysius of Alexandria, De natura, /rg., 3 in Eusebius, Praep. Evang.,
XIV, 25, 4: ..iX BE (.I.IXKpO~LW"IX"1X ~ijla ..e: KlXl cpu..a· ~ijllX (.I.EV !v ..e: I5pvLO'Lv, WC;
CPIXO'LV cie:..ol KOPIXKEC; ..e: KlXl cpO!VLKe:C; ... BevBplX BE cpO!VLKe:C; KlXl Bpue:c; KlXl ~e:pO'eIXL.
Hubaux and Leroy stubbornly call Dionysius Denys Alexandre instead of
Denys d'Alexandrie (103, n. I, 105, 136, 261). A relationship between the
phoenix and the palm also seems to be implied in the Physiologus 0/ Vienna,
4, which says that the phoenix is as large as the island CIIOLVLKWV, "as the great
Athanasius says". See Hubaux and Leroy, 106-115, for the various places
(not islands) thus termed; they assume (p. 108) that this Physiologus report
indeed goes back to Athanasius of Alexandria, but there is no evidence to
support this assumption.
THE NAME PHOENIX 55
told that the phoenix owed its name to the syagrus palm growing
near Alexandria; it was said that only one of these palms existed,
and that it died with the phoenix and would rise again from
itself.! This tradition, which Pliny himself called remarkable and
which may be a reflection of Alexandrian etymological speculations,
gives the modern reader the impression that the relationship was
just the reverse: the phoenix did not owe its name to the palm, but
because of the homonymous names certain characteristics of the
phoenix were transferred to the palm. Although the opposite is
claimed, in this tradition the meaning cpo~vL~-bird must be primary.
Even though the phoenix myth cannot be explained on the basis
of traditions concerning the palms or, conversely, the name of the
palm be traced to the phoenix, it is understandable that this con-
clusion was drawn in Classical times, because besides the similar
names and the long life ascribed to both, there are several other
points of agreement, the latter lying more in the realm of symbolism.
An example is found in the representation of the phoenix on a palm
tree seen in certain traditional compositions of Early Christian art. 3
From ancient times the palm had been seen as a symbol of victory,"
and the phoenix shown perched on it is not-as Ovid and Lactantius
will have it-a bird preparing for its death but rather a symbol of
eternal life in the heavenly Paradise where the redeemed have
received the "palm of victory".
The points of agreement between the palm and the phoenix some-
times make it difficult to determine the meaning of the word CPO~VL;
1 Pliny, XIII, 42: una (sc. arbOY) et syagrorum, mirumque de ea accepimus,
cum phoenice ave, quae putatur ex huius palmae argumento nomen accepisse,
intermoyi ac renasci ex se ipsa, eratque, cum proderem, tertilis. On the basis of
this text Hubaux and Leroy, 117-121, explain the spectacular dish
described in Petronius' Satiricon, 26ft'., where Trima1chio serves his guests a
large wild boar (syagrus) , as an indication that the host actually wanted to
serve his guests a phoenix. This interpretation was rejected by P. J. Enk, in
Museum, 52, 1947, 38-39. Elagabalus promised his guests a phoenix, or else
1,000 pounds of gold; Hist. Aug. 23,6: fertur et promisisse foenicem conviviis vel
pro eo libras auri mille, ut imperatorie eos dimitteret.
2 E.g. Bochart, Hierozoicum, (see p. 5, n. I), 819, and J. Zideen, Dis-
sertatio academica de Phoenice ave, Abo, 1748, (after C. M. Edsman, Ignis
Divinus, Lund, 1949, 179); also Ginzel, I, 178.
3 See pI. XX, XXIV-XXX, XXXV, XXXVI,4, and XXXIX.
, See Steier, o.c., 401-402.
56 THE NAME PHOENIX
in a given textual context. Clement of Alexandria tells of a religious

procession in which an astrologer carried a clock and a ~O~VL~ in his
hand as symbols of astrology.1 Now, in the Egyptian syncretism of
the imperial period the phoenix was seen as a symbol of the constant
self-renewal of time and of the sun, 2 from which it might be con-
cluded that the astrologer carried a representation of the phoenix.
But this is made doubtful by the report by Callixenus of Rhodes
that in a huge procession organized by Ptolemy Philadelphus around
270 B.C. there was a woman who represented a period of five years
and carried in one hand a wreath of persea leaves and in her other
hand a palm branch. 3 Horapollo stated later that among the Egyp-
tians the palm was a symbol of the year because it gave forth twelve
branches in a year, one in each month." Lastly, Proclus claims that
the palm is a symbol of the sun because its branches imitate the
solar rays.5 We must therefore conclude that it cannot be determin-
ed with certainty whether the astrologer mentioned by Clement held
a phoenix or a palm branch in his hand, but also that it makes little
difference with respect to the concept.
In the Greek magical papyri mention is made of ve:upa. ~O(VLKO<;,
which could be translated as "fibres of the palm" or as "sinews of
the phoenix".8 Preference must be given to the latter, since accord-
ing to Dioscurides the "prophets", i.e. the magicians, use this phrase
to indicate the habrotonon plant. 7 It is highly unlikely that they
would have given this plant a magic name that was borrowed from
1 Clement of Alexandria, Stromat., VI, 3S, 4: (.I.ETIX 3& T~lV 1jl30\l 6 wpo(l"K6~oe;,
WP0A6YL6\1 TE (.I.ETIX XELPIX KlXl CPOE\lLKIX ciO"'l"poAoyEIXe; l!X6)\I aU(.I.~OAIX, ~p6EL(l"L\I.
See e.g. p. 70 and p. 246-248.
2
Callixenus of Rhodes, De Alexandria, frg. 2 (FGrH. nI, C, I, 168-169 =
3
Athenaeus, V, 27 (I98b)): cpepou(l"1X T'ii (.1.&\1 (.I.L~ Too\I XELpoo\I (l"TecplX\lO\l ~Ep(l"IXEIXe;,
T'ii 3'tTep~ ~rX~30\l CPOE\lLKOe;.
, Horapollo, Hierogl., I, 3, see also p. 142.
6 Proc1us, De arte sacra, (ed. J. Bidez, Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques
grecs, VI, Brussels, 1928, ISO): TIX 3& TO O"J(T,(.I.IX ILLILELTIXL Too\I ciKTE\l6)\I, &(l"~EP 6
CPOL\lL~.
• S. Eitrem, Papyri Osloenses, I, Oslo, I92S, 9 (pap. I, IS6-IS7): 3e3ETIXL
7J (3e:L\lIX) TOLe; \lEUpOLe; TOU !EpOU CPOE\lLKOe;, r\llX cpLA1ie; IMAOU TO\l (3EL\lIX). On p. 26
Eitrem gives "the fibres of the holy palm", on p. IS6 ""the sinews of the holy
phoenix-bird", i.e. the Egyptian benu-Osiris."
7 Dioscurides, De materia medica, nI, 24 RV (ed. Wellmann, n, 34):
c!c~p6TO\lO\l ••• ~pOcpijTIXL \lEUplX CPOEVLKOe;, cf. Eitrem, IS6 and Hubaux and Leroy,
lIS, n. I.
THE NAME PHOENIX 57
another plant. The meaning of the expression is not entirely clear,

but in all probability the habrotonon, as ingredient of a magic potion,
was considered to prolong the desired effect.l
The homonymy of phoenix and palm caused confusion even in
Classical times. This is made evident by the erroneous Early Chris-
tian interpretation of Ps. Xci.I3(LXX): "The righteous shall flourish
like a palm-tree". Various authors understood the word CPOr:VL~ used
in the Septuagint as phoenix, among them Tertullian, and with him
Pseudo-Ambrose; it is also found in the Untitled Gnostic treatise and
in the Byzantine Physiologus. 2
1 The quoted charm in the Papyri Osloenses, refers to amatory magic,
which is why the habrotonon was called &7jAu<pMpLOV by others (according to
Dioscurides). This does not mean that a particular connection was drawn
between the phoenix and the human amatory relationships. The traditions
concerning the phoenix indicate only the contrary; see Chapter X.
B Tertullian, De resurr. mort., XIII, 3; Pseudo-Ambrose, De trinitate, 34,
(PL 17, 545A); Untitlcd Gnostic treatise, 170, 28-29 (ed. Bohlig-Labib, 97);
Byzantine Physiologus, 10. Sixtinus Amamus, Anti-Barbarus biblicus, Am-
stelrodami, 1628, 835, pointed (that early) to this error and to the possibility
that Ambrose, De exc. Iratris, II, 59 (hoc relatione crebra et scripturarum
auctoritate cognovimus) could also have had Ps. xci.13 in mind: "Procul dubio
enim et iste ad hunc locum respexit". O. Faller in his edition (CSEL 73, 281)
mentions as second possibility that Ambrose "Clementis Epistulam scriptu-
rarum auctoritate aequiperat". Even before that, this view had already been
rejected on good grounds by Harnack, Neue Studien, 607, who held the opin-
ion that here scripturae must not be taken in the pregnant sense: Ambrose
intended only a reference to the many oral and written witnesses respecting
the phoenix. This indeed seems the most likely conclusion. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries an error similar to that with respect to Ps. Xci.13
was made in the translation of Plutarch, De tuenda sanitate praecepta, 20
(133C; ed. Paton-Wegehaupt-Pohlenz, Moralia, I, Lipsiae, 1925,274). where
eyd<pocAoV TOU <pOtVLKO~ was taken as cerebrum phoenicis, although it means
medulla palmae. Although already demonstrated by M. A. Muretus, Variarum
lectionum libri XV, Antverpiae, 1586, 351-353 (lib. XIII, 12), we find the
erroneous notion even in that great disbeliever in the reality of the phoenix
Sir Thomas Brown, Pseudodoxia epidemica, or Vulgar errors, (1646), HI, 12
(ed. Ch. Sayle, The works 01 Sir Thomas Browne, II, Edinburgh, 1912, 12).
In this connection reference must also be made to what some scholars accept
as a mention of the phoenix in Assumptio Mosis, 1,3. Here, the revelation to
Moses is put, in addition to a number of other illegible time indications, in
the ... year of the prolectio Iynicis. A. Hilgenfeld, Volkmar und Pseudo-
Moses, in Zeitschr, I. wiss. Theologie, 10, 1867, 218, K. Wieseler, Die jungst
aulgelundene Aulname Moses nach Ursprung und Inhalt untersucht, in Jahrb.
f. deutsche Theologie, 13, 1868, 630 and R. H. Charles, The Assumption 01
Moses, London, 1897, p. 4, e.a. translated this expression as "departure 01
58 THE NAME PHOENIX
Regarded superficially, something similar seems to have occurred

in the translation of the word /:tol in job XXiX.I8, which the rabbis
understood as phoenix and the Septuagint and Vulgate give as
palm tree. We must examine this point, because if the rabbinical
interpretation is correct this text contains the earliest known men-
tion of the burning of the phoenix as well as one of the earliest
references to the phoenix myth in general. It would furthermore be
extremely important that here we encounter the phoenix in a text
that originated outside the Classical sphere of influence.
The text reads literally: "I thought: I shall die with my nest and
multiply my days like the /:tOl". The problem presented by this text
is the correct interpretation of the words qen "nest" and /:tOl. The
explanation, and therefore the translation, must be based on the
fact that in this text, as in almost all the verses of job xxix, the
poetical parallelism is applied, which in this case implies that the
expectation of a long life is expressed in both parts of verse 18.
Wherever it occurs in the Old Testament the word /:tOl means sand. 1
In itself the image of sand as an indication of a large quantity is
not unusual2 and may be considered appropriate for the multipli-
cation of the days of a life, as is the case here. This is also the sense
in which the word /:tOl has been translated in the Targum on job
and in the Syriac version. 3 But this creates a problem with respect
to the word "nest" in the first part of the sentence. Taken literally,
"Together with my nest I shall die" would imply a tradition concern-
ing a bird that perishes with its nest after a long life, which would
the phoenix", but others give it as "departure Irom Phoenicia = Canaan" (Le.
of J oseph's family for Egypt). The latter is the correct rendition. cl. C. Clemen
in Kautzsch. Apokr. und Pseud .• Il. 31S. n. d and e and 316.
1 Cl. L. Koehler-W. Baumgartner. Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti libros.
2nd ed .• Leiden. 1955. 2S2. S.v. I"n.
I Cl. Ps. CXXxiX.IS. Isaiah xlviiLI9 and Habakkuk i.9. This usually ap-
pears as "the sands of the sea" or "the sand on the sea-shore" ...• cl. e.g.
Gen. xxiLl7; xli.49. Ps. Ixxvili.27. Jer. xv.S. H. H. Tur-Sinai. The Book 01
Job. Jerusalem. 1957. 415 read for Job xxix.IS not 0'7.)'. "days". but 0'711',
"seas". and assumed that this verse contained the expectation of a gre"a:"t
posterity: "and I thought: I shall die-with my nest (turned into) a nation
and I shall multiply like the sand 01 the seas".
3 Cl crit. app. to Job xxix.IS in R. Kittel. Biblia Hebraica. 14th ed .• Stutt-
gart. 1966. 1136. various commentaries and e.g. Sister Mary F. Macdonald.
Phoenix redivivus. in Phoenix. 14. 1960. 19I.
THE NAME PHOENIX 59
make the translation of /:tOl as sand inconsistent. It would then be

obvious to assume that in this context the word /:tOl must be given
another meaning in better agreement with the first phrase. This is
just what the rabbis did: they took the word /:tOl as an indication
of the phoenix, l possibly influenced by the Septuagint, which gives
the translation as: "I shall multiply my days like the palm tree
(O"'t'eAe:xo~ cpotVL1(Q~).2 But this is certainly not necessary, because
reasoning from the first part of Job xxix. 18 one can conclude directly
that /:tOl means the phoenix.
But this does not imply that the rabbis knew a typically Jewish
or Western-Semitic version of the phoenix myth unrelated to the
Classical tradition. In Bereshit Rabbah it is derived from Gen. iii.6
"She also gave her husband", that Eve offered the forbidden fruit
to all the animals too. Only the bird /:tOl refused it, which gained
it eternal life: "as it is written: I shall die with my nest and I shall
multiply my days as the /:tOl". This is immediately followed by
mention of two traditions concerning the death and resurrection of
this bird, both of which clearly represent a recapitulation of the
two main Classical versions. 3 We are therefore of the opinion that
the rabbinical interpretation of Job XXiX.I8 proves only that the
1 The texts in which this view occurs are given by Ginzberg, Legends 0/ the
Jews, V, 51, n. 151. Many modern commentators have followed the rabbis in
this; almost all of them are mentioned by Sister Macdonald, Phoenix redi-
vivus, 192, n. 21. We refer here only to G. HOlscher, Das Buch Hiob, (Handb.
zum A.T., I, 7), Tiibingen, 2nd ed., 1952, 73, 75 and G. Fohrer, Das Buch
Hiob, (Kommentar zum A.T., XVI), Giitersloh, 1963, 402,403,410. Koehler-
Baumgartner, Lexicon, 282, s.v. 11 "h, too find a mention of the phoenix
in Job xxix. 18 : "evidently the bird Phoenix, but no etymology known". Cj. also
A. R. Hulst, Old Testament translation problems, Leiden, 1960, 82-83, and
M. Dahood, Nest and Phoenix in Job 29, I8, in Biblica, 48, 1967, 542-544.
W. F. Albright, Baal-Zephon, in Festschrift Alfred Bertholet, (ed. by W.
Baumgartner, a.o.), Tiibingen, 1950, 3-4, thought the 1£61 occurred in the
Ugaritic legend of Keret (tabl. C, Il, 106). But this seems more likely to be
based on an error, since the word which Albright renders as "phoenix"
is translated as "circuit" by J. J. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern texts relat-
ing to the Q.T., Princeton, 1950, 148, and as "precinct" by J. Gray, The Krl
text in the literature 0/ Ras Shamra, Leiden, 1955, 21.
2 LXX Job xxix.18: e!7tIx BE· 'H ~ALKlcx 1l0U YTlpaaeL, Clan:ep a-rEAe)(Ot; qlO(VLKOC;
n:OAUV Xp6vov ~Lroaw. Vulg.: Dicebamque in nidulo meo moriar et sicut palma
multiplicabo dies.
3 Bereshit Rabbah, XIX, 5 (trans. H. Freedman, Mistrash Rabbah. Genesis I,
London, 1951, 151-152); see also p. 152 here.
60 THE NAME PHOENIX
rabbinical world knew the Classical phoenix myth 1 and that there
is no evidence whatever to support the view that in this text the
word Mt must be translated as phoenix. This is the reason why
Job XXiX.I8 will not be referred to again in this book.
The translation of the Septuagint assumes a different reading than
the Masoretic text offers, probably nalJ,at, palm tree. 2 In the un-
vocalized script, this word differs by only one letter from Mt. If the
latter word was the original reading, it must be translated here and
everywhere else that it occurs as sand, in the metaphoric sense
mentioned above. The use of the word "nest" in the first part of the
sentence then remains obscure if we take it in the literal sense, but
it could also indicate that which is born in the nest, the young birds. 3
This is probably the case here. Job's meaning is then that he will
not die until his children, who would also have reached an advanced
age, have also come to the time of their death.'
I t is therefore by no means certain that the rabbinical opinion
that the phoenix is mentioned in Job XXiX.I8 was arrived at under
the influence of the double meaning of the Greek <pOi:VL~. This seems
to have been the case, however, for Pseudo-Bede, who in the early
Middle Ages concluded that this text might refer to the phoenix. 1i
Although it cannot be entirely excluded that he knew of the rabin-
nical exegesis, his choice of words gives the impression that his
interpretation, which is unique in the Western tradition, was arrived
at independently on the basis of the homonymy of the Greek words
for palm and phoenix.
1 For the use of Classical conceptions by the rabbis, see e.g. R. Meyer,
Hellenistisches in der rabbinischen Anthropologie, (Beitr. zur Wiss. vom A. und
N.T., IV, 22), Stuttgart, 1937, and G. Quispel, Das ewige Ebenbild des Men-
schen. Zur Begegnung mit dem Selbst in der Gnosis, in Eranos jahrbuch, 36,
1967, 15-16.
I Cf. crit. app. in R. Kittel, Biblia Hebraica, 14th ed., Stuttgart, 1966, 1136;
L. H. K. Bleeker, job, (Tekst en Uitleg) , Groningen-Den Haag, 1926, SI
and 177, takes this to be the original reading.
8 Cl. Deut. xxxii.l!.
, Although Holscher, 75, and Fohrer, 410, call this interpretation possible,
they reject it because they see the (161 as the phoenix.
& Pseudo-Bede, Expos. in jobum, Il, 12 (ad xxix. IS) : palma autem arbor
secundum Graecos phoinix dicitur. Avis quoque quam multis saeculis quidem
vivere autumnant, phoinix eodem nihilominus vocabulo nuncupatur. Potuit 101'-
tassis de eadem hoc loco dixisse.
THE NAME PHOENIX 61
Lastly, mention must be made of some old explanations of the

name of the phoenix that have nothing to do with the various
meanings of cpO~VL~. Two remarkable "etymologies" are found in the
Viennese Physiologus. At the beginning of the section on the phoenix
it is said that this bird received its name because it brightens
(cpotV&P07tOL&~) the night by the cocks, which assumes a connection
between the phoenix and the cock, a relationship which is not
Classical and to which we shall return at length. 1 The passage closes
with the statement that the name CPO~VL~ must be explained by the
rapidity with which the bird resurrects itself (cpU&LV otu'rov o~ewc;)
within a period of three days and three nights. 2 We shall note on
several occasions that the Viennese Physiologus contains a compi-
lation of many motifs from various phoenix traditions. It seems
unlikely that these explanations originated with the not very talent-
ed compiler, but we do not know what source they could have been
taken from.
The second explanation offered by Isidore of Seville-in addition
to the one based on the purple colour 3-is more interesting: the
bird might bear its name because in the entire world it is "singularis
et unica". "For", says Isidore, "the Arabs call someone who is
singularis "phoenix" ".4 It is conceivable that this must be seen
against the background of the Early Christian interpretation of the
phoenix as the virgo that is completely singularis. We shall return
to this point in another connection. 5
Isidore's explanation of the name on the basis of the purple colour
was until very recently accepted as correct in all modern etymo-
logical studies. The word CPO~VL~ was taken as a purely Greek word
deriving from cpowoc;, "blood red",6 having been used as an epithet
1 Physiologus 01 Vienna, I: CPOLVL~ 6'n cpotV£P0Tl:OL£L 8LcX 'l:WV ci)..£K'l:pu6vc.tlv rljv

VUK'l:IX. See also p. 278.
s Physiologus 01 Vienna, 33-35: CPOLVL~ 8&: iPfL7lveU£'l:otL i:'l:UfLO)..oyoufLevc.tl~ Tl:otpcX
'1:0 CPU£LV otlJ'l:OV O~Ec.tl~ fj'l:oL Y£VVi%O&otL IXU'l:OV 'l:otJ(Ec.tl~ 8LcX 'l:PLWV 'iJfL£POWK'I:(c.tlV, rljv
'l:OU KUplou 'l:PL~fL£POV 'l:IXCP~V Kotl ciVtXO'l:IXOLV \moyptXcpc.tlV.
8 See p. 51, n. 2.
, Isidore, Etymol., XII, 7, 22: ... vel quod sit in toto orbe singularis et unica.
Nam Arabes singularem "phoenicem" vacant.
& See p. 387.
• A. Wolf, Lexikalische Streilzuge, 5: CPOLVL~, in Glotta, 5, 1914, 74-79; E.
62 THE NAME PHOENIX
for the people known everywhere for their manufacture of red-dyed

products, the Phoenicians. 1 The phoenix supposedly acquired its
name in the same way. Herodotus himself described the bird as
having a predominantly red colour, and its name must therefore
mean the "purplish-red bird". 2
A very different explanation has been put forward by Egypto-
logists, in the first place by Sethe. According to this interpretation,
the name of the phoenix is nothing more than the result of the Greek
pronunciation of the name of the Egyptian sun bird, the benu, sup-
posedly pronounced as *boin or *boine. 3 But this explanation failed
to impress the Classicists; 4 and its improbability will appear from
the following discussion. But we must not forget that Herodotus,
or his source Hecataeus, recognized the Classical phoenix in the
Egyptian bird of the sun. The explanation of this identification
must be sought mainly in the similarity between the names.
The problem of the fundamental meaning of the name phoenix
and the word (j)Or:VL~ in general was put in a new light when Ventris
succeeded in deciphering the Mycenaean script, Linear B. I) The
Mycenaean texts contained the word po-ni-ke, with the plural form
po-ni-ki-pi, from which the word (j)Or:VL~ later developed. In the first
of the two texts to be cited on this point, there is mention of a chair
inlaid with po-ni-ki-pi of gold and dark-blue glass. 6 The other text
refers to a footstool with an ivory inlay depicting a man, a horse,
an octopus, and a po-ni-ke. 7
Boisacq, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, 2nd ed., Heidelberg-

Paris, 1923, 1032-1033; E. A. Speiser, The name Phoinikes, in Language, 12,
1936, 121-126; J. B. Hofmann, Etymologisches W6rterbuch des Griechischen,
Munich, 1950, 402.
1 Cf. e.g. Hofmann, 402 and Speiser, 125.
B E.g. in Wolf, 75: "So heisst auch der Iremde Wundervogel seit Hekataios
bei Herodot z, 73 tpOrVL~, weil er nach Herodots ausdrucklicher Angabe zum
grossten Teile rot war".
8 See literature cited on p. 21, n. 6.
, Cl. Hofmann, 402: "z.T. mag Iremder Einllusz vorliegen, so lur tpOiVL~
PhOnix, vgl. agypt. byn.w Name dieses Wundervogels" also Speiser, 123, n. 14.
6 For a fascinating report, see J. Chadwick, The decipherment 01 Linear E,
2nd ed., Cambridge, 1967.
• M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge,
1956, 344, no. 244·
7 Ibid., 345, no. 246.
THE NAME PHOENIX
Just as is the case for the later cpo~v~~, there are several possible
translations for po-ni-ke. In their major work on the Mycenaean
texts Ventris and Chadwick admitted that the translation "palm
tree" certainly belongs among the possibilities. But since it seemed
more likely that all four figures on the footstool described in the
second text would have been animals, they translated po-ni-ke as
"griffin". One of their reasons for doing so was the consideration
that little more can be deduced from Hesiod, frg. 304, the oldest
mention of the phoenix in Greek literature, than that this bird was
seen as a fabulous creature. 1 But in the Mycenaean culture the pre-
eminent fabulous creature was the griffin, as can be judged from
the frequency with which it was represented. 2 This translation has
gained general acceptance, although most scholars leave room for
the possibility that po-ni-ke meant the palm-tree. 3
The important point is that in the light of the Mycenaean texts
the derivation of cpo~v~~ from cpo~v6<;, "blood red", must be discarded. 4
1 Ibid., 344 and 405.
8 See e.g. C. Delplace, Le grillon creto-mycenien, in AC, 36, 1967, 49-86.
3 Chadwick, Decipherment, 160, translates Po-ni-ke-qe in no. 246 of the
Documents as "and a griffin (or a palm tree)", but on p. 92 as "and a phoenix".
A. Heubeck, Mycenaean qe-qi-no-me-no, in L. R. Palmer and J. Chadwick,
Proceedings of the Cambridge colloquium on Mycenaean studies, Cambridge,
1966,230 translates the word as "phoinix" and says in a footnote" "Griffin"
or "palm-tree"?" C. J. Ruygh, Etudes sur le grammaire et le vocabulaire
mycenien, Amsterdam, 1967, 291: "un griffon". Only L. R. Palmer, The
interpretation of Mycenaean Greek texts, Oxford, 1963, 351, 353 and 446, and
F. M. Ahl, Cadmus and the palm-leaf tablets, in A]Ph, 88, 1967, 191-192 have
consistently chosen the meaning "palm-tree". Palmer, for obscure reasons,
attaches great importance to the fact that the word po-ni-ke occurs "in final
position" in the two texts in which it occurs: "this suggests an accessorial
motif" (p. 351). He then adds: "The palm-tree and its branches are one of the
most frequent motifs of Aegean decoration. There is no evidence that cporv~1; ever
meant "griffin" or "sphinx" (see also Ahl) and the interpretation ignores the
diagnostic symptom offered by the final position". It may be said in this con-
nection that the griffin too was a very common ornamental motif in Myce-
naean art (cf. the study of Delplace, mentioned in n. 2) and that there is
no evidence whatsoever to support the contention that in ancient times the
word cporv~1; could not possibly have been used for the griffin. See also below
concerning the origin of the Mycenaean griffin.
, Ventris and Chadwick, o.c., 405: "Probably a loan-word: not from cpo~v6~
"blood-red", which is from * guhonjos" (cf. Boisacq, o.c., 1032). The Indo-
European sound gu was preserved in Mycenaean as q, and this form could be
expected before po-ni-ke if that word were indeed related to cpo~v6~.
THE NAME PHOENIX
But there is another word in Mycenaean, po-ni-ki-ja or po-ni-ke-a,

which later became <pOLVLKEO<; and probably means "dyed crimson".l
In fact, Ventris and Chadwick assumed that the word po-ni-ke was
not originally a Greek word but had been borrowed. 2 In this con-
nection, Phoenicia is an obvious possibility as the source.
This would shift the problem of the fundamental meaning of the
word <pO~VL~, and therefore of the name of the phoenix, from Greece
to the Semitic world. In itself this is a realistic possibility, since
several Semitic loan-words have been identified in Mycenaean. 3 This
leads to the question of the word from which po-ni-ke, <pO~VL~, was
derived. Astour investigated this point and came to the surprising
conclusion that the Greek <pO~VL~ can finally be traced to a word in
Arabic and Hebrew meaning "madder", the red dye obtained from
the dried roots of the herbaceous climbing plant Rubis tinctorum,4
ground to a powder. Although we can add little to Astour's reason-
ing, we must go into this point in some detail.
In various places in the Old Testament reference is made to Tola
and Pua as sons of Issachar (Gen. xlvLI3, Num. XXvi.23, I Chron.
vii. I ; Judges X.I mentions Tola, son of Pua). Pua is written in two
ways: rltt~D (Judges X.I, I Chron. viLI) and ;"I~~ (Gen. xlvLI3, Num.
XXvi.23). The name Tola, taken literally, means "kermes" (red dye-
stuff), "crimson", and Pua means "madder" (Arabic: fuwwa),f, The
family of Pua were called '~~D, Punites (Num. XXVL23).
It is to say the least remarkable that two sons of Issachar, whose
tribe lived in the northern part of Palestine close to the territory
of the Phoenicians, had names indicating a red dye. And the family
name Puni is particularly striking, because it is so strongly remi-
1 Ventris and Chadwick, o.c., 405.

B See p. 63, n. 4.
8 Ventris and Chadwick, o.c., 91, 135-136.
, M. C. Astour, The OYigin 01 the terms "Canaan", "Phoenician", and "Pur-
ple", in Journal 01 Near Eastern studies, 24, 1965, 348-349, slightly more
concisely in idem, Hellenosemitica, Leiden, 1965, 146-147.
6 Cl. Koehler and Baumgartner, Lexikon, 1021 and 754; cl. for Pua also
M. Jastrow, A dictionary 01 the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi,
and the Midrashic literature, I1, New York, 1950, 1138 and G. Dalman,
Arbeit und Sitte in Paliistina, V, Hildesheim, 1964 (reprint, = Giitersloh,
1937), 74-75, 87·
THE NAME PHOENIX
niscent of the Latin name for the Phoenician colonists in Carthage,

Poeni or Puni. 1
All this makes it indeed probable that the Greek word po-ni-kef
CPO~VL~ is ultimately to be traced to the Western Semitic term for
madder, one of the red dye-stuffs manufactured by the Phoenicians
and used by them to colour many products. This means that the
name Phoenicians originally meant something in the sense of "those
who work with red dyes" and was borrowed from the product for
which they were famous. Conversely, the word Canaan, the autoch-
thonous name for the region inhabited by the Phoenicians, has the
meaning in Mesopotamia of purplish-red dye, whereas in Biblical
Hebrew the word Canaanite became the equivalent of "merchant".2
This explains why the word CPO~VL~ can mean both purple and
Phoenician. Consequently, the name of the phoenix can equally well
mean "the Phoenician bird" and the "purplish-red bird". Although
in the present state of our knowledge it cannot be definitively de-
termined which of these meanings is the correct one, there are
various indications justifying preference for the former.
Specialists have considered "griffin" to be the most probable trans-
lation of the word po-ni-ke. It is known that the griffin reached the
Mycenaean culture from the Semitic world via Phoenicia; only the
type of bird-griffin is found in Mycenaean art and this is the one
known from Phoenicia. 3 This supports the assumption that po-ni-kef
CPO~VL~ signifies "the Phoenician bird".
In the next chapter we shall give detailed attention to the mention
1 Hofmann, Etymol. Worterbuch, 402, derives the Latin Poenus from
cpow61;. A. Walde and J. B. Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Warterbuch,
I1, Heidelberg, 1954,330, see "Poenus aus gr. CPOLVL~ hinzugebildet". A. Emout
and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue latine, I1, 4th ed., Paris,
1960, 518, think "que le mot ne vient pas du grec. Il s'agit evidemment d'un
emprunt populaire".
2 Ct. Astour, The origin, 346-347, who cites S. Moscati, Sulla storia del nome
Canaan, in Studia Biblica et Orientalia, 3, 1959, (Analecta Biblica, 12), 268-
269.
8 Cf. H. Prinz, Gryps, in RE, 7, 1912, 1911-1913, 1917-1918; K. Ziegler,
Greif, in Der kleine Pauly, Il, 1967, 876-877. and Chr. Delplace, (see p. 63,
n. 2), 49. A. Furtwiingler, Gryps, in Roscher, Lexikon, I, 2, 1886-1890,
1745-1747, 1750-1753, sees many points of agreement with Egyptian re-
presentations but he too thinks that the griffin reached the Mycenaean
culture via Syria.
5
66 THE NAME PHOENIX
of the phoenix in frg. 304 from Hesiod. In anticipation it may be

said that this fragment is based on an ancient Eastern concept of
the Great Year,l which must have reached Greece via Phoenicia and
the Greek islands. It is possible that Mycenae also contributed to
this transmission. 2 It is hard to avoid the impression that the phoe-
nix can ultimately be traced to the Semitic world, which makes it
highly unlikely that the name CPOi:VL~ represents the Greek version of
the Egyptian *boine.
It remains possible, however, that to the Greeks of ca. 1200 B.C.,
po-ni-ke suggested a different creature than CPOi:VL~ suggested to the
later Greeks. If this was actually the case, the Classical phoenix
myth must have developed in the Greek world after the Mycenaean
period. It seems certain in any case that in his time Hesiod made a
distinction between the phoenix and the griffin. 3 This makes it
probable that Herodotus ascribed the red colour to the phoenix
because the same word could mean purple. This brings us to the
problem of the earliest development of the phoenix myth, which,
however, will be discussed in the final chapter of this book.
1 See p. 90 -97.
I See p. 111-112.
8 See p. 397.
CHAPTER FIVE
LIFESPAN AND APPEARANCES
1. THE AGE OF THE PHOENIX AND THE GREAT YEAR

One of the oldest components of the phoenix myth is the fixed
cycle: after a given period, which is always of the same length, it
dies and then arises again from its own remains. Just before or
after its death it makes an appearance in the world of man, which
is greeted as an important event. It was universally believed that
the period encompassed by the phoenix's life was a very long one.
Its great age became proverbial,! but opinion differed on the exact
number of years and a number of writers restricted themselves to
the statement that the bird only renewed itself after a very long
time-many years or centuries. 2 Even as early an author as Tacitus
pointed out that there were different traditions concerning the age
of the phoenix,3 and this divergence led Aelian to contrast the
1 Lucian, Hermotimus, 53: ~II !Ll) CPOtIlLKOC; ~'L'7j ~LWcr71. Extraordinary events
were compared with the phoenix: in addition to Aristides, Drat., XLV, 107,
Synesius, Dio, 9, 3 and Themistius, Drat., XXXIII (367c) (see below p. 71,
n. I and n. 2) we may mention Seneca, Epist. Mor., XLII, I in a discussion
of the truly good man: Scis quem nunc virum bonum dicam? Huius secundae
notae. Nam ille alter lortasse tamquam phoenix semel anno quingentesimo nasci-
tur, and Martial, Epigr., V, 37, 12-13, speaking of a slave who had died
before reaching her sixth year: Cui conparatus indecens erat pavo, / inamabilis
sciurus et frequens phoenix; Libanius, Drat., XVII, 10, compares the short
reign of J ulian with the short appearance of the phoenix in our world; in
this connection he states emphatically that the bird can be seen only vaguely
by men: aLde n;cXcrllC; !Lell TIjc; y'iic; EKTELlla.L -rljll rrTIjcrLII, crTIjlla.L ae !L"ljaa.!LOU !L~'t"£
a:ypwII !L~'t"£ &crTE61Il. 'A!Luapde ydep o!J..61C; &11 EY£IIe:TO TOLC; cXII&pW7tOLC; ij TOU ISpIIL&OC; ISIjILC;.
B Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, 4: GUll Xp611<t> ... !La.Kpij>; Celsus in Origen, Contra
Celsum, IV, 98; aLde 7tO)J...WII ~T61Il; Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusebius, Praep.
Evang., XIV, 25, 4 mentions the phoenix among Tde !La.Kpa.~LWTa.Ta. ~ij>a.;
Gregory of Nazianzus, Carmina, I, 2, 527 (PG 37, 620A): 7tOAAWII ~T6111 !LETde
KUKAa.; Dracontius, Romulea, X, 106: post saecla; Eugenius, Carmina, XLIV;
immensi temporis ales; Pseudo-Bede, Expositio in Iobum, II, 12: post multa
tempora.
a Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: De numero annorum varia traduntur. Maxime
vulgatum quingentorum spatium; sunt qui adseverent mUle quadringentos sexa-
ginta unum interici.
68 LIFESPAN AND APPEARANCES
phoenix's natural cognizance of the right time for its appearance

with the confused opinions and calculations of men. l
Tacitus says that according to the most widely accepted opinion
the phoenix lived 500 years. 2 The correctness of this statement is
abundantly confirmed by the texts. The period of 500 years is
found first in Herodotus, who explicitly states that this figure
derives from the priests of Heliopolis. 3 It should be mentioned in
this connection that according to a report of Porphyry transmitted
by Eusebius, Herodotus took his information about the phoenix word
for word, albeit with abbreviation, from the Periegesis of Hecataeus
of Miletes (ca. 500 B.C.).' This report is important for the evaluation
of Herodotus' statements about the phoenix. 5 After Herodotus, the
first to mention the 500 years of the phoenix was Ovid; and this
interval was indeed accepted by most of the later authors.6
In Isidore of Seville and the medieval writers who followed him,
the phoenix is said to live more than 500 years. 7 Isidore must have
had in mind the period mentioned by the Roman Senator Manilius,
who wrote at the beginning for the first century B.C.8 and was
1 Aelian, De nat. animal., VI, 58: WAv£u ae AOYLO"TLK'ijt; ol CPOtVLK£t; O"UIL~IXA£LV
ITWV 7t£VTIXKOO"tWV to"IXO"LV cip!..&IL6v, ILIX'&1JTlXl cpuo"£Wt; T'iit; O"WCPWTa.T1)t; IIvTltt;.
B See above, p. 67, n. 3.
3 Herodotus, II, 73, I: KlXl yelp al) KlXl O"7ta.VLOt; e7tLcpoLT~ O"cpL aL' eTEwv, wc;
'HAL07tOALTIXL AEyOUo"L, 7tItVTIXKOO"tWV.
, Porphyry in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. X, 3, 16: see also p. 394, n. I.
6 See p. 401 .
8 Ovid, Metam., XV, 395: Haec ubi quinque suae complevit saecula vitae.
Mela, Chorogr., Ill, 83; Seneca, EPist. Mor., XLII, I; I Clement, 25; Philo-
stratus, Vita Apoll., Ill, 49; Aelianus, De nat. animal., VI, 58; Didascalia,
40; Constit. Apostol., V, 7, 15; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. XVIII, 8 (PG 33,
I025B); Aurelius Victor, De caesaribus, IV, 14; Epiphanius, Ancoratus, 84;
Ambrose, De excessu Iratris, II, 59; idem, Exameron, V, 23, 79; Copt. Sermon
on Mary, 19-20. Lactantius Placidus, Narrat.lab. Ovidian., XV, 37; Aeneas
of Gaza, Theophrastus (PG 85, 980A); Lydus, De mensibus, IV, I I; Hora-
polIo, Hierogl., I, 35; Pseudo-Eustathius, Comm. in Hexaem. (PG 18, 732A);
Greek Physiologus, 7 (also in all the later versions and translations; but see
also the related text on p. 69, n. 6).
7 Isidore, Etymol., XII, 7, 22: quingentis ultra vivens. Repeated in Rabanus
Maurus, De universo, VIII, 6 (PL I l l , 246B); Honorius of Autun, Speculum
Ecclesiae: de paschali die (PL 172, 936A); Pseudo-Hugo of St. Victor, De
bestiis et alUs rebus, I, 49 (PL 177, 48C); Reinerus, De ineptis cuiusdam
Idiotae libellus, (MGH, Scr. XX, 597).
8 Cl. H. Bardon, La litterature latine inconnue, I, Paris, 1952, 177-178,
also Miinzer, Manilius, 4, in RE, 14, I, 1928, 1115.
THE AGE OF THE PHOENIX AND THE GREAT YEAR 69
praised by Pliny as a self-taught man and called by him the first

Roman to have dealt with the phoenix. l Manilius' work has been
lost, but it was the source of much of what Pliny had to say about
the phoenix. According to Pliny, Manilius stated that the bird lived
for 540 years, and this was accepted as a definite fact by Solinus. 2
Some of the Pliny manuscripts mention an age of 560 years, but
this can hardly have been the original reading. 3
According to the Byzantine chronograph er Syncellus, a lost work
of the historian Dexippus (third century A.D.) said that the phoenix
had appeared in Egypt during the rule of the Emperor Claudius,
after a period of 654 -or 650- years. 4 The same period (654 years)
is found in Suidas, who must have taken it from Syncellus. 5 The
calculations underlying these figures cannot be determined, and it
remains possible that errors crept into the tradition.
Besides the current figure of 500 years, a I,ooo-year period was
mentioned more than incidentally. In the Greek literature it is
first encountered in Nonnus, but in the Latin literature as early as
Martial and Pliny.s Derived from Classical sources, this age was
1 Pliny, X, 4: Primus atque diligentissime togatorum de eo prodidit Manilius,

senator We maximis nobilis doctrinis doctore nullo.
2 Pliny, X, 4: vivere annis DXL; Solinus, 33, 12: probatum est qua-
draginta et quingentis eum durare annis; dependent on this is Theodoric, De
mirabilibus mundi, 767-768: vivit quingentis, ut recte creditur, annis / atque
quaterdenis.
3 Cj. the critical apparatus in the edition by Ian-Mayhoff, Il, 219. The
oldest editions of Pliny read 660 years. The medieval scholiast on Persius, I,
46, seems to assume a 600-year lifespan for the phoenix: sexcentesimo anno
colorem habere venetum.
, Dexippus,lrg. 11, in Syncellus, Chronographia, 334c (= Jacoby, FGrH,
IlA, Leiden, 1961, 463): EV 't"OU't"OL~ 't"or~ /(P6VOL~ EcpciV1l 't"0 ISpve:ov 6 cpOrVL~, KCX&6>~
la't"opouo"LV A!yU7t't"LOL, 7tpO t /(v' 8£ ~'t"wv (sic ]acoby; Dindorff, ed. Bonn, 1829,
p. 632: 7tpO /(v8' ~'t"wv) cpcxve:(~, w~ Kcxl 6e~m7to~ aUILCPwve:r.
6 Suidas, Lexicon, s. v. cpOrVL~: E7tl KAcxu8(ou Kcx(acxpo~ EA&e:rV cpcxaL 't"ou't"O 't"or~
A!YU7t't"(OL~ 8La: 't"E:'t"'t"cipwv Kcxl v' Kcxl x' l't"wv.
8 Martial, Epigr., V, 7, 2; Pliny, XXIX, 29; Lactantius, De ave phoenice,
59; Claudian, Phoenix, 27; Ausonius, Epist. XX, 9; Gregory of Tours, De
cursu stellarum ratio, 12; Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XL, 395; John of Gaza, Descr.
tab. mundi, Il, 209; Appendix Physiologi, 25. It is conceivable that Lactantius
chose the IOoo-year period on the basis of his chiliastic convictions, but his
use of this period may not be taken as valid evidence for his authorship of
De ave phoenice, as was done (see p. 7, n. 4) by Riese, 446; Dechent, 49;
Fitzpatrick, 33 and 72; Schuster, Zur Echtheitslrage, 126-128; and Rapi-
also given to the phoenix or closely related birds in the Jewish,

Coptic, Persian, and Turkish literature. l
Immediately after his above-mentioned statement that the 500-
year period was the most widely accepted age reached by the
phoenix, Tacitus says that there are people who claim that 1,461
years elapse between its birth and death. 2 Although Tacitus does
not say so, this figure of 1,461 years must be related to the Egyptian
Sothic period, a cycle which, as has already been demonstrated,
played an important part in scholary investigations from the eigh-
teenth century on. 3 It is certainly a fact that in Hellenistic and
Roman times the phoenix was viewed in Egypt as a symbol of the
Sothic period, and that at that time the Classical phoenix was identi-
fied with the Egyptian benu. 4
In the second and sixth years of his reign, i.e. in A.D. 138/139 and
142/143, Antoninus Pius had coins struck in Egypt showing the
phoenix and carrying the legend Atwv.5 According to Censorinus,
a new Sothic period began in A.D. 139,6 and it has correctly been
assumed that these coins were related to that event.? To this we
may add the fact that the date of the second issue was evidently
chosen because in that year Sirius rose for the last time in the entire
cycle on the first day of the year. 8 This relationship between the
sarda, 43-44; cl· also Walla, 161-162, who also thinks that Lactantius here
referred to Chiliasm.
1 Jewish: BereshitRabbah XIX,S; Coptic: Untitled Gnostic treatise, 170, I
and 11-12; Persian: Farid ud-Din Attar, Mantiq Uttair, 26 (trans. C. S. Nott.
The conference of the birds, London, 1961, 67); Turkish: W. Ousely, The
oriental collections, n, London, 1798, 64.
B For this, see above, p. 67, n. 3.
8 See p. 26-32.
, For this, see also p. 105-109, and 238-246.
6 See pI. VI, 8, 9.
8 Censorinus, De die natali, 21, 10; ... cum aMinc annos centum imperatore
A ntonino Pio I I Bruttio Praesente Romae consulibus idem dies luerit ante diem
XIII Kal. Aug., quo tempore solet canicula in Aegypto lacere exortum. For the
various opinions on the correct date of this commencement, see W. Sont-
heimer, Zeitrechnung, in RE, 2. Reihe, 9. 2, 1967, 2392: most scholars take
the 20th of July, A.D. 139.
7 This view is found in e.g. Ideler, (see p. 28, n. I), 185ff., Ginzel, 1. 187,
Kubitschek, 97. and Vogt, 115.
8 This has been pointed out by K. Sethe. Sethos I und die Erneuerung del'
Hundssternperiode, in zA S, 66, 1931, 3, n. 4.
THE AGE OF THE PHOENIX AND THE GREAT YEAR 7I
phoenix and the Sothic period was also assumed by Aristides in an

oration in which he compared the rarity of the true rhetor with that
of the phoenix. 1 The same comparison occurs in Synesius, who
remarks that those who achieve contemplation by their own ef-
forts are rarer than the phoenix by which the Egyptians measure
eras. 2
Through the relationship of the phoenix with the sun and Sothis
and thus also with the beginning of the year, it could in the derivative
sense also become a symbol of the solar year, which was considered
to start with the rising of the waters of the Nile. In connection with
Aristides' comparison, a scholiast commented that in Egypt the
phoenix was reborn annually,3 thus robbing Aristides' figure of
speech of its point, unless he meant "year" as a long cycle of years.
More probably, however, he was referring to a concept current in
Egypt, since other sources also indicate that in Roman times the
phoenix was related by the Egyptians to the beginning of the year.
Achilles Tatius describes an important festival celebrating the flood-
ing of the Nile, an event heralded a few days earlier by the appear-
ance ofthe phoenix.' Lastly, Horapollo states that the Egyptians in-
dicated the rising of the waters by the figure of a phoenix "because
the phoenix is a symbol of the sun".5 This explanation provides
further confirmation of the relationship between the phoenix and
the beginning of the solar year marked by the rising of the waters
of the Nile. When the same author reports that the Egyptians also
use the figure of a phoenix when they wish to indicate the total
renewal of all things after a long period, he is probably referring to
1 Aristides, Orat., XLV, 107: e:tt; 8& &.yCX7t"ljTWt; Kcxl8e:unpot; if>a7te:p {; 'Iv8LKOt;
/lPVLt; ~v Atyu7tTtOLt; ijAtou 7te:pL680Lt; cpUe:TCXL.
S Synesius, Dio, 9, 3: a7tCXVLWnpov 8& 8l)7tou TO yevot; TWV TOLOUTc.>V IjiU)(WV ~
TO TOU CPOtVLKOt;, <T> Tat; 7te:pL68out; ILe:TpouaLV Aty67tTLOL. A similar comparison in
Themistius, Orat., XXXIII (367C): Kcxl IITL TOUT<j) ~VTU)(e:LV a7tCXVLwTe:pOV Tij)
&.v&pW7t<j) ~ Tij) CPOtVLKL Tij) opve<j), aAeye:L 'Hp68oTOt; {; ILu.s-oypcicpOt; 8'~TWV 7tE:VTCXKO-
atc.>v cpcxtve:a.s-cxL A!YU7tTtoLt; 7te:pl TOV ve:wv ... (deest).
8 Scholiast on Aristides, XLV, 107: cpcxal 8& CXUTOV ~ Aty67tT<j) KCXT' ~VLCXUTOV
e:tt; 7tUpaV KCXTL6vTCX Kcxte:a.s-cxL. For the benu and the New Year, see p. 23.
, Achilles Tatius, Ill, 24-25; ef. R. Merkelbach, Roman und Mysterium,
Miinchen-Berlin, 1962, 129-132 and idem, Isisteste in grieehiseh-romiseher
Zeit, (Beitr. z. klass. Philol., 5), Meisenheim am Glan, 16-17, 31.
6 Horapollo, Hierogl., I, 34: 7tAl)ILILUPCXV 8e, ~7te:L81j ijAL6u ~aTlv {; CPOLVL~ aUIL-
(jOAOV.
the renewal of the Sothic period or, more generally, to the concep-
tion of the Great Year.1
The identification of the age of the phoenix with the duration of
the Sothic period seems to have been a typically Egyptian concep-
tion that also became known outside Egypt. That this conception
was not the only one current in Egypt is evident from the report
by Tzetzes that Chaeremon, who lived in the first century A.D.,
gave the age of the phoenix as 7,006 years in his Hieroglyphica. 2
The highest age mentioned for the phoenix is found in the oldest
Classical work in which reference is made to it. This text-Hesiod,
frg. 304-will be discussed in detail below. It will suffice to note
here that in this fragment the age of the phoenix is put at 972 human
generations. 3
This review indicates that in Classical times the phoenix was
assigned ages of 1,500,540,654 (650), 1,000, 1,461, and 7,006 years
and of 972 human generations: de numero annorum varia traduntur.
Of all these figures, only 1,461 corresponded to an actual astronomi-
cal interval, the Sothic period. This cycle was generally understood
as the Egyptian Great Year.' It is not surprising that this period
has received the most attention in the studies on the phoenix, espe-
cially since several Classical authors explicitly state that the life-
span of the phoenix coincides with the duration of the Great Year.
But closer analysis shows that these authors had a different con-
ception of the Great Year than the one underlying the Sothic period.
To clarify this point, we must first detennine what was actually
understood under the concept of the Great Year in Classical times.
In the Greek world the first distinct mention of the Great Year
was made by Plato, who argued in his Timaeus that time is produced
by the celestial bodies: the moon detennines the month, the sun the
year; but the times of the planets and of the sphere of the fixed stars
1 Horapollo, Hierogl., I1, 57: !X7t'OKIX't'cXa't'lXaLv 8e 7t'oAu)(p6vLOV ~oUA6(J.e:VOL a7j-
(J.'ijVIXL, tpO(VLKIX 't'0 /Spve:OV !:c.lYPlXtpouaLV· £Ke:LVOI; yap /In ye:vVCi't'IXL, !X7t'OKIX't'cXa't'lXaLv
Y(Ve:'t'IXL 7t'PIXY(J.cX't'c.lV.
8 Chaeremon, Hierogl., frg. 3 in Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 395-398 (Jacoby,
FGrH, Ill, C, I, Leiden, 1958, 147): 'ne; 8'6 AtYU7t''t'LOe; te:poYPIX(J.(.LlXnUe;
XIXLp7)(.Lc.lV / ~8e:L~e:v £v 8L8cXY(.LlXaL 't'WV te:pwv YPIX(.L(.LcX't'c.lV, / 6 tpoLvL~ i~ 't'oLe; he:aL
KlXt E7t"t'IXKLaXLA(oLI; / .&v7)aKe:L, 7t'lXplXye:v6(J.e:voe; £v 't'67t'OLI; 'tOLl; AtyU7t''tou.
8 See p. 80, n. 2 for text.
, Cl. Censorinus, De die natali, 18, 10 and 21, 11.
are so great that it can hardly be known whether they are times at
alP In any case, it is clear that the perfect number of time fulfils
the perfect year at the moment at which the sun, the moon, the
planets, and the fixed stars have all completed their courses and
have again reached their starting-point. 2 By this is meant that the
Great Year is completed when the celestial bodies have reached the
same positions in relation to each other as they had at the beginning
of that period. The identical conception is found in Cicero, qualified
by the statement that the actual duration of such a period is a mat-
ter of controversy.s But in his Hortensius, the book which was later
to make such a strong impression on the young Augustine, Cicero
equated the Great Year with 12,954 ordinary years, as we know
from Tacitus and Servius. 4
In addition to these opinions about the Great Year there is
another according to which the sun, the moon, and the five planets
all return at the end of the Great Year to one and the same sign of
the Zodiac, the one under which they were when it began. According
to Censorius, Aristotle himself had put forward this same view, and
preferentially indicated this period as "the Greatest Year". This
year, like the ordinary solar year, was thought to have a summer
1 Plato, Timaeus, 39c.
B Plato, Timaeus, 39d: faTLY 8'/SIL(J)1;; Ou8ey ij't"'t"OY KotTotYO'ijalXL 8UYotTOY 001;; /S ye
TII;)\eOI;; cipr..&ILOI;; Xp6YOU TOY TeAeOY i:YLotUTOY 7L"A'IlPO! T6n, /STotY cX7L"otawY TWY OKTW TeX
7L"POI;; &AA'IlAot <rUIL7L"epoty-Il-eYTot T!XX'Il ax1i KEcpotATJY Tcj) TOU TotUTOU Kott OILO((J)I;; t6YTOl;;
ciYotILETP'll-ll-evTot KUKA<t>.
3 Cicero, De natura deorum, Il, 51-52: magnum annum mathematici nomi-
naverunt, qui tum e/licitur cum solis et lunae et quinque errantium ad eandem
inter se comparationem conlectis omnium spatiis est lacta conversio; quae quam
longa sit magna quaestio est, esse vero certam et delinitam necesse est.
, Tacitus, Dialogus de oratoribus, 16, 7: Nam si, ut Cicero in Hortensio
scribit, is est magnus et verus annus, quo eadem positio caeli siderumque, quae
cum maxime est, rursum existet, isque annus horum quos nos vocamus annorum
duodecim milia nongentos quinquaginta quattuor complectitur ... ; Servius,
Comm. in Verg. Aen., I, 296. The same number is given by Solinus in con-
nection with the phoenix; see p. 75, n. 3. H. Usener, Vergessenes, in RhMPh,
NF, 28, 1873, 392-403 (= idem, Kleine Schrilten, Ill, Leipzig-Berlin, 1914,
11-21) assumed that here Cicero depended on Aristotle. Servius, Comm. in
Verg. Aen., Ill, 289, says that in his De natura deorum, Cicero took the Great
Year at 3,000 ordinary years; perhaps in the lacuna in Ill, 65, cl. A. St.
Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis De natura deorum, Il, Cambridge, (Mass.), 1958,
670, in which many Classical views on the duration of the Great Year are
given.
and winter too, the summer culminating in a world conflagration

and the winter in a world flood. 1 How much of this really goes back
to Aristotle cannot be said with certainty.2 According to Seneca,
Berossus, the Babylonian priest of Bel who wrote in the third cen-
tury B.C., propagated the same doctrine in a more detailed form:
when the sun, the moon, and the planets came to lie in a straight
line under the sign of Cancer, the world would burst into flames; and
if they reached that position under Capricorn, the world would be
inundated. s These rather improbable theories were especially fa-
voured among astrologers, since Greek astronomy had already reach-
ed a point of development at which the doctrines of Berossus could
not be accepted. 4
These texts treating the views of Aristotle and Berossus say that
world catastrophes corresponding to the summer and winter of the
solar year can occur in the course of the Great Year. The period
between two world catastrophes could also be seen as a Great Year,
1 Censorinus, De die natali, 18, 11: Est praeterea annus quem Aristoteles
maximum potius quam magnum appellat, quem solis et lunae vagarumque quin-
que stellarum orbes conliciunt, cum ad idem signum, ubi quondam simulluerent,
una releruntur; cuius anni hiemps summa est cataclysmos, quam nostri dilu-
vionem vocant, aestas autem ecpyrosis, quod est mundi encendium. Nam his
alternis temporibus tum exignescere tum exaquescere videtur.
B V. Rose, Aristotelis Iragmenta, Lipsiae, 1886, 39, Irg. 25, borrows Censo-
rinus' text up to "una referuntur" and also gives Cicero, De natura deorum,
I1, 51, which, however, has a divergent content. Here, Rose followed Usener,
see p. 73, n. 4.
3 Seneca, Nat. Quaest., Ill, 29, I: arsura enim terrena contendit (sc. Beros-
sus), quandoque omnia sidera, quae nunc diversos agunt cursus, in Cancrum
convenerint, sic sub eodem posita vestigio, ut recta linea exire per orbes omnium
possit " inundationem luturam, cum eadem siderum turba in Capricornum con-
venerit. Illic solstitium, hie bruma conlicitur " magnae potentiae signa, quando
in ipsa mutatione anni momenta sunt. This text is given as Irg. 37 in the
edition by P. Schnabel, Berossos und die babylonisch-hellenistische Literatur,
Leipzig-Berlin, 1923, 266-267 and as Irg. 21 in ]acoby, FGrH, Ill, C, I,
Leiden, 1958, 397, who places it with a question mark under (Pseudo)-
Berossus, Chaldaica.
, See for this point J. Bidez, Berose et la grande annee, in Melanges Paul
Fredericq, Brussels, 1904, 9-19; cl. also F. Boll, C. Bezold and W. Gundel,
Sternglaube und Sterndeutung, 5th revised ed. by H. G. Gundel, Darmstadt,
1966,201. For the correspondence between Aristotle and Berossus, see K. F.
Smith, Ages 01 the world, Greek and Roman, in ERE, I, 1908, 199. There
has also been some doubt as to whether Seneca rendered Berossus accurately;
see W. and H. Gundel, Planeten, in RE, 20, 2, 1950,2149.
but only in the derivative sense. The true Great Year, which might
with Aristotle be called the Greatest Year, coincided with a com-
plete cosmic revolution, whether interpreted in the sense of Plato
and Cicero or in that of Aristotle and Berossus.
The Great Year of the Classical world arose from the purely myth-
ical conception of a cosmic periodicity ultimately traceable to
Babylonia. 1 Originally, it had nothing to do with astronomy and
probably as little to do with astrology. It was with the duration of
this Great Year that the age of the phoenix was identified in Classi-
cal times. This is clearly expressed in Pliny's reproduction of Mani-
lius' ideas about the phoenix: the life of the phoenix coincided with
the Great Year, in which the same indications of periods and stellar
constellations recur.2 Solinus adopted this idea literally, but he
seems to have found the span of 540 years accepted by Manilius for
the phoenix and therefore also for the Great Year, rather short.
After saying that it has been proven that the bird lives for 540
years, he remarks a little further on that the authors are convinced
that the life of the phoenix coincides with the Great Year, "although
most of them say that this lasts not 540 but 12,954 years".3 In this
Solinus must have had in mind such authors as Cicero and Tacitus,
who put the duration of the Great Year at 12,954 ordinary years. 4
As the science of astronomy progressed, certain cycles based on
reliable calculations were indicated as Great Years. The eight-year
cycle known in Athens before Meto and the nineteen-year period
1 Cj. B. L. van der Waerden, Das g1'osse JaM und die ewige Wiede1'keh1',
in He1'mes, 80. 1952, 135-143; W. Burkert, Weisheitund Wissenschaft. Studien
zu Pythago1'as, Phi/olaos und Plato, (Erlanger Beitrage zur Sprach- und
Kunstwissenschaft, X), Niimberg, 1962, 293-296. For the origin, develop-
ment, and influence of the idea of the Great Year, see also BoIl et al., o.c.,
200-205. K. Reinhardt, Pa1'menides und die Geschichte de1' g1'iechischen Philo-
sophie, Frankfurt am Main, 2nd ed., 1959, 184, calls this view rather rational-
istic "eine wilde ast1'ologische Phantaste1'ei, alle1' Be1'echnung spottend, nicht
einmal g1'iechischen U1'sp1'ungs, sonde1'n ausgehecht im fe1'nen Babylon und aus-
gegeben fur eine U1'ottenba1'ung Bels".
B Pliny, X, 5: Cum huius alitis vita magni conve1'sionem anni fie1'i P1'odit
idem Manilius ite1'umque significationes tempestatum et side1'um easdem 1'eve1'ti.
8 Solinus, 33, 13: cum huius vita magni anni fie1'i conve1'sionem 1'ata fides
est inter auct01'es : licet plu1'imi e01'um magnum annum non quingentis quad1'a-
ginta, sed duodecim milibus nungentis quinquaginta quattu01' annis consta1'e
dicant.
, See p. 73, n. 4.
introduced by this astronomer in 432 B.C. are examples of this.l

These cycles were intended to provide a correlation between the
lunar month and the solar year. 2 Another astronomically based cy-
cle was the Sothic period, in which the correlation between the
ordinary civil year and the solar year was expressed. 3 It is clear that
these cycles can only be called a Great Year in the derivative sense,
because they have nothing to do with the old concept of a total
cosmic revolution. On these grounds it seems improbable that the
Classical conception of the phoenix as a symbol of the Great Year
developed from the idea, current in later times in Egypt, that the
life of the phoenix coincided with the Sothic period. We have al-
ready discussed the history of this stubborn misconception. 4 In the
following it will be demonstrated that even in the oldest text in
which the phoenix is mentioned-Hesiod, frg. 304-the bird is the
symbol of a specific non-astronomical period and that it was on
this basis that it was related to the Sothic period in Graeco-Roman
Egypt.
2. HESIOD, Frg. 304
In the Classical world several verses attributed to Hesiod were

transmitted concerning the lifespan of the crow, the deer, the raven,
the phoenix, and the Nymphs. In their Greek form these verses are
preserved most completely in Plutarch's De defectu oraculorum. 5 On
1 Actius, De plac. Philos., Il, 32, 2: TOil /le (J.EYIXII evLIXUTOII ot (J.ell tll T'ii
OKTIXET7lpt/lL TL&EIITIXL, ot /le ev T'ii evllEIX KIX! /lEKIXET7lpt/lL.
2 For both periods, see W. Kubitschek, Meto, 2, in RE, 15, 1932, 1360-
1363 and W. Sontheimer, Zeitrechnung, (see p. 70, n. 6), 2456-2457. Re-
markably enough, it was later assumed that in Meto's 19 years long "Great
Year", too, a complete cosmic revolution took place; see Diodorus Siculus,
Bibliotheca, XII, 36, 2: tll /le TOLt; EtP7l(J.EIIOLt; i!TEaL TIX 6iaTplX T~II «7;0KIXTcXaTlXaLII
7;OLELTIXL KIX! KIX&cX7;Ep tllLIXUTOU TLII0t; (J.EycXAOU TOil «IIIXKUKALa(J.OII AIX(J.[)cXIIEL.
9 For this, see p. 26-27.
, See p. 26-32.
6 Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, 11 (415c). Cited throughout from R.
Flaceliere, Plutarque, Sur la disparition des oracles, (Annales de l'Universite
de Lyon, 3eme serie, Lettres, fasc. 14), Paris, 1947. The fragment from
Hesiod is given as frg. 171 by A. Rzach, Hesiodi carmina, Lipsiae, 1902,
382-383 and as frg. 304 by R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, Fragmenta
HESIOD, FRG. 304 77
rather unconvincing grounds, modern scholars have considered this

fragment to be part of Pseudo-Hesiod's Praecepta Chironis.l It will
be shown below, however, that more arguments can be advanced
for the authorship of Hesiod than against it. In the following it is
therefore considered that the author of these verses is the writer of
the Erga and Theogonia, although it remains possible that the text
contains a few later "corrections".
In recent decades it has become increasingly clear that in the
last-mentioned work Hesiod transmitted various old Eastern myth-
ological ideas to the Greek world. 2 This also holds for the frag-
ment concerning the ages reached by the animals and the Nymphs,
which requires thorough discussion here because of its great im-
portance for the elucidation of the early symbolism of the phoenix.
The discussions evoked by the quotation from Hesiodin Plutarch's
dialogue show that an explanation for it was actively sought even
in Classical times. The great difficulty was and still is that the life-
span of the animals and the Nymphs was expressed not in years but
in generations. This is further complicated by a variant reading ex-
plicitly mentioned by Plutarch: one reading gives "generations of
young people" and the other "generations of old people". Because it
is also mentioned that Heraclitus put a generation at 30 years, the
context of Hesiod's passage in Plutarch has received considerable
attention from modern scholars, but an explanation of the fragment
has not yet been given. 3
Because so many different problems must be discussed in re-
lation to this text, it will promote clarity to start with a recapitu-
Hesiodea, Oxonii, 1967, 158-159. A detailed study on the fragment, with no
attempt to elucidate the contents, is found in J. Schwarz, Pseudo-Hesiodeia.
Recherches sur la composition, la diffusion et la disparation ancienne d'oeuvres
attribuees cl Hesiode, Leiden, 1960, 228-244.
1 E.g. Rzach and Schwarz; Merkelbach and West include it among the
"Fragmenta incertae sedis".
2 Ct. references on p. Ill, n. I.
3 K. Reinhardt, Heraclitea, in Hermes, 77, 1942, 234 calls the verses "eine
Priamel, die zugleich ein Rechenexempel und ein Ratsel ist" .. see also references
on p. 90, n. I. The only attempts to analyse the riddle as a whole are found
in W. H. Roscher, Enneadische Studien, in Abh. kOnigl. sachs. Gesellschatt der
Wissenschatten, Philol.-Hist. Klasse, XXVI, I, Leipzig, 1907, 24-27, 41-44
and W. Schulz, Ratsel aus dem hellenischen Kulturkreise, I, Leipzig, 1909,
143, n, Leipzig, 1912, 27.
lation of the discussion in Plutarch and then give the proposed so-
lution to what might be called the riddle of Hesiod. In this way the
various opinions in Plutarch will automatically be explained.
Plutarch wrote De defectu oraculorum around A.D. 100. In this
work he took up a subject that must have been very close to him as
a priest of the Pythian Apollo in Delphi.l The formulation of this
dialogue is unusual in that Plutarch neither takes part in it nor
reports it; both are done by his brother Lamprias.
The main speakers are two holy men who meet by chance at the
temple of Delphi: the grammarian Demetrius, who was travelling
from Britain to his native city of Tarsus, and Cleombrotus of Lace-
daemonia, who had spent considerable time in Egypt. 2 Lamprias
and his two guests, accompanied by Ammonius the Philosopher,
make their way to the hall of the Cnidians, where they are expected. s
On the way, Cleombrotus tells them something about the temple of
Ammon in Egypt, which he had recently visited. When Lamprias
questions him about the famous oracle there, Demetrius brings up
the real subject of this dialogue. He points out that it is not only in
Egypt but also in Greece that the oracles have lost their former glory
and have indeed almost entirely disappeared. He suggests that it
would be useful to inquire into the reason for this general decay, and
for the sake of emphasis enumerates a long list of oracles once re-
nowned and now silent. 4
After they arrive at their destination, the conversation is resumed
and those present join in. Various possible causes for the silence of
the oracles are discussed and discarded. Didymus the Cynic is of the
opinion that the gods have withdrawn from the world and taken the
oracles with them because of the sinful misconduct of man; Am-
monius ascribes it to the sharp decrease in the population: the ora-
cles have been abolished by the gods because there was no longer
anyone to consult them. 5 Lamprias says in answer to a question
1 For further details on De de/ectu oraculorum and the problems it offers,
see the Introduction to the edition by Flaceliere and also K. ZiegJer,
Plutarchos, 2, in RE, 21, I, 1951, 712 (dating) and 832-838.
• De del. orac., 1-2 (409e-410b).
a Ibid., 6 (412d).
, Ibid., 5 (4IId-412d).
& Ibid., 7-8 (412f-414C).
HESIOD, FRG. 304 79
from Cleombrotus that he cannot agree with Ammonius. In his

opinion the deity cannot be held responsible for the decline of the
oracles, which lies in the very nature of the matter, since although
the gods are immortal their gifts to man are not. l
Plutarch then goes on to explain his own opinion, which he puts
in the mouth of the widely travelled Cleombrotus. The latter agrees
with Lamprias, but introduces an entirely new element into the
discussion by pointing to the demons, beings between gods and men,
forming the link between them. The argumentation of Cleombrotus
and the resulting discussion make Chapters 10 to 21 of De defectu
oraculorum an important document for the understanding of the
Classical ideas concerning demons. 2 The discussion also dealt with
frg. 304 from Hesiod at length, because the Nymphs mentioned
there are included among the demons.
Cleombrotus begins by stating that it is not entirely clear whether
the doctrine of the demons originally derived from the Magi, the
disciples of Zoroaster, from Orpheus, from the Egyptians, or from
the Phrygians. He himself thinks that it must have originated among
the last two, because burial and mourning rites play such a large
part in their religions. This comment is clarified a little further on,
when it is explained that the demons are none other than the souls
of the dead. 3
Cleombrotus then points out that in Homer the concept demon is
not yet precisely defined, because he sometimes used the word to
indicate gods. Hesiod was the first to make a clear distinction be-
tween the four classes of rational beings: gods, demons, heroes, and
men. He also postulated, apparently, their transmutation indicating
that the people of the Golden Age were transformed into many good
demons and assigning the demigods to the heroes.' Others, still
1 Ibid., 9 (414c-e).
2 For Plutarch's demonology, see Flaceliere, 53-63 and Ziegler, 838; for
the doctrines of demonology in general, see M. Detienne, La notion de
DAIMON dam le Pythagorisme ancien, (BibliotMque de la Faculte de Philo-
sophie et Lettres de l'Universite de Liege, fasc. CLXV), Paris, 1963.
8 De del. orac., 10 (4I4e-415a); cl. also 38 (43Ib): {mOAct~WV 8' 'AILILOOVLOt;,
OreL yi1p !-n:p6v 'rL 'rOUt; 8ctLILOVctt;, e!Tl:E:V, ~ ljIuxi1t; lS\I't"ctt; Tl:epLTl:OAerV Kct.&' 'HaLo8ov
"7)epct ~aact~out;"; ct· Hesiod, Erga, 125, 255.
, Ibid., 10 (415a-b). For this distinction, see Detienne, 32-42 and the text
on his p. 172-173 ("Pythagoricorum Iragmenta de daemonibus", nrs. 7-16).
according to Cleombrotus, postulate a transmutation for bodies and

souls alike: just as a natural upward movement produces water
from earth, air from water, and fire from air, so the better souls are
transmutated from men into heroes and from them into demons.
Over a long period, a few souls of the demons are so purified by
virtue that they share completely in the divine nature. But it hap-
pens to some souls that they loose mastery over themselves, are de-
graded, and are again clothed with mortal bodies, after which they
lead a dim life, like vapour. 1
According to Cleombrotus, Hesiod also held that after the passage
of certain periods of time demons too die, for he has one of the
Naiads say, with an enigmatic reference to her age; "The cawing
crow lives for nine generations of young [or "old"; see below] men,
but the deer four times longer than the crow; the raven reaches the
age of three deer, but the phoenix of nine ravens; we, however, the
fair-haired Nymphs, daughters of Aegis-bearing Zeus, reach the age
of ten phoenixes."2 Those who misinterpret the word generation
reach a huge number for this period, but they are in error because
here generation must be understood as year. s Thus, the Nymphs
live 9 X 4 X 3 X 9 X 10 = 9,720 years. This is less, says Cleom-
brotus, than most mathematicians, i.e. astronomers, think, but
more than Pindar indicated when he said that the Nymphs "received
from fate the same lifespan as a tree", which is why they also call
themselves Hamadryads. 4 From the reference to the mathematicians
1 Ibid., 10 (415b-c).
a Ibid. 11, (415C): 08' 'Hab80t; oteTIXL KIXl. rcepL680Lt; TLal. Xp6voov ytyvea.&IXL
TO'Lt; 8ottfJ.OaL Tilt; n)"eUTIXt;· )"eyeL yilp £V TCjl T'ijt; NlXt80t; rcpoa~TC(Jl KIXl. TOV Xp6vov
IXLVLTT6fJ.evot; (frg. 304)' "'EvvelX TOL ~~EL YEVEilt; )"IXKepu~1X KOP~Vll, / civ8pwv
ij~~VTOOV (Rzach: YllPIXVTOOV)' !)"IXCPOt; (Flaceliere erroneously: !).1X1ji0t;) 8e TE
TETPIXK6poovot;· / TPE'Lt; 8'eMcpout; 0 K6plX~ YllPIXaKETIXL' lXoTilp 0 CPO'LVL~ / evvelX TOUt;
K6pIXKIXt;· 8eKIX 8'i)fJ.E'Lt; TOUt; CPOtVLKIXt; (Rzach: 8eKIX CPOtvLKIXt; 8e TOL' i)fJ.E'Lt;) / NUfJ.CPIXL
EorcMKIXfJ.OL, KOUPIXL ~LOt; IXLYL6XOLO". For other minor variants and complete or
partial citations of this fragment, see the editions of Rzach, and Merkelbach
and West; also Schwarz, Pseudo-Hesiodeia, 237, n. I.
8 Ibid., 11 (415d): "EaTL yelp eVLlXuT6t;.
, Ibid., 11 (415d): !)"IXTTOV fJ.EV 015 VOfJ.L~OUaLV 01 rco)"),,ol. TWV fJ.1X.&1jfJ.IXTLKWV,
rc)"eov 8'015 IHv8lXpot; EtpllKEV ELrcWV Tilt; NUfJ.cplXt; ~'ijv "La08ev8pou TeKfJ.lXp IXLwVOt;
)"lXxoualXt;" (frg. 165, Schroeder = 184, Turyn) 8LO KIXl. KIX)"E'LV IXUTilt; a.fJ.1X8puIX81Xt;.
For the mortality of the Nymphs, cf. H. Hester, Nymphai, in RE, 17, 1937,
1530; W. Suss, Hamadryaden, in RE, 7, 1912, 2288; L. Bloch, Nymphen,
HESIOD, FRG. 304 81
we can infer that among them the verses of Hesiod were under-
stood as an indication of a given cosmic period, probably the Great
Year.
Demetrius cannot accept Cleombrotus' view and interrupts him
to ask how he can say this when such an age is not reached by either
a young or-as some read-an old man. Then he recapitulates the
interpretations given to both readings: those who read "young"
follow Heraclitus in putting a generation at 30 years, understanding
this as the time elapsed between the moment at which a father
generates a son and that at which the son in his turn does the same
thing.1 Those who read "old" put the generation at I08 years,
because 54 is the highest age at which a man can be at the middle
of his life. 2 Demetrius also tells how the number 54 was arrived at:
it is the sum of the so-called great or double tetractys (I 2 3 + + +
22 + + +
32 23 33), which was also used by Plato in the composition
of the world soul in the Timaeus. 3 He added that the whole passage
was apparently a riddle posed by Hesiod with respect to the ecpyrosis,
which probably means that the Nymphs will cease to exist together
with all liquids.'
It is of importance to point out even here, in anticipation of
the discussion of this point, that the 30 and I08 years in Hesiod
mentioned by Demetrius clearly concern two different interpreta-
tions, the first being what we mean by a generation, the second a
rather artificial maximum human age.
in Roscher, Lexikon, Ill, I, 1897-1902, 423; and H. W. Stoll, Hamadryaden,

in Roscher, Lexikon, I, 2, 1886-1890, 1825-1826. Here, they are included
among the demons, whose mortality is also emphasized several times in the
following chapters of the dialogue; see also Detienne, La notion de DAIMON,
15°-154·
1 Ibid., 11 (415e): 'A).)..' 01 lLeV "~~wv-r6)v" ciVOtYLyvwaKov-ree; lTIj 'rPLcXKOV'rOt
~OLouaL ~v yeveav KOt&' 'HpcXKAeL'rov (t"g. A 19, FV 5, I, 149) iv <T> Xp6v'!> yev-
vwv-rOt ~OtpexeL -rov el; Otu-rou yeyevV1jlL&voV 0 yevv7jaOtt;. For the Heraclitean gener-
ation and the Great Year, see below p. 90, n. I.
a Ibid., 11 (415e): 01 Be "YllPwv-r6)v" ~cXALv, oux "~~wv-r6)v" ypcXcpov-ree; bK'rch
KOtl EKOt'rOV l"t"l) vefLouaL "'ii yeve~· -ra yap ~ev-rljKOv-rOt KOtl 'reaaOtpOt lLeaOU<TIje; /Spov
civ&p6)~(V"lle; ~6)'iie; e!VOtL.
8 Plato, Timaeus, 35b-36b; see also p. 14I.
, De Def. orae., I I (415e-f): KOtl 0 Myoe; /SAoe; ~V(X&OtL BOKeL -r<j> 'HaL6B,!> ~pot; ~v
eK~p6)aLV, O~V(KCX auveKAe(~eLv 'rOLe; UypOLe; dK6e; ea-rL 'rat; NUILCPOte; (follows
quotation of Ilias, XX, 8-9).
6
The ideas stated by Demetrius were evidently rather widely

known, since Cleombrotus answers that he has often heard these
arguments. He scathingly remarks that he sees that the world con-
flagration of the Stoics seizes Hesiod's words and sets them afire as
easily as those of Heraclitus and Orpheus. 1 It seems safe to infer
from the fact that Cleombrotus mentions Orpheus after Heraclitus
that the idea of a generation as 108 (2 X 54) years reported by
Demetrius was considered to have derived from the Orphics.
Cleombrotus rejects this destruction of the world and maintains
that the year, which comprises the beginning and the end "of all that
the seasons bring forth and the earth makes grow", 2 is correctly
called "generation". He asks explicitly whether the others agree
with the view that Hesiod calls a human life a generation, to which
his opponent Demetrius gives an affirmative answer.3 From his
choice of words it is clear that by "generation" Cleombrotus meant
the duration of human life in general. This makes it the more re-
markable that he then nevertheless attempts to show that the word
generation means a year. He points out that the same word is often
used to indicate a measure and the thing measured. We call the
unit, being the smallest measure and the beginning of every number,
a number; and in the same way Hesiod calls the year, which is the
principal measure of man's life, a generation, i.e. by the same word
as that which is measured. 4
It hardly seems likely that the others found this reasoning con-
vincing, but no more is said about it. The argumentation would have
had point only if Hesiod had used the word year and Cleombrotus
had claimed that by it he had actually meant a generation. On the
basis of his reasoning Cleombrotus-and therefore Plutarch-could
never have arrived at the conclusion that generation must be taken
as a year in Hesiod's riddle. One obtains a strong impression that the
relationship was actually the reverse, and that he simply accepted
1 Ibid., 12 (415f-416a): aKOQCI) TIltUT', ltp1j, 1f:OAAWV Kilt/. opw T7jv ~TCI)LK1jV
~K1!:UpCl)(nV Cla1f:ep Tde: 'HpIltKAe(TOU Kilt/. Tde: 'OptpeCl)t; ~1f:LVe(.LO(.L~V l1f:1J olhCl) Kilt/. Tde:
'HaL630u Kilt/. O'Uve~&1f:TOUaIltV.
B Probably cited from Heraclitus, frg. B. 100 (FVS, I, 173).
a Ibid., 12 (416a): Kilt/. yde:p U(.LeLt; O(.LOAoyeLn 3~1f:ou TOV 'Ha(030v av'&pCl)1f:(V7JV
~CI)1jv T7jv yevede:v AeyeLv. 'H yde:p OUX olhCl)t;; ~uvetp1jaev 0 ~1j(.L~TPLOt;.
, Ibid., 12 (416a-b).
HESIOD, FRG. 304
an interpretation from a source he found reliable, but whose original

meaning escaped him. This would explain the weakness of the
arguments by which he attempted to make it acceptable to himself
and others. To support his thesis he finally points to the remarkable
character of the number he has calculated, 9,720; this number is
found by taking the number 40, which is four times the tetractys
(r X 4 + 2 X 4 + 3 X 4 + 4 X 4 or (r + 2 + 3 + 4) X 4), and
multiplying it by 3 five times. l
As if to cut short any further discussion of Hesiod's verses, Cleom-
brotus says that it really makes little difference exactly how long the
demons live. The only important thing is that it can be demonstrated
on the basis of old and unequivocal testimonies that demons truly
exist as beings between the gods and men and that they are subject
to the passions of men and the vicissitudes of fate. All religious acts,
including the most extreme, concern the demons; all the joys and
all the catastrophes that can happen to mankind must be ascribed
to them. Everything told in myths and hymns about the gods has
in reality to do with the activities of the good or the evil demons. For
it is inconceivable that gods would be punished by being driven out
of the divine family, as is told of Apollo, for instance, who after the
killing of the Python in Delphi was banished to Tempe for nine
years to purify himself. 2 The only possible conclusion is that the
genesis, functioning, and decline of the oracles are all to be ascribed
to the demons: if they die, the oracles disappear with them; if they
are banished or depart, the oracles are silenced and only speak again
when the demons return. 3
But Heracleon of Megara cannot resign himself to this conclusion:
he is willing to accept that the demons are responsible for the oracles,
but that they are capable of crimes, can be banished, and can even
ultimately die, seems to him to go too far.' Philip the Historian
comes to the aid of Cleombrotus, however, and as proof that demons
really die he tells the well-known and intriguing story of the death
of the great Pan.o The mortality of the demons seems to have been
1 Ibid., 12 (416b).
I Ibid., 12-14 (416c-417e).
8 Ibid., 15 (417e-418d).
, Ibid., 16 (418d-419a).
5 Ibid., 17 (419a-e).
a difficult point, because Plutarch affirms it once again by having

Demetrius tell about something that had happened to him in
Britain, where there are several islands bearing the names of heroes
and demons. On one of these islands, Cronus lived surrounded by
many demons. In the vicinity of these islands Demetrius had been
overtaken by a heavy storm with violent winds and thunder and
lightning. When the storm had subsided he was told that it had
occurred because one of the higher beings had come to his end: when
the "great souls" are extinguished they cause, like a dying lamp,
much nuisance. l
After a discussion of the opinions of the Stoics, the Epicureans,
and other philosophers about demons, 2 Cleombrotus offers a kind
of divine authorization of his own views by citing an inspired man
he claims to have met on the shores of the Erythrean Sea. This man
showed himself once each year, and spent the rest of the time in
the company of roving Nymphs and demons. He was the most hand-
some man Cleombrotus had ever seen, had never been sick, knew
many languages, and when he spoke filled the air around him with
a delicious fragrance. What this divine hermit had to say about the
demons proves to be a short summarization of the views advanced
by Cleombrotus, with the striking variation that the banishment of
Apollo did not last nine years and was not spent in Tempe: he had
been transported into another world and had remained there for
nine Great Years. s
We have devoted so much space to the passage on the demons in
Plutarch's De defectu oraculum because of its relevance with respect
to our discussion of the phoenix as a symbol of the soul.
From the discussion of the possible interpretations of Hesiod's
riddle in Plutarch, it is evident that in ancient times the word
generation used in it was taken as an indication of I, 30, or 108
years. If we calculate the ages of the animals and of the Nymphs
1 Ibid., 18 (41ge-420a).
I Ibid., 19-20 (420a-e).
8 Ibid., 21 (420e-42Ie), cl. 421C: Tiji 8' !i7t'OK't'ElVa:V't'L (sc 't'OV ,ru'&6>va:) ILlj't'
bJvea: l't'6>V IL7}'t" ett; 't'a T£IL7t'lj yev£O'&a:L ILE't'a 't'oiho TIjv !punY, !ill' ~K7t'E06v't"
~A.&Eiv ett; t!'t'EPOV K6oILOV, ()onpov 8' ~KEi'&ev bJLa:U't'6iV ILEYcXA6>V bJvea: 7t'EPL68oLt;
&yvov yev6ILevov Ka:l Il>oi~ov clAlj.&wt; Ka:'t'EA.&6V't'a: 't'O XPljO't'ijPLOV 7t'a:pa:Aa:~e:iV 't'£c.lt;
I)7t'O 0£ILL80t; !puAa:n6!L£Vov.
HESIOD, FRG. 304 85
with these figures, we arrive at the following: 1

1 generation = I year 30 years 108 years
crow 9 9 X 30 = 270 9 X 108 = 972

deer 36 36 X 30 = 1,080 36 X 108 = 3,888
raven 108 108 X 30 = 3,240 108 X 108 = 11,664
phoenix 972 972 X 30 = 29,160 972 X 108 = 104,976
Nymphs 9,720 9,720 X 30 = 291,600 9,720 X 108 = 1,049,760
This does not bring us much closer to a solution, however, since

of all the ages assigned to the phoenix, none corresponds to 972,
29,160, or 104,976 years. 2 Furthermore, if the lifespan of the
Nymphs was indeed equated with a cosmic period, as Demetrius
argued, there is the further difficulty that none of the many sources
for the duration of such a period mentions 9,720, 291,600, or
1,049,760 years. 3 This raises the question of whether the correct
calculation is to be found among the three possibilities offered by
Plutarch in De defectu oraculorum.
In the ancient world, however, there was still another conception
concerning the duration of a generation, and it seems certain that
this one can lead to the solution of Hesiod's riddle. A scholiast on
Homer's Iliad, IV, 101, who noted all the meanings that the word
"generation" can have, mentions that in Hesiod, frg. 304, it means
a period of 33 years and that in younger poets this word appears
instead of "year".' We have seen that in Plutarch, Cleombrotus
warmly defended the latter view with respect to Hesiod's riddle,
but in this connection the former opinion is more important. It is
based on an old genealogical chronology found in Herodotus and
other authors, in which three generations represent a period of 100
years. 5 Taken strictly, therefore, the scholiast should have said that
1 This calculation is also found in Roscher, Enneadische Studien, (see p. 77,
n. 3), 25·
B See p. 7 2 •
8 For this, see p. 73 and Pease's references mentioned there in n. 4.
, E. Maass, Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem Townleyana, I, (= Scholia
Graeca, ed. Dindorf, V), Oxonii, 1887, 132, 4 (ad Iliadem, IV, 101): YEVEOC
a7l!LELOi ••• AY' 1!T7j civ'&poo'ltoU, "&vVtOC yocp ~OOEL YEVEcX~" ••• Koc16 &VLOCU'rO~ 'ltOCpOC 'roit;
\/EOO'rtPOLt;.
6 Herodotus, 11, 142: YEVEocl yocp 'rpEi~ ci\/3pw\/ ~KOC'rO\/ hEcX ta'rL. The same
view is found in Clement of Alexandria, Strom., I, 136, 4; for Herodotus, see
one generation comprises 331 years, but the use of fractions was
not customary in this system. 1 If we then concur with the scholiast
in applying this interpretation of the word generation to Hesiod,
frg. 304, we reach an age for the crow, for instance, of 300 years. 2
Ausonius too appears to have known that in Hesiod's riddle three
generations could be taken as a unit. In his Griphus ternarii numeri
he says that Nestor lived for three generations and that the crow
lives three times longer. He adds that even if the crow was to live
nine times the period of three generations (i.e. for 27 generations),
the deer would still surpass it by three times the age of Nestor (thus
with a lifespan of 36 generations).3 He was evidently uncertain about
whether the nine human generations of the crow should be taken as
three or as nine periods of three generations, which may be related to
the problem of the reading as "young" or "old" people. It is in any
case highly probable that, like Herodotus, he put the duration of
three generations, in casu the life of Nestor, at 100 years,4 and that
he must therefore have been aware of the same interpretation of
Hesiod's riddle as Homer's commentator.
A lifespan of 300 years is also assumed for the crow in the Birds of
Aristophanes. When Pisthetaerus attempts to persuade the birds
F. Mitchel, Herodotus' use 01 genealogical chronology, in Phoenix, 10, 1956,

48-69 and W. den Boer, Herodot und die Systeme der Chronologie, in Mnemo-
syne, Ser. IV, 20, 1967, 36-40, and idem, Laconian Studies, Amsterdam, 1954,
10,14·
1 See den Boer, Herodot, 36.
2 Similarly calculated by O. Keller, Die antike Tierwelt, 11, Leipzig, 1913,
105 and Gossen, Rabe, in RE, 2. Reihe, I, 1914, 21. Roscher, Enneadische
Studien, (see p. 77, n. 3), 25, n. 37 calls this calculation possible, but prefers
to assume a 40-year generation in Hesiod because that gives for the crow an
attractive total of 360 years (p. 41).
3 Ausonius, Opusc., XXVI, 2,11-17: Ter nova Nestoreos implevit purpura
lusos / et totiens trino cornix vivacior aevo: / quam novies terni glomerantem
saecula tractus / vincunt aeripedes ter terno N estore cervi: / tris quorum aetates
superat Phoebeius oscen, / quem novies senior Gangeticus anteit ales, / ales
cinnameo radiatus tempora nido. For Ausonius' other version of Hesiod, Irg.
304, see below p. 140, n. 4.
4 Cl. Hieronymus, Epist., X, 2 (ed. Labourt, I, 28), in which the old Paul
of Concordia near Aquilea is described in a flattering letter as a second
Nestor: Ecce iam centenarius aetatem circulus voluitur ... oculi puro lumine
vigent, pedes inprimunt certa vestigia, auditus penetrabilis, dentes candidi, vox
canora ...
HESIOD, FRG. 304
to found a Utopia in the air and to take over the places of the gods,
the chorus asks how this will affect mankind, whose lives are measur-
ed by the gods: must they die as small children? The answer is that
the birds, quite to the contrary, will give mankind an additional 300
years. To the question of the source of this gift, Pisthetaerus says
that it will be the birds themselves: "Dost thou not know that the
cawing crow lives for five human generations?" 1 This last is a
quotation evidently intended to clarify the just-mentioned 300
years. It also forms the high point of a carefully built up climax
obviously meant to make the audience laugh. We shall return to this
point; here, it will suffice to observe that Aristophanes too knew
the view that the crow has a lifespan of 300 years. The remarkable
point is that in this oldest reference to Hesiod, frg. 304, mention is
made not of nine but of five human generations. Even an early
scholiast assumed that Aristophanes was in error here. 2 But there is
every reason to assume that he was not in error but rather cited a
version that deviated from the text of Hesiod that has come down
to us. It is striking that his quotation represents a perfect hexameter
and that the question in Plutarch of whether generations of old or
young people are meant, cannot arise. The various problems with
which Hesiod, frg. 304, confronts us can be brought to a satisfactory
solution if we conclude from Aristophanes that in addition to Hesi-
od's version the riddle had another form in which the 300 years of
the crow was expressed as five generations of 60 years. This may be
termed the sexagesimal version.
Besides these two versions there is a third possibility, one which
at first sight may appear rather hypothetical, but which on closer
inspection has surprising implications. The discussion of Hesiod,
frg. 304, in Plutarch has shown that one interpretation of the riddle
was based on the 30 years at which Heraclitus had put the duration
of a generation. We have seen that this gave us but little help. But
1 Aristophanes, Aves, 606-609: XO. IIwl; 3' etl; 'Y1IP!X1; 'Tw't" liql(~OV't'IXL; 1(1X1
'YtXP 't'ou't" !a't" ev 'OAU!L~Cfl. / ~H ~IXLMpL' liv't" Ii~O&vflaKe:LV 3e:L; []1. MtX .M' liAAtX
't'pLIXK6aL' IXlhoLI; / !'t'L ~poa&~aoua' ISpVL&e:1; !'t"1j. XO. ~IXPtX 't'ou; [] I. IIlXptX 't'ou;
~IXP' E:IXU't'WV. / OUK oIa&' II't'L "~ev't" liv3pwv ye:ve:tXl; l;;~e:L AIXKepul;;1X l(Op~V"(.
2 F. Diibner, Scholia in Aristophanem, Parisiis, 1842, 224 (ad Aves, 609):
1(1X1(WI; 1(1X1 't'ou't'o ~IXPtX 't'o 'HaL63e:LoV ~1X(l;;e:L "evvelX ytXp l;;~e:L ye:ve:tXl; AlXl(epul;;1X
l(Op~v.,t·
we arrive at a remarkable result if we take the ages of the animals

and the Nymphs calculated according to the Hesiodic and sexage-
simal versions and express them as Heraclitean generations of 30
years. Applied to the crow, we then obtain 9 X 331 = 5 X 60 =
10 X 30 = 300 years. This is not meant to imply that Heraclitus
knew an independent version of frg. 304 in which the age of the
crow was put at 10 human generations. But we shall attempt to
show that he in all likelihood knew the following calculation of
Hesiod's riddle and that he expressed the resulting values in his
generations of 30 years.
If we repeat our calculation but now for the Hesiodic, the sex-
agesimal, and the "Heraclitean" version, we obtain the following:
Hesiod sexagesimal Heraclitus years
version
crow 9 X 33f = 5 X 60 = 10 X 30 = 3 00
deer 36 X 33f = 20 X 60 = 40 X 30 = 1.200
raven 108 X 33t = 60x60= 120 X 30 = 3. 600
phoenix 97 2 X 33f = 540 X 60 = 1.080 X 30 = 32,400
Nymphs 9.7 20 X 33f = 5.400 X 60 = 10.800 X 30 = 3 2 4. 000
In the discussion of the passage Plutarch devoted to Hesiod, frg.

304, in his De defectu oraculorum, we joined Demetrius in his surprise
that Cleombrotus thought that the word generation as used in
Hesiod's verses actually meant a year.l We found the same inter-
pretation, without reference to Hesiod, in Homer's commentator.2
Cleombrotus expressed the opinion that Nymphs live for 9,720 years
and the phoenix for 972. If we apply the same reasoning to the sex-
agesimal version we obtain for the Nymphs 5.400 and for the phoe-
nix 540 years. But this last is a value we have already encountered:
the Roman senator Manilius said that the phoenix lived for 540
years, which was adopted by Pliny who was followed by Solinus. 3
It might be argued that the suggested connection between the
sexagesimal version and the lifespan given by Manilius for the
phoenix has no real basis but is purely a matter of chance. We shall
see, however, that Manilius provides another datum showing a
1 See p. 82.
2 See p. 85. n. 4.
a See p. 69. n. 2.
HESIOD, FRG. 304 89
distinct relationship with Hesiod's riddle and its original meaning. 1

Those who prefer to see the agreement as chance, leave the ex-
plainable unexplained. We, however, must conclude that the sex-
agesimal version existed and that in this version too the generations
were taken as years. We shall see, further on, how the latter view
was reached. 2 It will suffice here to say that the indicated method
offers the first possibility for the demonstration of a distinct re-
lationship between the intriguing 972 generations of Hesiod and
the 540 years of Manilius.
We can go one step further and formulate the hypothesis that the
500 years assigned to the phoenix by Herodotus, Ovid, and many
others was originally a rounding off of the 540 years mentioned by
Manilius. This must remain a hypothesis, because no strict evi-
dence can be put forward to support it. It is, however, just as proba-
ble as the view that the 500 years represent a rounding off of 487
years, the completely fictitious third of an Egyptian Sothic period. 3
A few remarks are required concerning the third possibility men-
tioned above for the calculation of Hesiod's riddle, in which the ages
found for the animals and the Nymphs were expressed in Heraclitean
generations of 30 years. The 324,000 years of the Nymphs proved
to comprise 10,800 Heraclitean generations. If here too the word
generation is taken as the indication of a year, the lifespan reached
for the Nymphs is 10,800 years. Now, in Censorinus we find the
statement that Heraclitus put the duration of a Great Year at
10,800 years. 4 And it may also be recalled that according to Plutarch
there was a tradition that the lifespan of the Nymphs in Hesiod's
riddle was related to the duration of the cosmic period of the Great
Year. 6 This reasoning reveals a clear relationship between the gener-
ation and the Great Year of Heraclitus, determined by Hesiod, Irg.
1See p. 103-104.
ISee p. 96.
8 See p. 28, 31.
, Heraclitus, trg. A. 13 (FVS, I, 147 = Censorinus, De die natali, 18, II):
hunc ( sc. magnum annum) ... putavit annorum vertentium ... H eraclitus et Linus
XDCCC. Aetius, De plac. philos., Il, 32, 3, however, mentions 18,000 years:
'HPCXKAe:(TOt; tK !LUp(oov 6K..-CXKLaxV.(OOV tvLCXU..-6iV 7)ALCXK6iV (..-ov !Leycxv tvLCXU"-OV e:!VCXL)
which Diels, in Heraclitus, trg. A. 13, changed, following Censorinus, into
!LUp(oov 6KTCXKoa(oov.
6 See p. 80, 81.
go LIFESPAN AND APPEARANCES
304. The usual way of relating the two Heraclitean periods is to as-
sume that he put the Great Year at 360 "days" each representing a
generation, according to the equation I : 360 = 30 : 10,800. 1 It is
quite possible that this relationship was also drawn in the ancient
world, even though no evidence for this is available. If the following
explanation of Hesiod's riddle is correct, however, it must be con-
sidered unlikely that Heraclitus arrived at his duration of the Great
Year by the same route as that assumed, however plausibly, by
modern research scholars. 2
The existence of the sexagesimal version-which is indicated in
Aristophanes and explains the 540 years given for the phoenix by
Manilius-raises the question of whether the origin of the riddle
must not be sought in Mesopotamia, where a system of sixties had
been used from the earliest times. This indeed proves to be the case,
and brings us to the original meaning of Hesiod's verses, to reach
which we must start from a Babylonian conception of the duration
of the Great Year.
Around 280 B.C., the Babylonian Berossus, a priest of Bel, wrote

a work called Babyloniaca, in which he made the history and the
astronomical and astrological science of his own country known to
the Greek world. 3 In the second volume of this work he states
1 Cl. for the Heraclitean generation and the Great Year, K. Reinhardt,
Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechischen Philisophie, 2nd ed., Frankfurt
am Main, 1959, 183-199; H. Frankel, Heraclitus on the notion 01 a generation,
in AJPh, 59, 1938,89-91 (= idem, Wege und Formen fruhgriechischen Den-
kens, 2nd ed., Munich, 1960, 251-252; K. Reinhardt, Heraclitea, in Hermes,
77,1942,228-235 (= idem, Vermiichtnis der Antike, Gottingen, 1960,78-83);
G. S. Kirk, Heraclitus. The cosmic fragments, Cambridge, 1954,294-305, and
the review by G. Vlastos, in AJPh, 76, 1955, 310-313; W. K. C. Guthrie,
A history of Greek Philosophy, I, Cambridge, 1962, 458; M. Marcovich,
Herakleitos, IO, in RE, Supplementband X, 1965, 300-303. B. L. van der
Waerden, Das grosse Jahr und die ewige Wiederkehr, in Hermes, 80, 1952, 142
sees the 10,800 and the 18,000 years as 3 and 5 Babylonian sars, respectively;
Marcovich, 302, seems to have taken the 3 sars as a fixed Babylonian astro-
nomical period, since he mentions van der Waerden's suggestion as an al-
ternative for the equation given by Reinhardt, Kirk and Vlastos.
Z See also p. 133-137.
3 In addition to the references on p. 74, n. 3, 4, for a general discussion of
Berossus see: C. F. Lehmann-Haupt, Berossos, in Real-lexikon der A ssyriologie,
Il, Berlin-Leipzig, 1938, 1-17 and W. Spoerri, Berossus, in Der kleine Pauly,
HESIOD, FRG. 304 91
that before the great flood, ten kings had ruled in Mesopotamia
for 432,000 years. 1 In indicating the various periods of these
reigns he made use of the following Babylonian numerical units:
I sos = 60, I neT = 600, and I saT = 3,600, so that the 432,000
years could be indicated as 120 saTS. That in doing so he was basing
himself on very ancient speculations is shown by two cuneiform
texts in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, usually indicated as
WB 62 and WB 444, dating from about 2000 B.C. According to the
former, ten kings ruled before the flood for 456,000 years, and ac-
cording to the latter, eight kings for 241,200 years. 2
Berossus interpreted the 432,000 years of the period before the
great flood as a Great Year composed of 12 months, each comprising
36,000 years (= 10 saTs). From his chronological system it can be
derived that he thought that from the end of the flood to the death
of Alexander the Great, 36,000 years or one month of the new world
year had elapsed. 3 It follows from this that he assigned a similar
duration (120 saTs) to subsequent world periods. We have already
referred to Seneca's report that according to Berossus the deluge
occurs when all the planets are in the sign of Capricorn and that
the world conflagration begins when this takes place in the sign of
Cancer. 4 On the other hand, there is evidence that Berossus also
mentioned a period about five times longer than his Great Year; but
I, 1964, 1548.
1 Berossus,frg. 29-30 (ed. Schnabel, 261-263 = frg. 3, ed. Jacoby, FGrH,
Ill, C, I, Leiden, 1958, 374-377).
B Cf. e.g. H. Zimmern, Die altbabylonischen vor- (und nach-) sintflutlichen
Konige nach neuen Quellen, in ZDMG, 78 (NF, 3). 1924, 19-35, giving on
p. 26 a clear synopsis of the lists in Berossus, WB 62 and WB 444· WB 444
with additions translated by F. Schmidtke, Der Aufbau der Babylonischen
Chronologie, (= Orbis antiquus, 7), MUnster, 1952, 70-77.
3 See E. Meyer, Das chronologische System des Berossus, in Klio, 3, 1903,
131-134; Lehmann-Haupt, Berossos, 11. The 468,000 years from the creation
up to Alexander are related to the 470,000 years mentioned by Cicero,
De divinatione, I, 19, and the 473,000 years in Diodorus Sic., Il, 31; for
an explanation of these latter numbers, see P. Schnabel, Die Babylonische
Chronologie in Berossos' Babyloniaka, in MVG., 13, 1908, 234-235. Although
with respect to the chronology these studies have long been outdated, it
remains true that Berossus took 36,000 years for this period; cf. Schnabel,
Berossos und die bab.-hell. Lit., (see p. 74, n. 3), 210.
, See p. 74.
there is no evidence indicating that by this he meant a fixed world

period. l
No Babylonian sources are known for the 432,000 years Berossus
gives for the period before the flood. That he did not take them out
of thin air is shown, however, by the fact that the same number of
years plays a part in the Indian system of world cycles: in the Kalpa
system 432,000 years form the shortest period, called the kaliyuga.
One kalpa is divided into 1,000 mahayugas each lasting 4,320,000
years; one mahayuga consists of four periods whose durations
have the ratio 4: 3 : 2 : I. The sequence of the periods therefore
follows according to the Pythagorean tetractys, in which the total
is ten times greater than the shortest period, the kaliyuga, which
therefore comprises 432,000 years. According to a different calcu-
lation, the four-period mahayuga lasts 12,000 "years" each repre-
senting 360 ordinary years, which leads to the same result. 2
The important point is that each individual yuga, like the day,
begins with a dawn and ends with a dusk each occupying a tenth of
the intervening period and which probably originally referred to the
creation and the end of the world. 3 As a result of this concept, the
kaliygula of 432,000 years, for instance, is divided into 12 months of
36,000 years each, of which the first and the last are occupied by
1 Berossus, frg. 1 (ed. Schnabel, 251; ed. jacoby, FGrH, Ill, C, I, 367-368)
mentions a period of 2,150,000 years, given by Schnabel, Die bab. Chron.,
235-240, and Berossos und die bab.-hell. Lit., 175-176, followed by Lehmann-
Haupt, Berossos, 9-10 as 2,160,000 years (= 600 sar) , the creation taking
1,680,000 years and the end of time 12,000, which sounds rather unlikely,
but was accepted by Kubitschek, 65, This question is irrelevant here,
because in this context only the number 432,000 is important.
• See e.g. H. jacoby, Ages of the world (Indian), in ERE, I, 1908, 200-
202; M. Eliade, Le mythe de l'eternel retour, Paris, 1949,169-172; D. Pingree,
Astronomy and astrology in India and Iran, in Isis, 54, 1963, 238, where many
places in the Indian literature are referred to in notes 73-77. Concerning the
age of Berossus' number in the Indian speculations, Pingree says: "It seems
likely that it should have become known as a significant number in India at the
time when other Babylonian influences were being felt, that is, during the Ache-
menid occupation of the Indus Valley". For Berossus and the Indian yuga
system, see also B. L. van der Waerden, Das grosse lahr, (see p. 90, n. I),
140-142, and idem, Die Anfiinge der Astronomie. Erwachende Wissenschaft, Il,
Groningen, 1966, 276-278. A. jeremias, Handbuch der altorientalischen Geis-
teskultur, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1929, 295-305, gives a very dubious discussion of
the Babylonian and Indian Great Years.
3 Cf. Eliade, 170.
HESIOD, FRG. 304 93
the coming into being and the final decline of the world. The agree-
ment with the pattern of Berossus, who also took the Great Year as
12 months of 36,000 years each (IO sars) is so clear that we must
assume that the same conception provided the basis for both sys-
tems.
But it remains a question whether the number 432,000 used by
Berossus was indeed originally related to a period of 12 months of 10
sars each. Several authors have said that the ten Babylonian kings
before the flood, with their average reigns of 43,200 years (= 12 sars),
might have represented IO months of a world year consisting of 12
months of 12 sars each, and that the total world year must thus have
been 518,400 years or 144 sars. On this basis it has been reasoned that
according to Berossus, two more months had to elapse after the
flood before the Great Year would come to an end. 1 But this is ex-
tremely unlikely, because Berossus considered a period to have been
completed with the event of the great flood, as we have seen above.
It is quite possible, however, that originally the 432,000 years of
the 10 kings before the flood were related to the 10 world months
in which the history of mankind took place and which were preceded
and followed by a creation and a destruction period each lasting one
month, as we have seen in the Indian yuga system.
If in addition to formulating this hyposthesis we go on to consider
that the tetractic relationship of the four yugas in the mahayuga was
probably borrowed from Mesopotamia together with the number
432,000,2 it becomes interesting to find out what numbers we ob-
tain if we start with the data of Berossus in the same relationship as
in the Indian yuga system, and then calculate the duration of the
other three periods. If we assume with Berossus that the period before
the flood was the first after the creation of the cosmos,3 we obtain
the following system of world years:
1 H. Zimmem in E. Schrader, Die Keilinschritten und das Alte Testament,

3rd ed., Berlin, 1903. 538; idem, Biblische und babylonische Urgeschichte, in
Der alte Orient, 2, 3, Leipzig, 1903, 29-30; B. Meissner, Babylonien und As-
syrien, Il, Heidelberg, 1925, II8; A. ]eremias, Handbuch, 298, where it is
pointed out that this view was put forward in 1857 by M. von Niebuhr;
Bousset-Gressmann, 502.
2 See p. 92, n. 2.
8 Berossus, trg. 29 (ed. Schnabel, 277; ed. ]acoby, FGrH, Ill, C, I, 375).
Creation + History of + Decline = World Year

(I month) mankind (I month) (12 months)
(10 months)
1. 43,200 (12 say.) + 432,000 (120 say.) + 43,200 (12 say.) = 518,400 (144 say.)
11. 32,400 ( 9 say.) + 324,000 ( 90 say.) + 32,400 ( 9 say.) = 388,800 (108 say.)
111. 21,600 ( 6say.) + 216,000 ( 60 say.) + 21,600 ( 6 say.) = 259,200 ( 72Say.)
IV. 10,800 ( 3 say.) + 108,000 ( 30 say.) + 10,800 ( 3 say.) = 129,600 ( 36 say.)
Total for the four world years: 1,296,000 (360 say)
If we insert the 432,000 years of Berossus into the yuga system

in this way, we obtain such remarkable results that we are compelled
to continue in this direction. The four world periods, which accord-
ing to the tetractys are successively shorter, prove together to form
a Great Year of 360 "days" each comprising I saT or 3, 600 years. It
may be mentioned that the total number of years here is the
same as the number of seconds into which the compass is divided
(60 X 60 X 360). But it is even more interesting that in the above
scheme of world periods we find an unsought connection between
Berossus' 432,000 years and Hesiod's riddle: in the second period
the number of years between the creation and end is 324,000, the
same number we arrived at when we calculated the lifespan of the
Nymphs according to Hesiod. 1 Consequently, it is not excluded that
the 432,000 years of Berossus and the 324,000 years of Hesiod both
originally came from the system of world periods just developed-a
purely arithmetical system having little or nothing to do with astron-
omy or astrology. We need not continue to speak hypothetically,
however, since closer analysis shows that the calculation of the
lifespan of the Nymphs in Hesiod agrees with the calculation of the
second period in the system of world periods described above.
In this second period, the history of mankind occurs within 10
months, each amounting to 9 says, or in 3,600 X 9 X 10 = 324,000
years. In Hesiod's riddle the lifespan of the raven proved to be
calculable at 3,600 years, the phoenix lived nine times longer than
the raven, and the Nymphs ten times as long as the phoenix, which
means that they lived 3,600 X 9 X 10 = 324,000 years. It is an
obvious conclusion that the Nymphs indicate the duration of a
human life in the second period, which followed the great flood of
1 See p. 88.
HESIOD, FRG. 304 95
which Berossus speaks, and that the phoenix symbolizes one month
of this period, the raven being an indication of the largest unit used
in the calculation (I sar), which at the same time, as we have seen,
is equal to the duration of a single day of the four periods forming the
Great Year.
Now that we have come this far, the rest of the riddle can be for
the most part explained. According to Hesiod, the deer lives four
times longer than the crow and the raven three times as long as the
deer, so that the raven lives twelve times longer than the crow. 1 The
lifespan of the raven (3,600 years), which forms the basic period of
the riddle, was evidently both understood and calculated as one
year. Of this year the crow indicates the duration of one month (300
years) and the deer that of one season lasting four months (1,200
years), which is in agreement with the Babylonian and Early Greek
division of the year into three seasons. 2 In this way the factors of the
series of multiplications in Hesiod's riddle (9 - or 5- X 4 X 3 X
9 X IO) can be satisfactorily explained. We furthermore assume that
this fragment originally concerned the second of a cycle of four
world periods, according to the tetractys each being shorter than
the preceding period, as described above.
With this, we have not yet solved all the problems presented
by Hesiod's riddle. But we have arrived at the point at which
the investigation must be put into the hands of the specialist
in the field of Babylonian and Assyrian culture. What would be
particularly valuable to know is the original background and
meaning of the animals and Nymphs mentioned by Hesiod. This
question opens a wide field for speculation into which we shall not
enter except for one aspect of interest for further research. In Baby-
lonia the week had five days, so the month had six weeks and the
year 72.3 A similar division was not unknown in Greece.' Therefore,
the second world period totalling 388,800 years can be divided into
72 weeks of 5,400 years and the IO months in which life is possible
1 See text on p. 80.
2 Cf. Jeremias, Handbuch, 277 and M. P. Nilsson, Primitive time-reckoning,
(Acta soc. hum. litt. Lundensis, I), Lund, 1920, 72.
a Meissner, Bab. und Ass., Il, 396; Jeremias, Handbuch, 277; M. A. Beek,
Atlas van Yiet Tweestromenland, Amsterdam-Brussels, 1960, 150.
, F. BoIl, Hebdomas, in RE, 7, 2, 1912, 2549-2550.
into 60 weeks of 5.400 years. Now, according to the sexagesimal

version the 324,000 years of the Nymphs has to be calculated as
5.400 x 60. The product of the original multiplication factors-
5 (crow) X 4 (deer) X 3 (raven) X 9 (phoenix) X 10 (Nymphs) =
5.4oo-thus gives the duration of a week of the current world
period. One is led to wonder whether the animals and the Nymphs
did not originally symbolize the days of the week. To determine the
duration of one world week, the generation of 60 years in the sex-
agesimal version must be equated with one year.
This recalls Cleombrotus' view in Plutarch that in Hesiod "gener-
ation" actually means "year", which Homer's commentator charac-
terizes as an opinion of younger poets. 1 We shall see further on that
this idea is based on a particular interpretation of Hesiod's riddle,2
but this does not exclude the possibility that its origin might very
well go back to the sexigesimal version. Another influence may have
been that in the sexagesimal system the number 60 was taken as the
larger unit and was therefore also put as 1. In Mesopotamia, where
this numerical system had been in use since the time of the Sume-
rians, the same symbol could be used for I, 60, and 60 D • In Hel-
lenistic times, the sexagesimal numbers were written as units in the
Babylonian, and via them in the Greek, astronomical tables, in
which custom the Babylonians were the most consistent. 3 We still
apply this system in the division of the hour and the degree: I hour
and I degree equal 60 minutes and one minute equals 60 seconds.
Thus, in the Babylonian script the 5 X 60 years of the life of the
crow were noted as 5, and this may later have led to the miscon-
ception that in the riddle a generation is the same as a year.
In summarization of the foregoing we may conclude by saying
that in our opinion Hesiod, frg. 304, refers to the second of a cycle
of four world periods succeeding each other according to the te-
tractys, together forming a Great Year of 360 days each lasting I
1 See p. 85, n. 4.
3 Cl. O. Neugebauer, The exact sciences in Antiquity, Princeton, 1952, 15-
17, also B. L. van der Waerden, El'wachende Wissenschaft (I). Aegyptische,
babylonische und griechische Mathematik, 2nd ed., Basel-Stuttgart, 1966, 60-
67; K. Vogel, Vorgriechische Mathematik, n, (Mathematische Studienhefte,
2), Hannover-Paderborn, 1959, 15-19.
HESIOD, FRG. 304 97
sar. The four world periods themselves are to be seen as Great Years
of 12 months, the first and the last being occupied by the creation
and the end of the world, respectively. In the intervening 10 months,
the history of mankind takes place. These 10 months cover 432,000
years in the first period and 324,000 years in the second period.
Berossus adopted the former number for the duration of the reigns
of the 10 kings before the great flood. In India, where much longer
periods were considered, the same number was taken for the last
and shortest of the four tetractic world periods, the kaliyuga. Both
for Berossus and in India, the original concept became unclear,
because the 432,000 years unit was taken as a Great Year of 12
months. In Hesiod, frg. 304, the original concept is clearly preserv-
ed. The calculation of the age of the raven refers to the basic num-
ber-the Babylonian sar of 3,600 years-which also indicates the
duration of one day of the four-period Great Year. This basic num-
ber, too, was calculated as one year, the age of the crow indicating
one month and that of the deer a season of four months. The phoenix
indicates one month of the second world period, which as we have
seen could be expressed as nine sars: the phoenix lives nine times
longer than the raven. The Nymphs symbolize the 10 months oc-
cupied by the history of man: they live ten times longer than the
phoenix.
The sexagesimal version, with its calculation by powers of 60,
clearly betrays its Mesopotamian origin, and must therefore be the
oldest. The later opinion that the generation in the riddle must be
taken as a year, can be explained most satisfactorily on the basis of
this version. In the Greek world the riddle was made even more
obscure by the changing of the five human generations of the crow
consisting of 60 years each into nine generations of 33! years each.
This implies that in Hesiod's riddle as we find it in Plutarch, the
correct reading is "generations of young people".l
In the following section we shall discuss the question of whether
this explanation of Hesiod, frg. 304, is confirmed or at least support-
ed by other Classical sources.
1 See p. 80, n. 2.
7
3. HESIOD, Frg. 304, THE GREAT YEAR AND THE PHOENIX
In the discussion of the Classical conception of the Great Year it

was mentioned that Plato was the first author to make a clear state-
ment about this cosmic period. 1 He referred to an almost inconceiv-
ably long time, which he could characterize only by saying that at
the completion of such a cosmic revolution the perfect number of
time comprises the perfect year. It remains possible, however, that
in another connection he assigned a specific duration to the Great
Year.
In the eighth book of his Politeia, Plato discusses the question of
how an aristocracy can become degraded into a timocracy, i.e. a
form of government in which ambition is the dominant principle of
the rulers.2 This occurs, he says, because the Guardians will not be
able, by calculation and observation, to determine the appropriate
times for birth. In an extremely difficult passage which has given
rise to many commentaries he then gives the computation of what
is incorrectly called the "nuptial number".3
Plato begins by remarking that for the divine creature there is a
period embraced by a perfect number.' This is reminiscent of his
statement that the duration of the Great Year can be expressed in
a perfect number. For the elucidation of "the divine creature", ref-
erence can be made to the statement in the Timaeus that the De-
miurge himself was only the creator of the fixed stars, the planets,
and the earth. 5 It is therefore probable that the reference in the
1 See p. 72 .
I Plato, Politeia, VIII, 3 (544d-547c).
8 Very important: A. Dies, Le nombre de Platon, essay d'exegese et d'his-
toit'e, (Extr. des Mem. Acad. des Inscr. et Belles-Lettres, XIV), Paris, 1936;
A. Ahlvers, Zahl und Klang bei Platon, Thesis Bern, (Noctes Romanae, 6),
Bern, 1952, 11-20; M. Denkinger, L'enigme du nombre de Platon et la loi des
dispositils de M. Dies, in Rev. Et. Gt'ecques, 68, 1955, 38-76.
, Plato, Politeia, VIII, 3 (546b): "EaTL 3£ .&dc,> IL£II Y&V\l7jTij) m:pL080\: -1)11
clPL'&IL0t; 7t£PLACXILI'IiIl£L TeA£LOt;.
6 Plato, Timaeus, 3ge-40b, cf. 4Ia-d. Denkinger, 40, n. I, has '&e:£OIl Y&V-
\I7lT611 pertain to that which is brought forth by the created gods, i.e. man,
as described in Timaeus, 4la-d, 6gc-d. J. Adams, The Republic 01 Plato, 11,
2nd ed. by D. A. Rees, Cambridge, 1965, 289, takes the 7t£p(080t; of a '&£(011
Y£WllT611 as "the Pet'iod 01 gestation which ends in the bit'th 01 a divine Ct'eatut'e"
HESIOD, FRG. 304, THE GREAT YEAR AND THE PHOENIX 99
Politeia to a period comprising a perfect number as belonging to that

which the deity generates, should be seen as the duration of the com-
plete cosmic revolution of the Great Year.
But for human creatures, says Plato, there is a geometric num-
ber, and this is the one for which he supplies the complex computa-
tion already mentioned. Especially since the research done by Dies
there has been general agreement that this geometric number,
which can be computed in several different ways, is 12,960,000. To
provide the long-sought harmony between the various components
of this passage, it has been assumed that the perfect number of
the divine creature is the same as the whole geometric number
holding for human procreation, the component factors of the geo-
metrical number having special relevance for the latter.1 If this is
valid, it may be concluded that in the Politeia Plato assumed a
duration of 12,960,000 years for the Great Year.
Even if Plato did not mean that the perfect number of the rotation
of that which the deity generates is equal to the geometric number,
it would nevertheless have to be taken as probable that the number
12,960,000 originally pertained to the duration of the Great Year
and that there is a relationship to the concept underlying Hesiod,
frg. 304, since this fragment assumes a cycle of four successive world
eras forming together a Great Year of 1,296,000 years. The Platonic
number-which, incidentally, is a Babylonian sar squared-is thus
ten times Hesiod's value. Plato based the computation of his geo-
metric number on the numbers 3, 4, and 5, the smallest numbers
with which the theorem of Pythagorus can be proved: 12,900,000 =
(3 X 4 X 5 X )4.2 One is immediately struck by the fact that in
the sexagesimal version of the riddle of Hesiod, too, the product of
the numbers 5 (the crow), 4 (the deer), and 3 (the raven) forms the
basic number, which may be an indication of a relationship with
Plato's computation. 3 In this connection attention must also be
drawn to the duration of the Great Year given by Cicero in his lost
(here the world), but it is more likely that this concerns the lifespan of that
which the deity has brought forth.
1 Ahlvers, 19-20, basing himself on 12,960,000 days = 36,000 years.
I Denkinger, 64: Tableau des solutions de l'enigme du Nombre.
8 Denkinger, 66-67, has pointed out that Plato combined several existing
calculations.
Hortensius, which is 12,954 years. l It seems likely that this number

is a variant of 12,960, although it is not clear exactly how it was
obtained. 2
Thus, the Platonic number is ten times that of Hesiod and a
thousand times that given by Cicero as the duration of the Great
Year. This makes it highly probable that Plato's number is also or
was originally related to the duration of the great cosmic cycle, and
that there must in some way or other be a close connection between
the numbers 12,960,000; 1,296,000; and 12,954. 3
Hesiod's riddle assumes a system of four world periods, each
comprising a year of twelve months of which the first and the last
are occupied by the creation and the destruction of the world, respec-
tively. The equal world periods of Berossus end alternately in a
world inundation and a world conflagration, the former when all the
planets are in the sign of the Capricorn, the latter when they are all
in the sign of Cancer.' We have already pointed out that this astro-
1 See p. 73.
Z C. F Lehmann (-Haupt), Zwei Hauptprobleme der altorientalisehen Chro-
nologie und ihre Losung, Leipzig, 1898, 196 (= 195, n. 2) had already assumed
that 12,954 must be taken as a rectification of 12,960, which had been ob-
tained by more exact calculations, but here he himself introduced an arith-
metic error (the difference of 6 years in 12,960 years would amount to
1/1,296th of a year annually). A. Blosse, Die ehronologisehe Systeme im A.T.
und bei Josephus, in MVG., 13, 2, 1908, 124, n. 12 (cl. II2), pointed out
that the difference per year amounts to 4 hours or 1/2,160th of a year. The
12,960 can be taken as 12,954 years composed of 360 1/6 days; it is also
possible that for some reason the factor 60 was calculated more exactly, as
a result of which 216 X 60 = 12,960 has to be written as 216 X 59 35/36.
Lehmann, o.e., 196 has pointed to the cycle of 59 years which according to
ACtius, De plato phil., Il, 32, 2, was taken by Oenopides and Pythagoras for
the duration of the Great Year and which may be supposed originally to
have been related to a 60 year period.
S The relationship of these numbers can be conceived in various ways.
A Great Year of 12,960,000 years composed of four tetractically successive
world periods of which the last is again divided into four similar periods
(Hesiod), can be extended until one arrives at the 12,960 years taken by
Cicero. It is conceivable that the 1,296,000 years of Hesiod were taken as
one month of the world year, of which the Platonic period would indicate
the 10 months of the history of mankind. It is also possible that the 12,960
years of Cicero were obtained by dividing Plato's period into 1,000 equal
parts, as is also the case for the Indian Kalpa (see p. 92).
, See p. 74. The relationship between the data in Berossus and in the
Indian speculations on the yuga system is clearly evident from the later
logical view of the end of the world is based on the rather obvious
idea that the Great Year, like the ordinary solar year, has its summer
and its winter, which according to Censorinus was even mentioned
by Aristotle. 1 Plato did not relate the world flood and world con-
flagration to specific, actually impossible, stellar constellations. He
ascribes the world conflagration to a disastrous deviation of the
celestial bodies from their fixed courses. 2 And he does not state any-
where that these world catastrophes mark the termination of the
Great Year.
The Pre-Socratics held the view that human life is periodically de-
stroyed by a total flooding and a total desiccation of the earth. This
may even be implicit in Anaximander's doctrine of the drying up of
the world. 3 In any case, we find this concept clearly expressed in
Philolaus, who knew two destructions of the world: one by fire
pouring from the sky, the other by water from the moon, released
by an inversion of the air; the vapours rising from the earth provide
the cosmos with food. 4 We must not visualize this as a sudden
Indian conception that the transition from the last yuga to the first of a
new cycle occurs when the sun, the moon, Jupiter, and a star coincide in the
sign of Cancer; cf. Reitzenstein in R. Reitzenstein and H. H. Schaeder,
Studien zum antiken Synkretismus aus Iran und Griechenland, (Studien der
Bibliothek Warburg, VII), Darmstadt, 1965 (reprint = Leipzig-Berlin,
1927), 55, n. I, 56.
1 See p. 73-74.
I Plato, Timaeus, 22d, cl. Leges, 6na-c. In Plato the world catastrophes
never lead to the complete destruction of the human race. Berossus himself,
in his report on the Babylonian flood, makes no mention of the planets
coinciding in the sign of the Capricorn; cf. frg. 34 (ed. Schnabel, 264-266 =
frg. 4, ed. Jacoby, FGrH, Ill, C, 1,378).
a Anaximander, Irg. A. 27 (FVS, I, 88), cl. Ch. H. Kahn, Anaximander
and the origins 01 Greek cosmology, New York, 1960, 185. For the world
periods of Empedocles, see U. H6lscher, Weltzeitalter und Lebenszyklus. Eine
Nachprulung der Empedokles-Doxographie, in Hermes, 93, 1965, 7-33, and
for a conflicting opinion D. O'Brien, Empedocles' cosmic cycle, in The Class.
Quarterly, NS, 17, 1967, 28-40, and idem, Empedocles' cosmic cycle. A re-
construction from the Iragments and secondary sources, Cambridge, 1969; also
G. A. Seeck, Empedokles, B. I7, 9-I3, (= 26, 8-I2), B. 8, B. IOO bei Aristo-
teles, in Hermes, 95, 1967, 30-36.
, Philolaus, Irg. A. 18 (FVS, I, 404 = AE!tius, De plac. philos., II, 5, 3):
q>. 3~='lv e:tvcx~ -rljv qI.&opav Toii K6alLou, TO 1L&v ~~ oupotvoii mlPO~ pUMO~, TO 3& ~~
G3CXTO~ ae:Aljv~cxKOii, m:pLaTp0ql'ii Toii cUpo~ cX7tO)(U.&~VTO~· Kcxl TOUTWV E!VCXL d;~ cXVot-
.&uILLcXae:L~ 't'pOqliX:~ 't'oii K6alLou. Cl. W. Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschalt,
295,
n. 108. According to Tzetzes, Chiliad., X, 534ff., XII, 219ff. and 283ff., Meto,
catastrophe but rather as a slow drying up of the earth until life

is no longer possible, followed by a gradual moistening of the earth
until it finally drowns in water. Philolaus assumed an unceasing
rising and sinking movement of the air and of the accompanying
moisture present in the cosmos. Due to the heat of the sun, "the fire
that pours from the sky", the water on earth evaporates and the
ascending vapours, which form the food of the cosmos, 1 rise to-
gether to the moon. When the earth is completely dried out and life
has come to an end, the process is reversed, and by the opposite
movement of the air the earth is gradually moistened until life
revives. It is clear that this conception derives from the observation
of the sun's capacity to cause evaporation and of the falling of the
dew on clear moonlit nights. In his system Philolaus evokes a mag-
nificant vision of the course of the cosmos in which the immensely
long world periods succeed each other as the night the day.
This conception is highly consistent with the idea that one month
of the world year is needed for the creation and one month for the
destruction of the world. This makes it probable that the four world
eras of the Great Year assumed by the riddle of Hesiod were, in the
original conception, alternately ended by flooding and drying up
of the world. The first period of which Berossus speaks was ter-
minated by a world flood, from which it follows that the second
period referred to in Hesiod, Irg. 304, would have to end in "fire". In
Plutarch's discussion on the riddle, Demetrius holds the opinion
that it concerned the ecpyrosis. 2 There is no objection whatever to
the assumption that here Plutarch has preserved rather accurately
an original element of the meaning of the riddle. It is true that Cleom-
brotus rejected this view as a Stoic interpretation, but we need not
think here of the cosmic ecpyrosis of the Stoa but rather of the slow
drying up of the earth of the Pre-Socratics. This is indeed assumed in
Demetrius' view: the Nymphs, who in our construction symbolize
the astronomer, also taught a periodic destruction of the world; cl. for the
reliability of this report Burkert, 293, n. 94.
1 According to Aetius, De plac. philos., 11, 17, 4, this was taught as early
as by Heraclitus, cl. FV s, I, 146, and later especially by the Stoics, cl. J. von
Arnim, Stoicorum veterum Iragmenta, 11, Lipsiae, 1913, 196-201, passim, and
below, p. 338-339.
2 See p. 81, n. 4.
HESIOD, FRG. 304, THE GREAT YEAR AND THE PHOENIX IQ3
life on earth, would cease to exist along with the water.

In Hesiod, frg. 304, the phoenix represents one month of the sec-
ond world period with a duration of 32,400 years. This number can
be calculated according to the sexagesimal version as 540 X 60. We
have already seen that according to Manilius the age of the phoenix
is 540 years, because in the sexagesimal version, too, the generation
(60 years) was taken as one year. 1 That the 540 years of the phoenix
in Manilius were certainly determined by Hesiod's riddle, is addi-
tionally evident from the fact that the conception of the phoenix as
symbol of a world month can also be inferred from his report.
To clarify this point we must start with Manilius' view that the
phoenix is a symbol of the Great Year, even though this at first
sight seems to contradict the foregoing. We have already pointed
out that Manilius had the lifespan of the phoenix coincide with a
complete cosmic revolution. 2 But to this he added some interesting
information, since he says that the Great Year starts around noon
of the day on which the sun enters the sign of the Ram. This date is
also indicated as the beginning of the Great Year by other authors:
it is the first day of spring.s At the same time, Manilius says that
when he wrote his work, during the consulate of P. Licinius and Cn.
Comelius, i.e. in 97 B.C., 215 ordinary years of the current Great
Year had elapsed. 4 This implies that he took the beginning of the
Great Year as 312 B.C., at the beginning of the Seleucid Era. s This
statement leads to several interesting conclusions.
Seleucus I, who had gained control of the satrapy of Babylonia in
321 but was forced to flee to Egypt in 316 B.C., finally re-established
1 See p. 89.
B See p. 75.
3 The sun enters the sign of the Ram on the 17th of March according to
the Julian calendar; cl. Ginzel, 11, 281. The Greeks rather generally placed
the day and night equinox of spring on the 1° of the Ram; Eudoxus and
Meto shifted it to the 8°, in which they were followed by Caesar (24th of
March); cl. Ginzel, 11, 420-421, 282. See also Norden, Die Geburt des Kindes,
Darmstadt, 1958, (reprint = Stuttgart, 1924), 16.
4 Pliny, X, 5: Hoc autem circa meridiem incipere quo die signum arietis sol
intravit, et luisse eius conversionis annum prodente se P. Licinio Cn. Cornelio
Cos. CCXV. For the year 97 B.C., see E. Manni, Fasti ellenistici e romani,
323-3I a.C., (Suppl. a "Kokalos", I), Palermo, 1961, 105.
6 For this, see Ginzel, I, 136-137, Ill, 40-42, and Kubitschek, 70-73.
himself in Babylonia in 312.1 It is probable that in Babylon the

new ruler was lauded as the inaugurator of a new era and that it
was said that with him a new month of the world year had begun,
marked by an appearance of the phoenix. This is shown by the fol-
lowing evidence.
We have seen that Berossus equated the period from the great
flood to the death of Alexander the Great with one month of the
second world year. 2 He dedicated his work to the second Seleucid,
Antiochus 1,3 and it is therefore obvious that his text would contain
elements flattering the Seleucids. It is safe to assume that one of
these elements was that the commencement of their dynasty opened
a new world period, i.e. a new month of the world year, in which he
seems to have included the ten turbulent years after the death of
Alexander as belonging to the period of the Seleucids. This is con-
firmed by Manilius' report that the beginning of the Seleucid. Era
was marked by an appearance of the phoenix, whose age, according
to our explanation of Hesiod, frg. 304, coincides with the duration
of one world month. It is clear that we are concerned with identical
conceptions in the reports of Berossus and Manilius.
It follows from all this that the meaning of the phoenix in He-
siod's riddle was known in Babylonia at the beginning of the Seleucid
Era: the bird symbolized the commencement of a new world month.
It is clear from the 540 years given by Manilius for the phoenix
that this was the sexagesimal version of the riddle, which is hardly
surprising in view of its Babylonian origin. Therefore, Manilius
must have taken his data from an Oriental-Hellenistic source. It
need hardly be said that this represents a powerful argument for
the validity of the elucidation of Hesiod, frg. 304 given above.
The appearance of the phoenix at the beginning of the Seleucid
Era, coincided with the appearance of a new ruler and with the
beginning of a new era. As far as we know, this was the first time
1 For the events of this period, see e.g. W. W. Tarn, in The Cambridge
ancient history, VI, Cambridge, 1927, 480-489.
I See p. 91. Lehmann (-Haupt), Zwei Hauptprobleme, (see p. 100, n.2),
105-108 assumed that by Alexander, Berossus meant his posthumous son
Alexander IV of Macedonia.
8 Berossus, frg. 51 (ed. Schnabel, 273 = Test. 2 (cf. frg. 8b), ed. jacoby,
FGrH, Il, C, I, 364-365).
that a relationship was drawn between the phoenix and these events.
Later, both aspects of the symbolism of the phoenix, linked together
to a variable degree, are encountered repeatedly, although it is no
longer evident that there was any awareness of the original con-
nection with Hesiod's riddle. We must go into these cases in some
detail, because they show how the phoenix could become a symbol
of the Great Year itself.
The appearance of a new ruler on the scene and the beginning of a
new era were seen as a return to the Golden Age, the fortunate state
of things that had prevailed at the beginning of the Great Year. This
is clearly shown by the symbolism of the phoenix on a number of
coins of Roman emperors. In this connection we need point only to
the coins struck for Hadrian in A.D. 121/122, the reverse bearing the
legend Saeculum aureum. The idea of the cosmic rotation of the
Great Year is suggested by the representation of the Zodiac, within
which is placed the figure of Aion holding in his hand a globe sur-
mounted by the phoenix. 1 We may also mention here the coins of
Antoninus Pius from the second and sixth years of his rule, the re-
verse bearing a representation of the phoenix with the legend
At6>v. 2 In this case the idea of the return to the Golden Age again
plays a role, here in a double sense, determined on the one hand by the
inauguration of the new emperor and on the other by the renewal
of the Sothic period in A.D. 139. 3
Within this closely woven complex of ideas the phoenix, which in
Hesiod and in the time of Seleucus I still indicated the period of one
month of the world year, became as a matter of course a symbol of
the Great Year. This is why Manilius, whose report shows a distinct
relation to Hesiod's riddle, could write that the life of the phoenix
coincides with a complete cosmic rotation.
These interrelated concepts also explain how the phoenix could
become a symbol of the Sothic period in Egypt. That the phoenix
was related with this period in Graeco-Roman times is beyond any
1 See pI. VI, 3. The correct explanation of this coin is given by D. Levi,
A ion, in Hisperia, 13, 1944, 287-295; cf. also J. Beaujeu, La religion romaine cl
I'apogee de l'Empire, I: La politique re/igieuse des Antonins (96-I9Z), Paris,
1955, 152-157.
I See pI. VI, 8, 9.
8 See p. 70 •
I06 LIFESPAN AND APPEARANCES
doubt: the texts are unequivocally clear on this point, and we shall
see later that it is also evident from the iconography of the bird in
Egypt.! We have already pointed out that indications of this con-
ception can be found in the old Egyptian ideas concerning the benu. 2
Each New Year's day was seen as a return to the beginning, a re-
presentation of the primeval act of the Creation. In the beginning the
benu had mounted the hill of earth projecting above the primeval
waters; and therefore this bird, as incarnation of the deity of crea-
tion and of the sun, could also play a role in the mythical concep-
tions of the commencement of the year. In ancient Egypt the benu
was never brought into relation with the Sothic period. It may be
assumed, however, that the conceptions attached to the first day of
the new year came to hold even more strongly for the beginning of
the Sothic period: it signified the return to the beginning of the
world, a new creation.
Because of the parallelism between the Greek and Egyptian con-
ceptions on this point, it was virtually inevitable that the phoenix
would become a symbol of the Sothic period and that this bird
would be identified with its beginning. Like other purely astronom-
ical cycles, that of Sothis was regarded as a Great Year, although
actually in a derivative sense. s The original mythic conception of
the Great Year, with the return to the beginning of the world and
the renewal of all things, was also transferred to this astronomical
Great Year. In the way just indicated, the phoenix became a sym-
bol of the Great Year, the inaugurator of a new era. It would indeed
have been remarkable if in Hellenistic Egypt, on the basis of all
this, its appearance had not been connected with the beginning of
the Sothic period.
This connection was perhaps first made under Ptolemy III Euer-
getes (246-221 B.C.), in the ninth year of whose reign (238) the well-
known Decree of Canopus was issued at a large gathering of Egyptian
priests. In this document the salutary rule of Ptolemy III was
praised to the skies and a number of measures intended to extend
the divine worship of this ruler and his spouse were announced. At
1 See p. 23 8-2 46.
Z See p. 22-24.
3 See p. 70, 76.
the same time, however, it represented an attempt to reform the

calendar, because the ordinary civil year had advanced so far beyond
the solar year that typically summer festivals fell during the winter.
It was therefore decided that every four years a sixth day would be
added to the five intercalated days, as a leap-day, and to have New
Year's day thenceforth coincide with the ascension of Sirius on the
first of the month of Payni.1
The Decree of Canopus was clearly intended to inaugurate a new era
but the success of this calendar reform does not seem to have been
great. 2 It is in this light that we must read the so far unexplained
report of Tacitus that the phoenix appeared in the time of Ptolemy
IlLs Evidently, an attempt was made to add authority to the new
calendar by invoking an appearance of the phoenix, the herald of a
new era. It is not impossible that in this case the example of the
appearance of the phoenix at the beginning of the Seleucid Era
served as inspiration.
The calendar of Canopus was not viable because it required the
celebration of all the most ancient religious festivals on new dates.
From the polemics against the proposed reform it is perhaps possible
to explain another point in Tacitus, i.e. that the phoenix first ap-
peared in Egypt in the time of King Sesosis. 4 It has often been as-
sumed that this referred to Sethos I (ca. 1300 B.C.).6 It is true that
a few years before this ruler came into power, the Sothic period
began that, according to Censorinus, terminated in A.D. 139. 6 AI-
1 See H. Volkmann, Ptolemaios III Euergetes, in RE, 23, 2,1959,1674-1676

and R. Boker, Zeitrecnnung, I. JJ.gypten, in RE, 2. Reihe, 9, 2, 1967. 2417-2418.
I Volkmann, 1675, Boker, 2418.
B Tacitus, Ann .• VI, 28: ... prioresque alites Sesoside primum, post A maside
dominantibus, dein Ptolemaeo, qui ex Macedonibus tertius regnavit, in civita-
tem, cui Heliopolis nomen, advolavisse.
, See n. 3.
6 E.g. Koestermann, Annalen, 11, 307; H. Kees, Sesostris, in RE, 2.
Reihe, 2, 1921, 1861, takes Sesosis in Tacitus as Sesostris.
8 K. Sethe, Sethos I und die Erneuerung der Hundssternperiode, in ZA S,
66, 1931, 1-7 saw in several inscriptions of this king a distinct reference to
the start of a new Sothic period, but this view has proved to be almost
certainly incorrect; et. E. Drioton and J. Vandier, Les peuples de l'Orient
miditerraneen, 11, L'Egypte, 4. M., Paris, 1962, 386, and especially J. Cerny,
Note on the supposed beginning ot a Sothic period under Sethos I, in Journ. ot
though Egyptologists do not agree on the exact date of this event

and of the related rule of Sethos I, the date is not of great impor-
tance in this connection. From Tacitus it can be inferred that in
Hellenistic times, when the exact duration of the Sothic period had
finally been determined, an attempt was made to date the beginning
of the current cycle in Egyptian history. In view of the results of
modem research, this attempt was rather successful. It was assumed
that the phoenix had appeared around the time of the recommence-
ment of the Sothic period during the rule of Sethos I, and this may
have been done in deliberate opposition to the calendar of Canopus:
if the bird had indeed shown itself at the beginning of the then cur-
rent period, its appearance in 238 B.C. must have been contrived,
because at that time the required number of years for its reappear-
ance was far from being fulfilled.
Tacitus mentions still a third appearance of the phoenix, one
which must also derive from Egyptian traditions; he says that the
bird showed itself in the time of King Amasis (569-526 B.C.).l There
is no evidence whatever that in this case the phoenix served as a
symbol of the Sothic period. Its appearance was placed not only
at the beginning of a new era but also sometimes at the end of the
preceding period. The symbolic significance of these two conceptions
differs only slightly; we shall discuss it further in the following
section. The death of Amasis meant the end of Egyptian indepen-
dence, which became a fact six months later when the country fell
to the Persians. It is therefore understandable that it was later
thought that an event of such proportions must have been marked
by an appearance of the phoenix.
The conclusion to which these considerations lead us is the op-
posite of current opinion. The phoenix was not, from ancient times
onward, a symbol of the Sothic period in Egypt and did not on this
basis become a symbol of the Great Year and of a new era in the
Classical world; from the very beginning it was seen in Greece
Eg. Arch., 47, 1961. 150-152. and E. Homung. Untersuchungen zur Chrono-
logie und Geschichte des Neuen Reiches. (.Agyptologische Abhandlungen. 11),
Wiesbaden. 1964. 17. Drioton and Vandier. 354. give the dates of the reign
of Sethos I as 1312-1298 B.C.; Homung. 108. gives 1306/1300-1290 as certain
dates and the beginning of 1304-2.6.1290 as the most likely.
1 See p. 107. n. 3.
HESIOD, FRG. 304, THE GREAT YEAR AND THE PHOENIX l09
rather as the inaugurator of a new period in history or of the Great

Year itself and was on this basis associated in the Hellenistic world
with the Sothic period. This is why it could be said to have appeared
during the time of King Amasis even though a Sothic period did not
begin during his reign. The Egyptian hierogrammateus Chaeremon
(first century A.D.), too, did not relate the age of the phoenix to
the duration of the Sothic period. According to Tzetzes, Chaeremon
put the lifespan of the phoenix at 7,006 years.1 It is possible that
Tzetzes did not transmit Chaeremon's text accurately, and it has
therefore been assumed that this number is related to the 7,777
years which, according to Aetius, some assigned to the Great Year.2
The difficulty is, however, that Aetius too is not always reliable, so
that we may speculate about the original form of this number and
the calculation on which it was based but cannot draw any certain
conclusions about it. 3
In this section an attempt has been made to show that arguments
can be put forward in support of our elucidation of Hesiod,lrg. 304,
on the basis of other Classical texts. According to our explanation,
in Hesiod the age of the phoenix indicated the duration of a world
month, which, as Manilius conveys, was still known at the beginning
of the Seleucid Era. This led to a new evaluation of the idea that
the phoenix was a symbol of the Great Year. Although we shall
present, in a later section, an interpretation we believe was given
of the riddle of Hesiod in Classical times, it will be appropriate here
to make a few remarks on the question of whether Hesiod was in-
deed the author of the fragment under discussion.
We have seen that these verses contain the calculation of the du-
1 Chaeremon, Hieroglyphica, Irg. 3 in Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 395-398, (ed.

Jacoby, FGrH, Ill, C, I, 147); see p. 72, n. 2.
I Sbordone, La lenice, 46, cl. Aetius, De plac. philos., Il, 32, 5: ..AlloL 8e
8La: ~7t't'(xKLO'lCLA(CJ)\I ~7tT(xKOO'(CJ)\I ~~80!LijKO\lT(x ~7t't'ci.
3 It may be assumed that the figures 7,006 and 7,777 both go back origi-
nally to 7,776. According to our explanation of Hesiod,lrg. 304, the phoenix
there indicates a month of the world year; 7,776 may have been arrived at
ey taking, for obscure reasons, the "generation" in Hesiod's riddle as a period
of 8 years (972 X 8 = 7,776); 7,776 may also have been taken as the du-
ration of a world month with 6 weeks, each lasting 1,296 years; another
possibility is that a Great Year was taken as consisting of 72 weeks, each
lasting 108 years.
ration ofthe second of a cycle of four world eras diminishing in length

according to the tetractys and which together form a Great Year of
360 Babylonian sars. This immediately recalls the celebrated passage
in Hesiod's Erga concerning the five world periods of the gold, the
silver, the bronze, the Heroic, and lastly the iron generation to
which the poet, to his sorrow, belongs. 1 It has been remarked often
enough that a generation of Heroes is hardly consistent in this series,
however essential a component it was for Hesiod himself.2 It is
know with certainty that this myth originally included only four world
periods characterized by metals, each successive period being morally
worse, and life becoming increasingly difficult and shorter from one
to the other. The question of whether Oriental influences were in-
volved here is highly controversial. Reitzenstein in particular has
argued connections between the four periods (and the metals belong-
ing to them) and the Indian yuga system as well as with the related
conceptions in the Persian Bahman-Yast and in Daniel ii. 31-45.
There has, however, been considerable objection to his views, both
because of their All-Iranian tendencies and because of the fact that
he based himself on sources dating from times many centuries after
the work of Hesiod. S
This entire problem has entered a new phase, because it is now
1 Hesiod, Erga, 109-201.

2 See e.g. J. Kerschensteiner, Zu Aulbau und Gedankenluhrung von Hesiods
Erga, in Hermes, 79, 1944, 166-172; Th. G. Rosenmeyer, Hesiod and historio-
graphy, in Hermes, 85, 1957, 257-285 (now also in a German translation in
Hesiod, ed. by E. Heitsch, (Wege der Forschung, XLIV), Darmstadt, 1966,
602-648); A. Lesky, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, 2nd ed., Bern-
Munich, 1963, 121-122 and especially J.-P. Vernant, Le mythe hCsiodique des
races, in RHR, 79 (157), 1960, 21-54; also e.g. H. C. Baldry, Who invented
the Golden Age?, in Class. Quaterly, 46, 1952, 83-92; J. Gwyn Griffith, Archae-
ology and Hesiod's live ages, in Journ. 01 the hist. 01 ideas, 17, 1956, 109-I19;
and in contradiction H. C. Baldry, Hesiod's jive ages, ibidem, 553-554; see
also the studies of Reitzenstein and Heubeck mentioned below.
8 R. Reitzenstein, Alt-griechische Theologie und ihre Quellen, in Vortriige
der BibZiothek Warburg, 4, 1924-1925, 1-19 (now also in his Antike und Chris-
tentum, (Reihe "Libelli", 150), Darmstadt, 1963, 1-19 and (see n. 2) Hesiod,
523-S44) and especially idem in R. Reitzenstein-H. H. Schaeder, Studien
mm antiken Synkretismus, (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, VII), Darm-
stadt, 1965, (reprint = Leipzig-Berlin, 1926). 45-68. For later authors, both
pro and contra, see Gwyn Griffith, IIS-119, Rosenmeyer, 270, n. I (= Hesiod,
623, n. 44), and Heubeck, (see p. Ill, n. I), SIO, n. S (S47, n. S).
HESIOD, FRG. 304, THE GREAT YEAR AND THE PHOENIX III
absolutely certain that the conceptions concerning the genealogy of

the gods in Hesiod's Theogonia are related to the Hurrian-Hittite
texts from Boghazkoy. These texts date from the middle of the
second millenium before Christ, and their distinct influence has been
demonstrated in the literature of ancient Ugarit. These Oriental
conceptions must have penetrated the Greek world before the time of
Homer. Along just which pathway this occurred is also a matter of
controversy, but it seems probable that it occurred mainly via
Phoenicia and the Greek islands. l It is assumed that the conceptions
we find in Hesiod were already known in the Mycenaean world. 2
It can hardly be denied at present that in Hesiod many ancient
oriental ideas are preserved in Grecian guise. There can consequently
be no objection to the assumption that his myth of the five world
eras too is a typically Greek rendition of a related Eastern story that
knew only four periods. 3 There is also no objection to ascribing to
Hesiod the poem on the age of the Nymphs, which reveals the same
conception and is unmistakably of Babylonian origin. Both passages
1 See the extensive, mutually independent surveys of the literature on this

subject given by A. Lesky, Griechischey Mythos und vordeyeY Oyient, in Sae-
culum, 6, 1955, 35-52 (also his Geschichte, (see p. IIO, n. 2), II3-II6) and A.
Heubeck, Mythologische Voystellungen des Alten Oyients im aychaischen Grie-
chentum, in Gymnasium, 62, 1955, 508-525 (both also in Hesiod, 571-601
and 545-570, respectively). A good discussion of these problems is given
by O. Eissfeldt (ed.), Elements oyientaux dans la Yeligion gyecque ancienne,
Collogue de Styasbouyg, 22-24 mai I958, Paris, 1960. Also see H. Schwabl,
WeltschOPlung, in RE, Suppl. IX, 1962, 1484-1508; P. Wa1cot, Hesiod and the
Neay East, Cardiff, 1966; and M. L. West, Hesiod Theogony, Oxford, 1966,
19-31, who on 106-107 gives an extensive bibliography on "Hesiod and the
East".
I E.g. Schwabl, WeltschOPlung, 1506, and West, Hesiod Theogony, 28-29.
8 The objection to Reitzenstein, that he based himself on much later
authors, fails to hold water if it is recalled that old Hurrian-Hittite concep-
tions are to be found in Apollodorus and Philo of Byblos, conceptions taken
until recently to be Phoenician-tinted renditions of Hesiod: cl. Heubeck, 51 1-
512 (550-551), 517-5 18 (561-562), Lesky, Griech. Mythos, 44 (587), 47 (593)
and Geschichte, II4, and especially the lectures of O. Eissfeldt, PhOnikische
und gyiechische Kosmogonie, and H. Schwabl, Die gyiechische Theogonien und
del' Oyient, both in Elements orientaux, (see n. I), 1-15 and 39-56, respectively.
Heubeck, 510 (547) calls Reitzenstein's study: "den eysten UJiyklichen Beweis
fuy das Vorhandensein oyientalischey Elemente in dem mythologischen Gut
des aychaischen Griechentum", although he rejects his views on the time and
place of adoption.
II2 LIFESPAN AND APPEARANCES
of Hesiod are related to the same complex of ideas about the

Great Year, which like the solar year comprised four, albeit unequal,
periods at the conclusion of which the cycle repeats itself. This last
is to be found in the Indian yuga system but it is also assumed by
Hesiod, since he regrets that he had not died in an earlier period or
been born in a later one. l
Reitzenstein too thought that this conception was ultimately to be
traced to Babylonia, 2 but it is impossible to share his view that
Persia formed the link with Greece. Babylonian mythology had a
powerful influence on the Hurrian-Hittite world, and distinct traces
of this influence can be demonstrated in Hesiod. 3 It is therefore
highly probable that the myth of the four world eras found its way
to Greece by the same route. This is supported by the argument
that the word CPOr:VL~, in the form po-ni-ke, occurs in Mycenaean
Greek, as was shown in the discussion of the name of the phoenix.'
All this is obviously important with respect to the question of the
origin of the phoenix myth. We shall return to this point; here it
will suffice to say that our elucidation of the poem on the ages of the
animals and of the Nymphs forms a strong argument for Hesiod's
authorship. This does not mean that it is certain that modifications
were not made in the original form of the riddle for particular rea-
sons. We have seen that the sexagesimal version found in Aristo-
phanes and by which the 540 phoenix years mentioned by Manilius
can be explained,6 must be the oldest form. It is also possible that
Hesiod too equated the age of the crow with five human generations
and that this was later deliberately changed to nine generations.
This may be related to a given interpretation of his verses to be
discussed below. 6
1 Hesiodus, E1'ga, 175: cl).)..' ~ 1tp6o.&e: '&otve:i:v ~ l!1te:L'rot ye:veo'&otL. Ct. Vernant,
(see p. 110, n. 2), 26 and e.g. K. Seeliger, Weltalte1', in Roscher, Lexikon, 6,
192 4- 1937, 38 1.
2 Reitzenstein, Studien zum antiken Synk1'etismus, 56-57.
8 Cl e.g. Walcot, (see p. Ill, n. I), 1-26: "The Theogony and the Hittite
material", and 27-54: "The Theogony and the Babylonian material".
, See p. 62.
I See p. 88-89.
8 See Chapter V, 5.
THE APPEARANCES !I3
4. THE ApPEARANCES
The preceding section has shown how the phoenix became a sym-
bol of the renewal of time in the Classical period, and that on this
basis it could more generally become a symbol of any kind of re-
newal, almost always with the implication that this renewal in-
troduced a period of happiness and good fortune. This symbolism,
with a variable emphasis on the renewal of time, forms part of the
background of all the appearances of the phoenix mentioned in the
Classical and Early Christian literature.
We have already referred to the report of Tacitus that the phoe-
nix was supposed to have appeared under Sesosis (Sethos I), Amasis.
and Ptolemy III Euergetes. 1 This passage begins by saying that the
phoenix appeared in Egypt during the consulate of P. Fabius and L.
Vitellius, i.e. in A.D. 34, 2 and that this had led to heated discussions
among Greek and Egyptian scholars.3 Many held the opinion that
this phoenix was not a true one, among other reasons because less
than 250 years had elapsed between Ptolemy III and Tiberius. 4 This
must have meant the period between the death of Ptolemy (221
B.C.) and the beginning of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, because
calculated to the phoenix's appearance in A.D. 34 the interval
amounts to 255 years. It is also possible that Tacitus did not have
an entirely correct understanding of the dates of Ptolemy Ill. The
meaning of this appearance of the phoenix is clearly shown by the
following.
On the authority of Comelius Valerianus,5 Pliny states, followed
by Solinus, that this phoenix appeared two years later than Tacitus
1 See p. 107-108.
2 Cf. A. Degrassi, Ilasti consolari dell'Impero romano, (Sussidi eruditi, 3),
Rome, 1952, 10. For more information on both consuls, see E. Koestermann,
Cornelius Tacitus. Annales, n, Heidelberg, 1965, 305.
3 Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: Paulo Fabio L. Vitellio consulibus post longum
saeculorum ambitum avis phoenix in Aegyptum venit praebuitque materiem
doctissimis indigenarum et Graecorum multa super eo miraculo disserendi.
, Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: Sed antiquitas quidem obscura: inter Ptolemaeum
ac Tiberium minus ducenti quinquaginta anni luerunt. Unde nonnulli lalsum
hunc phoenicem neque Arabum e terris credidere, nihilque usurpavisse ex his,
quae vetus memoria lirmavit.
6 Cl. H. Bardon, La litterature latine inconnue, n, Paris, 1956, 140.
8
II4 LIFE SPAN AND APPEARANCES
indicates, i.e. during the consulate of Q. Plautius and Sex. Papinius. 1

This is also reported by Dio Cassius, who furthennore conveys how
this appearance was interpreted: in the same year parts of Rome
were flooded by the Tiber, even greater parts were destroyed by
fire, and the phoenix appeared in Egypt. These phenomena were
later seen as omens of Tiberius' death, which occurred in the spring
of the following year. 2 It may be assumed that here the appearance
of the phoenix was not taken as an omen of a catastrophic event;
rather it must have been the symbol of the new joyous time that
was to start when Tiberius' successor took office. The bird can thus
not only accentuate the beginning of a new era but also announce its
impending arrival.
It is in the latter sense that we have understood the appearance
during the time of Amasis mentioned by Tacitus. 3 The various times
at which the bird showed itself in Egypt and the resulting shift of
emphasis in the symbolism associated with it are probably both to be
traced to the difference between the two main versions of the phoenix
myth, which will be discussed in detail in due course.' According to
one version, the young phoenix appears in Egypt to bury its dead
father; according to the other, it is the old phoenix, come to renew it-
self by fire on the altar of the sun god. In the fonner case the arrival
of the phoenix is an indication that the renewal has already taken
place, in the latter that it is on the point of occurring. This explains
why the phoenix could be both a symbol of the beginning of a new
era and a symbol of the approaching end of the old era. In the latter
case the idea of the coming renewal is of course implicit, and
obtains the impression that this was particularly true with res-
pect to the appearance in the time of Tiberius. In this connection
we must keep in mind the relief and joy with which Caligula's in-
1 Pliny, X, 5: CorneUus Valerianus phoenicem devolavisse in Aegyptum
tradit Q. Plautio Sex. Papinio coss ... Solinus, 33, 14: Q. Plautio itaque et Sex.
Papinio cos. Aegyptum phoenix involavit. For the consuls of A.D. 36, see
Degrassi, o.c., 10.
B Dio Cassius, LVIII, 27, I: Et 3e -rL Kal -rtX AtyU7t-rLa 7tpae; -roue; 'PCJ)ILatoui;
7tpOcr1jKEL, 0 cpOrVL~ eKEtVCjl -rijl ~'rEL 6'lcp.&7j. Kal ~30~E 7tCxv-ra -rau-ra -rav .&civa-rov -rijl
TL~EptCjl 7tp0cr7jIL'iivaL. Abbreviated in Zonaras, Epitome historiarum, ed. L.
Dindorf, Ill, Lipsiae, 1870, 10.
a See p. 108.
, See p. 146.
THE APPEARANCES IIS
auguration was greeted. It may be assumed that when Caligula took
office in A.D. 37, the appearance of the phoenix was interpreted as
heralding the new Golden Age that had meanwhile become a fact. 1
Pliny and Solinus add to their reports several details that are not
found in Tacitus and Dio Cassius. The phoenix said to have appeared
in Egypt in A.D. 36 is supposed to have been captured and later to
have been brought to Rome at the order of Emperor Claudius for
the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the founding of the city
and to have been exhibited publicly on the Forum, in the Comitium.
These events were recorded in the municipal chronicles, but Pliny
says that no one doubted that this concerned a false phoenix. 2
Various considerations must have led to this exhibition of some
kind of exotic bird on the Forum.
After the rule of Caligula had ended in madness and terror, it
must have been important to Claudius to make a show of the living
phoenix that had earlier announced the death of Tiberius. By doing
so he could suggest that the Golden Age this bird was thought to
announce or inaugurate had only started with his reign. But the same
symbolism also held from another point of view: the commence-
ment of a new saeculum in the history of Rome also meant the
renewal of the joy associated with the Golden Age, and it was logical
that this would be confirmed by an appearance of the phoenix. 3
According to Pliny, no one took this phoenix seriously, probably
because it would be considered that any phoenix that allowed itself
to be captured could not be the real one. Tacitus too notes that it
was generally thought that the phoenix he said appeared in A.D.
34 was a false one, had not come from Arabia, and had not done
any of the things that ancient tradition said it should have done.'
1 E. Koberlein, CaUgula und die agyptischen Kulte, (Beitrage zur klass.
Philol., H. 3), Meisenheim am Glan, 1962, 41-43, has collected a number of
texts clearly showing to what extent the start of Calugula's rule was ex-
perienced as the return of the Golden Age. See also below, p. 000.
2 Pliny, X, 5: A llatus est et in urbem Claudii principis censura anno urbis
DCCC et in comitio propositus, quod actis testatum est, sed quem lalsum esse
nemo dubitaret. Solinus, 33, 14: captusque anno octingentesimo urbis conditae
iussu Claudii principis in comitio publicatus est. Quod gestum, praeter censuram
quae manet, actis etiam urbis continetur.
3 Cl. e.g. K. Seeliger, Weltalter, in Roscher, Lexikon, 6, 1924-1937, 423.
, See p. 113, n. 4.
u6 LIFESPAN AND APPEARANCES
It may assumed that the reports of Cornelius Valerianus cited by

Pliny and of Tacitus concern this same appearance, and it is also
probable that either by mistake or deliberately, for a reason no
longer clear, Tacitus dated this appearance two years earlier. 1
In later times the appearance of the phoenix on the occasion of
the celebration of Rome's 800th anniversary was taken seriously,
and no further reference is made to the fact that it was actually
supposed to have appeared earlier during the time of Tiberius. Ac-
cording to Aurelius Victor, who wrote around A.D. 360, the 800th
anniversary of the founding of Rome was celebrated in the sixth
year of Emperor Claudius (A.D. 4I-54) and the phoenix appeared
in Egypt at the same time. 2 The same report is found in the consular
list of A.D. 387, where it is mentioned, in conjunction with the con-
sulate of Vitellius 11 and Publicola in A.D. 48, that the phoenix
first appeared in that year. 3 The phrasing implies an open attack
on the opinion of Pliny and Solinus that this phoenix had actually
appeared in A.D. 36. Even Dexippus, who lived about a century
before Aurelius Victor, had mentioned the appearance in the time
of Claudius. We have already referred to his report that according
to the Egyptians, at that moment 650 or 654 years had elapsed
since the preceding appearance of the phoenix. 4 The tradition is not
sufficiently detailed to convey just what Dexippus said and meant.
1 R. Syme, Tacitus, Il, Oxford, 1958, 472, n.2, points to the structural
function of the digression on the phoenix in the work of Tacitus: "reliel in the
middle 01 a chronical 01 murders". Following P. L. Strack and others, he relates
to this some conclusions concerning the dating of the Annales (p. 472-473,
771-774), while assuming that in the passage on the phoenix Tacitus had in
mind Hadrian's coins from A.D. 118 (see below, p. 237). According to Syme,
Tacitus wrote: "For variety, lor mockery-and to demonstrate in a gentle and
insidious lashion that prophecies and portents have no meaning" (p. 774). This
argument for dating the work after A.D. 117 is rejected on good grounds by
H. Castritius, Der Phoenix aul den Aurei Hadrians und Tacitus' Annalen VI,
28, in jahrbuch lur Numismatik und Geldgeschichte, 14, 1964, 89-95.
I Sextus Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, 4, 14: Huius anno sexto, cum
quattuordecim regnarit, octingentesimus urbis mire celebratus, visusque apud
Aegyptum phoenix.
3 Fasti Vindobonenses, ed. Mommsen, MGH, a.a., IX, Berolini, 1892,
282 = Consularia Ravennatica, ed. Frick, Chron. min., I, Lipsiae, 1892, 379:
Vitellio II et Publicola his cons. phenix apparuit primum. For both consuls,
see also Degrassi, 14, (see p. 113, n. 2).
, Dexippus, Irg. 11, see p. 69.
THE APPEARANCES II7
It has been assumed that for this period he based himself on the
Egyptian tradition preserved by Tacitus, according to which the
phoenix had appeared during the time of King Amasis. 1 This does
not seem improbable, even though 650 or 654 years is too long for
the period between Amasis and Claudius.
The reports of the appearance of the phoenix under Tiberius and
Claudius can thus be said to have been entirely determined by the
symbolism of the bird. We find the same symbolism on numerous
coins of later emperors bearing such legends as Saeculum aureum,
Aeternitas, Felicium temporum reparatio, often accompanied by a re-
presentation of the phoenix. 2
The importance of the foundation of a city or a temple could also
be accentuated by an appearance of the phoenix. In the twelfth
century John of Salisbury was able to report that at the founding
of Constantinople the phoenix appeared as a good omen. s Although
this is not mentioned by older authors, it is not difficult to see how
it could have originated. Many of the coins of Constantine and his
sons show the phoenix, and a passage in the Codex Justinianus says
that his empire was founded under favourable omens:'
About a century earlier than John of Salisbury, Bartholomaeus
Anglicus made an interesting mention of the phoenix, for which he
bases himself on a certain Alanus, possibly meaning Alanus de
Insulis. 6 The ultimate source of the tradition thus preserved is not
1 Jacoby, FGrH, II, C, Leiden, 1963, 307 assumes erroneous transmission
of the number: "Die Zahlliisst sich nicht sicher verbessern".
B See pI. VI, 3, B, 9; VII, 9; VIII, 1-9. Cf, J. Beaujeu, La religion romaine a
l'apogee de l'Empire I: La politique religieuse des Antonius (94- I 92 ) , Paris,
1955, 141-159 (Hadrianus), 369-370 (Commodus).
8 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, I, 13: de variis omnibus (4IIb): Fenix
singularis /elicitatis successus pollicetur, quale est quod Nova Roma viso /enice
melioribus auspiciis condita est. For the following elucidation, see the notes
on 4IIb (11. 24ff.) in the edition prepared by C. C. 1. Webb, I, Oxonii, 1909.
, See pI. VIII, 2-B. In view of the similar choice of words, John of Salis-
bury seems to have been especially influenced by the Codex Justinianus,
I, 17, I, 10, (ed. P. Krueger, Berolini, IB77, loB): ... debere omnes civitates
consuetudinem Romae sequi ... Romam aut intellegendum est non solum veterem,
sed etiam regiam nostram, quae Deo propitio cum melioribus condita est auguriis.
5 In M. Th. d' Alverny, A lain de Lille. Textes inedits, (Etudes de philosophie
medievale, LII), Paris, 1965, there is no indication that this passage was
really from Alanus de Insulis, although the latter does mention the phoenix
in his De planctu naturae, PLo 210, 436 A.
lIB LIFESPAN AND APPEARANCES
known, but it must have been a very old one, because it has to do
with the foundation of the Jewish temple in the Egyptian city of
Leontopolis, which occurred around 160 D.e. l This temple was
built on the model of the temple at Jerusalem. Alanus speaks not of
Leontopolis but of Heliopolis, an understandable error in view of
the close proximity of the two places and the ancient relation of the
phoenix with Heliopolis. According to Alanus, at the consecration
of the temple the phoenix burned itself together with the offering
of unleavened bread and perfumes. 2 It is quite inconceivable that
this story could have originated in the Middle Ages, because the
episode of this Jewish temple in Egypt was not sufficiently known at
that time. Alanus must have transmitted an old tradition that could
only have circulated among the Egyptian Jews whose religious centre
was located in this temple. An echo of Alanus' curious report is
found in some of the manuscripts of the Travels of Sir John Mande-
ville, in which it is said that in Heliopolis there is a circular temple
resembling the one in Jerusalem and that the priest of this temple
"has written in a book the date of a fowl that men call phoenix."3
In the report of Alanus is it explicitly stated that the high priest
Onias lit the fire, at which moment the phoenix appeared and al-
lowed itself to be consumed together with the offering. One may
wonder whether this is the original version: the temple at Leonto-
polis was a deliberate imitation of the temple at Jerusalem, and
when the latter was consecrated by Salomon the first offering was,
1 Cl. M. De1cor, Le temple d'Onias en Egypte, in Revue Biblique, 75, 1968,

188-203 (on 204-205 a postscript by R. de Vaux) , of the older literature e.g.
E. Schiirc, Geschichte des judischen Volkes im Zeitalter J esu Christi, Ill,
Hildesheim, 1964 (reprint = Leipzig, 1909), 42, 144-148 and A. Schlatter,
Geschichte [sraels von Alexander dem Grossen bis Hadrian, 3ed ed., Stuttgart,
1925, 122-129, 33, 344· Most important texts: ]osephus, Ant., XII, 388,
XIII, 62-73, Bell. Jud., VII, 420-432.
8 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, XII, 14: de qua (sc.
ave) narrat Alanus. quod cum Onias summus pontilex in Eliopoli civitate
Egypti templum ad similitudinem templi Hierosolimorum edilicasset, primo die
azimonum cum multis lignis aromaticis super altare congregasset et ignem ad
ol/erendum sacrilicium succendisset. descendit in medium rogum talis avis que
in igne sacrilicii statim in cinerem est redacta.
a M. Litts, Mandeville's travels. Texts and translations, I, II, (Works issued
by the Hakluyt Society, Sec. Ser., 101, 102), London, 1953,34 (Egerton text)
and 253 (Paris text).
THE APPEARANCES II9
according to 2 Chron. vii. I, consumed by fire from heaven. It is

not impossible that this sign of divine approval was also claimed
for the consecration of the temple at Leontopolis and reinforced
by the simultaneous appearance of the phoenix, which according
to one tradition also owes its cremation to a heavenly fire. Just how
probable this assumption is will become clear in the discussion of
the appearances of the phoenix which, according to the Coptic
Sermon on Mary, reinforced the importance of three Biblical events.
The first of these appearances took place when Abel made the
sacrifice that found more favour in the sight of God than that of
Cain. 1 In Antiquity and in later centuries, both Jewish and Christian
theologians actively attempted to explain the basis for this pre-
ference and how it was expressed. 2 The Sermon does not go into this
point, but it is evident that the author knew at least the Early
Christian answer to the second question: Fire descended from heav-
en and consumed Abel's offering. The origin of this tradition is to be
found in Theodotion's Greek translation of Gen. iV.4 and 5, where
the Hebrew word for "have regard for" is translated as "set afire".3
J erome and Procopius of Gaza, who mention this translation, also
indicate how Theodotion could have come to do so: the former re-
fers to the heavenly fire that descended at the consecration of the
temple at Jerusalem (2 Chron. vii.I) and to the same event when
Elijah sacrificed on Mount Carmel (I Kings xviii.38); the latter
refers to the fire of the Lord that consumed the whole-offering and
the fat at the first sacrifice made by Aaron and his sons (Lev. iX.24)
and also to Elijah's sacrifice on Mount Carmel.' The texts to which
both these early exegetes draw attention show clearly how almost
1 Coptic Sermon on Mary, 11-16 (see trans., p. 45).

B Cf. A. Aptowitzer, Kain und Abel in der Agada, den ApokrYPhen, der
hellenistischen, christlichen und muhammedanischen Literatur, (Veroffentl. der
Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, I), Vienna-Leipzig, 1922, 37-43.
8 See F. Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt, I, HiIdesheim, 1964,
(reprint = Oxford, 1875), 17-18.
, Jerome, Hebraicae Quaestiones in Genesim, ad. iV.4 (PL. 23, 944B): Ignem
autem ad sacri/icium devorandum solitum venire de caelo: et in dedicatione
templi sub Salomone legimus, et quando Elias in Monte Carmelo construxit
altare ,. Procopius of Gaza, Catena in Octateuchem, ad Gen. iv. 4 (PG 87, I,
236B): Kcd /) ILEV (sc. 0£o30TtWV) Aty£L Tijl; &7to3oxiic; TOV Tp67tov,llTL 3Le%; 7rup61;,
~c; ~7tt Mwuaewc; Ktxt 'HALOU.
inevitable it was that Gen. iV.4 and 5 would be interpreted as de-

scribed. If the first sacrifice in the desert, the first sacrifice in the
Temple, and the highly significant sacrifice of Elijah were all sanc-
tioned by the divine fire from heaven, it was obvious to assume that
the first sacrifice of which the Bible speaks would also have been
lighted in the same manner. According to the Coptic text, thus, the
phoenix was consumed together with Abel's sacrifice by the heaven-
ly fire. Although no parallel can be found for this conception in
either the Jewish or the Christian literature, it is nevertheless prob-
able that the burning of the phoenix at the consecration of the
temple at Leontopolis is related to this complex of ideas con-
cerning a divine omen at a first sacrifice.
Theodotion's remarkable translation is therefore in fact an inter-
pretation of the text in question, which implies that the former
must have been of Jewish origin. It is striking, however, that the
fire that descended from heaven to consume Abel's sacrifice is
mentioned in the Early Christian and Mohammedan literature but
does not occur in the older Jewish literature; it is not found until
the medieval exegesis of such authors as Rashi, and they could have
taken it from Christian or Mohammedan sources. 1 It has aptly been
remarked, however, that Theodotion could hardly have given this
translation if he had not known of this tradition, and in this connec-
tion it was assumed that in the early centuries of the present era the
Jews deliberately neglected it in order to avoid giving any grounds
for the Christian elevation of Abel as a type of Christ. 2 This is not
impossible, but there is still another reason that might have borne
more weight: for the rabbis the true cult of God was entrusted to the
tribe of Levi and could only be realized after the ordination of Aaron
and his sons as priests. s They therefore stated emphatically that
this was the occasion on which the heavenly fire first descended to
consume the sacrifice. 4 This would seem to be a polemic against the
idea that it could have happened earlier, to Abel's sacrifice.
1 Cf. Aptowitzer, 37-43 and 183.

I Aptowitzer, 43.
8 Cf. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, Ill, 306-307.
" Aptowitzer, 145-146, n. 184 and Ginzberg, Legends 0/ the Jews, Ill, 184,
243-244, IV, 353, VI, 73, n. 380.
THE APPEARANCES I2I
According to the Coptic text, at the first sacrifice mentioned in

the Bible the bolt of fire was accompanied by an appearance of the
phoenix. At the consecration of the temple at Leontopolis, according
to the surviving late tradition, only the phoenix appeared, although
we have assumed that originally the sign of the heavenly fire may
have played a role too. These two phenomena are closely related,
but each has its own symbolism. The fire from heaven is a sign that
the event has divine approval; it legitimizes the sacrifice. The ap-
pearance of the phoenix indicates that the event in question is by
God's will the beginning of a new time, of a new era in the history
of salvation. As such, the phoenix also emphasizes the legitimacy of
the event in connection with which it appears. Against this back-
ground it is easy to understand that the Egyptian Jews adhering to
the temple at Leontopolis claimed that the phoenix had burned
itself up with the first sacrifice made there. There is no objection to
the assumption that the tradition that the bird had burned itself up
at the time of Abel's sacrifice also had its genesis among the Jews
in Egypt and was taken over from them by the Egyptian Christians.
The second appearance of the phoenix is only briefly mentioned
in the Coptic sermon: "When God brought the children of Israel out
of Egypt by the hand of Moses, the phoenix showed itself on the
temple of On, the city of the sun".1 The only parallel to this appear-
ance is found in the Jewish literature, which supports the possibility
that the connection with Abel's sacrifice also derives from Jewish
sources. The Alexandrine Jew Ezekiel the Dramatist who, probably
in the second sentury B.C., wrote the story of the flight from Egypt
in the form of a Greek tragedy of which only fragments have sur-
vived, has the Israelites meet a "strange astounding animal, such as
no one had ever seen".2 Although this animal is not mentioned by
name, the description makes it clear that the phoenix is meant, and
this is how it has been taken by all authors since Pseudo-Eustathius. 3
The description occupies the entire fragment, and it is impossible to
tell what Ezekiel thought the reason for the appearance of the
1 Coptic Sermon on Mary, 33-35 (see trans., p. 47).

2 Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 254-255: e:t80ILEV l:ijiov !;evov, / '&OtUILOta't'6v,
otov ou8e~w ClpOtKk 't'LI;.
8 Pseudo-Eustathius, Comm. in Hexaemeron, PG 18, 729d.
I22 LIFE SPAN AND APPEARANCES
phoenix was. Several divergent explanations have been offered, 1 but

since the Coptic Sermon on M ary also says that the phoenix showed
itself during the flight of the Israelites from Egypt, it seems highly
probable that both texts must be explained in the same sense. The
Coptic text does not say explicitly that the appearance occurred on
the first day of the Israelites' departure. That the bird also showed
itself at the temple of On-Heliopolis is, as we shall see, of secondary
importance, and it is not necessary that it was also mentioned by
Ezekiel. In the Coptic text, too, the accent falls on the fact that the
phoenix showed itself during the departure from Egypt. Here again,
its manifestation marks the beginning of a new era in the history of
salvation. Before the meaning of this can be elucidated, we must
take up the third appearance of the phoenix mentioned in the Coptic
sermon.
In the year of Christ's birth the phoenix is supposed to have burn-
ed itself on a pinnacle of the temple at Jerusalem. 2 In connection
with the translation of this passage we pointed out that in the text
as it has reached us, the exact circumstances of this manifestion can
no longer be distinguished. 3 The report of this burning begins with
a sentence that at first sight seems rather puzzling: "According to
1 Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, VI, 16, n. 88 seeks the explanation in a

well-known legendary motif: "It seems that the poet wanted to describe how it
came about that the Israelites discovered the twelve wells at Elim. They followed
the wonderful bird (phoenix?), which ... flew over the wells. In legends birds
are frequently spoken of as guides to water". Both editors of the fragments of
Ezekiel: H. Kuiper, De Ezechiele poeta Judaeo, in Mnemosyne, NS, 28,1900,
274 and J. Wieneke, Ezechielis Judaei poetae Alexandrini fabulae quae inscri-
bitur 'EEArnrH fragmenta, Thesis Munster, 1931, 108 saw in this a re-
flection of the discussions evoked by the appearance during the reign of
ptolemy III Euergetes. B. Snell, Ezechiels Moses-Drama, in Antike und
Abendland, 13, 1967, 151, 153 thinks that the appearance of the phoenix
before the Israelites promised them the possession of the land of Canaan,
just as it was also supposed to have been a good omen for the reign of ptolemy
Ill. Hubaux and Leroy, 46-50 do not entirely deny a connection with the
appearance during ptolemy Ill, but relate the bird predominantly to the
desert birds referred to in Exod. xvi.13; Num. xi.31; and Ps. Ixxviii.27 and
to the manna the Israelites received from heaven in the desert (according
to the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, 6, 11, the phoenix ate ",0 ILlivvor. ",OU
oupor.vou Kor.l -rljv 8p6aov rijc; y'iic;).
I Coptic Sermon on Mary, 35-46 (see trans. p. 47).
8 See p. 42-43.
THE APPEARANCES 123
the number of its years it was its tenth time since its genesis after
Abel's sacrifice that it sacrificed itself: in this year now the Son of
God was born in Bethlehem". The intention here is to fix the year
of the birth of Christ chronologically by means of the phoenix's ap-
pearances every 500 years: 500 years must have preceded Abel's
sacrifice, and since there were ten more such periods after it, the
birth of Christ must have taken place in the year 5500 after the
creation of the world. This is a conception we encounter frequently in
Early Christian literature.
This dating is related to a Jewish and Early Christian theory of
history according to which world time runs parallel with creation
time: the world was created in six days, and since for God one day
is the same as a thousand years (Ps. xC.4, 2 Peter iii,8) the history
of the world will occupy six such days, after which will come the day
of rest of the millenium. 1 It is not entirely clear when this concept
reached complete development in Judaism. In the Book of Jubilees
we in any case find a line of reasoning clearly based on Ps. xc. 4:
the warning to Adam in Gen. ii.17, "for on the day that you eat
from it, you will certainly die" was fulfilled literally, for Adam died
when he was 930 years old and that was on the same "day" that he
ate of the tree. 2 The Slavonic Enoch contains what is probably the
first relation of the week of creation to the world week, but however
obscure the relevant passage may be in Enoch,3 in the Babylonian
Talmud it is clearly stated.' In the Early Christian literature the
1 For the eras mentioned in the following, see especially A. Luneau, L' his-
toire du Salut chez les Peres de rEglise. La doctrine des dges du monde, (Theo-
logie historique, 2), Paris, 1964, passim, for the oldest sources and the earliest
developments p. 37-53. Also, W. Bauer, Chiliasmus, in RAC, Il, 1954, 1073-
1078, and L. Koep, Chronologie, in RAC, Ill, 1957, 52-60 (both referring to
much earlier literature), and J. Dani610u, TMologie du Judeo-christianisme,
Tournai, 1958, 341-366. For the later transmission, see also J. H. J. van der
Pot, De periodisering der Geschiedenis, Thesis Amsterdam, The Hague, 1951,
38ff.
B Jubilees, IV, 39-40, cl, Luneau, 40.
8 Slav. Henoch, 11 (ed. Vaillant, 103-105 = 32, 2-33, 2, trans. N. Forbes
in Charles, Apocr. and Pseud., 11, 451). Vaillant considers the entire passage
to be an interpolation dating from the thirteenth century A.D., and Luneau,
41, n. 2, agrees with him. It will be shown below, however, that these "inter-
polations" contain very old material (see p. 287ff.). I am not at all certain that
Vaillant's linguistic arguments should be considered conclusive.
, Sanhedrin, 97a (trans. H. Freedman, 11, London, 1935, 657).
first occurrence of this idea is in the so-called Letter of Barnabas,l

although of course the conception of the millenium in Rev. xx. is
also based on the parallelism with God's day of rest after the cre-
ation of the world.
In his Chronographia, Sextus Julius Africanus has divided the
history of the world according to this scheme of six periods, each
lasting one thousand years, in which he put the birth of Christ in
the year 5500.2 This last had already been done previously by Hip-
polytus in his commentary on the Book 01 Daniel, the date having
been derived from the dimensions of Noah's ark. 3 We may safely
assume, however, that Hippolytus knew this number before he
obtained it on the basis of this allegorical exegesis.
The dating of Christ's birth in the year 5500 must have arisen
when it became clear that the chiliastic expectations would not be
fulfilled as soon as had been hoped. Thus, Hippolytus did his best to
demonstrate that this eschatological impatience was not justified,
because the sixth millenium was still far from having run its course. 4
The choice of the year 5500 probably had to do with a different way
of dividing world time in which twelve periods of 500 years were
distinguished. o
This latter division of world time, too, must have been of Jewish
origin. In this system world time corresponds to the duration of one
day of twelve hours. This view is found in the Apocalypse 01 Abraham
and the Testament 01 Abraham; the Syriac Apocalypse 01 Baruch
speaks of twelve periods, characterized as alternately bright and
dark, indicated by water from the sky whose clearness changes
1 Epist. Ba1'nab., 15, 4: 7tpoO'sXE'n:, 't'SKVCX, 't'L AeyEL 't'6' "O'UVE't'SAEO'EV bI !~
bI e~cxKLO'J(LAtoLC; ~'t'e:O'LV O'UV't'e:MO'EL KUPLOC; 't'eX O'UV7tcxv't'cx.
~!JlPCXLC;". 't'oi:i't'o ASYEL, II't'L
Cf. P. Prigent, L'EpU1'e de Ba1'naM I-XVI et ses sources, Paris, 1961,67-68.
s Luneau, 110, n. 7.
3 Hippolytus, In Dan., IV, 23, 3, 24, 1-3 (ed. Bonwetsch, GCS I, 1897,
243-247). See also p. 126, n. 3 here.
4 See also Koep, o.c. 55.
& R. Baker, Zeitrechnung, I, in RE, 2. Reihe, 9, 2, 1967, 2425-2426,
thinks that the number 5,500 is related to a Christian world era of 11,000
years: on the basis of Ps. xc.4, he says, the important period of 110 days for
the duration of the flooding of the Nile was taken as 11,000 years. For this
assumed Christian world period not even a single source can be found, and,
furthermore, 1,000 X 110 would give a period of 110,000 years. See p. 31
for another of Baker's remarkable views.
THE APPEARANCES 125
twelve times. 1 This scheme underlies Origenes' exegesis of the par-

able of the workers in the vineyard (Matth. XX.1-16). From the fact
that in this parable labourers are hired five times on one day, he
concludes it is true that there must be five periods, which depends
on another conception, but on the other hand he relates the going out
of the master at the eleventh hour to the coming of Christ. 2 If we
assume that also with this less usual comparison of world time with
the duration of one day of twelve hours he had in mind a total period
of 6,000 years, the coming of Christ would again fall in the year 5500.
Each hour thus comprises a period of five hundred years. What can
be inferred from Origenes is explicitly stated by Hilary of Poitiers
in his explanation of the same parable. s
The author of the Coptic sermon therefore drew on a familiar
conception when he placed the birth of Christ in the year of the
eleventh appearance of the phoenix, i.e. in the year 5500 after the
creation of the world. It is possible that he had already found this in
the source from which he borrowed the three appearances at the
time of Abel, Moses, and Christ, but it seems more likely that he
himself was sufficiently original to indicate the known year of
Christ's birth in this way. This is suggested, at any rate, by the
context in which the three appearances are placed.
He relates his considerations on the phoenix to the report that at
the birth of Christ, God opened the gates of Paradise so that the
souls of men could enter. This also held for the soul of Abel, whose
blood had continued to cry out since the day Cain killed him but
now at last found rest, "so that his blood was silent". Indeed, the
Lord had said to Adam when He drove him out of Paraside: "You
shall not be able to enter this place in the flesh that has transgressed,
unless you are born from water and the Holy Spirit." 4 Here,
1 Apocalypse of Abraham, 29, Testament of Abraham, 7, and Syriac Apoca-

lypse 01 Baruch, 53-68, cl. Luneau, 48-49.
I Origen, Comm. in Matth., XV, 32-33 (ed. Klostermann, GCS, 40, 1935,
446-448).
3 Hilary of Poitiers, Comm. in Matth., XX, 6 (PL 9, lo30A): Divisione
enim par quingentenum numerum lacta, in omni sex millium annorum summa,
tempus corporei ortus eius undecimo divisionis totius calculo supputatur," see
Luneau, 235-237, cl. also ibid., 266.
" Coptic Sermon on Mary, 6-7 (see trans., p. 45).
Christ's words to Nicodemus about entry into the Kingdom of God

(John iii.5) are related to the re-entry into Paradise. 1 The promise of
the re-opening of Paradise at the birth of Christ became one of the
stock elements of the abundant Early Christian and medieval lite-
rature on Adam, with the frequent qualification that this event
would occur in the year 5500. In the Ethiopic Book 01 Adam, in
which this promise forms the main theme, the Lord says to Adam
that the Word will deliver him when five and a half days have
elapsed. When Adam fails to understand this, God explains to
him that this means 5500 years, at the conclusion of which he will
be permitted to re-enter Paradise. 2 In the Vitae Adae et Evae and the
longest Latin recension of the so-called Gospel 01 Nicodemus, John
iii.5 is cited concerning this promise in the same sense as in the
Coptic Sermon on Mary.3 This indicates that the author of this ser-
mon must have made use of some Christian work on Adam, where
it is probable that he found the date 5500. In speaking of the appear-
ance of the phoenix at the time of Christ's birth, he found an ele-
gant application of this date by putting it that this was the eleventh
time that the bird had shown itself.
This appearance was completely visible, since it took place "on
the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem", i.e. the place where,
according to Matth. iV.5, Jesus underwent his second temptation by
the devil. The exact location of this is a controversial point.'
We have already pointed out that it is impossible to determine
1 For the identity of Paradise and the Kingdom of God in the Gospel
accoyding to Thomas and in later authors, see G. Quispel, Makarius, das
Thomasevangelium und das Lied von der Perle, (Suppl. to Novum Testamen-
tum, XV), Leiden, 1967, 32-35.
8 A. Dillmann, Das christliche Adambuch des Morgenlandes, aus dem Aethio-
pischen mit Bemerkungen ubersetzt, GOttingen, 1853, p. 14, 15, 17, 24, 36, 49,
84,92, 135·
8 Vita Adae et Evae, 42, ed. W. Meyer, in Abh. kOn. bayer. Akad. der Wiss.,
Philos.-philol. Classe, XIV, 3, 1878,235; other versions in the ed. by J. H.
Mozley, in Journ. Theol. Stud., 30, 1929, 141-142. Other numbers are some-
times substituted for 5,500: Ms. A in Mozley, 142, gives, e.g., 5,228. The
Gospel 01 Nicodemus, n, 3 and 12; this last clearly showing the influence of
Hippolytus; see p. 124.
, See e.g. W. Bauer, Warterbuch zum N.T., 5th ed., Berlin, 1958, 1442, s.v.
7t't'e:puy~ov, and E. Klostermann, Das Matthiiusevangelium, (Handbuch zum
N.T., 4), 2nd ed., Tiibingen, 1927, 28.
THE APPEARANCES 127
precisely from the Coptic text at which events the phoenix showed
itself.! The writer found himself forced to briefly mention the ap-
pointment of the old Simeon in the place of the murdered Zechariah,
to which he had not yet referred, as well as the presentation in the
temple, because after completing the phoenix passage he intended
to proceed to the Benediction of Simeon. In doing so, he did not
allow himself to be impeded by the exact chronology of his story. He
has the naming on the eighth day, which actually occurred together
with the circumcision (Luke ii.21), coincide with the presentation at
the temple, which occurred on the fourtieth day (Luke ii.22, Lev.
xii.). Because he combined data from Matthew and the Protevange-
lium Jacobi with those of Luke, he was forced to have ]oseph and
Mary come to the temple with the Child just after the murder of
Zechariah, which according to his earlier account was very closely
related to the massacre of the children at Bethlehem.
The Coptic text says that since then no one has seen the phoenix.
In view of the foregoing, this would indeed have been impossible,
because at the twelfth manifestation of the phoenix world time in
the strict sense was to terminate and the millenium of rest for the
sanctified would begin. This need not be taken to imply that the
Coptic text was written before A.D. 500, since the idea that Christ
was born in the year 5500 was also stated in later times. 2
The appearance of the phoenix at the time of the birth of Christ
indicates that a new time has begun. It seems certain that this idea
originated in Egypt. The Coptic sermon was delivered at the cele-
bration of the Commemoration 01 Mary, which was originally closely
1 See p. 42-43.
2 The chronographer Syncellus (ea. A.D. 800) still based his chronological
scheme on the year 5500 as fixed year of the birth of Christ: ef. R. Laqueur,
Synkellos, in RE, 2. Reihe, 4, 2, 1932, 1400-1402. According to Orae.
Sibyll., VIII, 139, the appearance of the phoenix will annunciate the de-
struction of the race of the Gentiles, the Hebrew people, and the Roman
Empire, which will be the beginning of the end of time. Unfortunately, the
text is corrupt, one or more lines seem to be Inissing. Geffcken (Berlin,
1902, 149) reads, vss. 139-141: !v&£\I 6TotV qlOlVLKO~ t7te"A&71 7t£\lTot)(p6vOLO /
...... / ~~e:L 7tOp&ljaColv "Aot(;)V yevo~, d!KPLTot qlu"Aot, / 'E~potlColv !&VO~. A. Kurfess,
Phoeni~ quintusi, in Wurzburger Jahrbueher lur die Altertumswissensehalt, 3,
1948, 194-195, reads: otO&L~ c'hotV qlOtvLKO~ t7te"A&71 TepILot )(P6VOLO / ~~e:L (6)
7tOp&ljaColv ... etc.; see also his edition and translation (Munich, 1951) and
his translation in Hennecke and Schneeme1cher, II, 517.
related to the feast of Epiphany and in which the birth of Christ was
the most important element.llt is known that the early Christians
chose the sixth of January as the day of Christ's birth deliberately.
In Hellenistic times, in the night between the fifth and sixth, a
celebration was held in the city of Alexandria to observe the birth
of Aion from Kore, the Virgin. 2 The phoenix was used as the sym-
bolic expression of Aion, as coins of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius
have shown. 3 In deliberate contrast to the birth of Aion from a
virgin, the early Christians celebrated on the sixth of January the
birth of Christ from the Virgin: the true Aion-phoenix is the Christ-
phoenix. He indeed ushered in a new period.
The appearances of the phoenix during the sacrifice of Abel, the
departure from Egypt under the leadership of Moses, and the birth
of Christ, are all determined completely by the symbolism of the
bird as inaugurator of a new period in history, here the history of
salvation. The writer of the Coptic sermon must have used a source
in which these three manifestations were logically connected. In his
sermon only the appearance at the birth of Christ is relevant; the
other two he borrowed from his source without any real need to do
so. The original connection becomes clear in the light of a different
division of the world time of 6,000 years, which can be traced ulti-
mately to a Jewish origin.
In the school of Rabbi Eliyyahu (ca. A.D. 240) it was taught that
history can be divided into three periods of 2,000 years; the first
period occurred before Moses received the Tablets on Mt Sinai, the
the second encompasses the period under the authority of the Torah,
and the third comprises the dominion of the Messiah.' This opinion
must, however, be much older than the time of Rabbi Eliyyahu,
1 See p. 35-37.
I The most important text in Epiphanius, Panarion, 51, 23, 3-II; of the
abundant literature we may mention: K. Holl, Der Ursprung des Epiphanien-
jestes, in Gesammelte Aujsatze, I1, Der Osten, Darmstadt, 1964 (reprint =
Tiibingen, 1928), 123-154; B. Botte, Les origines de la Noel et de l'Epiphanie,
Louvain, 1932; H. Rahner, Griechische My then in christicher Deutung, 3rd ed.
Darmstadt, 1966, 124-133; R. Pettazoni, Aion-(Kronos) Chronos in Egypt,
in his Essays in the History oj Religions, (Studies in the History of Religions),
Leiden, 1954, 171-179.
8 For this, see p. 105.
, Sanhedrin, 97a (trans. H. Freedman, I1, London, 1935, 657).
THE APPEARANCES 129
because the Palestinian traditions transmit, in the name of Rabbi

Joshua (ca. A.D. 90), that the Messianic time will last 2,000 years. 1
Paul must have had the same concept in mind when he wrote, in
Rom. V.12-21, about the eras before the law, under the law, and under
grace. This division of history into three periods followed by a fourth
for the adoration and contemplation of God, had an enormous in-
fluence on the Christian Church, 2 although not a single Christian
writer kept to the duration of 2,000 years for each period. In one and
the same writer's works the three periods and the division into six
aetates can occur side by side, as in the case of Augustine. 3
On the basis of all this it seems certain that the author of the
Coptic sermon used a source in which the appearances of the phoe-
nix in the times of Abel, of Moses, and of Christ emphasized the
commencement of the three periods before the law, under the law,
and under grace. There is nothing to show that the writer understood
the original sense of these manifestiations; in any case he had in
mind the other division of world time, as his reference to the year
5500 shows.
The period ante legem extends from Adam to Moses. The Coptic
text refers to Abel because his sacrifice is the first event to be men-
tioned after the expUlsion from Paradise (Gen. iv.). According to
independent traditions, fire struck from heaven not only on the
occasion of Abel's sacrifice but also when the phoenix was to be
burned on the altar. The similarity between these phenomena may
have contributed to the identification of the two events.
The second appearance of the phoenix inaugurated the period
sub lege. That the Coptic sermon mentions only the exodus and not
the handing down of the law on Mt Sinai was not solely to facilitate
mention of the burning of the phoenix at On-Heliopolis; it was also
consistent with the traditions of Judaism. According to the judge-
ment of the rabbis, a new era had begun with the flight from Egypt:
the liberation from slavery and the subsequent ordeals were pre-
1 Midrash Tehillim, 90, 17 (ad Ps. xc.I5), trans. W. G. Braude, The
Midrash on Psalms, I1, (Yale judaica Series, XIII), New Haven, 1959, 97.
I This conception is found in almost all of the Early Christian authors:
see Luneau, passim. For later authors, into the nineteenth century, see van
der Pot, (p. 123, n. I), 43ff.
8 For the various views of Augustine, see Luneau, 285-407.
9
130 LIFE SPAN AND APPEARANCES
parations for the handing down of the law and bore the closest
possible relation to it.! We have already pointed out that it is
probable that the appearance of the phoenix mentioned by Ezekiel
the Dramatist was intended to emphasize the importance of the
exodus and the handing down of the law in the history of salvation. 2
Just as Able the Righteous and Moses the Lawgiver were for the
early Christians types, images, of Christ, 3 so did the periods that
began with them hold as transitional phases, stages on the way of
the salvation by God, which would end in the fulness of time at
the birth of Christ. This event marked the arrival at the true turn-
ing point in history; the period sub gratia had begun. The early
Christian writers were tireless in expressing this thought, because it
was the foundation on which their faith rested.' The appearance
of the phoenix at the time of the birth of Christ is a fascinating
variation on this fixed theme, and it is remarkable that we have on-
ly learned of its existence through a Coptic sermon. The reason
perhaps has something to do with the circumstance that in the
early Christian symbolism, from the time of Clement of Rome, the
phoenix was related almost exclusively to the life, the death, and
the resurrection of the Christian. 5 Only in the Psysiologus and texts
directly influenced by it, such as the Coptic Sermon on Mary, is the
bird a symbol of Christ, 6 the main emphasis falling on the resurrec-
tion. This brings us to the last mention of appearances of the phoe-
nix to be discussed in this context.
In the Greek Physiologus it is said that the phoenix comes to
Heliopolis to bum itself "in the new month, Nisan or Adar, that is to
1 Ct. R. Bloch, Mo'ise dans la tradition rabbinique, in H. Cazelle et al.,
Mo'ise, l'homme de I'Alliance, Paris-Tournai, 1955, 140-149.
I See p. 122.
8 For Abel, et. Aptowitzer, (see p. 119, n. 2), 23; for Moses, see Bloch,
149-167, and in the same work R. M. Tonneau, Mo'ise dam la tradition
syrienne, 250-251; also J. Jeremias, Mwuaijc;, in ThWNT, IV, 1942, 862-
868, 871-878.
, For the birth of Christ as beginning of a new era, see Luneau, passim
and e.g. Prudentius, Hymn., XI, 57-60 (ed. Lavarenne, I, Paris, 1955, 64):
o quanta rerum gaudia / aluus pudica continet / ex qua novellum saeculum
/ procedit et lux aureal (said to the Virgin Mary).
6 I Clement, 26, I.
• Physiologus, 7: 6 ol'iv cpOrVL~ 7tp60'w7toV AI1(L[)liv£L TOU l;wrljpoC;. Coptic
Sermon on Mary, 27-28, 51 (see trans. p. 47).
THE APPEARANCES
say, Phamenoth or Pharmouthi".1 This statement is entirely de-

pendent on the symbolic meaning assigned to the phoenix in the
Physiologus: the resurrection of the bird refers to the death and
resurrection of Christ. The Jewish Passover feast is celebrated on
the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan, i.e. in the first month of
the year, "in the new month". The additional mention of Adar, the
last month of the Jewish calendar, in the Physiologus, is related to
the fact that the Alexandrian month of Phamenoth began on the
21th of Adar and ended on the 20th of Nisan. The mention of both
Jewish months is probably an attempt to indicate the correspond-
ing place of Phamenoth in the Jewish calendar. It is conceivable
that we are concerned here with a gloss. 2 In any case the sequence
of the Jewish months is not correct, because Phamenoth began in
the month of Adar, and Pharmouthi began in Nisan. We need not
go further here into the complicated problems connected with the
determination of the Jewish and Christian dates for Passover and
Easter and the ecclesiastical quarrels these problems evoked. 3 It
will suffice to state that the celebration of the Jewish and the Christ-
ian feasts could fall in Phamenoth as well as in Pharmouthi.' In the
Physiologus the resurrection of the phoenix is seen as an image of the
resurrection of Christ; to make the similarity even clearer, the
rebirth of the phoenix was made to occur in the month of Phame-
noth or Pharmouthi.
1 Physiologus, 7: -rii> (.I.7jvl-rijl vtCj>, -rijl N7jO'cXv ~ -rijl 'A31ip, -rOU-rtO'-rL -rii> «>cqJ.£v@'&
~ -rijl «>ctp(.I.ou.&t
S F. Lauchert, Geschichte des Physiologus, Strassburg, 1889, 237 and
Hubaux and Leroy, XXXII, put N7jO'cXv ~ 'A3lip (without articles) between
parentheses. The most important Ms. M reads only iv -rii> (.I.7jvl-rijl VtCj>, -rou-rtO'-
-rLV -rijl «>ctp(.l.ou.&£, see D. Offermans, Der Physiologus nach den Handschriften
G und M, (Beitr. zur klass. Phil., 22) Meisenheim am Glan, 1966, 39.
B See E. Schwartz, Christliche und judische Ostertafeln, in Abh. d. kiln.
Gesellschaft der Wiss. zu G6ttingen, Philol.-hist. Klasse, NF, 8, 6, 1905 and
K. Holl, Ein Bruchstuck aus einem bisher unbekannten Brief des Epiphanius,
in Gesammelte Aufsiitze, II, 204-224; B. Lohse, Das Passafest der Quartadeci-
maner, Giitersloh, 1953.
, In Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt the Jewish calendar was adjusted to
locally current calendars in various ways; for this, see Schwartz, 104-150.
Josephus, Ant. Jud., II, 3II has the month Nisan coincide with the Egyptian
month Pharmouthi. For the date of the Christian Easter, see the lists in
Schwartz (13, 17, 24, 25 etc.) and the letter of Epiphanius in Holl, 207,
15 ff.
The analysis of the Classical and Early Christian reports con-

cerning appearances of the phoenix given in this and the preceding
section, has shown that these manifestations were determined in all
respects by the symbolic meaning of the bird. If anywhere, it is here
that it can be seen to what extent the symbolism formed the myth.
5. HESIOD, Frg. 304, AND THE PHOENIX AS SYMBOL OF THE SOUL
In Plutarch's De defectu oraculorum, Hesiod, frg. 304, is used as

the primary argument for the thesis that demons are morta1.1
Throughout Classical times it was held that Nymphs have a very
long life but are not immortal. They were given the epithet "long-
lived" and were seen as demons. 2 We have already seen that in
Plutarch demons are taken as souls of the dead. 3 This idea was
especially current among the pythagoreans: the soul was called
"demon", a man was e:U8(XLIJ.CJ)V if he had a good 8(XLIJ.CJ)V.' For Em-
pedocles, the soul was nothing more than one of the long-lived de-
mons doomed because of a transgression to take on all kinds of
forms of life in the four elements for 30,000 seasons, far from the
Blessed.1> It is striking that Empedocles characterized demons as
"long-lived", a word that was usually employed for Nymphs.
That Nymphs could be taken as souls can also be seen from Plato,
who included the "long-lived Nymphs" among the souls so pure
1See p. 80.
ICf. L. Bloch, Nymphen, in Roscher, Lexikon, Ill, 1897-1902, 526; H.
Hester, Nymphai, in RE, 17, 1937, 1530; W. Siisz, Hamadryaden, in RE, 7,
1912, 2288 and especially, Detienne, La notion de DAIMON, (see p. 79, n. 2),
150-154.
3 See p. 79.
, See Detienne, La notion de DAIMON, 62-67.
6 Empedocles, frg. 115 (FVS, I, 357), 5-8: ... 3ottILOVe:t; OfTe: ILotKpottCJlIIOt;
Ae:Aa.XotaL (3tOLO, / Tptt; fLW fLuPtott; lipott; a1to fLotKa.PCJlV aMAlla'&otL/qlUOfL£vOUt; 1totVTOLot
3LcX Xp6vou e:t8e:ot '&VllTWV / apyotMott; (3L6TOLO fLe:TotAAa.aaOVTot Ke:Ae:U'&OUt;. Cf. De-
tienne, La "demonologie" d'EmpMocle, in Rev. Etud. Grecques, 72, 1959, 1-17
and idem, La notion de DAIMON, 89-90 and 153, where he also draws atten-
tion to Hesiod's riddle, although without offering any new insights. For
Empedocles' doctrine of metempsychosis, see H. S. Long, A study of the
doctrine of metempsychosis in Greece from Pythagoras to Plato, Thesis, Prince-
ton, 1948, 45-62.
HESIOD, AND THE PHOENIX AS SYMBOL OF THE SOUL 133
that they did not descend to earth but remained in the sphere of fire
or, as outer limit, in that of the air. l As late an author as Porphyry
called the Nymphs a symbol of the Souls that are at the point of
being reincarnated. 2
The concepts demon, Nymph, and soul, consequently, are closely
related and can even coincide to an appreciable extent. It is there-
fore remarkable that in Plutarch the question of the age of the
Nymphs is found in a discussion of the mortality of demons, and
occurs directly after an analysis of the doctrine of transmigration. 3
From Plutarch's discussion of Hesiod, frg. 304, it is evident that
he had heard something about various interpretations but that it
was no longer clear to him how all these elements should be combin-
ed and what their original meaning was. For our elucidation of
Hesiod's riddle we could make almost no use of Plutarch's infor-
mation, and were restricted to his remark that the life of a Nymph
ends at the decline of the world.' We also pointed out there that
the view that the term generation in the riddle must be understood
as a period of 30 years, in agreement with Heraclitus, can be re-
conciled with the report that Heraclitus assumed a duration of
10,800 years for the Great Year.5
What has not yet been explained is why Cleombrotus argues in
Plutarch that in the riddle the word "generation" must be seen as
an indication of one year, and why others, according to Demetrius,
held that it was a period of 30 or ro8 years.6 It must also be recalled
here that at the same time Cleombrotus clearly thought that
"generation" meant the entire length of a man's life, which is only
explicitly stated for the period of 108 years. 7
All these mutually conflicting points can be reconciled and then
1 According to Olympiodorus, In Ayist. meteoY., 382a, 6 (ed. G. Stiive,
Commentayia in Ayistotelem GYaeca, XII, 2, Berlin, 1900, 301), et. Detienne,
La notion de DAIMON, 151-152.
2 Porphyry, De ant1'0 Nymphayum, 10 (ed. Nauck, 1886): NU(.LCjlIXI; 3e:
vIXt31X1; AEyO(.Le\I KlXl Tal; T(;)'" u3aTwv 7rpoe:aTwalXl; 3UVa(.Le:LI; t3LwI;, !Ae:yov 3E: KlXl Tai;
e:tl; YEve:aLv KIXTLoualX1; IjIU)(al; KOLV(;)I; cX7raalXl;.
8 See p. 80.
, See p. 102.
6 See p. 89-90 .
• See p. 80-81.
7 See p. 82.
explained if it is assumed that Hesiod's riddle played a part in the

Classical speculations on the transmigration of the soul. It is our
view that in this context "generation" was equated with "year" and
that the resulting age of the raven (ro8 years) was understood as
the duration of man's life on earth and that of the phoenix (972
years) as the duration of the soul's peregrination between the death
of the individual and a new incarnation, which means that from
birth to birth the soul passed through periods of 1080 years. To
make this acceptable, we must base ourselves on several statements
made by Plato about metempsychosis.
In the Phaedrus Plato speaks about the time required by the soul
to regain its lost wings: this amounts to 10,000 years. Only the soul
of the true philosopher or of him who with great devotion has initi-
ated young people into philosophy can escape the cycle of births
after 3,000 years ifhe has chosen a life ofthis kind three times in suc-
cession. All the other souls are judged after their first existence and
receive either punishment under the earth or elevation to heaven
according to how they lived their earthly lives. In the thousandth
year they choose a new existence. l Under the thousand years is also
understood earthly life, which Plato put at 100 years, since he
speaks later on about the soul that must drift for 9,000 years under
or around the earth, by which he must have meant the sum of the
periods between the earthly existences. 2 A somewhat different
view of the matter is found in the report of Er concerning the here-
after, occurring at the end of the Politeia, in which it is said that
the unrighteous must pay a tenfold penalty for their earthly trans-
gressions, the life of man being put at 100 years and the period
under the earth at rooo years. 3
1 Plato, Phaedrus, 248e-249b: e:lt; ILeV YC1P TO a.UTO 6~e:v ~Ke:L ~ IjiU)(l) tK!Xa"t"'l)
OUK ciCPLKve:i:Ta.L ~TWV ILUP(WY-OU yc1p l"t"Tepoi:i"t"a.L l"t"PO ToaOUTOU )(P6VOU-l"t"Al)V Tj
TOU cpLAoaocp~aa.VTOt; ci!l6AWt; ~ l"t"a.L!le:pa.a~aa.V"t"Ot; ILeTc1 cpLAoaocp(a.t;, a.iS-ra.L !le Tpl"t"1l
l"t"e:pL6!lCf> -r'ii )(LALE:"t"e:i:, ~c1V !AWV"t"a.L Tp!t; ~cpe:~'iit; TOV ~lov TOUTOV, o\hw l"t""t"E:pw~e:i:aa.L
TPLO")(LALoaTiji ~Te:L cil"t"ep)(OvTa.L, a.t !le d!Ua.L, 6Ta.V TOV l"t"PWTOV ~(ov Te:Aeu~awaLv
Kplaewt; ~"t"U)(OV, ••• Tiji !le )(LALoaTiji ciILCP6Te:pa.L ciCPLKVOUILe:va.L ~l"t"! lCA~pwa(v "t"E: Ka.!
a.tpe:aw TOU !leuTepou ~(ou a.tPOUVTa.L, av &v ~eAll tlC!Xa"t"'l).
a Plato, Phaedrus, 257a: ~vea. )(LAL!X!la.t; ~TWV l"t"e:p! yljv lCuALv!louIL~v a.U-r7)V
Ka.! I'mo Y'iit; civouv l"t"a.pe~eL. For the idea of metempsychosis in the Phaedrus,
see R. S. Bluck, The Phaedrus and reincarnation, in A]Ph, 79, 1958, 156-164
and idem, Plato, Pindar, and metempsychosis, in A]Ph, 79, 1958,412, n. 14.
a Plato, Politeia, 615a, b: e:1Va.L !le -r7)V l"t"Ope:la.v )(LALe"t"'l) ••• {mep a.l"t"!XVTWV !llK1jV
Plato undoubtedly derived his data from older sources. The 10,000
year period for the cycle of births is also found in Empedocles, at
least if the three times ten thousand seasons he gives for this cycle
is read as years with three seasons.l Plato's view that the philoso-
pher is freed from the wheel of births after three "pure" periods of
1,000 years, is reminiscent of the well-known statement of Pindar
that he who has been able to keep his soul free of unrighteousness
three times on both sides of the grave goes to the stronghold of
Cronus, the Isle of the Blessed. 2
Thus, in the Phaedrus Plato put what we may call the great cycle
of the soul at 10 X (IOO + goo) = 10,000 years but in the Politeia
at 10 X (IOO + 1,000) = II,OOO years, at least if we may take it
that there too it is assumed that the soul must pass through IO lives.
The impression is obtained that he knew that after the passage of
1,000 years an important point occurred in the cycle of the soul, but
that it was not clear to him whether this period must be taken only
as the time between two existences or as including the preceding
earthly life. He seems to have attached importance only to the fact
that the soul underwent a new reincarnation after 1,000 years and
that it must undergo this fate ten times.
3&:3C1lKEvotL ev
lLEP&:L, l17d:p ~KcXo"TOU 3&:KcXKL~, Toiho 3' &:tVotL KotT« ~KotTOVTot&:T7jpt3ot
~KcXO"T7jV, w~ ~tou IIvTo~ TOO"OUTOU TOU a.V'&PCll7ttVOU, {Vot 8&:Kot7tAcXO"LOV TO hT&:LO"lLot
TOU a,3LK~lLotTO~ ~KTtVOL&:v.
1 Empedocles,lrg. 115 (see p. 132, n. 5). 10,000 years, e.g. in R. S. Bluck,
Plato's Meno, Cambridge, 1961, 282-283 and W. K. C. Guthrie, A history 01
Greek PhilosoPhy, n, Cambridge, 1965, 251, n. 6, where there are also other
and older views. Herodotus, n, 123, gives a description of metempsychosis
that resembles most closely that of Empedocles (cl. Burkert, Weisheit und
Wissenschalt, 103, n. 39); Herodotus remarks that after 3,000 years the soul
returns to the individual. It is tempting to think that as early an author as
Herodotus interpreted, as do a number of modern scholars, the seasons of
Empedocles as years and that his incarnation interval of 3,000 years originally
referred to 3 X 1,000 seasons. On this basis, Empedocles and Plato would
be in agreement, at least on the point of the periodization of the metempsy-
chosis. However, the 3,000 years also played an important role as a great
cycle: see the Orphic fragment 231 (Kern) in Proclus, given on p. 143, n. 3;
there is also the 3,000 years assigned to the Great Year by Cicero, according
to Servius (see above p. 73, n. 4).
I Pindar, Olymp., n, 124-130: 15000L 3' h6AlLotO"otV ~o"Tpl~ / ~KotTEpCll.&L lLe:tVotVT&:~
a.7tO dlL7totV a,3tKCIlV I)(&:LV / tjlU)(cXV, IT&:LAotV ~LO~ 630v 7totp« Kp6- / vou -ruPO"LV.
Iv.&ot lLotKcXPCllV / viiO"ov wKe:otvt8&:~ / otOpotL 7t&:pmvEoLO"LV. For Pindar's conception
of metempsychosis, see the literature referred to on p. 138, in n. 5.
Our hypothesis is that this version of metempsychosis was based

on Hesiod, frg. 304, or that a connection was made between the two
very early. This is given support by several arguments.
We have already pointed out that the 324,000 years ofthe Nymphs
can be interpreted as 10,800 Heraclitean generations of 30 years, and
that this reveals a relationship between the riddle of Hesiod and
Censorinus' statement that Heraclitus put the duration of the Great
Year at 10,800 years. l In this context we referred to the tradition
that in Hesiod's riddle the word "generation" must be understood
as an indication of a year. It may be assumed that Heraclitus him-
self had already spoken of a period of 10,800 generations and one of
10,800 years.
The question of the original import of Censorinus' 10,800 years is
a matter of controversy: it has been seen as the great cycle of the
soul, i.e. the cycle of births in metempsychosis, 2 and as the great
cosmic cycle of the Great Year.3 Arguments can be put forward in
support of both views. We assume that Heraclitus, in expressing
Hesiod's riddle in his generations of 30 years, put the total duration
of life on earth at 10,800 generations and assumed for the great cycle
of the soul a period of 10,800 years. The cycle of the individual soul
would thus comprise the same number of years as the cycle of life
had generations.
According to Hesiod, the Nymphs live ten times as long as the
phoenix, whose life would then, according to the Heraclitean com-
putation, comprise 1,080 generations or years. If the 10,800 years of
Heraclitus indicate the great cycle of the soul, the phoenix with its
1,080 years must symbolize what we may call the small cycle: an
earthly life and the subsequent peregrinations of the soul until it
begins a new life on earth. According to Plato, as we know, the great
cycle was formed by 10 small ones.
1 See p. 89. The number 18,000 found in Aetius remains obscure and is
indeed probably based on a misunderstanding.
S Of the authors mentioned on p. 90 in n. I, we may mention here:
Reinhardt, Parmenides, 197-199; idem, Heraclitea, 81; Kirk, Heraclitus, 302;
and with some hesitations also Marcovich, 302.
3 Of the authors mentioned on p. 90 in n. I, we may mention here:
Vlastos, 311; Guthrie, History, I, 458; Van der Waerden, Das grosse Jakr,
136, 142 •
If we now, with Plato, take the duration of this small cycle as 10

times longer than the life of a man, we obtain for an earthly life a
period of 108 years and for the interval between two such lives 972
years. In this context the tradition that in Hesiod's riddle the word
"generation" indicates a period of 108 years becomes logical. In this
connection we would once again draw attention to the fact that
Plutarch explicitly states that this period is the maximallifespan of
man. 1
From the Heraclitean calculation of Hesiod's riddle it is possible to
derive, by application of Plato's re-incarnation scheme, the above-
mentioned periods of 108 and 972 years. But we find these numbers
directly in the original version of Hesiod if there, too, we equate a
generation with a year: the raven lives 108 and the phoenix 972
years. If the periodization of metempsychosis was also found in this
version, the age of the phoenix here, in contrast to Heraclitus' ver-
sion, must have been an indication of the peregrination of the soul
between two successive existences. The 9,720 years of the Nymphs
must then be taken as the total duration of these peregrinations
within the great cycle of the soul. We have seen that Plato too
knew the cumulative duration of this interim period and that he put
it at a total of 9,000 years. 2
If, in Classical times, Hesiod's riddle was indeed related to the
doctrine of metempsychosis, it must be concluded from the fore-
going that the phoenix was also seen in~two ways as a symbol of the
soul. On the basis of the original version of Hesiod, the bird was
taken as an indication of the 972 years spent by the soul between
two earthly lives; on the basis of the computation given by Hera-
clitus it was interpreted as a symbol of the soul as such, the soul that
takes a new incarnation every 1,080 years.
It follows from this that uncertainty could arise concerning the
correct interpretation to be given to the phoenix as symbol of the
soul in Hesiod's riddle. Furthermore, it could be difficult to decide
whether the phoenix-soul must be assigned a "lifespan" of 972 or
1,080 years. It seems logical to conclude that these difficulties were
solved by assuming a round number for the phoenix (1,000 years)
1 See p. 81.
2 See p. 134, n. 2.
and that this interval was applied at times to the peregrinations of

the soul after death and at other times to the entire period between
two incarnations.
This would explain why Plato took a period of 1,000 years for the
penance of the soul after death in the Politeia and in the Phaedrus
included in this interval the earthly life of man (roo years).l
If the phoenix in Hesiod, Irg. 304, was taken in this sense as a
symbol of the soul, this would explain how the phoenix could be
said to live 1,000 years. The fact that this age was first mentioned
by Martial and Pliny, 2 need not mean that the conception was not
much older, because sources for the phoenix dating from the time
before Christ are extremely scarce. 3 We have attempted to show in
the elucidation of Hesiod's riddle that the 500 years frequently men-
tioned for the phoenix represents a rounding off of the 540 years
mentioned by Manilius, which is based on the sexagesimal version
of the riddle. 4 We now postulate that the lifespan of 1,000 years, too,
ultimately goes back to Hesiod, Irg. 304, in particular to the inter-
pretation given it on the basis of theory of metempsychosis.
That Hesiod's riddle was interpreted in this sense is also shown by
the following points. In a much-discussed fragment of Pindar's
Threni in Plato it is said that after the ninth year Persephone sends
back up to earth the souls of those whose penance she accepts. 6 This
1 See p. 143.
I See p. 69.
3 See p. 393-396.
, See p. 89.
6 Pindar, frg. 133 (ed. Schroeder and ed. Snell = frg. 137, ed. Turyn =
Plato, Meno, 8Ib-c), 1-3: o!aL 8e clIe:pae:cp6vlX 7tOLvdtv 7tIXAIXLOU 7tEv.&e:Oo; / 8e~e:'t"IXL,
£0; 't"bv (Jm:p.&e:v &ALOV Ke:(VCJ>V £vcX't"Cj) f't"e:L / cXV8L8o! tjluxdto; 7tcXALV. Recent literature
on this passage and the connection between it and Olymp., Il, 124-130 (see
p. 135, n. 2) and the views of Empedocles and Plato: K. von Fritz, 'Ea't"ptc;
eKIX't"epCJ>'&L in Pindar's second Olympian and Pythagoras' theory of metempsy-
chosis, in Phronesis, 2, 1957, 85-89; contra Von Fritz: R. S. Bluck, Plato,
Pindar and metempsychosis, in AJPh, 79, 1958,405-414; idem, Plato's Meno,
Cambridge, 1961,280-283 (for the translation "after the ninth year": p. 280);
D. McGibbon, Metempsychosis in Pindar, in Phronesis, 9, 1964,5-11; Guthrie,
History, (see p. 135, n. I), Il, 252-253; J. van Leeuwen, Pindarus' tweede
Olympische Ode, Thesis Leiden, Assen, 1964, 194-200. Older literature and a
detailed discussion of the conceptions in Pindar are found in H. S. Long,
A study of the doctrine of metempsychosis in Greece from Pythagoras to Plato,
Thesis Princeton, Princeton, 1948, 29-44.
remarkably short interval has never been explained in a way that

would reconcile this passage with other statements by Pindar him-
self or by Plato concerning metempsychosis. It has been pointed out,
however, that the period of nine years can only be combined with
Plato's views if it is assumed that the "ninth year" must be read as
the "ninth millenium", although no case is known in which the
term used by Pindar, ~'t"o~-in contrast to eV~otu't"6~-was used in the
sense of "period".1 But this old problem acquires a completely log-
ical solution if we assume that Pindar knew the calculation of the
cycles of the soul according to Hesiod's riddle. We have seen that
there the age of the raven itself is again taken as a year of which the
crow indicates a month and the deer a season of four months. 2 The
lifespan of the phoenix encompasses nine such "years": if the raven
symbolizes the earthly life of man and the phoenix the interval
between two lives, it can indeed be said with Pindar that the soul
returns to the earth after nine years. 3 This explanation puts the
fragment into a logical relationship with other references to the fate
of the soul.
In the fragment from the Threni it is also said that the souls re-
leased by Persephone after the ninth year become kings, mighty and
1 Bluck, Plato's Meno, 281; McGibbon, 11; Guthrie, History, n, 253. O.

Skutsch, Notes on Metempsychosis, in Class. Philol., 54, 1959, 114, suggests
that ~a.'t"Ct> l!'t"EL might in some way be related to an original ~ veoc = d<; veoc
(sc. O"6lILOC't"OC), a suggestion which explains nothing and is highly unlikely.
B See p. 95.
8 The nine years have been taken as an enneaeteris," cf. e.g. E. Rohde,
Psyche, 2nd ed., Freiburg i.B.-Leipzig-Tiibingen, 1898 (reprint Darmstadt,
1961), n, 211, n. 2, who refers to Hesiod, Theogonia, 793-804, where it is said
that the gods who swore a false oath were banished from Olympus for nine
years. It seems more likely, however, that this originally referred to nine
Great Years; cf. vs. 799: ILeyocv e:tc; ~Locu't"6v (but see also M. C. West. Hesiod,
Theogony, Oxford, 1966, 376, who concludes from this expression that an
ordinary year is meant here). There is also the relevant view in Plutarch
that the nine years of Apollo's banishment were really nine Great Years
(see for this p. 84). Empedocles too clearly had in mind a much longer
period for this kind of banishment (see p. 132, n. 5 and p. 135, n. I). Con-
ceivably, ancient Oriental ideas had contributed to the period of nine
"years": as early as the Hurrian-Hittite Kumarbi myth, the gods took turns
in being the king of heaven for nine years; cf. H. G. Giiterbock, Kumarbi.
My then vom churritischen Kronos aus den hethitischen Fragmenten zusammen-
gestelt, ubersetzt und erklart, Ziirich-New York, 1946, 6.
wise men, later to be considered by men as Heroes. 1 The latter im-

plies that for them the peregrination of the soul has come to an
end. We have already mentioned that elsewhere, in his second Olym-
Pic Ode, Pindar says that he who has kept his soul free of un-
righteousness three times on both sides of the grave is released from
the cycle of births-a privilege Plato extended to the philosopher. 2
Now that we know that in the Threni the nine years of the soul's
penance can be taken as the much longer interval between two
existences-972 years according to Hesiod's riddle-there is no ob-
jection to the assumption that they refer to the third cycle of the
soul. It is therefore unnecessary to assume a difference between the
ideas in this text and those in the second Olympic Ode and in Plato. 3
The assumption that Hesiod's riddle was interpreted as an indica-
tion of the cycles of the transmigration of the soul thus throws a
clarifying light on an obscure passage in Pindar and on the whole
of his ideas concerning metempsychosis.
Lastly, we must inquire into the groups among whom the assum-
ed interpretation of Hesiod's riddle could have originated. It can
be deduced from Plutarch that the 108 years for a generation of old
people was seen as an Orphic concept. 4 The extent to which the
1 Pindar, Irg. 133 (137-see p. 138, n. 5), 3-6: eK ..iiv (3cxaLA~£'; ciycxuoE / KcxL
a&ev£L KpcxmvoL aocpEqc ..£ ILEYLaTOL / dtv8p£.; CXG~OVT'· e.; 8& ..ov AOL7tOV xp6vov 'fjpw£.;
tJ.y- /VOL 7tpo.; civ&pc:l7tWV KCXAEOVTCXL.
2 See p. 135.
3 For this assumed difference, see e.g. the articles (mentioned on p. 138
in n. 5) by von Fritz, 88-89 and Bluck, 407. Rohde, Psyche, II, 212, n. 2,
pointed out that there did not necessarily have to be a difference.
, See p. 82. The 108-year period is perhaps also implied in the second
redaction of Hesiod's riddle in Ausonius, Opusc., XXXII, 1-9: in the manu-
scripts and printed editions the rather literal translation is introduced by the
words (vs. I and 2): Ter binos deciesque novem super exit in annos / iusta
senescentum quos implet vita virorum. W. H. Roscher, Zu Ausonius De aetati-
bus animantium, in Philologus, 67 (N.F. 21), 1908, 158-160, has suggested
that instead of ter binos should be read ter senos, because a ye:v£1i of 96 years
is "nicht nachweisbar und an sich unwahrscheinlich" (see also his Enneadische
Studien, (n. 3 on p. 77), 41, n. 65). After his citation of Hesiod's verses,
Ausonius says that the period of the Nymphs concerns the duration of every
living thing and that only God knows the length of the rotational periods
of the planets, the sun, and the moon, which determine the duration of the
Great Year (see Plato, here p. 73, n. 2). Ausonius' conception is therefore
rather close to the explanation of the riddle we have given here.
early Orphics knew metempsychosis and what the relationship was

in this respect between Orphism and Pythagorism is a matter of
controversy.1 What is certain is that in later times many things were
ascribed to the Orphics of which we can now demonstrate only that
they were known to the early Pythagoreans. This seems to include
the number 108. Demetrius indicates in Plutarch that 108 years was
the longest possible human lifespan, because the age of 54 is the
outer limit for anyone to be in the middle of his life. He himself
points out that the latter number is the sum of the great or double
tetractys with which Plato also began the composition of the world
soul in his Timaeus. 2 Plato is the first to mention this great te-
tractys, but he undoubtedly took it from Pythagorism. 3 We have
seen that in the riddle the reading "generations of young people" is
the original one because this is the only basis on which the duration
of the current period can be properly calculated. 4 Furthermore, we
1 A highly critical view of the age of many supposed Orphic doctrines is
given by I. M. Linforth. The arts of Orpheus, Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1941
(cj. also U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Der Glaube der Hellenen, 11, 3rd
ed., Darmstadt, 1959, 195-202). Following Linforth, Long, (see p. 138, n. 5
here), 92, concludes, with respect to metempsychosis: "it is unreasonable to
believe that the Pythagoreans derived that doctrine from an Orphic source". Cf.
also E. R. Dodds, The Greek and the irrational, (Sather classical lectures, 25),
Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1951, 143-144, 147-149 and W. ]aeger, Die Theologie
der fruhen griechischen Denker, Darmstadt, 1964 (reprint = Stuttgart, 1953),
71-78. For a more positive evaluation of the Orfics, see W. K. C. Guthrie,
Orpheus and Greek religion, 2nd ed., London, 1952, 156-171, K. Ziegler,
Orphische Dichtung, in RE, 18, 2, 1942, 1370-1386, Nilsson, I, 691-696 and
Th. G. Sinnige, Matter and infinity in the presocratic schools and Plato, Thesis
Utrecht, Assen, 1968, 49-63.
2 Plato, Timaeus, 35b-36b; for this, see p. 81. For a discussion of this
passage, see A. Ahlvers, Zahl und Klang bei Platon, Thesis Bern, (Noctes
Romanae, 6), Bern, 1952, 21-35 and B. Kytzler, Die Weltseele und der musi-
kalische Raum, in Hermes, 87, 1959, 393-413.
8 Cf. A. E. Taylor, A commentary on Plato's Timaeus, Oxford, 1928, 137
and Ahlers, 32-34. K. Reinhardt, Parmenides und die Geschichte der griechi-
schen Philosophie, 2nd ed., Frankfurt am Main, 1959, 189, pointed to the
Theologoumena arithmetica, 40 (ed. V. de Fa1co, Leipzig, 1922, 52), where it
is said of five Pythagoreans that they taught that after 216 years metempsy-
chosis begins: after that many years Pythagoras would live again. However,
the explanation given with this statement suggests a different relationship
than that with the gxeat tetractys: 216 (= 6 3 ) is the psychogonic cube of 6,
which holds for the gestational period of a seven-month's child and, in
parallel with this, for metempsychosis.
, See p. 97.
have made it probable that the generations mentioned in the riddle

were interpreted as periods of 108 years, because the raven with its
ro8 generations, considered as years, was seen as a symbol of the
earthly life of man. The variant "generations of old people" can
therefore be seen as a deliberate change introduced into Hesiod's
text by Pythagoreans or possibly Orphic-pythagoreans in order to
give a cautious indication that the riddle concerned metempsycho-
sis.
A connection with Hesiod, Irg. 304, has also been suspected in
respect of an Orphic fragment in Plutarch, which refers to someone
(?) "who lives as long as the leaf-bearing branches of the palms. "1
If these two texts are indeed related, the Orphic verse must be a
rather laboured, deliberately obscure reference to Hesiod based on
the homonymy <poLvL~-bird and <pOLvL~-palm. Such an obscure way of
speaking about the mystery of the soul seems highly appropriate for
Orphic-Pythagoreans. Both meanings of the word <pOLVL~ led in Clas-
sical times to various kinds of confusion and deliberate speculation. 2
In this respect one text must be mentioned that also seems to have
a connection with Hesiod's riddle.
We have seen that in the riddle the phoenix originally symbolizes
the duration of a world month and that therefore 12 of these
"phoenix periods" form a Great Year. 3 Horapollo, who attributed
much mysterious wisdom to the early Egyptians, states that the
Egyptians draw a palm tree to indicate a year because this tree
gives off a new branch every month and consequently produces 12
in a year.' The agreement is so striking that it becomes highly prob-
1 Plutarch, Quaest. conviv., VIII, 4, 2 (723e-ed. Bernardakis, Flut. Mor.,
IV, Lipsiae, 1892, 322) : 0 ae CPOLVL~ (J.cxKp6~LOV (J.~V ~aTL ~v TOLe;; (J.ciALaTcx TWV CPUTWV,
≤; 7tOU Kcxh« 'OPCPLK« (= Kern (see p. 143, n. 3), no. 225) Tcxihcx (J.e:(J.cxp-ruP7JKe:·
"~WOV a'taov a:KPOK6(J.OLaLV I cpoLVlKCIlV !pve:aaLV". For Roscher, Enneadiscke
Studien, 24, n. 35, 26, n. 42, followed by Schulz, Ratsel, (see p. 77, n. 3), I, 143,
this text gave reason to read cpoLvL~ in Hesiod's riddle also as "palm": ct.
also Turk, 3461, n. 1 and Hubaux and Leroy, 105. Rohde, Psyche, II, 121,
n. 2 on 120, assumed that this fragment "wokl aus einer Schilderung des
langen Lebens iiltester Mensckengesckleckter stammt".
8 See p. 53-57.
a See p. 94-95.
, Horapollo, Hieroglypkica, I, 3: KCXt eT£pCllt;; ~LCXUTOV ypacpone:e;;, CPOlVLKCX
!;CIlypcxcpouaL, aL« TO a~apOV TOUTO (J.6vov TWV IDCIlv KCXT« -rljv a:VCXTOA~V rije;; a£AijV7Jt;
(J.lcxv ~atv ye:wtj.v, ~t; ~ a&!ae:KCX ~ataLv ~LCXUTOV a:7tcxpTl!;e:a&cxL. A remarkable
able that among certain groups the phoenix in Hesiod was seen as
a palm branch. This strengthens the view that there is a relationship
between the Orphic fragment and Hesiod's riddle. 1 It is not clear,
however, to what the fragment refers: it could be the peregrination
of the soul after death or the entire small cycle of the soul including
the earthly life, or even the Great Year.
That the Orphic-Pythagoreans related Hesiod's riddle to metem-
psychosis also seems to be suggested by the citation in Aristophanes.
We have pointed out that the reference forms the climax of the pre-
ceding passage, and it was evidently intended to make the audience
laugh. The question is: Why? It has been argued that in several
places the Birds derides some Orphic ideas, 2 and it is quite possible
that this is also the case for the citation of the evidently widely
known verse about the crow. The nine generations of the crow com-
prise 300 years, and according to Proclus, "Orpheus" taught that
the soul remains in the penitential places under the earth not for the
1,000 years of Plato but for 300 years, in which period its life is
oriented toward birth. 3 There may be also some connection with the
parallel is found in the Coptic Life of Apa Onnoph,-ius, published and trans-
lated by E. A. W. Budge, Coptic ma,-tyrdoms in the dialect of Upper Egypt,
London, 1914, 208 and 214 (trans. on 458 and 463. respectively). where it
is said both of the hermit Timotheus and of Onnophrius that in the desert
they fed on the fruits of a palm tree that annually bore 12 bunches of dates.
each sufficient for one month.
1 Roscher, Enneadische Studien. 26-27, assumed that the riddle must have
originated in "Orphic-Hesiodic" circles. for the following reasons: I. the
number nine played a role in Orphism; 2. the long-living "palm" also occurs
intheOrphicliterature (seep. 142, n. I); 3. the long life of the animals, the palm,
and the Nymphs is reminiscent of the Great Year, which is supposed to be
first encountered in Orphic writings; and 4. the legend in which Orpheus
had a lifespan equal to nine generations (see below, p. 144, n. I), derives
from Orphic circles.
I Cf. J. Bidez, Eos ou Platon et l'O,-ient, (Gifford lectures, 1939), Brussels,
1945, 40, 168, n. 12, R. Turcan, L'ame-oiseau et l'eschatologie orphique, in
RHR, 78, (155), 1959, 40, and ]aeger. Theologie de,- fruhen griechischen
Denke'-,78.
8 Proclus, Comm. in Plato Rem publ., ed. W. Kroll, Il, Leipzig, 1901, 173:
'0 BE 'OPCPeUt; BLIX "pLotKOaLCJ)\I otU"IXt; (sc. Ij/U)(IXt;) ~"(;)\I cbtb ,,(;)\1 ,,67tCJ)\I !lye:L ,,(;)\1
tl7tb yijt; Kotl ,,(;)\1 ~Ke:r BLKotLCJ)TI)PLCJ)\I ot~·lht; e:lt; yeve:aL\I, aU\I.fh)ILIlt Kotl OU"Ot; 7tOLOU-
ILE:\Iot; "IXt; "pe:rt; EKot"Oll'rcXBott; '"it; "e:Ae:Lott; 7te:pL630u ,,(;)\1 ci\l&PCJ)7tL\lCJ)\I Ij/U)((;)\I KIlt'&otLPO-
(L£\lCJ)\I, ~cp' olt; ~[)LCJ)aot\l ~7tLa"pe:cp6ILE:\IotL rl)\I yeve:aL\I (= O. Kern, O,-phicOt'um
fragmenta, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1963, 245, no. 231). The 300 years suggest a great
cycle of 3,000 years, see p. 135, n. I.
idea transmitted by Suidas that Orpheus lived for nine generations,

which again is reminiscent of Hesiod's riddle. 1 One wonders whether
Aristophanes did not have in mind a different, perhaps more Or-
phic concept of metempsychosis that was also related to Hesiod's
riddle but followed another line than the possibly more Pythagorean
view that put the term of the peregrination of the soul after death
at 972 (1,000) years. It is indeed remarkable that he cited a sex-
agesimal version of the verse about the crow. The Birds was written
in 414 B.C.,2 i.e. in the time when Babylonian influence was in-
creasing in Greece after the Persian wars. 3 It is conceivable that at
this time the riddle again became known in its original sexagesimal
version.
In view of all this we think that there is sufficient reason to con-
clude that the verses of Hesiod, which originally only represented a
computation of the duration of life in the current world period,
were later thought to contain an indication of the cycles of metem-
psychosis. In Hesiod's version the raven with its 108 generations
was interpreted as an indication of the earthly life of man (108
years), the phoenix as a symbol of the peregrinations of the soul
after death (972 years), and the Nymphs as a symbol of the totality
of perigrinations within the great cycle of the soul (9720 years). The
small cycle, the period between two successive incarnations, was
thus put at 1,080 years and the great cycle at 10,800 years.
The periods of 1,080 and 10,800 years can be derived directly
from the riddle if the age of the phoenix and of the Nymphs is ex-
pressed in Heraclitean generations of 30 years and these too are equa-
ted with one year. In Heraclitus' adaptation the phoenix is therefore
a symbol of the small and the Nymphs of the great cycle of the soul.
This could have attracted Heraclitus because this approach revealed
several parallels between the cycles of the soul and those of the
1 Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. 'Op<peul; (ed. A. Adler, Ill, Leipzig, 1933, 564): ...
8e revea.l; &', ol 8e Let' <petaLv. The same holds for the seer Teresias, ac-
~LOOVetL
cording to some scholiasts, e.g. Tzetzes, on Lycophoron, Alexandra, 682 (ed.
E. Scheer, Lycophroni Alexandra, 11, Berlin, 1958 (reprint = 1908), 225),
cl. Roscher, Enneadische Studien, 26, 4I.
2 Cj. e.g. H. van Daele in the Bude edition ofV. Couton and H. van Daele,
Aristophane, Ill, 6th ed., Paris, 1963, II.
8 Cf. Burkert, Weisheit und Wissenschalt, 293-296.
HESIOD, AND THE PHOENIX AS SYMBOL OF THE SOUL l45
world. According to him, the ratio between a year and a generation

is the same as that between a day and a month, and this ratio also
holds for the small cycle of the soul and a month of the current world
year as well as the great cycle of the soul and the period of life on
earth (I : 30).
It hardly seems likely that Heraclitus was the first to see an in-
dication of the periodic divisions of metempsychosis in Hesiod's
riddle. One obtains the impression that it was Hesiod's version it-
self that was responsible for this interpretation, because only in it
does the basic number ro8 occur; the l08 generations of the raven
supply the smallest unit (I sar) in which the world period is ex-
pressed, and in parallelism with this the ro8 years of the raven form
the starting point for the calculation of the cycle of the soul. Pin-
dar's nine years for the interval between two lives also suggest that
Hesiod's version gave the impetus to speculation about the duration
of the soul's transmigration, as does the fact that in the later sym-
bolism the phoenix was the paramount symbol of the fate of the
soul after death. Further evidence is supplied by the fact that the
total duration of the peregrinations of the soul, which is exemplified
by the Nymphs, still occurs in Plato as a well-known concept (9,000
years). There are various indications that this interpretation of
Hesiod, frg. 304, originated among the Pythagoreans.
The objection might be offered that the foregoing conclusions are
based on rather hypothetical grounds. The answer to this objection
is that they make it possible to give a satisfactory explanation of
the divergent interpretations which, as appears from Plutarch, were
given to the word "generation" in Hesiod, frg. 304: I, 30, and ro8
years. In addition, the foregoing has made it clear how a lifespan of
l,OOO years came to be given to the phoenix as symbol of the soul.
The latter, indeed, could have been arrived at quite apart from any
interpretation of Hesiod's riddle, on the basis of periods assigned to
metempsychosis.
10
CHAPTER SIX
THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF THE PHOENIX
I. THE Two PRINCIPAL VERSIONS OF THE MYTH
The essence of the phoenix myth is that by dying the bird renews
its life. Although the many references to the myth in the Classical
and Early Christian literature differ at various points, almost all of
them can be reduced to one of two versions. In both these versions,
when the old phoenix feels its death approaching it begins to collect
aromatics. 1
According to the less common of these two traditions, the bird
dies on the nest it has built of aromatic plants, after which it de-
composes. From its decaying remains the new phoenix is generated,
usually starting as a worm. The young bird then departs without
delay for Heliopolis, in Egypt, carrying with it the remains of its
predecessor, which it places on the altar of the god of the sun. The
link between the phoenix and Egypt thus established was given the
main emphasis by Herodotus, who makes no reference, however, to
the bird's origin. 2
According to the other and more wide-spread tradition, the old
phoenix burns with the collected aromatics, which are usually ignit-
ed by the heat of the sun; from its ashes the new phoenix arises. The
intermediate stage of the worm is often inserted in this version too,
although it has little point because the flesh of the old phoenix does
not pass through a period of decomposition. 3 It therefore seems very
likely that the worm was borrowed from the other version. Many
authors have the phoenix go from its native country to the Egyptian
Heliopolis and burn itself on the altar there. It is possible that this
1 See Chapter VI, 2.
Z For a discussion of the tradition followed by Herodotus, see p. 190-193.
3 Epiphanius sensed the illogicality of the worm arising from the ashes
and therefore assumed that it emerged after some time from bits of intact
flesh that remained untouched by the fire; see p. 212. In the Graeco-Roman
world it was known that organisms originate in a decaying body; see p. 187.
THE TWO PRINCIPAL VERSIONS OF THE MYTH I47
too did not belong to the original version but was added to re-affirm
the link between the phoenix and Heliopolis.
This idea is inescapable when one studies the texts in which India
is said to be the country of the phoenix. All the authors concerned
hold to the tradition in which the phoenix burns; most of them have
this take place in India itself, and therefore were seemingly unaware
of the flight to Heliopolis and the resulting link between the phoenix
and Egypt; none of them, furthermore, mentions the intermediate
stage of the worm. 1 Before we draw any conclusions from this, we
must give some attention to the authors who do have the phoenix
journey from India to Egypt. We may start most conveniently with
Philostratus.
In Philostratus the mention of the phoenix is made by Apollonius
of Tyana. His entire report gives the impression of being an attempt
to reconcile the forms of the myth concerning India and Egypt, since
he distinguishes between "Egyptian" and "Indian" concepts of the
phoenix. He calls the bird's journey to Egypt a special elaboration
of the Egyptians, but immediately adds that the Indians agree with
them. 2 He assumes on the one hand that the phoenix burns itself,3
but on the other, in mentioning the bird's death, he uses a rather
vague word suggesting decomposition more than cremation.' It
remains possible that here the otherwise extremely unreliable Phi-
1 Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32; Sidonius, Carmina, VII, 353-354, XI, 326-

327; John Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11 (but see p. 148); Schol. on Persius,
I, 46. The authors who give the Far East more in general as the abode of the
phoenix can also be included here: Claudian, Phoenix, 1-10, De consulatu
Stilichonis, II, 414-420, who after all ends by having the phoenix go to
Heliopolis (see p. 158 and also p. 225) and the Schol. on Lucan, VI, 680,
nos. 1-4. Aristides, XVII, 2, XX, 19, XLV, 107 and Lucian, De morte
Peregrini, 27, Navigium, 44, mention India as the abode of the phoenix and
also the fire version, but are too brief to offer any indication of whether they
were aware of the bird's flight to Egypt and the burning there.
2 Philostratus, Vita Apollonii Tyanaei, Ill, 49: & 3e AtyU7tTLOL m:p1 CXUTOU
iJ30UGLII, w~ E~ AtYU7tTOII CPEPETCXL, Kcx1 '111301 ~U!L!LCXpTUpOUGL.
a This is evident from EK3L36!LEllolI TooII IiKTllI(.o)1I and his rendition of the
"Indian" conception that at its death the phoenix sings funeral hymns,
which lies in the direction of the prayer to the sun to ignite the pyre; see
p.201.
, Ibid ... TOil CPOlllLKCX TOil Ell -r'ii KCXAL~ T7jK6!LEIIOII, cl. Liddell-Scott, 1786-1787,
s.v., -rljK(.o) and p. 203.
148 THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF THE PHOENIX
lostratus1 drew on information about the phoenix provided by Apol-

lonius himself, and this is made probable by a remark of John Lydus,
who after describing the burning of the phoenix in India says: "Ac-
cording to Apollonius, it does this on the altar in Heliopolis". 2 This
city is not mentioned by Philostratus, and Lydus furthermore adds
another detail about the departure of the phoenix from Egypt3 that
also cannot be found in Philostratus, so it may be considered certain
that Lydus did not draw on Philostratus. If we may assume that
the Apollonius he mentions is identical with Philostratus' hero, it is
clear that Apollonius of Tyana must have written on the phoenix.
This Neo-Pythagorean sage and wonder-worker lived in the first
century after Christ, whereas Lydus lived in the sixth century.4 In
the latter's time the burning in Egypt was widely known, albeit
that-with the exception of the Physiologus-the phoenix was never
said to come from India. Lydus noticed that Apollonius had the
bird live in India but assumed nonetheless that it burned itself in
Heliopolis. It is therefore evident that Lydus found this to be a
strange combination. Apollonius is possibly one of the first to have
attempted to reconcile the "Indian" and "Egyptian" conceptions, as
is also suggested by Philostratus' account.
The combination of India and Heliopolis also occurs in the Physio-
logus, although there the phoenix goes first to Lebanon on its way
from India, to collect the aromatics for its pyre, and only then pro-
ceeds to Heliopolis. 5 In the later versions of this book the importance
of India as the dwelling-place of the phoenix steadily decreases until
it is no longer mentioned, whereas the flight to Egypt remains a
constant element. 6 But the Arabic Physiologus, to the contrary,
omits the burning in Heliopolis altogether: the phoenix does go
from India to the Lebanon, but then returns to its departure point
1 See F. Solmsen, PhilostYatos, IO, in RE, 20, I, 1941, 147-154 on the

sources of Philostratus.
• Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11: "P&'T'l'£TCXL 8e ToiiTo ~"t TOU ~ 'HAEou 71'6AE:L
~(o)lLoU KCXTiX TOY» A"OAAWYLOY.
a See p. 224.
'" See J. Miller, Apollonius, 98, in RE, 2, I, 1895, 146-148 and A. Klotz,
Lydos, 7, in RE, 13, 2, 1927, 2210-2217.
6 GY. Physiologus, 7; see also p. 17I.
• For the disappearance of India from the later versions, see p. 307.
THE TWO PRINCIPAL VERSIONS OF THE MYTH 149
to burn itself.! These variations in the later versions of the Physio-

logus can be adequately explained by assuming that at the time it
was quite clear that the tradition according to which the phoenix
lived in India did not really admit the burning in Egypt; conse-
quently, either India was omitted or the flight to Heliopolis.
Analysis of the texts indicating India as the dwelling-place of the
phoenix leads to the conclusion that there was a separate tradition
according to which the phoenix lived in India and renewed itself
there by burning when its lifespan had been fulfilled. At the same
time there was the other tradition that the young phoenix develops
from the disintegrating body of its predecessor, which it takes to
Heliopolis in Egypt. In this version no mention is made of India;
the abode of the phoenix is usually placed in Arabia and sometimes
in Ethiopia or Assyria. 2 But even in this version the flight to Egypt
does not always seem to have been felt necessary, since according to
Pliny, Manilius thought that the young phoenix brought its dead
predecessor to the temple of the sun in the vicinity of Panchaia. 3
The many variations of the version with the burning can be ex-
plained without difficulty if we start with the attractive hypothesis
that the oldest and purest form of this version is the one just men-
tioned, according to which the bird lives in India and is consumed by
fire there, having no connection with Egypt in any respect. The dif-
ferences between the texts reporting the burning can then be inter-
preted as borrowings from the version in which the genesis takes
place from the decomposing remains of the old phoenix, which were
1 A"ab. Physiologus, 6; see also p. 177-178.

B Arabia: Manilius in Pliny, X, 4 (but who has the young phoenix go to
Panchaia); I. Clement, 25; Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28; Mela, Ill, 84; Ambrose,
De excessu j"at"is, Il, 59, Exame"on, V, 23, 79 (phoenix does not fly to Egypt,
see p. 306). To Egypt, but without genesis details: Herodotus, Il, 73; Celsus
in Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 98; Aelian, VI, 58 (for these and the follow-
ing text see p. 190-194). Ethiopia: Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, 4, also without
details of the genesis. Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 393, has the phoenix live in Egypt
but die in Ethiopia, which must be based on a misunderstanding, see p. 306;
for Cyril of Jerusalem, who has the phoenix go to Egypt before its death,
see below p. 158 and p. 194. The death of the phoenix in Assyria is a secondary
tradition; see p. 51-52.
3 Pliny, X, 4: et totum de/erre nidum prope Panchaiam in SoUs urbem et in
ara ibi deponere.
interpolated in order to express the traditional link between the

phoenix and Egypt in the former version. Because there would be
little point in having the young phoenix bring the ashes of its pre-
decessor to Egypt,l the journey to Heliopolis was given another
content in the version of the burning: it was no longer the first
flight of the young phoenix respectfully honouring its father but
rather the last flight of the old phoenix journeying to the place of its
resurrection. We have already mentioned the views of Apollonius in
Philostratus and Lydus, and of the Physiologus: they all retain India
as the abode of the phoenix, the last-mentioned even adding the
intermediate stage of the worm. No other author who situates the
burning in Egypt says that the bird comes from India; some do not
mention a place of origin, 2 others give Arabia, the country from
which it had long been assumed to depart for Egypt. s
Many authors only allude to the rebirth of the phoenix or limit
themselves to the elements of the myth relevant to their argumen-
tation. This often makes it difficult to determine which version they
had in mind. For example, various authors mention the flight of the
phoenix to Egypt without indicating whether they were referring to
the first flight of the young phoenix or the last flight of its parent. 4
We have seen in the foregoing that John Lydus drew attention to
the various traditions within the version of the death by fire. Only
a few writers show that they knew both versions of the myth, the
1 But see Lactantius and Claudian on p. 157-158.
8 Artemidorus, Onirocritica, IV, 47; Didascalia, 40; Eusebius, Vita Con-
stantini, IV, 72; IshO'dadh, Comm. in jobum, ad 40,20; Syriac Nat. Hist.,
42 .
8 Const. Apost., V, 7, 15; Epiphanius, Ancoratus, 84, 3; Copt. I Clement,
25; Michael Glycas, Ann., I, (PG 158, 108C); Alanus in Bartholomaeus
Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, XII, 14. Solinus, 33, 12, following Pliny,
has the phoenix go to the temple of the sun near Panchaia to burn itself.
, E.g. Aurelius Victor, De caesaribus, IV, 14, Pseudo-Aurelius Victor,
Epitome de caesaribus, IV, 9; Heliodorus, Aethiopica, VI, 3; Chaeremon, frg.
3, in Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 397-398. Isidore, Etymol., XII, 7, 22, says the bird
lives in Arabia but not where it is consumed by fire. In the Coptic Untitled
Gnostic treatise, 170, 13 (ed. Bohlig-Labib, 95) it is said of the third phoenix
(see p. 367) that it is "consumed". The same word is used in the Coptic
Sermon on Mary (see p. 46, 1. 25) for the death by fire. It is therefore possible
that in the Gnostic work, too, the fire version is implied, which is not made
less likely by the worm mentioned a little further on; see also BOhlig's
commentary, 94.
first of these being Pliny, in whose Historia Naturalis the phoenix is

mentioned several times. In his most detailed report, for which he
drew mainly on Manilius the Senator, Pliny puts the age of the phoe-
nix at 540 years and says that the young bird arose from the de-
caying body of the old one. But further on it becomes clear that he
also knew another story of the phoenix, since he makes fun of the
medicines supposedly made from the ashes and the nest of the phoe-
nix, whose lifespan is then put at 1,000 years. l It is possible, how-
ever, that this was intended to mean the ashes of the old phoenix
that had died naturally before it was burned.
The first author known to have pointed out explicitly the dif-
ference between the two principal versions of the myth is Artemi-
dorus. In his Onirocritica, Artemidorus speaks of a man who dream-
ed that he was painting a phoenix. This dream had been reported to
him by an Egyptian, who interpreted it on the basis of what had
later happened to the dreamer: he had become so poor that he had
had to take his dead father on his shoulder and bear him to his grave.
This was what the dream had predicted, "since the phoenix too
buries its dead father", which is unequivocally a reference to the
flight of the young phoenix to Egypt with the remains of its pre-
decessor. Artemidorus makes no reference to the genesis of the young
phoenix here, since it is irrelevant in this context. He is uncertain
about whether this sad event was indeed the realization of the dream,
but he deems it probable on the basis of the parallel. He is not
entirely certain, however, because-as he says-there is another
version of the phoenix myth in circulation: some say that the phoe-
nix does not bury its father at all, that it does not even have a father
or an ancestor at all but goes to Egypt when its end approaches and
there burns itself on a pyre it has constructed of cinnamon and
myrrh. They also claim that after some time a worm appears from
the ashes, develops into a new phoenix, and flies back to the original
dwelling-place. It could therefore, says Artemidorus, be said equally
well, on the basis of this version, that the man who dreamed of the
phoenix no longer had any parents. 2
1 Pliny, X, 4 and XXIX, 29, respectively.
B Artemidorus, Onirocritica, IV, 47. For an explanation of the entire
passage of Artemidorus, see also Hubaux and Leroy, 160-162.
Ambrose of Milan also mentioned the two traditions of the death

of the phoenix together. In a sermon delivered on the occasion of
the death of his brother Satyrus (A.D. 378) he cites, in connection
with the final resurrection, the example of the phoenix: this bird
makes itself a fragrant nest and dies, and from its decaying body
there emerges a worm that becomes the new phoenix. After draw-
ing a number of applications of this story for believers, he adds
briefly that "very many" are of the opinion that this bird ignites
its own pyre and is reborn from its ashes. 1
Concerning the Jewish bird !tOl there were also two different
traditions corresponding to the two Classical versions of the death
and resurrection of the phoenix. The Midrash on Genesis, Bereshit
Rabbah, which draw sattention to this point, mentions that there
were two different schools of thought on this question. According
to the school of Rabbi Jannai, when a period of 1,000 years has pass-
ed a flame shoots out of the nest of the !tol and consumes the bird
except for a remnant as large as an egg, which acquires limbs and
lives on. But Rabbi Judan, the son of Rabbi Simeon, said that
after 1,000 years the body of the !tol begins to decompose and that
its wings fall off; he too believed that an egg-sized remnant gave rise
to the new bird. 2 The influence of the various Classical versions of
the phoenix story are unmistakable here.
It even occurs that both of the principal version are mentioned in
different editions of one and the same text. This is the case in the
phoenix passage in the letter of Clement of Rome to the Corin-
thians, i.e. I Clement, Ch.25. This letter was written in the last years
of the first century after Christ, at the direction of the Church of
Rome, to the Christians in Corinth. Six manuscripts are known:
two Greek texts, and one Latin, one Syriac, and two Coptic trans-
lations. 3 The surviving Greek texts and the Latin and Syriac trans-
lations have the version of the genesis of the young phoenix from
the decomposing body of the old phoenix. But in the two Coptic
1 Ambrose, De excessu fratris, 11, 59: Plerique etiam opinantur, quod avis
haec rogum sibi ipsa succendat et rursus de favillis suis et cineribus revivescat.
I Bereshit Rabbah, XIX, trans. H. Freedman, London, 1951, 151-152;
Jannai and Judan flourished ca. 225 and 320 (or 240?) A.D., respectively.
8 Cf. J. Quasten, Patrology, I, Utrecht-Antwerp-Westminster, 1950, 51.
translations this reading is replaced by the fire motif.! The two Cop-
tic texts are mutually independent, also with respect to the phoenix
passage,2 so that the reading they give must derive directly from
the Greek text used for translation. 8 The reading of this lost text
cannot claim originality: it is quite clear from the Coptic translations
that the burning of the phoenix was inserted later in a forced and
rather awkward way.
The available Geek texts and the Coptic translations run initially
in parallel: they all recount how the phoenix builds itself a nest of
incense, myrrh, and other fragrant materials; when its time is ful-
filled it settles into this nest. What happens next in the Greek texts
is what would logically be expected, i.e. the bird dies in that nest and
a worm emerges from its decaying flesh to grow into the new phoe-
nix, which takes the nest containing the bones of its predecessor
from Arabia to Heliopolis in Egypt, places its burden on the altar of
the sun, and flies back to the country in which it dwells. The Coptic
versions also place the bird on the nest but then unexpectedly say
that it carries its nest to Egypt and places it on the altar of the sun,
and this in almost the same wording as that used by the Greek texts
for the flight of the young phoenix to Egypt. This is followed by an
insertion saying that the phoenix beats its wings and is consumed by
fire, after which the genesis of the young bird is told in the same
words as in the Greek texts; the conclusion is also the same. It is clear
that the Coptic translations of I Clement follow a Greek text in
which the character of the phoenix story was completely changed by
a transposition and some insertions.
All the commentators on this passage in the Coptic version of
1 C. Schmidt, Der erste Clemensbriel in altkoptischer Vbersetzung, (TU,

XXXII, I), Leipzig, 1908, 73-74. Translation of this text by O. von Lemm,
Koptische Miscellen, XCIII: Zum koptischen Physiologus, 3, in Bull. de l'Acad.
Imp. des sciences de St. Petersbourg, VIe Serie, 4, 1910, 1465-1467. F. Rosch,
Bruchstucke des ersten Clemensbrieles nach dem achmimischen Papyrus der
strassburger Universitats- und Landesbibliothek, mit biblischen Texten derselben
Handschrilt, Strassburg, 1910, 85-88 (with trans.).
2 Schmidt, 14-16, Rosch, XX-XXVI (but see p. 154, n. 2).
3 Schmidt, 16, Von Lemm, 1467; Rosch assumes that the two translations
are mutually independent (cl. his final conclusion on p. XXVI), but is never-
theless of the opinion that the alteration should not have been present in
the Greek archetype; for his rather confused argumentation, see p. 154, n. 2.
I Clement are of the opinion that the Greek archetype must have
originated in Egypt, because they consider the fire motif to be
typically Egyptian. Schmidt 1 does not go into this point any further,
but von Lemm and R6sch believe they can even indicate the source
on which the redactor drew. Without citing any other Classical or
Early Christian text on the phoenix, they state that the data in the
Coptic I Clement derive from the Physiologus. 2 It is evident, how-
ever, that their conclusions are undemonstrable and at least in part
highly improbable.
There is nothing in the sources to suggest that the fire version had
an Egyptian origin. We have seen that there was even a form of this
version in which the phoenix was not linked to Egypt in any way.3
Even if our hypothesis that this is the oldest form of the fire version
should prove to be incorrect, the very occurrence of such a form
constitutes clear evidence that the fire motif cannot be considered
typically Egyptian. Furthermore, as early as the first century A.D.
the fire version was already so well known in the Latin-speaking
world that various authors found a simple allusion to it sufficient.4
Therefore, when the Coptic translations of I Clement have the
phoenix rise from its ashes this does not necessarily mean that the
Greek text on which this was based could only have originated in
1 Schmidt, 16: the "Umgestaltung" was on the one hand in the Greek
text, "andererseits muss sie aut dem Boden Agyptens entstanden sein, wo man
eine zweite Version des M.ythus kannte".
• Von Lemm, 1467. Rosch, XXVI, adds a rather unclear line of reasoning:
"Diese Version deckt sich im grossen und ganzen mit der des griechischen Phy-
siologus, den aber die griechische Vorlage des Kopten sicher nicht gekannt hat,
da sonst der koptische tJbersetzer diesen tur eine Symbolisierung geeigneteren
Text als geschlossenes Ganzen in seinen Text autgenommen hiitte" (here Rosch
was probably influenced by the related treatment of I Clement, 25 by F.
Lauchert, Geschichte des Physiologus, Strassburg, 1899, 12, which is compre-
hensible but equally incorrect). Rosch refers in addition to the existence of
the Coptic Physiologus, and concludes: "M.E. ist die koptische tJberlieterung ...
von einer uns noch unbekannten Version beeintlusst, wenn nicht etwa die ganze
Erziihlung bei K sich als abhiingig von einem koptischen Physiologus erweisen
wird". Following von Lemm and Rosch, A. van Lantschoot, Apropos du
Physiologus, in Coptic studies in honor ot Waiter Ewing Crum, (= Bull.
Byzant. Instit., 11), Boston, 1950, 355-356 has printed the Coptic I Clement
as a Physiologus text.
3 See above, p. 147-149.
, See below, p. 409-410.
Egypt, although in itself that of course remains possible. Moreover,

nothing in the Coptic translations points to an influence of the Phy-
siologus. Their divergent readings derive from a simple transposition
of a few sentences and the addition that the phoenix beats its wings
and is consumed by fire. This last is found in many authors and is
hardly typical for the Physiologus: it only occurs in some versions
of it.! What is characteristic for this book is the development of the
worm into the phoenix in three days, 2 but this is not to be found in
the Coptic I Clement although it could easily have been included. All
that can be concluded from the Coptic translations is that one or
more Greek manuscripts of I Clement were in circulation in Egypt
in which the report on the phoenix had been modified in the sense
indicated above.
In Egypt, Clement's letter was one of the most widely read Early
Christian documents, and it even enjoyed canonical respect there:
in the well-known Codex Alexandrinus, which dates from the fifth
century and was probably written in Egypt, the letter is included
after the Apocalypse among the New Testament writings. 3 One of
the two surviving Greek texts therefore derives from this codex.
This means that the original version must also have been known in
Egypt. Nonetheless, two Coptic translators, independently of each
other, chose to use a manuscript with the modified text. It may cer-
tainly be concluded from this that the conception that the phoenix
burned itself in Egypt was more attractive to them. This is quite
understandable for Egyptians, since in the version they followed the
position of Egypt is much more important than in the original story:
Heliopolis is not only the burial-place of the old phoenix but also the
birthplace of the young one. Similar examples of this type of chauvin-
1 See p. 204-205.
I See p. 21 4-21 5.
8 See E. Nestle, Einluhrung in das griechischen Neue Testament, 3rd ed.,
Gottingen, 1909,66. For the use of I Clement in the devine services up to the
time of Eusebius, cf. Quasten, I, 50. In the Can. A postol. , 85 (Egypt, or
Syria, fourth century; see Quasten I, 37, but cl. B. Altaner-A. Stuiber,
Patrologie, 7th ed., Freiburg-Bazal-Vienna, 1966, 256) I Clement is also
mentioned among the canonical writings; the Syriac translation of I Clement
is also included in the N.T.; A. Stuiber, Clemens Romanus, I, in RAC, 3,
1957, 190, thinks that I Clement is only considered canonical in the two
last-mentioned texts.
ism are found in both the Graeco-Egyptian and the Coptic lit-
erature. The major motif of the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-
Callisthenes, for instance, is to demonstrate the Egyptian descent
of the great conqueror of the world. l In the Coptic literature a re-
markable instance of this kind of nationalistic annexation occurs in
the Sermon on Mary, in which the passage on the phoenix is also
found: the anonymous preacher relates the mention of Rachel in
the story of the slaying of the children in Bethlehem (Matt. iL18) not
to the wife of Jacob but to another Rachel, the wife of Eleazar the
Levite, who during the Israelites' slavery in Egypt was so badly
beaten by the taskmasters of the brickmakers that she gave birth to
a dead child before her time. 2 This story must have been introduced
into the sermon because the writer knew that it would appeal to his
Egyptian audience more than the tale of the Biblical Rachel. Sim-
ilar considerations must have led the Coptic translators of I Cle-
ment to give preference to a text with the divergent reading. It would
be incorrect to assume, however, that this would also hold for the
man who modified the original Greek text, which would place him
in Egypt, because it is evident from Solinus that similar radical
changes in an existing text were also made outside Egypt.
The relationship between Pliny and Solinus resembles that be-
tween the original Greek I Clement and the text underlying the
Coptic translations. Solinus drew most of his report on the phoenix
from Pliny, who in turn depended largely on Manilius. 3 But whereas
Pliny described in detail how the old phoenix died on a nest made of
wild cinnamon (casia) and how the young bird developed from the
worm, carried the remains in the nest to the city of the sun near
Panchaia, and placed it on the altar there, Solinus said that the
phoenix placed on that altar a pyre it had made of cinnamum; he
does not mention the burning and the resurrection, but it is clear
1 See w. Kroll. Kallisthenes. in RE. 10. 2. 1919. 1709. 1718.

I John Rylands Library. Copt. Ms. 36 (72). 358-359. reproduced in F.
Robinson. Coptic apocryphal Gospels. (TS. IV, 2) Cambridge. 1896. XXIII.
The legend of Rachel derives from a Jewish source: see Ginzberg. 11. 372.
V. 437. n. 234.
8 Pliny. X. 4 and Solinus. 33. 12.
THE TWO PRINCIPAL VERSIONS OF THE MYTH IS7
that he implied both. 1 The only point of agreement with Pliny is the
location of the city of the sun, a location which goes back to Manilius
and is not found anywhere else. Solinus must therefore have known
the Pliny-Manilius version but nevertheless replaced it by a brief
reference to the burning. We have already seen that Solinus modi-
fied his source material for the duration of the Great Year to make it
consistent with the opposite opinion of the majority of the authors, 2
and he undoubtedly did the same in this case: in his time the fire
version was more widely known than that of the genesis from the
body of the old phoenix, so he ignored Pliny to join the majority.
Thus, in Classical times there were two entirely different versions
of the phoenix myth. We have seen that Pliny mentions both of
these versions but separately and in different contexts, and that
Artemidorus, Ambrose, and the compilers of Bereshit Rabbah all ex-
plicitly mentioned the difference between them; furthermore, in the
Coptic I Clement and in Solinus there must have been a replacement
of one by the other.
An unmistakable attempt to combine the two main versions into
a coherent whole is to be found in De ave phoenice of Lactantius.
This author says that before its death the phoenix goes to Syria,
where it comes to its end on a palm tree. It does not burn itself on
its nest of fragrant herbs but dies a natural death, and only then is its
body consumed by fire. This account clearly connects the two ver-
sions of the bird's death. 3 When the young phoenix has reached
adulthood, it goes to Egypt to bring its father's remains to Helio-
polis; this part of the story clearly belongs to the version of the de-
composing body, and has little point here.' In other respects, too,
Lactantius managed to mention almost all the current traditions
concerning the phoenix. 5 De ave phoenice is the most detailed and
1 It is striking that he has replaced the aromatics casia and tus by cin-
namum, which is repeatedly mentioned for the burning: see p. 164-169.
I See p. 75.
3 Vss. 77-98, see p. 209-210.
, Vss. II5-124, see p. 224.
6 Vss. 1-30 (abode, see p. 3I1ff.), vss. 31-58 (sun bird, see p. 28Iff.), vss. 59-
76, (the names Phoenices and phoenix, "palm", see p. 52), vss. 125-150 (ex-
ternal appearance, see p. 252ff.), vss. 151-152 (admiration of collected Egypt~
ians, see p. 225), vss. 153-154 (recording of appearance by priests, see p. 227),
longest report on the phoenix that has come down to us from Classi-
cal times, but just because it is a compilation it would be wrong to
consider all the information in it as an exact rendering of the Classi-
cal ideas about the bird of the sun. l What Lactantius has to say can
only be evaluated by constant comparison with the reports of other
Classical and Early Christian writers who dealt with the phoenix.
On various points it seems justified to conclude that Lactantius
drew on older sources. 2 This would explain the various points of
agreement with Claudian, who is often assumed to depend on Lac-
tantius. 3 As far as the core of the myth is concerned, points of agree-
ment are extremely scarce: Claudian says that the phoenix lives far
away in the East and is consumed by fire there. He does not mention
the worm, but he does have the young phoenix bring the remains of
the old phoenix to Heliopolis to be burned again. 4 This insertion of
the journey to Egypt, which also occurs in Lactantius, is the only
adj ustment to the other major version to be found in Claudian's poem.
A combination of the two traditions is also to be found in Cyril of
Jerusalem, who follows the version of the genesis from the decaying
body of the old phoenix but has this occur in Egypt, for which pur-
pose he borrowed the journey of the old phoenix to Egypt from the
other version. We shall see further on that he did so for apologetic
considerations. 5
vss. 155-160 (escorted by birds, see p. 228), vss. 161-170 (sex, identity of old
and young phoenix, meaning, see p. 365, 381-385).
1 This is done particularly by Egyptologists who compare the benu with
the phoenix, e.g. A. de Buck, De zegepraal van het licht. Voorstellingen en
symbolen uit den Oud-Egyptischen zonnedienst, Amsterdam, 1930, 82-87.
8 See e.g. p. 281.
8 M. Schanz, C. Hosius and G. Kriiger, Geschichte der r6mischen Literatur,
Ill, 3rd ed., Munich, 1922, 432 (on 433 a short review of the opinions on
the relationship between Lactantius and Claudian); further Miss Fitzpatrick,
37, Sbordone, La tenice, 22-27, Rapisarda, 76-81, whose rendition of the
"agreements", p. 76, is completely uncritical and often incorrect, and Walla,
135-139. C. Pascal, Sui carme "De ave phoenice" attribuito a Lattanzio, in
Rendiconto della Reale Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, NS, 18,
1904, 234(-235), n. I, and idem, Letteratura latina medievale, Catania, 1908,
14, n. I, assumes a common source, which indeed seems to be the most
likely hypothesis.
" Claudian, Phoenix, 72-100, see p. 225, and also p. 332 (abode) and p. 200,
220 (death and revival).
6 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., XVIII, 8 (PG 33, 1025 A-C), see also p. 194.
Lastly, Horapollo offers a version of the origin of the phoenix that

deviates radically from the current Classical conceptions: as its death
draws near the old phoenix inflicts a wound on itself, the fluid from
which gives rise to a young phoenix that immediately departs with
the old phoenix for Heliopolis in Egypt. There, the old bird dies at
sunrise, at which the young one starts out on the return journey.!
Certain elements of this report can be traced to other sources, but
Horapollo himself seems to have been responsible for the general
story.2
The two principal versions of the phoenix myth and the various
traditions within them raise the question of whether the myth can
be shown to have followed a distinct development. We shall return
to this question in our final chapter.
The revival of the phoenix was represented several timesinClassi-
cal and Early Christian art, in almost all cases inspired by the fire
version, as will be discussed in the treatment of that version. Only
one case does not concern the renewal accomplished by flames, with-
out a distinct reference to the other version. This case concerns the
remarkable double phoenix found in the tomb of the Valerii in the
necropolis below the Vatican. A niche in this grave carries a drawing
of the head of Christ, the upper part of which makes a transition
into two birds joined to form one body. Margherita Guarducci, who
discovered this drawing, dates it at the end of the third or the
beginning of the fourth century.3
On the common body of the two birds is the word V ibus (= vivus,
"the living one"), and next to the righthand bird appears the word
Pho[e}neus (corrected by the same hand to read phoeniceus) avis,
1 Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, n, 57.

2 See p. 197. In his commentary on Horapollo, J. Vergote attempted to
combine the versions of Horapollo and Herodotus; the latter shows "que
parfois le pMnix n'arrive pas cl temps en Egypte et qu'it meurt cl l'etrangere",
B. van de Walle-J. Vergote, Hieroglyphica d'Horapollon, in Chronique
d' Egypte, 17, no. 35, 1943, 69 (ad 1,35); idem, Chron. d' Eg., 18, no. 36, 1943,
217 (ad n, 57): "deux aspects du ~me my the". This suggested premature
death of the phoenix is not supported anywhere in the Classical sources; the
marked differences between Herodotus and Horapollo cannot be removed by
the proposed harmonization.
a M. Guarducci, Cristo e San Pietro in un documento precostantiniano della
necropoli vaticana, Rome, 1953, 31, 70-71; see pI. XV and XVI.
"the Phoenician" or "purple-red bird".1 Under the head of the left-

hand bird appears the inscription vixisti "thou hast lived", above the
one on the right avis [r jevibis, "thou liveth again, bird". From this
Guarducci correctly concluded that the bird on the left is the dying
and the one on the right the living phoenix. 2 Guarducci also gives
the following notations for other inscriptions: Unicus a[vijs ... Novo
[majne ter canis avis ... ; Phen[ix avis? j ;... [ujnicus avis canis; Canis
in astris cele[s jtis [a jvis; and [ A vij s caele[stis j. 3 Some of these in-
scriptions are so small and indistinct that Guarducci's readings prov-
ed impossible to confirm at the site. We shall return to a few of them
in another connection. 4 Here, it will suffice to note that the other-
wise not very gifted draughtsman made a successful attempt to
show the genesis of the phoenix from itself and to express the identi-
ty of the young with the old bird. At the same time he established a
distinct relationship between the renewal of the phoenix and the
resurrection of Christ, who is the true Vivus. With respect to this
symbolism too, the drawing in the grave of the Valerii is unique in
Early Christian art. In the literary sources we find the phoenix as
symbol of Christ only in the Physiologus and texts influenced by it.
In most of the Early Christian texts the phoenix is used to demon-
strate the possibility of the resurrection of the flesh at the end of
time. These interpretations were of course not entirely independent
of each other, just as the eschatological resurrection of the dead can-
not be viewed apart from the resurrection of Christ. For as early as
Paul it was said that "Christ was raised to life-the firstfruits of the
harvest of the dead. For since it was a man who brought death into
the world, a man also brought resurrection of the dead. As in Adam
all men die, so in Christ all will be brought to life" (I Cor. xv. 20-22).
It may therefore be considered probable that the drawing in the
1 Guarducci, 32 -33.
I Guarducci, 33, 34.
8 Guarducci, 38-4 0 •
, See p. 284. A. Ferrua, Tl'e note d'ieonogl'a/ia paleocristiana, in Miscel-
lanea G. Belvedel'i, (CoIl. "Amici delle Catacombe", XXIII), Citta del Vati-
can~, 1954-1955, 276, n. 5, has expressed grave doubts concerning the value
of Guarducci's discovery, on the basis of the indistinctness of the drawing
and the inscriptions: "pel'ehe ne l'immagine stessa ne le preziose didasealie ehe
le si leggono attorno mi paiono suffieientemente assodate".
THE PREPARATION FOR DEATH 161
tomb of the Valerii reflects the conception of the resurrection of

Christ as promising the resurrection of mankind.
2. THE PREPARATION FOR DEATH
Before dying, the phoenix is said to take several necessary steps.

It was generally believed that it knew that the moment of its death
was approaching. Some writers held that natural intuition gave it
this knowledge,1 others that it could tell by the weakness and ex-
haustion of old age. 2 Both Dionysius and Claudian developed the
latter concept in some detail. According to the former, the phoenix
begins to build a pyre when, having become old, it notices the slow-
ness of its flight or that its sight has become dimmer. 3 The latter
point plays a special role in the traditions concerning the renewal of
the eagle, and this may have influenced Dionysius. 4 Claudian, who
1 Ambrose, De exc. Iratris, Il, 59: cum sibi tinem vitae adesse praesaga
quadam naturae suae aestimatione cognoverit,' idem, Exameron, V, 23, 79: qua6
cum sibi tinem vitae adesse adverterit,' Epiphanius, Ancoratus, 84, 3: E1t'elV
yvot7j TOV KIXLPOV T'ij~ IXUTOU Te:AtUT'ij~ EVO'TavTIX; Pseudo-Eustathius, Comm. in
Hexaem. (PG 18, 732A): 1t'pOIXLO'.lJ-aVtTIXL yelp rljv cX1t'O~tWO'LV; Michael Glycas,
Annales, I (PG 158, 108C) lXuTol KlXl yelp 01 ·EAA7jVt~ 1t'tplIXUTOU 3L7jYOUVTIXL /hL
1t'poyvou~ TO TeAO~ IXUTOU; Theodoric, De mirabilibus mundi, 768: Proprie tum
prescia mortis.
2 Statius, Si/vae, Il, 4, 36 (on the parrot of Melior, compared with the
phoenix): senio nee tessus inerti; Lactantius, 59-60: quae postquam vitae iam
mille peregerit annos / ac sic reddiderint temp ora longa gravem; Dracontius,
Romulea, X, 104: senio lassata vetusto; Sidonius, Carmina, II, 416: nee non
pulsante senecta; Lactantius Placidus, Narr. tab. Ovidianarum, XV, 37; cum
est senectute pressa; Isidore, Etymolog., XII, 7, 22: dum se viderit senuisse;
so also in Rabanus Maurus, De universo, VIII, 6, (PL Ill, 246B) and Pseudo-
Hugo of St. Victor, De bestiis et aliis rebus, I, 49 (PL 177, 48C); Schol. on
Lucan, VI, 680, no. 3: cum senserit se gravari senio; idem, no. 4; Thomas of
Cantimpre, De naturis rerum, in Vincent of Beauvais, SPeculum naturale,
XVII, 74: gravescere cepit,' Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII, 110
(42): cum sentit se aetate gravari; Reinerus, De ineptis cuiusdam idiotae
libellus (MGH, scr., xx, 597) quem dum extensius evum languidulo marcore
contraxerit.
3 Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32: 7jv yap 1t'OTe: Y7JpaO'IX~ 1t'pO~ Tel~ 1t'T1jO'tL~ EIXUTOV
l30L vw.lJ-eO'TtpOV, i\ Tel~ lXuyel~ TWV 6fLfLaTwv EAIXO'O'OUfLevlX~.
4 See p. 279-280; for other points of agreement between the phoenix and
the eagle, see p. 172, n. 6, 251-252, and 411, n. I.
11
goes into great detail concerning the senile infirmities of the phoenix,
describes how, enfeebled by its many years, the bird must submit to
its age, and compares it to a tall pine-tree which, ravaged by stonns,
sways on a peak in the Caucasus, soon to be brought down at last
by its own unstable weight: part of it is torn off by the perpetual
wind, another part breaks off having been rotted by the rain, and
still another part succumbs to old age. 1 A similar dismembennent
can be seen in the phoenix: its failing light diminishes further and the
now faint star is extinguished by the chill of old age. It resembles
Diana at the moment when she hides behind the clouds and dis-
appears until her horn is barely visible. The wings of the phoenix,
which once cleft the clouds, barely lift from the ground. Knowing
that its lifespan has been completed, it begins to prepare for the
resurrection of its body.2
The comparison between the phoenix and the ancient pine-tree
seems rather strange at first, but becomes understandable if we re-
member that the pine-tree was an image of perpetually self-renew-
ing nature and was therefore seen as a tree of life. 3 It was of course
realized that the pine-tree too could die, but this did not detract
from its symbolic meaning. The great similarity between the specu-
lations on the pine-tree and those on the phoenix did not escape
Claudian, and that is why he drew the parallel between the decay of
the aging phoenix and the slow decline of the pine-tree.
1 Claudian, Phoenix, 30-35. Tum multis g1'avio1' tandem subiungitu1' annis /

lust1'01'um nUmB1'O victus. Ceu lassa P1'ocellis / a1'dua Caucasio nutat de culmine
pinus. / Se1'am ponde1'ibus p1'onis t1'actU1'a 1'uinam; / pa1's cadit adsiduo flatu,
pa1's imb1'e pe1'esa /1'umpitu1', ab1'ipuit pa1'tem vitiosa vetustas.
I Phoenix, 36-42: lam b1'eve dec1'escit lumen languetque senili / segnis stella
gelu, qualis cum /01'te tenetu1' / nubibus et dubio vanescit Cynthia C01'nu. / I am
solitae medios alae t1'anSCU1'1'e1'e nimbos / vix ima tolluntu1' humo. Tunc conscius
aevi / defuncti 1'educisque pa1'ans exo1'dia /o1'mae.
8 Cl. Forstner, Symbole, 236-238, H. Bergema, De Boom des Levens in
ScMi/t en Histo1'ie, Thesis Free Univ. Amsterdam, Hilversum, 1938,511-512.
Forstner, 238, cites Ambrose, Exame1'on, Ill, 16,68, where we read: Itaque
in pinea ista imaginem sui natU1'a videtu1' exp1'ime1'e, quae ... et pa1'tus SUOS
quadam ann01'um vice et O1'dine 1'e/e1't, donec consummatio tempo1'is impleatu1'.
Hubaux and Leroy, 28, thought that Claudian chose this tree for purposes
of comparison because it belonged to Cybele, who was identified with the
morning star; they based this assumption on the connection accepted by
them between the phoenix and Venus (see p. 30).
THE PREPARATION FOR DEATH
Thus, according to Claudian, the deterioration of the phoenix is

expressed in the weakening of the bird's light, in the slow extin-
guishing of its star, and in the impotence of its wings. It has been
thought that the light and the star meant the clear eye and the pupil
of the bird. l In that case Claudian, despite his regard for detail, was
only interested in describing the same signs of senility as Dionysius.
But apparently the latter was the only author to remark on the di-
minished visual acuity of the phoenix. Just before Claudian's de-
scription of the old age of the phoenix he mentions a number of
details about its appearance, and it is virtually certain that it is to
these that he is referring here: the light that diminishes is the light
that shines around the phoenix in a fiery ring and the star that fades
is the star that rises above its head and pierces the dark with its
brilliant light. 2 Claudian compares the decreasing light of this star
with that of the moon retiring behind clouds, an image that would
hardly have been appropriate if he had had the phoenix's visual
faculty in mind. According to Claudian, thus, the infirmities of old
age become apparent in those aspects of the phoenix that charac-
terize it most distinctly as the bird of the sun. We shall see that in
Claudian it is in this sense, as bird of the sun, that the phoenix makes
an appeal to the sun in order to accomplish the renewal of its life. s
When the phoenix feels that the hour of its death is approaching,
it makes itself a nest or pyre from various kinds of scented materials.
The most detailed description of the latter is found in Lactantius: in
the grove in which it has settled' the bird collects the essences and
aromatics ordinarily supplied by Assyrians, Arabs, Pygmies, In-
dians, or Sabeans. 5 These names introduce a wide variety of aro-
matics, which Lactantius immediately goes on to cite: cinnamon,
amomum, balsam, casia, acanthus, incense, spikenard, and panacea.'
1 See the translation by M. Platnauer in the Loeb edition of Claudian,
11, Cambridge (Mass.) -London, 1956, 227: " Now the phoenix's bright eye grows
- dim and the pupil becomes palsied by the frost of years".
I Claudian, Phoenix, 17-20, see also p. 236.
8 See p. 200.
, See p. 183.
5 Lactantius, 79-82, colligit hinc sucos et odores divite silva, / quos legit
Assyrius, quos opulentus Arabs, / quos Pygmeae gentes aut India carpit / aut
molli generat terra Sabaea sinu.
• Lactantius, 83-88: Cinnamon hinc auramque procul spirantis amomi /
THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF THE PHOENIX
Of these, acanthus and panacea occur only in Lactantius, the others

are also found distributed over other authors who wrote on the
phoenix. Only John Lydus and the Physiologus of Pseudo-Jerome
each mention one not found in Lactantius: the former fennel and
the latter amber (electrum).l
With respect to the kinds of aromatics, only one small difference
is to be found between the two main versions: in the version of the
burning the most important component of the pyre is pure cinna-
mon (cinnamomum), which does not occupy a special place among
the aromatics belonging to the version of the origin of the young
phoenix from the corpse of the old phoenix. This difference is
unmistakable, even when it is taken into account that the latter
version is mentioned in a much smaller number of texts than the
former.
Of the writers who have the resurrection of the phoenix occur
without a conflagration, Manilius, in Pliny, mentions incense and
wild cinnamon (casia); Ovid speaks of casia, spikenards, cinnama,
and myrrh; and Clement of Rome says that the nest of the phoenix
is composed of incense, myrrh, and other aromatics, in which he is
followed by Cyril of Jerusalem and Ambrose. 2 The other writers
congerit et mixto balsama cum folio: / non casiae mitis nec olentis vimen acan-
thi, / nec turis lacrimae guttaque pinguis abp.st. / His addit teneras nardi puben-
tis aristas / et sociam myrrhae vim, panacea, tuam.
1 Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11: KOtl 7tOtpOtO'KeuiX~eLv E:OtUT<';i lK Te KLVVOt!lW!lOU
KOtl (jIUAAWV viXp30u Te KOtl !lOtpiX'&ou .&7j!lwvOt. Pseudo-Jerome, Epistula XVIII,
(PL 30, 187B): confert phoenix aromata et electrum arae imponit. For electrum
as fragrant substance, see A. Jacob, Electrum, in Daremberg-Saglio, Dict.
des Antiquites, II, 2, 1892, 535, H. Bliimner, Bernstein, in RE, 3, 1899, 303,
and Th. Klauser-K. Schneider, Bernstein, in RAC, 2, 1954, 138-14°.
2 Pliny, X, 4: senescentem casiae turisque surculis construere nidum, replere
odoribus et superemori; Ovid, Metam., XV, 398-4°0: Quo simul ac casias et
nardi lenis aristas / quassaque cum fulva substravit cinnama murra, / se super
inponit, finitque in odoribus aevum; I Clement 25, 2: 0'1lKOV E:OtUT<';i 7tOLe! eK
AL~iXvou KOtL 0'!lUPV1lC; KOtl TWV Aomwv ciPW!lIXTWV; the same in Cyril of Jerusalem,
Catech., XVIII, 8 (PG 33, 1025B); Ambrose, De excessu fratris, 11, 59: thecam
sibi de ture et myrra et ceteris odoribus adornare; virtually the same in Exa-
meron, V, 23, 79; Thomas of Cantimpre, De naturis rerum, in Vincent of
Beauvais, SPeculum naturale, XVII, 74, and dependent on him, Albertus
Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII, 110 (42) mention the same aromatics as do
Clement and others, but add cinnamomum; Thomas: ex thure, mirra et
cinnamomo ac ceteris aromatibus (Albertus: et aliis aromatibus pretiosis).
who follow this first version only speak generally of aromatics and
make no mention of the kinds. 1
With the exception of Artemidorus, who records only casia and
myrrh, 2 and of course of those who do not go into the nature of the
aromatics, 3 all the conflagration authors mention the pure cinna-
mon (cinnamomum) as part of the pyre. In many cases it is the only
scented substance mentioned in this connection.' When others are
added, cinnamomum takes precedence, as in Lactantius. 6 The im-
1 Mela, Ill, 83; variis odoribus; Lactantius Placidus, Narr.lab. Ovid., XV,
37: nido ex odoribus lacto; Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 390: 'rd:~ KaALd:~ 3e 1t'fj'Y\lu'raL
3ev3poL~ £~ a.PWILcX'rWV.
I Artemidorus, IV, 47: au'ro~ eau'rij> 7tOL1jacXILe:vo~ £K KaaLa~ 're: Kal aILupV1j~
7tUpcXV; idem Suidas, s.v. <pOrVL~, who took the passage unmodified from Artemi-
dorus.
a Philostratus, Vita Apoll., Ill, 49; Eusebius, Vita Const., IV, 72; Epipha-
nius, Ancoratus, 84, 3; Physiologus, 7 in almost all versions and translations
with the exception of Pseudo-Hieronymus (electrum) and the Syriac Physio-
logus, 29 (cinnamomum) (see p. 164, n. I and n. 4 below); Pseudo-Eusta-
thius, Comm. in Hexaemeron (PG 18, 732A); Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XL, 394;
Isidore, Etymol., XII, 7, 22; Gregory of Tours, De cursu stell. ratio, 12;
Rabanus Maurus, De universo, VIII, 6, (PL I l l , 246B); Pseudo-Hugo of
St. Victor, De bestiis et aliis rebus I, 49 (PL 177, 48C); Petrus Damiani,
Opuscula varia, LII, Il (PL 145, 773B); Petrus Venerabilis, Contra Petro-
brusianos, 178; Reinerus, De ineptis cuiusdam idiotae libellus (MGH, scr.
20, 597); Honorius of Autun, Speculum Ecclesiae, de paschali die (PL 172,
936A); Schol. on Lucan, VI, 680, nos. 2, 3 and 4; Schol. on Persius, I, 46.
, Statius, Silvae, II, 6, 87: Phariaeque exempta volucri cinnama; Solinus,
33, 12; rogos suos struit cinnamis; Didascalia, 40: portans cinnamomum;
Claudian, De consulatu Stilichonis, II, 420: odorati redolent et cinnama busti
(in Phoenix, 42-43 he mentions not only arentes herbas, but also a tumulum
sabaeum the phoenix covers with pretiosa Ironde; with this last Claudian
probably thought of cinnamon, which was thought to come from Saba; see
p. 172, n. 4: Avitus, I, 239); Ausonius, XXVI, Gryphus, II, 17; ales cinnameo
radiatus ... nido; Isho'dadh, Comm. in Job., ad xl. 20: ..... nach Agypten.
indem er in seinem Schnabel Zimmetrinde tragt"; Theodoric, De mirabilibus
mundi, 769: intrat odorilerum, quem dant sibi cinnama, nidum; Syriac Physio-
logus, 29 (Land, IV, 55): altert sub utraque ala cinnamum radicem suavem et
ligna colligit; see also Sidonius in n. I on p. 166.
6 Const. Apost., V, 7, 15: <pepov 7tA7j.&O~ KLvvaILwILou KaaaLa~ 'rE Kal ~uAo(3aA
acXILou (an inferior kind of balsam; see P. Walger, Balsambaum, in RE, 2, 2,
1896,2838); Dracontius, Romulea, X, 105-106; cinnama,lolium nardum, tus,
balsama, amomum; Lydus, De mensibus, IV, Il (see p. 164, n. I); cf. also, in
the Middle Ages, Amedeus of Lausanne, Homiliae de Maria Virginea Matre,
VI, 292-295: 0 Phoenix aromatizans gratius cinnamomo et balsamo et nardo sua-
vius .. congregans omnes species electas.
pression is obtained that, especially in the fire version, cinnamon

was considered necessary for the resurrection of the phoenix. The
indispensability of cinnamomum is expressed in an unusual way in a
poem by Sidonius in which the triumphal return of Bacchus from
conquered India to Thebes is described: on this journey the god
took with him as one of his prisoners the phoenix, which feared that
it would now be forced to die for the last time-because it had lost
its cinnamon. 1
We must examine in some detail the reasons for this close relation-
ship between cinnamon and the fire that consumed the phoenix.
Hubaux and Leroy, who have given a thorough discussion of the
various traditions concerning cinnamon, are of the opinion that in
Classical thinking cinnamon was inconceivable without the phoenix
because it was the phoenix that brought the cinnamon from un-
inhabited places to the world of man; thus, even without the burn-
ing of the sun bird there would have been a relationship between
the phoenix and cinnamon. 2 But the argumentation for this hypo-
thesis must be regarded at the very least as weak. Herodotus says
that large birds bring cinnamon to the nests they build on steep
mountains inaccessible to humans, who can only acquire this spice
by trickery.3 Aristotle and Aelian give these birds the name cinna-
momum, evidently taken from the spice for whose transport they are
responsible.' Pliny and Solinus call the cinnamon-carrying bird cin-
namolgus. 5 But when Pliny speaks about the aromatics cinnamomum
and casia and in doing so refers unequivocally to Herodotus, he
mentions that these materials are found in the nests of birds, particu-
1 Sidonius, Carmina, XXII, 50-51: Adluit hie etiam post perdita einnama
phoenix, / lormidans mortem sibi non superesse secundam. Sidonius always
mentions cinnamomum when he speaks of the phoenix: Carmina, II, 417;
VII, 353-354; IX, 325-326; XI, 125.
a See Hubaux and Leroy, 68-97, where they revert almost completely to
their earlier study Vulgo nascetur amomum, in Melanges Bidez, (Annuaire de
1'lnst. de Philol. et d'Histoire orientales, II), Brussels, 1934, 505-530.
3 Herodotus, Ill, I I I: /SpV~.&OtI; BE A£youa~ (LEYcXAOtI; tpOptE~V TOtih'Ot TIX KcXptpEOt
TIX ~(LErl; 1X1t0 cI>O~V(KOOV (LOt.&6VTEI; K~VcX(LOO(.Lov KOtAtO(.LEV.
, Aristotle, Hist. Anim., IX, 13 (616a): tpOtal BE KOtl TO K~VVcX(.LOO(LOV /SPVEOV
E!vOtL 01 EK TWV T67toov EKE(VOOV, KOtl TO KOtAOU(.LEVOV KLVVcX(.LOO(.LOV tptPELV 7to'&EV Toi;"o
TO /SPVEOV; Aelian, II, 34; XVII, 21.
6 Pliny, X, 97: In Arabia cinnamolgus avis appellatur; einnami sureulis
nidilicant,' Solinus, 33, 15.
larly in that of the phoenix. 1 Hubaux and Leroy assume that this
last statement by Pliny reflects the original version of the tradition
of Herodotus and Aristotle: the bird that brings cinnamon to the
world of man is the phoenix. 2 But it is important to note here that
in his discussion of the phoenix Pliny does not mention cinnamomum
and that in his treatment of the cinnamolgus he does not identify this
bird as the phoenix. It is therefore much more probable that Pliny
took it upon himself here to add the phoenix to the nameless birds
of Herodotus because he knew the tradition that cinnamon was one
of the most important components of the nest and pyre of the phoe-
nix. The change introduced by Avienus in his Latin version of the
Periegesis of Dionysius Periegetes can be explained in the same way.
The original author had mentioned that as one of the extraordinary
events accompanying the birth of Dionysus, birds had brought cin-
namon leaves from unknown islands. 3 The most important modifi-
cations of Avienus were the replacement of the vague "birds" of
Dionysius by "the bird beloved of God" and to change cinnamomum
to amomum.' The latter alteration is hardly surprising, in view of the
frequency with which these aromatics were confused. 5 As early a
commentator as Salmasius was of the opinion that Avienus meant
the phoenix by ales amica Deo, in which he was followed by all
commentators on this passage. 6 Thus Avienus, like Pliny, had the
phoenix in mind when speaking of the birds that transported cin-
1 Pliny, XII, 85: Cinnamomum et casias Jabulose narravit antiquitas prin-

cepsque Herodotus avium nidis et privatim phoenicis.
I Hubaux and Leroy, 73, where they also reject Bochart's suggestion that
the mention of the phoenix in XII, 85 may have arisen from the li7to ~oLvtKWV
(Lot&6vnt; of Herodotus (see p. 166, n. 3); nevertheless, this may well have
played a role, in addition to the factors mentioned below.
8 Dionysius Periegetes, Periegesis, 944-945: /SPVL&e:t; 3' E·dpw&e:v IiOLK~TWV
li7to v~O"wv / ~A&OV qlUAAot qlepovnt; IiK'IlPotO"twv KLvvot(LW(LWV; a discussion of this
text is found in Hubaux and Leroy, 92-94 and iidem, Vulgonasceturamomum,
5 17-5 20 .
, Avienus, Descriptio orbis terrae, 1126-1127: internis etiam procul undique
ab oris / ales amica deo largum congessit amomum.
6 Ct. Hubaux and Leroy, 96 and idem, Vulgo nascetur amomum, 524-525.
• Claudius Salmasius, Plinianae exercitationes in Gaii Iulii Solini poly-
histora, Parisiis, 1629, 399-400: "Phoenix est quem alitem amicam deo vocat,
id est Soli", also p. 555; into al. followed by H. Frieseman in his edition of
Avienus, Amsterdam, 1786, LIX.
I68 THE DEATH AND REBIRTH OF THE PHOENIX
namon. It is unlikely that he was led to do so because he had better

information at his disposal on this point than his source. l It seems
far more likely that the birds of Dionysius made him think of the
phoenix because they carried cinnamomum, of all aromatics the
one most closely related to the phoenix. 2
Thus, Pliny and Avienus offer no real proof that the phoenix had
from ancient times played a role in the legendary stories about cin-
namon. This means that another explanation must be sought for
the close connection between it and the bird, and this can be found
in a tradition preserved in Pliny and Theophrastus. The men who
collected cinnamon with so much effort were said to have divided
their booty into three parts; one part, selected by lot, was reserved
for the sun and was left at the spot; this part was said to take fire
spontaneously immediately afterward. But Theophrastus adds that
in reality this is merely an invention. 3 Pliny had recounted another
story just before this one: cinnamon could only be gathered with the
permission of the god, who according to some was Jupiter. Permis-
sion was said to be given only after a great sacrifice, but even then
the cinnamon might only be gathered before sunrise and after sun-
set, and a portion of it had to be dedicated to the god. 4 It seems
certain that this deity was the sun god.
These texts show why cinnamon is so often mentioned in the fire
version. Like the bird, cinnamon is consecrated to the sun; it ignites
itself when it serves as a gift to the sun god. We shall see that the
phoenix too was said to take fire spontaneously, but that this was
also said to occur under the influence of the heat of the rays of the
1 Hubaux and Leroy, 94: "il a precise les donnees de la legende, sans qu'il
soit possible, ni quant a Pline ni quant a Avienus, de retrouver la source de leur
information complementaire".
8 The ease with which cinnamomum was associated with the nest of the
phoenix is perhaps indicated too by one of Martial's epigrams (VI, 55, 1-2)
in which he refers to the over-perfumed Coracinus: semper casiaque cinna-
moque / et nido niKer alitis superbae.
a Theophrastus, Hist. plant., IX,S, 2: Et.&' Ihotv ~~e:v£yKtIlaL 3Le:MvTe:~ TpLot
ILep71 3LotKA71POUVTotL ~po~ TOV ~ALOV Kotl 9jv iiv AIiX71 0 ~ALO~ KotTotAe:L~ouaLv' a~LovTe:~
3' ~u.&u~ opiiv !potaLV KotLOILeV71V TotU't"llV' OUTO~ IL&V OUV Tcj> /lVTL ILU.&o~; Pliny, XII,
90: est et alia (see next n.) fama cum Sole dividi, ternasque partes fieri, dein
sorte gemina discerni, quodque Soli cesserit relinqui ac sponte conflagrare.
, Pliny, XII, 89: non tamen ut ante ortum solis aut post occasum liceat.
sun and after the bird had offered its age-worn body to the sun for
destruction. l A similar role of the sun god must also be assumed for
the spontaneous burning of the cinnamon. These points of agreement
between the phoenix and cinnamon must have led to an important
role for cinnamon in the burning of the bird of the sun. 2 Further-
more, Pliny mentions as a general characteristic of cinnamon that
it catches fire easily: the heat of the south wind is often sufficient
to set a whole forest of it ablaze. 3 Even apart from the special re-
lationship between cinnamon and the sun, the former could be con-
sidered indispensable for the pyre of the phoenix because of all
aromatics it burned the best. The same characteristic was assigned
to electrum in the Physiologus of Pseudo-Jerome. 4
The collecting of aromatics by the old phoenix must be seen
against the background of Classical burial practices. It was custom-
ary to place many kinds of scented materials on the deathbed, the
bier, and beside and in the grave, as well to combine them with the
pyre and mix them with the ashes in the urn.o For this purpose the
same aromatics were used as those mentioned in connection with the
phoenix,6 some texts giving, instead of or together with a list, the
1 See p. 202. Cf. Pliny, XII, 90 on cinnamon: sponte conflagrare e.g. with
Const. Apost., V, 7, 15 on the phoenix: Ilttl"t'OILIX't'Wt; CjlA&X.&7jVIltL and Claudian,
Phoenix, 57: sponte crematur.
I Furthermore, it is here even clearer why Pliny and Avienus could think
of the phoenix in connection with cinnamon-carrying birds. Hubaux and
Leroy, 83-85, repeat, with respect to Pliny's texts mentioned on p. 168, n. 3
and here in n. 3, their already mentioned opinion that to evaluate Pliny's
knowledge of the phoenix myth it is necessary to consider not only his
discussions of the phoenix but also those on the bird cinnamolgus and on
cinnamomum. They did not notice, or at least did not take into account,
the fact that in XII, 90 Pliny based himself on Theophrastus.
8 Pliny, XII, 93: austros ibi tam ardentis flare, ut aestatibus silvas accendant,
invenimus apud auctores,' he explains by these fires the high price of cin-
namon.
, See p. 164.
6 See Cumont, Lux perpetua, 46-47, from which some of the texts below
are taken.
8 Ovid, Trist., Ill, 3, 69 (foliis et amomi pulvere) " idem, Ex ponto, 1,9. 52
(amoma),' idem, Fasti, Ill, 561 (unguenta),' Persius. Ill. 104 (amomis);
Statius, Silvae, Ill, 3,132 (amomo),' idem, Thebais. VI, 59-61 (Arabum strue,
Eoas opes. tura, cinnama),' Martial, Epigr., X, 97,2 (murram, casias), XI,
54, 1-3 (unguenta, casias. murram, tura, cinnama),' Propertius. IV, 7. 32
(nardo),' Apuleius, Apologia (De magia). 32,4 (tus, casiam. myrram,ceterosque
odores),' Herodianus, Ill, 15, 7 (K6vLV GUv cipWlLlltO'LV it; KIXAmv).
names of the countries from which they came. 1 The quantities of

spices used and the amounts of money spent for them are often in-
conceivable today. The importance of the deceased or of his family
was expressed particularly in this way: according to Plutarch, at the
cremation of Sylla the women brought so many aromatics that be-
sides the amount carried by 210 bearers, there was enough to make
images of Sylla and of a lictor out of expensive incense and cinna-
mon;2 in the cortege of Herod the Great there were 500 slaves and
freedmen bearing aromatics;3 and reliable experts reported that at
the cremation of Poppaea, Nero used more aromatics than Arabia
Felix yielded in a year.' Against this background we must also see
the virtually exhaustive lists of aromatics and the countries pro-
ducing them given in Lactantius: the huge quantity indicates the
importance of the bird.o
Thus, the solitary phoenix performs, just before its death, an act
that in the world of man fell to the relatives of the deceased. Lac-
tantius expressed this very trenchantly: the bird strews itself with
1 Lygdamus in Corpus Tibullianum, Ill, 2, 23-25: Illic quas mittit dives

Panchaia merces / Eoique Arabes, dives et Assyria, / et nostri memores lacrimae
tundantur eodem; Statius, Silvae, II, I, 160-161: quod Cilicum tlores, quod
munera graminis I ndi / quodque A rabes Phariique Palaestinique liquores ... and
idem, Silvae, V, I, 210-214: omne illic stipatum examine longo / ver Arabum
Cilicumque tluit tloresque Sabaei / Indorumque arsura seges praereptaque
tempUs / tura, Palaestinis simul Hebaeique liquores / coryciaeque comae Ciny-
reaque germina. Cf. with these texts Lactantius, 79-82 (see p. 163).
I Plutarch, Sylla, 38: "roaoih-o 'It"A'ij.&Or; ••• &la"r> &VEU "rWV &v cpop~lLlXalv 8eKIX
KIXL 8LIXKoatoLr; 8LIXKoILLl;0lLevCI)v, 'It"AlXa.&'ijvIXL IL£V Et861AOV EUILey£'&Er; IXU"rOU ~UAAIX,
7t"AlXa.&'ijvIXL 8£ KIXL plX~30u)(ov iK "rE AL~IXV61"rOU 'It"OAU"rEAOUr; KIXL KLWIXILWILOU.
8 J osephus, De bello Judaico, I, 673: 'It"EV"rIXK6aLoL 8£ i'lt"' IXU"rOLr; "rWV
OtKE"rWV KIXL ci'lt"EAEu.&ep61v cip61ILIX"rocp6poL; also Antiquit., XVII, 199. Jose-
phus' description of the funeral procession of Herod appears to have influ-
enced the later tradition concerning that of Jacob, in which, however, fifty
of Jacob's slaves were said to have preceded the bier strewing the road with
myrrh and other aromatics, et. Ginzberg, Il, 149, 152-153 and Bin Gorion,
Sagen der Juden, 386-387. Large quantities of aromatic materials were used
even as early as the burials of the Judean kings, see 2 Chron. xvLl4; Jer.
xxxiv.5; also 2 Chron. xxi.19.
, Pliny, XII, 83: Periti rerum adseverant non terre tantum annuo tetu quan-
tum Nero princeps novissimo Poppaeae suae die concremaverit.
6 See p. 163, n. 5 and 6; cf. the ca. 100 pounds of myrrh and aloe at the
burial of Jesus, John xix.39.
THE PREPARATION FOR DEATH 17 1
aromatics in order to die at its own funeral.1 The use of aromatics in

connection with death and funerals in the Classical world was not
just an act of rather pointless piety, even though its deeper meaning
was not always consciously thought of. The pleasing fragrance of the
aromatics was an indication of the life that triumphs over death. 2
It was usually assumed that the phoenix collected its scented ma-
terials in the region where it lived, even though it burned itself else-
where. a A few related texts, however, say that it brought its spices
from another country. According to the oldest recension of the Phy-
siologus, the bird lived in India and went, before its end in the Egyp-
tian Heliopolis, to Lebanon to fill its wings with aromatics there.'
The reason for the introduction of the short visit to Lebanon cannot
be established with certainty, but several possiblities can be put
forward. Turk has pointed to the homonymy in Greek of the words
for incense (A(~(xVOC;) and Lebanon (A(~(Xvoc;) and assumed that one of
the aromatics of the phoenix was erroneously taken as a proper
name. s It is also possible that we must see in the mention of Le-
banon a reflection of the tradition that related the phoenix to Syria-
Phoenicia. 6 If the writer of the Physiologus wished to mention this
region as well as India and Egypt, it is conceivable that he would
have made special mention of that part of it called Lebanon, since
from ancient times this chain of mountains had been famed for its
1 Lactantius, 91 -92: Ore dehinc sucos membris circumque supraque / inicit
exsequiis inmoritura suis.
B See E. Lohmeyer, Vom gottlichen Wohlgeruch, in Sitzungsber. der Heidel-
berger Akad. d. Wissensch., Philos-hist. KI, 1919,9, 7 and passim,' also here
p. 226, 335. This must also have been the meaning of the enormous cinna-
momum root Pliny saw in the temple of Augustus on the Palatine Hill, XII,
94: Radicem eius (sc. cinnamomi) magni ponderis videmus in Palatii templo,
quod lecerat Divo Augusto coniunx Augusta aureae paterae impositam, ex qua
guttae editae annis omnibus in grana durabantur, donec id delubrum incendio
consumptum est.
3 Artemidorus, Onirocritica, IV, 47 assumes that the phoenix collects his
aromatics in Egypt, just before his death. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., XVIII,
8 (PG 33, I025B), assumes the same, but for apologetic reasons, see p. 194.
Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, Ill, 49, has the phoenix build its nest near the
sources of the Nile, see p. 306.
, Physiologus, 7: KIXTeX 1tEVTIXK6aLIX ~'t'lj e:tatpxe:TIXL d~ TeX ~UAIX TOU AL~!XVOU, KlXl
ye:(J.t~e:L TeX~ 1tTtpUylXC; IXUTOU cipO(J.!XTWV.
6 Turk, 3460, with reference to I Clement, 25 (At~IXVO~, see p. 164, n. 2).
e See p. 51-53.
wonderful fragrances. l It seems most probable, however, that the

Judaeo-Christian symbolism of Lebanon formed the background. 2
In the Byzantine Physiologus too it is assumed that the phoenix
brings its aromatics from Lebanon, but according to this text it does
not have to go there to get them because it spends its life there. 3
The Physiologus of Pseudo-Basil no longer speaks of the abode of
the phoenix and does not mention Lebanon: before its death the
bird now makes three trips to Paradise, where it fills its wings and
claws with the scented wood and aromatic plants to be found there.'
The flight to Paradise is also found in a few other texts. According
to Avitus, the phoenix goes to Paradise because there the cinna-
mon grows that is incorrectly held by many to come from the
Sabeans. 5 In the Coptic Sermon on Mary, too, it is said that before
burning itself on the altar, the phoenix goes to Paradise and takes
three branches from the fragrant trees. 6 A large number of Jewish
and Christian texts bear witness to the pervasion of Paradise by ex-
quisite scents, and the same idea was held in the Classical world
1 For this, see H. Guthe, Libanon, in Realenc. fur prot. Theologie und
Kirche, 11, 1902,436, 7ff.; see also Hos. xiv.7.
a See p. 307-309.
8 Byzantine Physiologus, 10: ILevEL 8e: [l!T7J 7tEVTotK6(1Lot] e1~ TeXc; Ke8poue; TOU
AL~civou .•• , Ked ILEd: 7tEVTotK6aLot l!T7J YEILEL TcX~ 7tTepuyote; otUTOU cip(')ILciT6lv, see
further p. 307-309.
, Physiologus of Pseudo-Basil, 2 I : KotTcX TPEL~ xp6voue; ci7tepXETotL &v T<jl 7totpot-
8e:la<!> Kott ottPEL ci7tO TWV EMaIL6lV ~UA6lV Kott ILupLaILciT6lv TWV EV T<jl 7totpot8ELa~,
YEILL~ov TcXe; 7tTepuyot~ Kott TOUe; 7t68ot~.
5 Avitus, I, 238-239: Hic, quae donari mentitur fama Sabaeis, / cinnama
nascuntur, vivax quae colligit ales. According to Sidonius, Carmina, 11, 417-
418, the phoenix fetches its cinnamon from the region where the palace of
Aurora is located, a place described with the unmistakeable features of
Paradise.
• Coptic Sermon on Mary, 22-23, see translation on p. 45. In another
Coptic text (see O. von Lemm, Koptische Miscellen, LXXXI, in Bull. de
l'Ac. Imp. de St. Petersbourg, Ser. VI, 4, St. Petersburg, 1910, 361-366 and
Van Lantschoot, 344-345, who gives the text in normal Sahidic) the fetching
of aromatics from Paradise is ascribed to the eagle: "and Aaron takes the
fragrant herbs from the eagle, which it has brought from Paradise". The upper
part of the verso of this fragment carries a gloss on "Aaron" in very bad
Coptic: " ... and a thirsty eagle goes to Paradise, he fills his wings with fragrant
herbs and carries them to Aaron". The content of this apocryphal report is not
clear, but in any case it is the eagle which performs an act that was also,
and with more point, assigned to the phoenix. We are probably concerned
here with a case of a combining of the traditions pertaining to the eagle and
THE PREPARATION FOR DEATH I73
concerning the Isles of the Blessed. l This conception was so well known
that it is quite possible that various authors arrived independently
at the idea of having the phoenix go to Paradise for its aromatics.
Nevertheless, there also seems to have been a literary tradition on
this point, as witnessed by the Coptic Sermon on Mary and the
Physiologus 01 Pseudo-Basil: according to the text of the former, the
phoenix brings three fragrant twigs from Paradise; according to that
of the latter, it went there three times for aromatics. Of these views,
the former seems to have the greater claim to originality.
In the apocryphal stories of the death of Adam and Eve, too, a role
is played by branches from Paradise, again with mention of the
number three. In several Latin manuscripts of the Vita Adae et Avae
the angel gives Seth, who had come with Eve to Paradise to get
help for the dying Adam, a branch from the Tree of Knowledge
bearing three leaves, which he later places on Adam's grave. 2 Ac-
cording to an old Slavonic translation from the Greek, Seth received
from Michael three branches from the same tree, but each of a
different species: one of pine, one of cedar, and one of cypress.
Adam recognized them and plaited them into a wreath which he put
on his head and with which he was burried; later, a tall tree grew
from the wreath. 3 According to all the versions, it was from the tree
originating from the branch or branches from Paradise that the cross
of Christ was made. The texts say explicitly that the three branches
the phoenix, the latter apparently being the primary one. The remarks in
several Coptic texts about the bird Alloe, which goes to Paradise too, also
appear to derive from phoenix traditions, cf. Von Lemm, 359-361, Van
Lantschoot, 345, and Crum, Copt. Diet., 6, s.v.
1 An abundance of Jewish and Christian material is found in Ginzberg, see
vol. VII (Index), 360, s.v. Paradise, the fragrance of; cf. also in ActaPerpetuae
et Felicitatis, 13,3, the Paradise vision of Saturnus: universi adore inenarrabili
alebamur, qui nos satiabat; Ephraem Syrus, Hymni de paradiso, X and XI
39-46, (trans. Beck, see p. 356, n. 3). For the classical side, see e.g. Lucian,
Verae narrationes, II, 5: -1\31) 3e ~A1)a(ov ~fLe:V, KIXL .&lXufLlXa't"~ 't"Le; lXilplX m:pLe-
=e:uae:v ljfLiie;, lj3e:rlX KIXI e:uw31)e;, OLIXV <p1)alv 6 auyyplX<pe:ue; 'Hp63o't"oe; ci~6~e:LV TIje;
e:u31X(fLOVOe; , AplX~(IXC;.
2See E. C. Quinn, The quest of Seth for the Oil of Life, Chicago, 1962, 88-90.
3Quinn, 71 and 90, and V. JagiC, Slavische Beitriige zu den biblischen
Apokryphen, in Denkschr. der kais. Akad. der Wiss., philos.-histor. Classe,
Vienna, 42, 1893,24-25,88 (trans.); for related texts, see Quilln. 54-55, n. 56,
and also Jagic, 25 (Slav. De ligna crucis).
are an indication of the divine Trinity.l The sense of these stories

is clear: the wood of the Tree of Knowledge, through which Adam
and his descendants knew death, finally became the wood of the
Cross and thus a new Tree of Life.
From these conceptions the meaning ofthe three branches brought
from Paradise by the phoenix before its death becomes clear. In the
Coptic Sermon on Mary the phoenix is, according to the preacher, a
type of Christ: 2 the fragrant twigs bring the phoenix death but
also new life, just as Christ found death on the wood from Para-
dise but also won the New Life. In all this, the above-mentioned
Classical view that the aromatics used for death and burial are a
symbol of life, emerges with new force from a completely Christian
background. But quite apart from the parallelism between the
phoenix and Christ, there is another element that must be taken
into account. For the dying Adam the branches from Paradise are
a sign of God's mercy; they give him the certainty that Death does
not have the final word, but will ultimately be defeated by Life.
This also holds for the phoenix, but in its case death immediately
becomes life.
The certainty of an early resurrection is also indicated by the
branches playing a role in the Coptic version of the Dormitio et
transitus M ariae, particularly in the sermon given by Theodosius,
the Jacobite patriarch of Alexandria (536-567), on the death and
glorification of Mary. Of this sermon the entire Bohairic version and
part of the Sahidic version have been preserved; we have already
referred to them. 3
According to the Bohairic text, Peter and John are directed by
Christ, shortly before the death of Mary, to go to the altar in the
temple and bring from there the heavenly garments and aromatics
"which my good Father and the Holy Ghost have sent me for the
honour of the body of my beloved mother".4 In the Sahidic version
1 Quinn, 51 (English version of Bodleian Ms. 343), 106 (the so-called
Legende); that the Cross was made of the three kinds of wood mentioned in
all these texts is found in as early an author as Chrysostom (ad [sa., Ix.13-
LXX), see Quinn, 58.
I Copt. Sermon on Mary, 28, 51 (see p. 47).
8 See p. 38, n. I for the editions of Chaine and Robinson.
, Chaine, 291, 309 (trans.), Robinson, 108, log (trans.), lames, ApoC1'.
N.T., 199.
these directions are given to the twelve virgins who joined the apos-
tles after the resurrection of Christ: "And they brought palm bran-
ches and other sweet-smelling branches, which they brought him
from the trees of Paradise".1 Both versions go on to say that Mary
laid herself down on the branches and aromatics spread on her bed
and then died. In the Bohairic text only, Christ then directs Peter
and John to prepare her body for burial: "And He, the Lord,
stretched out his hand eastwards and brought us three flourishing
palm branches and perfumes from the Paradise of Delight. Again he
turned his face and brought three branches of olive from an olive
tree, from which the dove brought to Noah, that he might know that
the Lord had mercy on the world".2 There is still another Coptic ser-
mon, ascribed to Euodius, in which we find the conception that Mary
was buried in heavenly garments and with flourishing palm bran-
ches from the heavenly places. 3 The Greek and Latin texts treating
the Virgin's end give a different story: at the annunciation of her
death, Mary is given a single palm branch by an angel who directs
her to have it carried before the bier at her funeral.' According to
Germanus of Constantinople, this palm branch is a symbol of the
victory over death and a sign of unfading life. 5 This of course also
underlies the palm branches from Paradise in the Coptic text. It
seems certain, too, that the heavenly garments and the palm bran-
ches from Paradise on which Mary dies and goes to meet her glori-
fication, were borrowed from the Biblical story of the entry of Jesus
into Jerusalem, when people spread their garments over the road
1 Robinson, 74, 75 (trans.).
2 Chaine, 292, 309 (trans.), Robinson, IIO, III (trans.), lames, 199; it
was a 1ewish tradition that the olive twig that the dove brought to Noah
came from Paradise, see Ginzberg, V, 186.
3 Robinson, 59 and 61.
, This idea is also assumed in a Coptic text; see lames, Apocr. N.T., 200;
also e.g. Narrative ot Pseudo-Melito, Ill, I (James, 210), Narrative ot Joseph
of A rimathea, 4 (J ames, 216), lohn of Thessalonica, Dormitio Virginis M ariae,
3, (PO, 19, 378), Germanus of Constantinople, In dormitionem Beatae Mariae,
Ill, (PG 98, 364C) and Simeon Metaphrastes, Oratio de B. V. Maria, 38 (PG
II5,557B).
I Germanus of Constantinople (see n. 63): 'Bv 3£ TO (3pcx(3e:rov, cpotVLKOt;
KA<i30t;, aUlL(30AOV vtKllt; KCXTck &CXVtXTOU Kcxl t:007jt; cilLCXPtXVTOU npoEK-rUnoolLcx. For the
palma victoriae see also Evangelium Pseudo-Matthaei, 21 (De Santos Otero,
234): An nescitis quia palma haec, quam feci transferri in paradiso, parata erit
omnibus sanctis in loco deliciarum;
and tore palm branches from the trees. l But there are also other
elements involved forming distinct parallels with the Coptic phoe-
nix story: like the phoenix, Mary dies on scented branches and
aromatics from Paradise, and in addition she is buried with them.
The customary aromatics, however costly they may be, are evident-
ly not sufficient at the death of Mary and of the phoenix; only
branches and aromatics from Paradise can suffice for their glory.
This once again brings out the supernatural character of the phoe-
nix. We shall see in due course that a parallelism can also be de-
monstrated between the food of Mary and that of the phoenix in the
Coptic literature. 2
It is unlikely that Theodosius was inspired by a tradition con-
cerning the phoenix with respect to the three branches from Para-
dise, but the reverse is quite impossible, since the sermon with the
phoenix passage dates from a time in which the Transitus M ariae
apocrypha were not yet in existence. 3 It therefore seems most proba-
ble that the theme of the three branches from Paradise is ultimately
to be traced to a Christian book on Adam. In the typologically
oriented symbolism of the early Christians there were many con-
nections and points of agreement between Adam, Mary, and the
phoenix that could easily have led to corresponding forms of the
stories woven about them. This must also have been the case for the
three branches from Paradise. For Adam as well as for Mary and the
phoenix, they indicate a special mercy of the triune God. For the
dying Adam, they are a sign that God will nullify death and that
the gates of Paradise will finally open again: the wood of sin will
become, as the cross of Christ, the wood of mercy. For the dying
Mary, the divine garments and the palm branches from Paradise are
an indication that she will gloriously enter the heavenly Jerusalem
just as her Son once entered the earthly Jerusalem over earthly
garments and palm branches. The three palm branches and the
three olive branches given her by Christ in addition are the seal of
her victory and God's protection of her, permitting her to enter the
1 Matt. xxL8; Mark. xL8; Luke xix.36; John xiLI3 (here only palm
branches): Germanus too refers to Jesus' entry into Jerusalem in connection
with the palm branch for Mary.
2 See p. 347.
3 See p. 39.
heavenly Paradise immediately and in her own body. For the dying
phoenix, which is a type of Christ, the three branches it has brought
from Paradise to our world are a promise that it will arise in new
glory after its death: it will know the direct, bodily resurrection
promised to Adam for the future and bestowed on Mary as a special
grace.
All this make it probable that the view of the third redactor of the
Physiologus, that the phoenix makes three journeys to Paradise for
the scented wood and aromatics, 1 is a corruption of the tradition
that the phoenix took three branches from there. It is certain that
the Coptic preacher must have taken some details about the phoe-
nix from the Physiologus,2 but clearly not from the third recension,
for which a much later date is given than the one we have assigned
to the Coptic Sermon on Mary.3 The details in this sermon must have
been drawn from a text located chronologically between the second
and third recensions of the Physiologus: on the one hand it is assum-
ed, as in the second, that the phoenix lives in Lebanon,' but on the
other it is assumed, as in the third, that it obtains its aromatics
from Paradise. This shows that the flight to Paradise must have
existed long before the third recension. The redactor presents this
detail in a form that is less appropriate than the one we find in the
Coptic sermon and that we may therefore qualify as a secondary
variant.
Almost all the versions of the Physiologus say that the phoenix
goes from Lebanon or Paradise to Heliopolis in Egypt to cremate
itself there. Only a few texts give a different story. According to the
Arabic Physiologus, the phoenix does go to Lebanon before its
death, and carries away from there all kinds of aromatic herbs and
flowers that grow there, but it then flies back to India. The local
priest then builds an altar for the bird on a high mountain, laying
on it a nest of vine tendrils; the phoenix arrives with all its flowers,
1 See p. 172, n. 3.
I See p. 215, 307.
8 For the dating of the Sermon on Mary, see p. 40; the second and third
recensions of the Physiologus have been dated by Sbordone in ca. A.D. 500
and ca. 1000, whereas B. E. Perry, Physiologus, in RE, 20, I, 1941, III4 puts
them in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, respectively.
4 See p. 172, n. 2.
12
settles on the nest, is consumed by fire, and lives again. l This priest
occurs in all the versions of the Physiologus, the vine tendrils only
in the first recension of it. 2 The return to India and the building of
an altar on a high mountain must, however, derive from another
source. The Physiologus of Vienna also offers a divergent story.
This text, the strangest and most confused ever written on the
phoenix, mentions Heliopolis but places it in the vicinity of Cadiz,
outside our world, close to the Oceanus. The implication seems to
be that this is the permanent abode of the bird. Somewhere near
this Heliopolis the phoenix brings together on a very high rock all
kinds of wood, upon which it burns itself at dawn. s The name He-
liopolis and the burning and resurrection may have been taken from
the Physiologus, but the rest must have been drawn by the writer
from another source.
According to these texts, the phoenix burns itself up not on the
altar in the Egyptian Heliopolis but on a high mountain or rock.
The same is also found in other texts. Dionysius of Philadelphia says
that when the phoenix feels itself grown old, it collects dry twigs on
a high rock and makes itself a pyre for death or a nest for life. 4 He
does not mention aromatic branches explicitly, but he may have had
them in mind. Pseudo-Eustathius says that when the phoenix is
ready to die it seeks out a high place in the East and there makes a
nest of dry scented branches on which it burns itself. 5 Pseudo-
1 Arabic Physiologus. 6: ... et redit in Indiam; ... Tunc sacerdos illius

regionis huic avi aram extruit in monte excelse. super qua ara ponit ex vitis
palmitibus (structam) casae speciem. A dvenit illi avis /lores varios portans et
casam illam intrat. Probably. the word rendered by Land as casa corresponds
to the Greek KIXALIX cl. Liddell-Scott. 867. s.v. KIXALIX.
B See also p. 198.
3 Physiologus 01 Vienna. 16-19: Z'ijv ae TOV <pOlVLKIX IXtWVIX I5Aov. KlXl ~VlKIX
7tA7jpwa1l TOV IXtWVIX. <pEpe:LV ~UAIX 7tIXIL7tOMIX KlXl aToL~IX~e:LV E7tl 7tETPIXV UIjl7jA-IjV AllXV
EV TOL~ ILEpe:aLv ·HALOU7t6Ae:OO~. E7tl TtX rlXae:LplX. l!~oo TOU K6aILou. 7tA7jalov TOU
WKe:IXVOU.
, Dionysius. De aucupio. I. 32 (continuation of quote on p. 161. in n. 3):
E<p' UIjI7jA'ij~ 7thplX~ KIXP<P7j auAAE~IX~ 7tUPIXV TLVIX 'I"ij~ 't'EAe:U'I"ij~ Tj KIXALtXV auvTl&7jaL
'I"ij~ ~oo'ij~.
5 Pseudo-Eustathius. Comm. in Hexaemeron (PG 18. 732A): KlXl EV KIXLpijl
TOU ILEAAe:LV 1X\'lTO 't'EAe:UTiiv (7tpOIXLa&lXve:TIXL ytxp 'l'7Jv li7to~looaLV). E<p' UIjl7jAOU TLVO~
T67tou EaTO)(lXaILEvo~. KIXTtX 'l'7JV liVIXToA-IjV TOU ~Alou. E~ lipOOlLlXTLKWV <ppuycXvoov
aUIL7t7jyvuvlXL T-IjV KIXALcXV.
Augustine, like Dionysius, speaks only of dry wood without further

particularization, collected by the bird in "very hot" regions to
which it has flown.1 Possibly, this author too had high places in
mind. This is apparently the case for John Lydus, who places the
burning in upper India. 2 Granted that these last two texts are rather
vague, in the Carmen in laudem Solis it is clearly stated that the
phoenix burns itself on a rock. 3 Sidonius too assumes that the bird's
pyre lies on a peak in India, to which he adds something that we
shall later encounter more than once: when the phoenix brings the
cinnamon for the pyre to this mountain it sets all the ordinary birds
in motion, the subservient throng races toward the phoenix and the
air becomes too small to allow their wings sufficient space." Lastly,
mention must be made of a version of the Physiologus preserved in
the monestary of St. Catharine on Mt Sinai, in which it is said that
as the hour of its death approaches, the phoenix collects from the
four corners of the world a piece of every food and of all the good
and bad kinds of wood and builds its nest on a high tower, where it
then burns itself in an unusual manner.li
From the texts cited above it is evident that there must have been
a tradition according to which the phoenix took new life on a high
place-a rock, a mountain, a hill, or a tower, which must be no
more than a variant of the others. This tradition seems to have ori-
1 Pseudo-Augustine, Ad tratres in eremo XVIII: de invidia cavenda (PL

40, 1264): dum senescit ad partes calidissimas volat, ligna siccissima congregat.
8 Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11: de;; 't'LVCX 't'67tov 't'lie;; &vw 'Iva!cxe;; KCX't'LeVCXL.
8 Carmen in Laudem Solis, 36: rupe sedet, capitur radiis.
4 Sidonius, Carmina, VII, 353-356: sic cinnama busto / collis Erytraei
portans Phoebeius ales / concitat omne avium vulgus,' tamulantia currunt /
agmina, et angustus pennas non explicat aer. It is usually assumed that the
birds escort the phoenix after it has risen from the dead, see p. 193 and 227;
Sidonius' view is certainly secondary. For Erythraea as India see e.g. \V. B.
Anderson, Sidonius poems and letters, I, London (Loeb), 1936, 46-47, n. 4.
5 Appendix Physiologi, 25: Ihcxv ae: ~A&1l 6 KCXLpOe;; 7tCXPEA&ELV cxu't'6v, &pXE't'CXL
O'UVeXYELV tX7tO 7tCXv't'oe;; £aeO'ILcx't'oe;; KCXL tX7tO 7tCXv't'oe;; ~UAOU KCXAOU 't'E KCXL KCXKOU tX7tO 't'WV
't'EO'O'eXpWV YOVLWV 't'OU K60'ILOU, KCXL K't't~EL 't'7)V KCXAALa.V cxu't'OU £7teXvw 7t\lPYOU UIjiTjAOU.
For the cremation, see p. 206. According to the Bodleian version of Mande-
ville's Travels (ed. Letts, 438), this takes place on the highest mountain
in Arabia, which shows a distinct agreement with App. Physiologi, 25; see
P· 20 7·
ginated from an erroneous interpretation of certain representations

of the phoenix known in the ancient world, and which can be traced
to a type that developed in Egypt. We shall see below that in the
syncretism of Roman Egypt the Egyptian benu became identified
with the Classical phoenix: the benu on the liturgical garment from
Saqqara closely resembles the phoenix on a number of gems and on
coins of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. l The Saqqara benu-phoenix
is represented on a hill, 2 of which there is no trace on the coins of
Hadrian and Antonius Pius. But the hill is seen again when at a later
time the phoenix was shown alone on coins. This was the case under
Constans I (337-350) and Constantius 11 (337-361), who ruled in the
West and East, respectively. The phoenix was shown standing on a
pyramid-shaped group of rocks. s Later, in the second half of the
fifth century, an unusually talented mosaicist in Daphne, near Anti-
och, showed the phoenix in the same way, standing on a pile of
rocks arranged in the form of a pyramid. 4 In this connection mention
must also be made of the phoenix in the mosaic on the dome of the
baptistry of S. Giovanni in Fonte at Naples, dating from the be-
ginning of the fifth century. The elevation on which the bird is
shown standing has been explained in various ways: as rocks, as
flames, and as a nest. 5 This confusion has arisen because the phoenix
is posed not on top of the elevation but with its feet in a depression
at its centre. The most likely explanation seems to be, however, that
the craftsman intended to show the phoenix on a rocky hill, like the
one on the coins and on the mosaic in Daphne, but that lack of
space forced him to this somewhat remarkable composition.
None of these representations contains any suggestion of a pyre
or of the aromatics that the texts say the bird brings to the high
place. Nor does the phoenix have the appearance of a decrepit bird
on the point of death. Quite to the contrary, they show a radiant,
1 See p. 243-246.
I See pI. Ill.
a See pI. VIII, 7, 8.
a See pI. XXXI.
5 See pI. XXIII. For a review of the literature on the elevation on which the
phoenix stands, see J.-L. Maier, Le Baptistere de Naples et ses Mosaiques.
Etude historique et iconographique, (Paradosis, XIX), Fribourg (Switzerland),
1964, 28, n. 7.
glorious phoenix as it could only be imagined to appear immediately

after its resurrecton. The hill or rock on which it is shown must have
a deeper meaning than it has in the texts under discussion, i.e. a
depiction of the place where the bird burns itself and is renewed. On-
ly in an Egyptian context, as on the Saqqara garment, does the hill
on which the phoenix stands have a clearly demonstrable meaning:
it is the primeval hill that was the first thing to emerge from the
waters of chaos when Atum created the world, and on which the
benu settled radiantly. The benu of the Saqqara garment may be
considered the expression of a very old view of the origin of the world
and the commencement of life.! It has been assumed that the rep-
resentations on the garment are related to the renewal of the Sothic
period in A.D. 139. 2 If this is correct, the benu-phoenix indicates the
repetition-connected with this cosmic renewal-of the primeval
event of the creation and of the return of the Golden Age. 3
The benu-phoenix on the hill associated with the creation must
have become known in the Classical world via Roman Egypt. But
the hill was too strongly an Egyptian image to be clearly understood
as such in the Graeco-Roman world. The result was that it could
easily be omitted without greatly affecting the symbolism of the orig-
inal representation. The latter was never entirely forgotten, however,
for we have seen it return in the fourth and fifth centuries on coins
and certainly in one mosaic. It is nevertheless possible that at that
time a different interpretation of the hill was current. We shall duly
discuss in detail the conception that the phoenix has its abode on the
Jewish-Christian Paradise mountain. 4 It is conceivable that via this
idea the old image acquired a new meaning: the Egyptian cre-
ation hill was seen as the Christian Paradise mountain. This meant
almost no modification of the meaning of this representation. The
coins of Constans I and Constantius II carry the legend FEL.
TEMP. REPARATIO, thus referring to the restoration of the
Golden Age, with its paradisial state, at the assumption of power
of these emperors. 5
1 See also the discussion of the Egyptian conceptions on p. 15-17.
8 Perdrizet, La tunique, 110-113.
3 See also p. 105.
4 See also p. 311-324.
6 On this point, no Christian influence on Constantine and his sons can
I t is clear that the hill on which the phoenix stands derived ulti-
mately from an independent complex of ideas of which the phoenix
could serve as the symbolic expression. This explains why the phoe-
nix, when shown on a hill or a pyramid-shaped pile of rocks, does
not suggest senility in any way. But such representations must have
given rise to the literary tradition that the bird burned itself on a
high place.
Lactantius gives a description of the place where the phoenix re-
news itself that is not found in any other author and can only be
explained as a combination of several divergent traditions. He says
that when it reaches the end of its life the bird leaves its sacred
abode and travels "to this world, where death rules".1 It has often
been pointed out that the idea of two worlds occurs in other writings
of Lactantius and that this constitutes evidence of Lactantius'
authorship of De ave Phoenice. 2 It is not wise, however, to overrate
the importance of this evidence, because the idea that death domi-
nates in "this world" is not only universally Christian but also occurs
frequently in Platonic and Stoic philosophy.3
According to Lactantius, the phoenix goes to Syria, which owes
its old name of Phoenicia to the bird. Traversing lonely deserts, it
yet be discerned, cf. P. Monceau, La /Agende du PMnix chez Eusebe, in

Bulletin de la Societe nationale des Antiquaires de la France, 1905, 171-172.
1 Lactantius, 61-64: ut reparet lapsum spatiis vergentibus aevum, / adsuetum
nemoris duke cubile tugit. / Cumque renascendi studio loca sancta reliquit, /
tunc petit hunc orbem, mol's ubi regna tenet.
2 H. Dechent, Ober die Echtheit des PhOnix von Lactantius, in RhMPh,
N.F. 35, 1880, 50, pointed to Lactantius' Epitome, 22, 4: Deus eiecit ergo
peccatorem de sancto loco et in hunc orbem relegavit, and his Institutiones,
I1, 9, 5-6; cf. also Fitzpatrick, 73, and Rapisardi, 29, 57-59. For a critical
discussion of the comparative method applied by Dechent (and many others),
see S. Brandt, Zum Phoenix des Lactantius, in RhMPh, N.F. 47, 1892, 397.
8 See, as early as the New Testament, Paul's and John's ideas on "this
world", et. R. Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 2nd ed. Tiibingen,
1954, 249-255,361-372; C. Pascal, Sui carme "De ave phoenice" attribuito a
Lattanzio, in Rendiconto della R. Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle arti,
NS, 18, Naples, 1904, 225-226, and idem, Letteratura latina medievale, Cata-
nia, 1909, Il, referring to Cicero, Rep. VI, 14: ibi vivunt qui e corporum
vinculis tamquam e carcere evolaverunt; vestra vero quae dicitur vita, mors est.
But Rapisardi nevertheless sees so many points of agreement between
Epitome, 22 and De ave phoenice that he thinks the latter must also have
been written by Lactantius (p. 58-59).
comes to distant forests where an isolated grove lies hidden in a

ravine. There it chooses a palm whose crown reaches high into the
air; the Greek name for this tree is also derived from name of the
bird. 1 The mention of Syria and the palm tree was determined by
even older speculations on the homonymy in Greek of phoenix, Phoe-
nician, and palm. 2 avid is the only other writer in whom we find it
said that the phoenix builds its nest in a palm, although there is no
indication that the tree owes its name to the bird. 3 In early Christian
art the phoenix was often shown on a palm-tree, but these are
always representations of the heavenly Paradise, both the phoenix
and the palm being symbols of the triumph of Life over death,4
and have nothing to do with a phoenix on the point of renewing its
life, as in Lactantius and avid. The latter is first encountered in
illustrated medieval books. 5
One of the most striking features of Lactantius' version is that
the fortunate conditions of the paradisial abode of the phoenix recur
on a small scale at the place of its death: no dangerous animal, no
gliding snake, and no predatory bird can approach the nest holding
the phoenix. Nature makes sure that the circumstances are the most
favourable possible for its renewal: Aeolus shuts the winds up in his
vaulted caves to prevent their motion from stirring the clear air or
so that no cloud collected by the South wind can intercept the rays
of the sun in the empty spaces of the heavens and thus interfere
with the burning of the phoenix. In the palm-tree, under these con-
ditions, the bird builds a nest, or perhaps rather a tomb, since it
dies to live: it begets itself. In the lonely forest it collects the rare
1 Lactantius, 65-70: Dirigit in Syriam celeres longaeva volatus, / Phoenices
nomen cui dedit ipsa vetus, / secretosque petit deserta per avia lucos, / sicubi
per saltus silva remota latet. / Tum legit aerio sublimem vertice palmam, / quae
Graium phoenix ex ave nomen habet.
a See p. 51-57.
8 Ovid., Metam. XV, 396-397: ilicet in ramis tremulaeque cacumine palmae /
unguibus et puro nidum sibi construit ore.
4 See pI. XX; XXIV-XXX; XXXV; XXXVI, 4. Later, the phoenix on the
palmtree became a traditional datum, as exemplified by the representation
on the triumphal arch in the church of St. Maria in Trastevere at Rome; see
pI. XXXIX. In this mosaic the phoenix is a symbol of the virginity of
Mary and of the virgin birth of Christ; the same symbolism in Rufinus,
Expos. Symb., 9.
& See below, p. 186.
aromatics already discussed, after which its resurrection begins. l In

Claudian too, nature is involved in the death and renewal of the
phoenix, and he too says that in the region where this place is locat-
ed no animals can enter, in this case sick animals. 2 But according to
Claudian, the phoenix dies where it has always lived. One is led to
wonder whether Lactantius did not take his details on the absence
of dangerous animals and the cooperation of Aeolus from a tradition
in which the phoenix died in its original abode. The sick animals of
Claudian and the dangerous animals of Lactantius are basically re-
lated, because in the perfect abode of the phoenix there is no sick-
ness or death, enmity or violence. We shall discuss Lactantius' de-
tailed descriptions of this abode below, where we shall see that he
clearly betrays the influence of the Judaeo-Christian paradise im-
ages. a The Christian background also explains why Lactantius could
not avoid having the phoenix travel to "this world": in Paradise
there is no room for even its momentary death.
Gregory of Tours, to the contrary, gave the place where the phoe-
nix renews itself the features of Paradise. He says that after 1,000
years the bird goes to a place lying higher than any other in the
world. The trees are always green there, and at their centre is an
abundant, clear spring beside which stands a tree that reaches above
all the other trees in the forest. In its top the phoenix makes itself a
nest or a grave of many kinds of spices.' Gregory explicitly refers to
Lactantius, but his entire report on the phoenix shows clearly that
he did not have the text of De ave phoenice at hand and must have
cited it from memory. His descriptions of the place where the phoe-
1 Lactantius, 71-78, in quam (sc. palmam) nulla nocens animans prorepere
possit, / lubricus aut serpens aut avis ulla rapax. / Tum ventos claudit pendenti-
bus A eolus antris, / ne violent flabris aera purpureum / neu concreta N oto nubes
per inania caeli / submoveat radios solis et obsit avi. / Construit inde sibi seu
nidum sive sepulchrum: / nam perit, ut vivat, se tamen ipsa creat.
Z See p. 333.
8 See p. 3 11 -33 2 .
, Gregory of Tours, De cursu stellarum ratio, 12: Haec postquam mille
transierit annos, petit locum omnibus locis mundanis celsitudinem praeminen-
tem, in quo habetur locus viridi comam verno hibernoque perdurans, in cuius
medium Ions est magnus et ubertate prolluus et lenitate praeclarus. Huius in
Wore arbor nobilis reliquas luci arbores proceritate praecellens, in huius arboris
vertice haec avis de diversis pigmentorum generibus construit sibi seu nidum
sive sepulchrum.
nix takes new life can be seen as an abbreviated version of Lactan-

tius' description of the permanent abode of the phoenix. 1 The single
tree reaching above all the other trees and in which the phoenix
builds its nest, may well be his memory of the high palm tree in the
forest in Syria mentioned by Lactantius. It is also possible, and even
more probable, that Gregory simply had in mind Paradise, which
according to the universal Christian conception was located on a
high mountain and with a spring at its centre in the shadow of the
Tree of Life. 2 In any case, it can be inferred that Gregory meant
Paradise for both the perfect abode in which according to Lactantius
the phoenix lived and also the place in which it died.
The confusion of these two places, i.e. where Lactantius had the
bird live and die, had in Gregory the result that this author allowed
the actions of the phoenix in these places to coincide. According to
Lactantius, in its perfect abode the phoenix sings to the sun and
plunges repeatedly into the waters of the spring. 3 Gregory has it do
this just before its death, and makes the assumption that the bird
leaves its nest for this express purpose, emerging from under the
aromatics with which it has already covered itself.4 It is hard to
avoid the impression that he simply wished to include a mention of
the singing and the diving, even though this was not really the appro-
priate place to do so: in Lactantius the cover of aromatics is arrang-
ed just before the death of the phoenix. 5 Gregory's view, i.e. that
the phoenix renews itself in Paradise, recurs in the Middle Ages in
Thomas of Cantimpre and, depending on him, in Albertus Magnus. 6
1 See p. 31I.
2 See p. 315.
a See p. 282-284.
, Gregory of Tours, De cursu stellarum ratio, 12: insedensque in media eius
ore odoramenta adtrahit seque ex his tegit. Tunc diversis modolis incipit cantos
ellundere suaves, ac de nido exiliens, aquarum se undis inmergit. Quod cum
ter quaterque repetierit, ascendit iterum super nidum adtrahitque denuo super
se odoramenta, quae detulit.
5 See p. 17 0 .
B Thomas of Cantimpre, De naturis rerum, in Vincent of Beauvais, SPe-
culum naturale, XVII, 74: in altissimis orientis partibus in arbore pulcerrima
super amenissimum /ontem posita altare quasi nidum instruit ex thure, mirra
et cinnamomo ac ceteris aromatibus; Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII,
110 (42): almost identical with emission of "in altissimis orientis partibus".
It is not certain, however, whether there is any question of a direct

influence of Gregory of Tours.
The various traditions of the preparations of the phoenix for its
death found no expression in Classical and Early Christian art. Not
until the Middle Ages do we see the first representations of the col-
lecting of the aromatics, in Bestiaries in Cambridge, Vienna, and
KlagenfurU On a choir-stall in the Cologne cathedral the phoenix
is shown using its beak to adjust the wood of its pyre, which has
already caught fire. 2 In the Bestiary in Vienna a picture of the same
event shows the bird burning itself on a steep rock; and in what is
<:alled Queen Mary's Psalter in the British Museum this event takes
place on a hill. 3 Thus, the idea that the phoenix burns itself on a hill
or rock, which we have explained as originating from poorly under-
stood representations of the phoenix, is not found expressed until
the book illustrations of the Middle Ages. There we also find the
images conveyed by avid, Lactantius, and later authors, i.e. that
the bird built its nest in the branches of a tree: it is shown doing this
in a picture in a missal kept at Stammheim, and in the so-called
Psalter 01 Queen Isabella the already burning nest is shown resting
on a branch. 4
3. THE GENESIS FROM THE DECAYING REMAINS OF THE PREDE-

CESSOR
According to a number of texts, the phoenix, realizing that the

end of its life is approaching, places itself on its nest of scented woods,
dies, and begins to decompose. The way in which the young bird
originates is indicated in detail by most of the authors: the decaying
1 M. R. james, The bestiary, ... Oxford, 1928, pI. fol. 36ro.; O. E. Sounders,
English illumination, Florence-Paris, 1928, pI. 51b; Illustrierte Handschriften
in Oesterreich, VIII, 2, Vienna, 1926, pI. XL, 2; Landesmuseum, Klagenfurt,
VI, 19, fol. 100"0 (Index of Christian Art, Princeton, no. 096940).
8 See B. von Tieschowitz, Das Chorgestuhl des kOlner Domes, Marburg, 1930,
pI. 67b.
3 G. Warner, Queen Mary's Psalter, London, 1912, pI. 153.
, The missal is in the Fiirstenberg collection in Stammheim (Bildarchiv
no. 75944, Index of Christian Art, no. 067509); the psalter in the Stadts-
bibliothek, Munich, gall. 16, fol. 60 ro (Index of Christian Art, no. 042212).
THE GENESIS FROM THE DECAYING PREDECESSOR 187
remains of the old bird give rise to a worm which develops wings and
grows into the new phoenix. According to Manilius, the worm emer-
ges from the bones and marrow of the dead bird. 1 Clement of Rome
has the worm originate from the decaying flesh and then live on the
body fluids until it develops wings. 2 Cyril of Jerusalem mentions
only the decaying flesh, Ambrose only the fluid. 3 Tzetzes states that
the young phoenix develops from the worm under the influence of
the heat of the sun.' He is the only author to have the sun play a role
in this form of origin; we shall see that the same motif occurs, in
the other main version, in the Constitutiones Apostolorum. 6
Experience had taught the Classical world that maggots appear
in decaying flesh. This wonder was seen as a form of spontaneous
generation. 6 Moisture and heat were considered to be almost in-
dispensable factors for the induction and early phases of such
generation. 7 One of the many animals considered to originate in a
spontaneous way was the bee. s It is therefore hardly surprising that
eyril of Jerusalem, after describing the origin of the phoenix, refers
1 Pliny, X, 4: Ex ossibus deinde et medullis eius nasci primo ceu vermiculum,

inde fieri pullum.
I I Clement, 25, 3: all7tOIL&vrJe; 8& 't"1je; acxpKOe; aKwA7j~ 't"Le; ~YYEwihcxL, ac; ~K TIje;
tKILcX8oe; 't"ou 't"£'t"EAEU't"7jK6't"oe; ~wou civcx't"pEcp6ILEVoe; 7t't"EpOCPUEL.
8 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. XVIII, 8 (PG 33, 1025B): El't"cx, ~K TIje;
acx7teLalle; acxpKOe; 't"ou 't"EAEUT"f)acxv't"Oe;, aKwA7j~ 't"Le; YEwii't"CXL' Kcxl oihoe; cxu~lj&de; Ele;
ISPVEOV ILoPCPOU't"CXL. Ambrose, De exc.fratris, 11, 59: Ex cuius umore oriri vermem
paulatimque eum in avis eiusdem figuram concrescere usumque formari; idem,
Exameron, V, 23, 79: de cuius umore carnis vermis exsurgit paulatimque ado-
lescit ac processu statuti temporis induit alarum remigia atque in superioris
avis speciem formamque reparatur.
4 Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 391-392: 'Emxv 8& &cXVll, ylV£'t"CXL aKwAlj~ ~K 't"ou't"ou
7tcXALV, / 0 CPOLVL~ 7tcXALV ylVE't"CXL, &cxA7t6ILEVOe; ~Al<fl.
6 See p. 21 4.
e See W. Rodemer, Die Lehre von der Urzeugung bei den Griechen und
R6mern, Thesis Giessen, 1928, where, on p. 40-41, many references to texts
are given. W. Capelle, Das Problem der Urzeugung bei Aristoteles und Theo-
phrast und in der Folgezeit, in RhMPh, 98, 1955, 150-180.
7 Cf. Capelle, Urzeugung, 163-169.
8 See Rodemer, 21-22, on the various ways in which the bee was thought
to originate (for the phoenix: p. 25, and several places on p. 39, nos. 449-
461); Capelle, Urzeugung, 156-158, also F. Olck, Biene, in RE, 3, 1899, 432-
435 and L. Koep, Biene, in RAC, 11, 1954, 276, 280. The ancient Egyptians
already had the same conception concerning the scarab; see Bonnet, 720.
the incredulous reader to the example of the bees. 1 Rufinus too

mentions the phoenix and the bee together as examples of asexual
procreation. 2 Aeneas of Gaza wonders in astonishment why Theo-
phrastus cannot believe in the resurrection of the human body when
he believes unhesitatingly that innumerable bees originate from a
single dead bull, that the phoenix lives again after dying and com-
pletely decaying, and that many other animals are born from pu-
trefaction. a Aeneas does not mention the intermediate stage of the
worm, but it is clear that he assumed it. The same is the case for
other writers: Ovid mentions only that the young phoenix emerges
from the dead body of the old bird, but Lactantius Placidus adds,
as implicit correction, the putrefaction fluid.'
The extent to which the origin of the young phoenix was seen as
an act of self-generation is clearly shown by the words of Pom-
ponius Mela: due to coagulation of the fluid of the decomposing
members, the phoenix impregnates itself and is born of itself. 5 Taci-
tus has a very original version of this: the phoenix impregnates the
nest, and the semen gives rise to a young bird. 6 This has been seen
as a rationalization of the myth of the origin of the phoenix,7 but
there is a much more probable explanation available. Although Taci-
1 Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., XVIII, 8 (PG 33, 1025B): (Lll cx,naT1]allt; 8£

't'OtITCJl' KlXt yap 't'a (Le:ALaarov YEVV7)(LIX't'1X o()nll f)AE7te:Lt; £K 't'rov aKWA7)KWV (LOPCPOU(LEVIX.
B Rufinus, Expositio Symboli, 9 (after the phoenix, see p. 357): Apes certe
nescire coniugia, nec fetus nexibus edere omnibus palam est. The Coptic Sermon
on Mary, 28-32, gives the same food for the bee and the phoenix; see the
translation on p. 47 and below on p. 340.
a Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus, (PG 85, 980A): ~ 't'ou evOt; cp.s-opa KlXt aliljlLt;
(LUp!wv (Le:ALaarov YEve:aLt; KlXt ~wll KlXt f)!Ot; £yEVe:TO. KlXt 't'o ISpve:ov 6 CPOi:vL~ e:lt;
7te:vTIXK6aLIX l!'n) f)LroVIXL AEye:'t'IXL' 't'e:Ae:uT1]alXt; 8£ KlXtIlAWt; 8LIX)(U.s-e:lt;, IXU.s-Lt; live:f)!wae:.
, Ovid, Metam., XV, 400-402: ... tinitque in odoribus aevum. / Inde terunt,
totidem qui vivere debeat annos, / corpore de patrio parvum phoenica renasci.
Lactantius Placidus, Narr. tab. Ovidianarum, XV, 37: ex cuius sanie alia
renascitur.
6 Pomponius Mela, Ill, 84: dein putrescentium membrorum tabe concrescens
ipse se concipit atque ex se rursus renascitur.
8 Tacitus, A nn., VI, 28: suis in terris struere nidum eique vim genitalem
adtundere, ex qua tetum oriri.
7 M. Schuster, Der Phiinix und der Phiinixmythos in der Dichtung des Lac-
tantius, in Commentationes Vindobonenses, 2,1936,69, sees in Tacitus "bereits
den Versuch einer rationalistischen Kompromiszlosung ... die das Wunderhatte
der PhOnixnatur der N aturmassigkeit naher zu bringen bestrebt ist".
tus does not explicitly say so, the next part of his report implies that
the old bird has died in the nest it has made. It seems justified to
assume that the semen is to be identified with the fluid that flows
from its decomposing body and in which, according to the texts
cited above, the renewal of the phoenix begins. That the semen is
susceptible to this interpretation is shown by Ambrose's report:
after telling of the origin from the body fluids, the Church Father
says, a little further on, that the Creator willed that this bird re-
produces itself from its own seed. l A tradition related to the idea of
the coagulation of the decomposition fluid as point of origin of the
new phoenix, is that of the bird 1;,61 (phoenix) as transmitted in the
school of Rabbi Judan, the son of Rabbi Simeon: after a thousand
years the old bird begins to decompose and its wings fall off; this
continues until only an egg-sized remnant is left; on this new wings
begin to grow and the bird attains a new life. 2
When the young phoenix has regained its old strength, its first
care is to render its predecessor the last honours in a fitting way.3
The most common version was that it brought its father to Helio-
polis in Egypt and placed the remains on the altar there. But this
connection between the phoenix and Egypt is not found in the oldest
text giving this version. According to Manilius, whose report of the
phoenix is preserved in Pliny, the young bird carries the remains of
its predecessor to the temple of the sun near Panchaia, where it lays
its burden on the altar.' The choice of Panchaia-so often favoured
1 Ambrose, Exaemeron, V, 23, 79: ... auctor et creator avium "', qui avem
unicam perire non passus resurgentem eam sui semine voluit propagari.
2 Bereshit Rabbah, XIX, 5 (trans. H. Freedman, MidrashRabbah, Genesis, I,
London, 1951, 152): HR. judan b. R. Simeon said,' It lives a thousand years,
at the end 0/ which its body is consumed and its wings drop 011, yet as much as
an egg is left, whereupon it grows new limbs and lives again".
a Ovid, Metam., XV, 405, in this context calls the bird pius; Pliny, X, 4:
principioque iusta /unera priori reddere; Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: et primam
adulto curam sepeliendi patris; Ambrose, De exc./ratris, 11, 59: ... subnixam
quoque remigio pennarum renovatae vitae ollicia munere pietatis ordiri. Speak-
ing of the piety of brute animals, Celsus referred to the phoenix which comes
to the temple of the sun to bury its dead father; Origen, Contra Celsum,
IV, 98: wE-n Be w~ tl7tep EuaE~dOt~ TWV iXMywv ~<rwv taTcXfLEvo~ /) KeAao~ 7tOtpet-
AOtfL~cXVEL TO •ApcX~LOV ~<jlov, TOV CPOLVLKOt.
4 Pliny, X, 4: et totum de/erre nidum prope Panchaiam in Solis urbem et
in ara ibi deponere.
in legends-is not surprising;1 more remarkable is Ambrose's state-

ment that the young phoenix carries its dead father from Ethiopia
to Lycaonia. It seems certain that a misunderstanding was involved
here. 2
Ovid mentions only the city and the temple of Hyperion, but
there is no evidence to show that he did not have Heliopolis in
Egypt in mind. 3 The old phoenix is transported in the fragrant nest
in which it died: according to Ovid, the young bird carries "its own
cradle and the grave of its father" and according to Ambrose "the
grave of the dead body or the cradle of the resurrected one, in which
it succumbing died and dying rose again".' Pomponius Mela and
Tacitus give a very different story of the transportation of the dead
phoenix, the one found much earlier in Herodotus.
Herodotus says nothing at all about the death of the old phoenix
and the origin of the new one; besides describing the appearance of
the bird he remarks only that he does not believe the story told him
by his informants, according to which every 500 years a phoenix
carries the body of its father in an egg of myrrh from Arabia to the
temple of the sun in Egypt to bury it there. 5 This story is also found
in Celsus and Achilles Tatius. The bird follows a certain procedure,
according to Herodotus: first it takes myrrh and makes an egg so
heavy that it can just barely carry it; after having made sure it can
carry it, it hollows out the egg, places its dead father in it, and closes
1 For Panchaia, see K. Ziegler, Panchaia, in RE, 18, 3, 1949, 493-495.

a Ambrose, De exc. Iratris, Il, 59: nam thecam illam, vel tumulum corporis
vel incunabulum resurgentis, in qua deliciens occidit et occidens resurrexit, ex
Aethiopia in Lycaoniam vehit. See also p. 306, n. 5.
a Ovid, M etam., XV, 403-407: Cum dedit huic aetas vires onerique ferendo
est, / ponderibus nidi ramos levat arboris altae, / fertque pius cunasque suas
patriumque sepulcrum, / perque levis auras Hyperionis urbe potitus / ante
lores sacras Hyperionis aede reponit. Lactantius Placidus, Narr. lab. Ovidia-
narum, XV, 37, summarizes these verses as follows: et viribus roborata nidum
in urbem ellert Solis ibique in templo eius monumentum patris reponit.
4 See texts in n. 2 and 3 above and also I Clement 25, 3: erTOC yevvocLO';
y£v6fL£vOe; OCtP£L TOV CTljKOV £K£LVOV (\7tOU TeX oaTa. TOU 7tpoy£yov6Toe; EaTLv, Kctl TOCUTOC
~ocaTa.~wv 8LOCVU£L a7tO T'ije; 'Apct~LK'ije; )(wpoce; lfwe; T'iie; AtYU7tTOU £t.; riJv A£YOfL£v7lv
'HALOU7tOALV.
• Herodotus, Il, 73, 3: TOUTOV 8e MyouaL fL7l)(OCva.a'&ocL Ta.8£, EfLol fL£V 06 maTeX
A£yovue;, E~ 'Apct~L7le; OPfLWfL£VOV Ee; TO !pOV TOU 'HALOU KOfLL~£LV TOV 7tOCT£POC EV
afLUpV1l EfL7tAa.aaOVTct Kctl ,&a.7tULV EV TOU 'HALOU Tif> !pif>.
the opening with myrrh, after which the egg has the same weight as
before it was hollowed out. The phoenix then brings it to the temple
of the sun in Egypt.! Achilles Tatius does not speak of the flight to
test the weight of the ball of myrrh, but otherwise his report agrees
almost completely with that of Herodotus. 2 The account given by
Celsus is briefer than those of Herodotus and Achilles Tatius. 3
It is quite clear that Pomponius Mela's account was based on the
tradition in Herodotus, Celsus, and Achilles Tatius: when the young
bird reaches maturity, it carries the bones of its previous body sealed
in myrrh to Egypt.4 The version given by Tacitus is only apparently
different: the young phoenix carries out the funeral of its father
"not heedlessly, but after first lifting a quantity of myrrh and at-
tempting to carry it over a long distance until it has found the
weight and the distance equal to the burden to be carried and the
distance to be travelled, it then takes up the body of its father
and brings it to the altar of the sun and burns it there.o Accord-
ing to Tacitus, thus, the phoenix practices for some time with a
1 Herodotus, I1, 73, 4: KOILL~eLII /lE: o!:iTw 7tPWTOII Tijc; aILUp\IljC; ~Oll 7tAIXaaeLV
I)aoll [Te] /lUIIIXT6c; EaTL tpepeLII, ILeToc /lE: 7teLpiia&IXL IXUTO tpopeollTIX, beocII /lE: OC7tO-
7teLp1j&';i, o!:iTw /lTj KOLA~IIIXIITIX TO ~Oll TOil 7tIXTeplX EC; IXUTO EIITL&ellIXL, aILUpll71 /lE:
&AA71 EIL7tAcXaaeLII Toiho KlXl I) TL TOU ~ou EKKOLA~IIIXC; tve&1jKe TOil 7tIXTeplX, EYKeLILellOU
/lE: TOU 7tIXTP0C; YLllea&IXL TWUTO ~cXpOC;, EIL7tAIXaaIXIITIX /lE: KOILL~eLII ILLII E7t' AtyU7tTot>
EC; TOU 'HALOU TO lp611.
2 Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, 4-5: l:ILuPll1jC; yocp ~WAOII Tijc; euw/leaTcXT1jC;, I)aoll
lKIXIIOII 7tpOC; ISpIIL&OC; TlXtp~II, 6pUTTeL -re: T~ aT6ILIXTL KlXl KOLAIXLlleL KIXTOC ILeaOll, KlXl
TO /lpUYILIX &~K1j YLlleTIXL T~ IIeKp~. 'EII&e:lc; /lE: KlXl tv1XPIL6alXC; TOil ISPLII T'ii aop~
Katl KAe:LalXC; TO XcXPILIX Y1)LllCP XWILIXTL E7tl TOil N eLAOII o!:iTwc; t7tTIXTIXL TO ~PYOII tpepwII.
8 Celsus, in Origen, Contra Cels. IV, 98: KlXl tpepoII OC7t0&IXII611TIX TOil 7tIXTepat
KlXl TlXtpellTIX Ell atplXLpqt aILUpll1jC; KlXl E7tm&E:II I)7tOU TO TOU 'HALOU TeILelloc;. Nothing
in the Classical sources justifies the remarkable view that the egg of myrrh
brought by the young phoenix to Heliopolis contains the germ of new life for
the old phoenix, as in R. Merkelbach, Roman und Mysterium in der Antike,
Munich-Berlin, 1962, 130, and, Isis/este in griechisch-romischer Zeit, (Beitr.
z. klass. Philologie, 5), Meisenheim am Glan, 1963, 31 and E. Koberlein,
Caligula und die iigyptischen Kulte, (Beitr. z. klass. Philologie, 3), Meisen-
heim am Glan, 1962, 18. The new phoenix goes only to pay the last honours
to its predecessor, as is clear from the reports on the cremation or mummi-
fication of the old bird; see below, p. 196-198.
, Pomponius Mela, Ill, 84: cum adolevit, ossa pristini corporis inclusa
murra Aegyptum exportat.
5 Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: neque id temere, sed sublato murrae pondere tempta-
toque per longum iter, ubi par oneri, par meatui sit, subire patrium corpus
inque SoUs aram per/erre atque adolere.
quantity of myrrh until it is capable of carrying the body of its father

from Arabia to Egypt. He says nothing about the placing of the
body in a capsule of myrrh, which could lead to the inference that
he followed an independent tradition. But in fact he has only given
an abbreviated and therefore distorted form of the tradition of
Herodotus. Of the various preparations made by the young phoenix
for its flight to Egypt according to Herodotus, only the experimental
flights with the myrrh survive in Tacitus. For both the origin of the
young phoenix and the transportation of the old one to Egypt,
Tacitus' data can be reconciled with the current ideas of the version
of the phoenix myth under discussion here, but it must be admitted
that his version of what is really the core of the myth is unclear,
confused, and confusing. 1
It is evident from the foregoing that in the authors following the
version of the genesis of the phoenix from the remains of its pre-
decessor, two conceptions concerning the transportation of the dead
phoenix to Egypt can be distinguished: according to one, the most
popular, this occurred in the fragrant nest in which the old bird had
died, but according to the other, it was in a ball of myrrh. The latter
story, transmitted by Mela in the pure form and by Tacitus in a
distorted form, proved to agree with a tradition we find in Hero-
dotus, Celsus, and Achilles Tatius. The latter writers do not refer
to the way in which the genesis of the young phoenix occurred, but
the agreement we have found makes it probable that they too assum-
ed that the bird took life from the decomposing body of its pre-
decessor. The same must hold for Artemidorus and Aelian, who al-
so speak of the transportation to Egypt of the dead phoenix by the
young one without referring to the manner of its genesis. 2 We shall
1 Hubaux and Leroy, 163, think that for his details on the flight of the
young phoenix Tacitus "n'est pas tributaire d'Hcrodote", but is dependent on
"traditions authentiquement cgyptiennes cvoquant le bennu "patrophore" ". Here
they follow the untenable elucidation given by Sbordone to Book 0/ the Dead,
64, 2 I; see above, p. 30. On the basis of this assumed agreement, they go
extensively into the subire patrium corpus of Tacitus, followed by interesting
but for the phoenix rather irrelevant considerations concerning the "oiseau-
porteur" (p. 163-177).
2 For Artemidorus, see above, p. 151, and for Aelian, p. 194, n. 2, and
p. 196, n. 3.
return to this point in some detail in the discussion of the develop-

ment of the phoenix myth. 1
Various authors say that on its flight to Egypt the young phoenix
was accompanied by an escort of birds, an idea expressing the royal
character of the phoenix. We have already seen that Sidonius, who
follows the fire version, described the old bird on its last flight as
being accompanied by many birds. 2 We shall see later that this
ceremonious escort is also reported for the first flight of the young
phoenix after its resurrection from the ashes of its predecessor.s This
theme is first found in Ezekiel the Dramatist, but without any
mention of how he visualized the genesis of the new phoenix. He
says that it is clearly evident that the phoenix is the king of all the
birds, because they follow it with reverential awe.' Tacitus says
that on its flight to Egypt the phoenix is accompanied by a large
escort of birds, which admire its new appearance. s Achilles Tatius
says that when it travels to Egypt the phoenix resembles a king on a
journey in a foreign country, because a choir of birds follows it as its
body-guard. 6 Striking parallels with this frequently mentioned
motif of the phoenix myth are to be found in the panegyrics on the
assumption of power by a new ruler. We have already shown that
the importance of a change of rule was often enhanced by making it
the occasion for an appearance of the phoenix, and it seems certain
that the congregating of the birds to admire the new phoenix, to
honour it, and to follow it ceremoniously, was borrowed from the
traditional descriptions of the events surrounding the inauguration
of a new ruler.7
Achilles Tatius adds to his report on the flight of the new phoenix,
1 See below, p. 404-408.

I See p. 179.
8 See p. 227-228.
, Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 265-269: ~CXaLAE:OC:; Se 7t'cXVT(J)V ilPVE(J)V
~<pCX(VE:TO, I ~c:; ~v vo'ijacxL. 7t'cXVTCX yap Ta 7t'Tijv' 0ILOU I IS7t'La.&e:v CXUTOU SE:LALWVT'
~7t'EaauTo, I CXUTOC:; Se 7t'p6a.&e:v, TCXUpoC:; WC:; ycxupOUILe:voc:;. I ~~CXLVE: KPCXL7t'VOV ~'ijILCX
~cxaTcX~CIlV 7t'oS6c:;. For the last two verses, see p. 258.
5 Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: in civitatem cui Heliopolis nomen advolavisse,
multo ceteyayum volucyum comitatu novam /aciem miyantium.
• Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, 5:' wE7t'E:TCXL Se CXUTcj> J(OpOC:; &IlCllV ilpv(.&CIlv Cla7t'E:p
Sopu<p6pCllv Kcxl ~OLKe:v 0 ISPVLC:; IX7t'OSljILOUVTL ~CXaLAE:L.
7 See also below, p. 228-229.
13
that the bird has no uncertainty about the exact location of Helio-
polis. 1 This completely certain knowledge possessed naturally by
each phoenix before its first flight to Egypt is the main theme of
Aelian's remarks on the phoenix. He expresses his surprise that the
bird knows exactly when 500 years of its life have passed and what
direction it must take to reach Egypt and Heliopolis. Aelian finds
this wisdom more remarkable than, for instance, the political activi-
ty and martial exploits of man. 2
The young phoenix lays its burden on the altar in the temple of
the sun at Heliopolis. 3 Clement of Rome says, quite explicitly, that
this occurs in the daytime, with many onlookers.' For Clement the
phoenix was evidence of the possibility of the final resurrection, and
he may have deliberately inserted the public aspect of the phoenix'S
arrival for apologetic reasons, although in its application he did not
give it special attention. Cyril of Jerusalem, who depended on Cle-
ment, later understood the apologetic value of this aspect so well
that he ended by creating his own variant of the phoenix myth to
exploit it. 5 According to him, the genesis of the new phoenix from
the decomposing body of its predecessor took place not somewhere
outside Egypt but in Heliopolis itself, where it was visible to all.
The words he uses to introduce the resurrection of the bird clearly
betray the motive underlying this change: in its 500th year the bird
comes to Egypt and demonstrates resurrection; it does not do this
in a solitary place to conceal the mystery, but openly in a city so
that the wonder can be examined. 6 Because Cyril placed the renewal
of the phoenix in Heliopolis, he was forced to discard the young
1 Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, 5: KlXt Tljv 'lt6ALV OU 'ltAIXViiTIXL Tljv 'HA(OU.
8 Aelian, VI, 58: tKeivlX ae, i:> 'ltpOC; TWV '&ewv, ou aocpoc etaevlXL 'ltOU (LeV
Atytl7t"ToC; taTL, 'ltOU ae KlXt 'HA(OU 'lt6ALC;, 1v.&1X IXUTij'> 'lte'ltpWTIXL f)KELV, KlXt l5'1tou
'ltOTe TOV 'ltIXTeplX KIXTIX.&ea'&IXL XPl) KlXt tv .\HjKIXLC; T(aL; TIXUTIX ae Et (Ll) aOKEi '&IXU(LotGTOC,
clPIX yE d; ayoplXilX KlXt Ta tvO'ltA(1X KlXt TaC; &'AAIXC; TWV av.&pw'ltwv tc; aAA~AOUC; Tt
KlXl KIXT' ill~AWV tm~ouAOCC; tpOU(LEV aocpoc;
8 See p. 189, n. 4; 190, n. 3; 191, n. 5; n. 4 below; 196, n. 4.
, I Clement, 25, 4: KlXl ~(LeplXC;, ~Ae'lt6VTWV 'ltOCVTWV, tm'ltTaC; t'ltl TOV TOU ~A(OU
~W(LOV T£'&'ljaLV IXUTOC, KlXl Ol)TWC; EtC; TOU'It(aw acpop(Lci.
6 See p. 15 8.
• Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., XVIII, 8 (PG 33, 1025B): aE(KvuaL Tljv avoc-
aTotaLV· OUK tv tp'lj(Loic; T6'1tOLC;, tVIX (Ll) ayvO'lj-llij TO (LUa~pLOV· ill' tv cplXVEPci 'lt6AEL
'ltotpIXYEV6(LEVOV, tVIX q,'ljAIXCP'lj-llij TO amaTOU(LEVOV.
bird's journey with the body of its father. Thus, according to his
account, immediately after acquiring wings the new phoenix re-
turns to its native country, emphasis being placed on the fact that
it is the exact equivalent of its dead predecessor.1
Only a few writers refer to the reactions of the Heliopolitan priests
to the appearance of the young phoenix. Clement of Rome says that
they consult the annals and find that the bird had arrived after 500
years had elapsed. 2 Although Clement does not say so explicitly, the
impression is obtained that the intention of this reference to the
annals was made to determine whether that phoenix was really the
true one: it was known that the bird came to Egypt every 500 years,
so they had only to verify whether that many years had passed
since the bird had appeared. 3 This investigation of the authenticity
of the newly arrived phoenix is described in detail by Achilles
Tatius: the bird settles on a high point and awaits the servants of
the god; a priest comes out of the temple with a book and compares
the phoenix with an illustration to see whether it is the real one. But
the phoenix knows that there are doubts, and it therefore allows the
priest to look upon the secret parts of its body, i.e. its genitals, then
shows its dead father, and proves to be, as it were, a gifted funeral
orator. The servants of the god then take the dead bird of the sun
and bury it.' It remains possible that Achilles Tatius inserted these
1 Ibid. (I025C): 'EiTIX, 'It"Te:pO<pUiJGIX~ /) 'It"pOe:LpiJ(Le:vO~ <pOiVL~, KIX!. TeAe:Lo~, oio~
'ljv /) 'It"pOTe:pO~, <pOiVL~ ye:v6(Le:vo~' cXVt'lt"TIXTIXL TOLOi:iTo~ e:t~ cXeplX oto~ KIX!. tTe:Te:Ae:U-
TijKe:L.
2 I Clement, 25, 5: o! o~v !e:pe:i~ t'It"LGKe'lt"TOVTIXL Ta~ cXvlXyplX<pa~ TWV xp6voov,
KIX!. e:UptGKOUGLV IXOTOV 'It"e:vTIXKOGLOGTOU ~TOU~ 'It"e:'It"A7jpOO(LEvOU tA7jAu,&eVIXL.
8 For true and false phoenixes, see p. II3-II6.
, Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, 6-7: "EGT7JKe:v OUV t'lt"!. (Le:Te:WPOU GKO'lt"WV KIX!. tK3e-
Xe:TIXL TOU~ 'It"pO'lt"6AOU~ TOU .&e:oii. wEPXe:TIXL 3iJ TL~ !e:pe:u~ AtyU'It"TLo~, ~L~AtOV t~
cX3UTOOV <pepoov, KIX!. 30KL(LiX~e:L TOV IlPVLV tK rii~ YPIX<p'ii~. '0 3e ot3e:v cX'lt"LGTOU(Le:vO~
KIX!. Ta cX'It"6pP7jTIX <plXtVe:L TOU GW(LIXTO~ KIX/. TOV Ve:KPOV t'It"L3e:tKVUTIXL KIX/. tGTLV t'It"LTiX<pLO~
GO<pLGTij~. 'Ie:peoov 3e 'It"lXi3e:~ 'HAtOU TOV IlPVLV TOV Ve:KPOV 'It"IXPIXAIX~6vTe:~ '&iX'It"TOUGL.
E. Vilborg, Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon. A commentary, (Studia
graeca et latina Gothoburgensia, XV), Gothenburg, 1962, 79, takes t'It"LTiX<pLO~
GO<pLGTij~ literally and points out that "other writers report that the phoenix has
a beautiful voice" (for this, see p. 200) but it seems much more likely that
these words pertain to the previous mentioned demonstration of the genuine-
ness of the phoenix and its father, as supposed by T. F. Carney, Achilles
Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon, Book III, The Classical Association of Rho-
desia and Nyasaland, (1960), 180.
details on his own initiative, but it is also conceivable that he borrow-

ed them from stories about the benu-phoenix that were current in
the Egyptian syncretism of his time. Reference must be made here
to certain magical amulets on which the benu, which was identified
with the phoenix, is represented as standing on a round object lying
on an altar or the back of a crocodile and which can be explained as
the egg of myrrh containing the old phoenix. 1 If this interpretation
is correct, it is evident that the arrival of the phoenix in Heliopolis
played a role in the syncretistic reflections on the benu-phoenix en-
countered in Roman Egypt.
But ordinarily the phoenix did not have to prove its authenticity,
and the converse is seen in that its appearance was taken as an
indication that a period of 500 years had elapsed. According to Am-
brose, for instance, the resurrection of the phoenix showed the in-
habitants of its native country that a period of 500 years had again
come to an end. 2 Aelian even denies the Egyptian priests any
possibility of verifying the authenticity of the phoenix, because of
the inaccuracy of their calculations. He portrays the priests in un-
certainty as to whether the 500 years of the phoenix have been
fulfilled: according to some the bird is still to come, according to
others it should have arrived long before. But while they are futilely
arguing, a divine inspiration makes it clear to the bird that the time
has come, and it appears. 3 The object of Aelian's argument is to
show that natural intuitive knowledge is characterized by an exact
certainty not endowed by the laborious calculations of the scholars.
There can be little doubt that it was for this purpose that he delib-
erately introduced the embarrassing lack of certainty of the Egyp-
tian priests into the story of the phoenix.
Pomponius Mela and Tacitus state explicitly that the old phoenix
is consumed by fire on the altar on which it is placed.' Since this
1 See our pI. XI, 1-3; also below, p. 243-244.
I Ambrose, De exc. tratris, Il, 59: Atque ita resurrectione avis huius locorum
incolae conpletum quingentorum annorum tempus intellegunt.
3 Aelian, VI, 58: ot ILev ~peaxeAouaL acpiic; IXUTOUC; ~pl~oVTeC; WC; OU vuv &AA'
~C; i)aTepov 1l8e cl .&ei:oc; IIPVLC; cicpl~eTIXL 'Il WC; ~J(P7iv ~KeLv· 6 8e dtAA61C; ~Kelv61v ~pL~6v
T61V cixOO"llILlXlveTIXL 8IXLILovl61C; TOV KIXLPOV KlXl mxpeaTLV.
4 Pomponius Mela, Ill, 84 (continuation of citation on p. 191, in n. 4):
et in urbe quam Solis adpellant tlagrantibus arae bustis interens memoranda
tunere consecrat; Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: patrium corpus ... adolere.
was the usual funeral practice in the Classical world, we may assume
that it was meant by most of the authors who followed the version
of the phoenix myth under discussion. 1 It is possible that Achilles
Tatius, who, as we have seen, gives an independent version of the
events in Heliopolis, had the Egyptian practices in mind. They are
explicitly mentioned by Horapollo, but like that of Achilles Tatius
his report is almost completely independent of the Classical tradi-
tions concerning the phoenix.
Horapollo's version of the genesis of the young phoenix and the
death of the old one has already been discussed: just before its death
the phoenix inflicts a wound on itself by falling to the ground, and
the fluid emerging from this wound gives rise to another phoenix
which, as soon as it can fly, travels together with its father to Egypt
where the old phoenix dies at dawn. While the Egyptian priests bury
the old bird, the young phoenix returns to its native country.2 Many
of the elements of this story are found in other phoenix traditions:
according to a few texts, the phoenix allows itself to drop from a
great height in order to set its nest of aromatics afire;3 the fluid from
the wound is reminiscent of the above-mentioned putrefaction fluid;
the death of the old phoenix at dawn occurs in the fire version as
well;' and the journey of the old and the young phoenix together
has a weak parallel in the Arabian traditions concerning the bird
1 This may certainly be assumed for the authors who say that the old
phoenix is placed on the altar (Ovid, Pliny, Clement of Rome). When
Herodotus and Artemidorus, for instance, speak of burial, (&cX.7tTELV, KCXTCX-
&cX.7tTELV) this does not exclude the possibility of a prior cremation; see Liddell-
Scott, 784, s.v.," Tacitus also speaks of sepeliendi (p. 189, n. 3), and it later
becomes apparent that with this he had cremation in mind. For the Classical
burial customs, see Cumont, Lux perpetua, 387-390 and e.g. H. J. Rose,
Dead, Disposal of, in Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford, 1949, repr. 1953,
255-256.
2 Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, 11, 57: Il-rcxv {LElln 'rE:A.:u-riiv 0 «pOLVL~, pTjC1C1EL
~CXUTOV ~7t1. -rljv yijv, KCXI. 67tTjv ~K TOU p~y{LCXTO; ACX{L~cX.VEL, KCXI. ~K TOU t)(WPO; TOU
KCXTCXPPEOV'rO; 8LIX 'lij; 67tlj; &1.1.0; YEvviiTCXL· OUTO; TE &(LCX Tij) 7tTEpOQIU'ijC1CXL, C1UV Tij)
7tCXTPl. 7t0pEUnCXL Et; -rljv 'HALou7t0ALV -rljv ~ AtyU7tT(fl, KCXI. 7tCXpCXyev6{LEVO; ~KELC1E,
&{LCX -r1i 7)A!ou a.vcxToA71, ~KEL TEAwT~· KCXI. {LETIX TOV &cX.VCXTOV TOU 7tCXTPO; 0
VE0C1C10; 7tcX.ALv ~7t1. -rljv t8!cxv 7tcxTp!8cx &7tELC1LV, ol 8E lEpELI,; 'lijl,; AtyU7tTOU TOUTOV TOV
a.7t0&CXV6VTCX «pO!VLKCX &cX.7tTOUC1L.
3 See p. 206-207.
, See p. 203, 205.
called <an~a', according to which the young bird is already present

before one of its parents burns itself.1
Both Achilles Tatius and Horapollo report that the priests of
Heliopolis buried the old phoenix. According to the latter, this was
done according to ancient Egyptian practice: the Egyptians were
obliged to bury the phoenix in the manner used for the burial of the
other sacred animals. 2 He must therefore have assumed that the
old phoenix, like, for instance, the cat and the crocodile, was mum-
mified.
4. THE GENESIS FROM THE ASHES OF THE PRjmECESSOR
The burning of the phoenix and the resurrection from its ashes is
described in detail by several authors. We have already seen that
according to many texts the phoenix travels to Heliopolis in Egypt
before it is consumed by fire,S but the only one to give the priests a
role at the arrival of the bird is the Physiologus, in which the phoe-
nix sends the priest a sign, at which he immediately places vine ten-
drils on the altar; the phoenix then comes with its aromatics to
Heliopolis and places itself on the altar.4 Like Aelian,5 thus, the
Physiologus assumes that the priest of Heliopolis does not know
exactly when the phoenix will appear; the bird itself gives the sign
announcing its coming. How the phoenix sends this sign from Le-
banon and what it consists of is not mentioned. As judged by later
versions, this point remained a problem. The Physiologus of Ansi-
leubus, for instance, and the related report of Petrus Damiani,
mention only "certain indications" by which the priest can tell that
1 See p. 20 7.
2 Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, I, 35: K'lj8cUETIXL /LUO"TLKOOe;, KlXllIO"IX ~1tl TOOV &AAwv
lEPOOV t:<jlwv AlyU1tTOU TEAOUO"L, TIXUTIX KlXl T<jl tpOLVLKL U1tCXP)(ELV OtpELAEL.
3 See p. 147, where other locations of the cremation are given.
, Physiologus, 7: KlXl O"'Ij/LIXLVEL T<jllEPEL rije; 'HALOU1t6AEWe; T<jl /L'ljvl T<jl ve'll T<jl
N'ljO"tXV ~ T<jl' A8cip, TouTeO"TL T<jl CIIIX/LEVoo.&'1jT<jlCIIIXP/LOU,&L (see for this chronological
indication p. 131). 'a 8£ lEpcUe; O"'Ij/LlXv.&£lc; ~P)(ETIXL, KlXl ~/L1tL1tA~ TOV ()W/LOV ci/L1tE-
ALVWV ~UAWV· TO 8£ 1tE't'£LVOV etO"ep)(ETIXL Ele; 'HALOU1tOALV, YEYO/LW/Levov TOOV cipw/Lci-
TWV, KlXl ciVIX()IXLVEL ~1tl TOV ()w/L6v.
5 See p. 194.
THE GENESIS FROM THE ASHES OF THE PREDECESSOR I99
the phoenix is approaching.1 According to the Byzantine Physiologus,

the priest himself gives the sign, at which the phoenix leaves its
abode to go to the priest, enters the temple, and settles on the altar.2
In the Physiologus 01 Pseudo-Basil there is no longer any mention
of the sign. Only in the oldest version and in the highly divergent
Arabic translation is there any mention of the vine tendrils the
priest lays on the altar in readiness. s Their symbolic meaning is
clear: in the East, the grape vines and the grapes growing on them
had from ancient times been symbols of life and immortality.' In
the later versions it is only said that the priest placed twigs on the
altar; only the Physiologus 01 Pseudo-Basil has him-"because he
knows the nature of the phoenix"-place burning coals on the altar.6
Like Clement of Rome and Cyril of Jerusalem, the Didascalia
stresses the fact that just because it is such a rare phenomenon, the
phoenix makes a deep impression when it enters Egypt. 8 It is also
in this book that we first encounter the report that before setting
itself afire the phoenix faces the East and the rising sun, and then
1 Ansileubus, Fragmenta e Physiologo in glossario inserta, 12: et quibusdam

indiciis signilicatur hoc sacerdoti civitatis Heliopoleos. Petrus Damiani, Opus-
cula varia, LIl, 11: Hoc itaque sacerdos civitatis Heliopoleos quibusdam signi-
licationum indiciis deprehendit.
a Byzantine Physiologus, 10: ICIltL 1S't'lltv «TIlILIlt!VlI /) le:peUC; rijc; 'HALOU'lt'6Ae:WC;,
e:U.&EWC; Eye:lpe:'t'IltL Iltlhoc; /) cpOrVL~ EIC 't'ou t8!ou 't'6'1t'ou, ICIltL «'It'EPXe:'t'IltL 'It'pOC; 't'ov le:PEIlt
[rijc; 'HALOU'lt'6Ae:WC;] IClltl e:taEPxe:'t'IltL £V 't'ij> Vlltij>, ICIltL ICIlt.&E~e:'t'IltL E'It'l 't'ov ~WILOV 't'ou
'&uaLllta'"lP!Ou.
8 See above, and the Arabic Physiologus, ed. Land, 155 (trans.): super qua
para ponit ex vitis palmitibus (structam) casae speciem.
, See M. Eliade, Traite d'histoire des religions, Paris, 1953, 247-249. In the
Jewish and the Christian symbolism, the grape vine and the Tree of Life were
identified with each other, cl. J. Danielou, La vigne et l'Arbre de Vie, in his
Les symbols chretiens primitils, Paris, 1961, 33-48 (also in Melanges Hugo
Rahner, Paris, 1961).
5 Physiologus 01 Pseudo-Basil, 21: ICIltL «'It'EPXe:'t'IltL £V 't'ij> Vlltij> Aty<m't'ou. rVWp!-
~wv 8£ /) le:pe:uC; 't'l)V cpuaLv 't'ou cpO!VLICOC;, 'It'OLe:r Iltlhij> «V'&PIltICLcXV £V 't'ij> '&uaLllta'"lp!Cj>,
IClltl e:taEPXe:'t'IltL /) cpOrVL~ IClltlICIlt!e:'t'IltL ILe:'t'cX 't'OOV e:U6aILwv ~UAWV. Cl. also Appendix
Physiologi, 4.
I Didascalia Apostolorum, 40: Nam si esset par aut multi, ipsi multi velut
lantasma videri poterant homines,' nunc autem videtur, cum ingrediatur, quia
solum est. The Syriac translation omits "aut multi" and "velut lantasma",
see Connolly, 173. According to the Coptic Sermon on Mary, 20-21, the phoe-
nix comes "flying in the height" (see trans. on p. 45).
utters a prayer.l The writer of the Constitutiones Apostolorum, which

adopted the Didascalia almost word for word, leaves this point to
those who have written on the phoenix. 2 Michael Glycas, who be-
trays the influence of the Constitutiones, says only that the phoenix
faces the sun, without mentioning a prayer. 3 But there is a reference to
the prayer in the Physiologus 01 Vienna: the phoenix flies to the pyre
and settles on it, spreads its wings upward, stares toward the East
as though it were praying in some manner, and awaits the appear-
ance of the sun.4 Thus, the phoenix assumes the attitude of prayer of
the early Christians: hands raised and turned to face the East
where at the end of time Christ, the Sun of Justice, will appear. 6
The texts do not tell the content of this prayer, but its aim is un-
doubtedly to entreat the sun to bring about the burning and there-
fore the renewal. This is quite evident from the Phoenix of Claudian,
in which the phoenix's prayer and the response of the sun god have
become a highly elaborated scene. The poet seems to have united
two separate elements: the greeting of the rising sun by the phoenix
and the prayer concerning the conflagration. The former is found in
Lactantius and in a group of texts in which the phoenix is portrayed
as the daily attendant of the sun,' the second in the texts just men-
tioned. Claudian says that the phoenix sinks onto its nest and greets
the sun with a sweet sound, but also adds its supplications and
in a submissive strain pleads for the fire that will give it new
1 Didascalia ApostoloJ'um, 40: et OJ'at contJ'a oJ'ientem.
• Constitutiones ApostoloJ'um, V, 7, 15: Kott a't'eXv xpol;; ciVot't'OAIXI;;, 001;; otlhot
cpotaLV, 't'(ji ijAtCfl xpoaEU~Ii(.LEVOV.
8 Michael Glycas, Annales, I, (PG 158, 108C): Kott ciV't'LKPU 't'ou ijAtou ta't'ot't'otL,
£i't'ot 't'Ecppoil't'otL. It is possible that Glycas meant only that to set itself afire
the phoenix exposed itself to the rays of the sun.
, Physiologus of Vienna, 18-20: Kotl tx't'ota.&otL ~xliv6l 't'wv ~UA6lV 't'ov CPOtvLKot,
't'eXl;; x't'tpuyotl;; ijXA6l(.LtvOV IlP.&Lot Kott Kot't'eX ciVot't'OAl)V 't'l)pouv't'ot, i:JaxEp 't'LveX 't'p6xov
EuX6(.LEVOV Kotl ~K3EX6(.LEVOV Tljv 't'ou ijAtou l!~o30V.
6 F. J. Dolger, Sol Salutis, (Liturgiegesch. Forsch., 4/5), Munster, 1925,
319 and 323 for a possible Christian background, and passim.
• Lactantius, De ave phoenice, 44-50, see also p. 283. Hubaux and Leroy,
148-150, 159-160, adhere to the view that the bird's song about which Lac-
tantius speaks must also be considered to occur immediately before its death;
for this reason they placed verses 35-54 after verse 90, as had been done
earlier by M. Leroy, Le chant du PMnix. L'oJ'dJ'e des vel's dans le CaJ'men De
ave phoenice, in AC, I, 1932, 213-231. This is rejected on good grounds by
Walla, 141-147.
THE GENESIS FROM THE ASHES OF THE PREDECESSOR 20I
strength. When Phoebus has seen the phoenix from a great distance
he reins in his horses, comes to a sharp halt, and consoles his foster-
child by saying: 0 thou who art to lay thy old age on the pyre and
shall take a new birth from what seems to be thy grave, thou who
art periodically reborn from thy decline and who extracts youthful
strength from thy death, receive a new commencement of life and
desert thy withered body; reappear, after thy transformation, re-
newed.!
The singing of the phoenix just before its death has also been
interpreted in another way. Philostratus says that the Indians sup-
plement the well-known story by saying that, like the dying swan,
the phoenix sings its own dirge as it is consumed in its nest. 2 The
mention of "the Indians" seems to imply that Philostratus is here
following a typically Eastern tradition. It is true that Gregory of
Tours also mentions the singing of the phoenix just before its death.
but only because he was careless in the use of certain information
taken from his source, Lactantius. 3 The only true parallel for the
report of Philostratus is found in the Persian poet Attar, who lived
in the twelfth century. Attar says that the phoenix has a very long
and hard beak perforated like a flute, through which it can makt-
such beautiful music that all other animals become silent. When its
death approaches, it makes sad mournful sounds; many birds and
other animals come to look at it, but many of them cannot bear the
sight and die. 4
1 Claudian, Phoenix, 45-54: Hic sedet et Solem blando clangore salutat r
debilior miscetque preces ac supplice cantu / praestatura novas vires incendia
poscit. / Quem procul adductis vidit cum Phoebus habenis, / stat subito dictisque
pium solatur alumnum: / "0 senium positure rogo falsisque sepulchris, / natales.
habiture vices, qui saepe renasci / exitio proprioque soles pubescere leto, / accipe
principium rursus corpusque coactum / desere. Mutata melior procede figural"
See also Zeno of Verona on p. 204, in n. 6.
8 Philostratus, Vita A pollonii, Ill, 49: 7tpOa~30vT£e; Tcj) MY<tl TO TOV CPOlVLK~
TOV ~V -r7i KCXAL~ T7jK6!L£vOV 7tp07t£!L7tT7jploue; iJ!LVOUe; CXUTcj) 43£LV. TOUTI. 3e KCXI. TOUe;
KUKVOUe; CPCXaL 3piiv 01 aocpC:m:pov CXUTWV aKOUOVTee;. Cl the scholion ed. by G. J.
Bekker (Heidelberg, 1818, 119): Kcxl. TOUe; KUKVOUe; cpcxal. 7tp07t£!L7tT7jploue; Tcj)
CPOlVLKL 43£LV.
a Gregory of Tours, De cursu stellarum ratio, 12: Tunc diversis modolis
incipit cantos e/lundere suaves .. see also p. 185.
t Attar, The conference of birds, 26 (trans. Nott, 66-67). Many data given
by Attar are also given in the dubious reports cited by the sixteenth century
humanists to prove that the phoenix could not be a completely fabulous
The phoenix, solitary in life and in death, sings its own lamenta-
tions and dirges, according to this version, just as in Lactantius it
strews itself with fragrant herbs for its own funeral,l It is quite
possible that these two versions of the singing of the phoenix before
its death arose independently.
The Didascalia and the Constitutiones Apostolorum say that after
its prayer the phoenix takes fire spontaneously, burns, and becomes
ash. 2 Claudian also speaks of this spontaneous burning, but at the
same time makes clear how this is to be understood: the bird is
struck by a ray of sunlight. This last of the great Roman poets makes
a vivid picture of this scene; after concluding the words just cited,
the sun god shakes his head and strikes the phoenix with one of his
golden locks, which the poet calls a life-giving dart of lightning. At
this, the bird takes fire to be reborn: longing for its rebirth, it is glad
to die. The fragrant nest blazes under the ray hurled from heaven,
and consumes the old body.3
animal. Hieronymus Cardanus, De subtilitate libri XXI, nunc demum recogniti
atque perfecti, Basiliae, 1554, 337 says that among the Indians there occurs
the bird semenda whose life greatly resembles that of the phoenix: the semen-
da has a remarkable beak with three holes, before its death it sings like the
swan (see n. 2), it collects twigs and sets them afire by beating with its wings,
from its ashes a worm emerges from which the new bird develops. With more
restrictions the semenda is mentioned by Julius Caesar Scaliger, Exoteri-
carum exel'citationum lilwi XV de subtilitate ad Hieronymum Cardanum,
Francofurti, 1601 (1St ed. 1557), 731, who refers to the reports of sailors:
"legimus in Commentariis navigationum". Attar says: "A philosopher once
visited this bird and learnt from him the science of music" ,. according to Sca-
liger, the shepherd's flute was constructed according to the example of the
semenda's beak: "cuius ad imitationem pastores instrumentum composuerint
haud insuave". Ulisse Aldrovandi, Ornithologia hoc est De avibus historiae lilwi
XII, (= Opera omnia, I). Bononiae, 1599, 817, says that in Venice he ex-
amined a bird taken to be the semenda; he concluded that the details in
Cardanus were based on fantasy: see also p. 833 for the illustration of the
beak of this bird: "semendae cranii descriptio, sine tribus illis fistulis". For
the confusion in the Arabic literature between the phoenix and semenda-
salamander, see also p. 207, n. 7.
1 See p. 170.
2 Didascalia, 40: et succenditur a se ipso et comburitur et fit cinis; Syriac
translation, Connolly, 172: "a fire is kindled of itself and burns him up, and
he is reduced to ashes", Const. Apost., V, 7,15: IXU't"OlLcX't"(J)~ cpAq&iivlXL KlXl Y£v£a'&IXL
K6vLV.
a Claudian, Phoenix, 55-60: Haec fatus propere flavis e crinibus unum /
concussa cervice iacit missoque volentem / vitali fulgore ferit. I am sponte crema-
THE GENESIS FROM THE ASHES OF THE PREDECESSOR 203
The lighting of the pyre by a ray from the sun is mentioned by

several writers. Philostratus was probably referring to it when he
said that there is only one phoenix that takes its genesis from the
rays of the sun. 1 The burning of the bird is clearly ascribed to the
heat of the sun by Dionysius, the Carmen in laudem Solis, and
Pseudo-Eustathius, all three placing the event on a high rock. 2
Gregory of Tours diverges on this point from Lactantius, whose
version we shall discuss below: in agreement with his source Gregory
says that the phoenix covers itself with its fragrant herbs in its
nest, but then says that it is struck at dawn by the first rays of the
sun, at which the whole takes fire and burns up.s According to anoth-
er tradition, the phoenix itself generates the fire by beating the
scented wood and herbs of its nest with its wings. This version is
found in Dracontius, who explicitly states that the aromatics burn
before the phoenix, as well as in Pseudo-Augustine, in the Coptic
I Clement, in a scholion on Lucan, in a few versions of the Physio-
logus including the Viennese, in which as in Gregory of Tours the
conflagration occurs at dawn, and in the above-mentioned Persian
poet Attar.' Although not all these texts actually say that the bird
tur / ut redeat gaudetque mori lestinus in ortum. / Fervet odoratus telis caelesti-
bus agger / consumitque senem.
1 Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, Ill, 49: ElvcxL 3£ ~cx, eK3L36(lEVOV TWV a.KT(VWV.
Cl. the end of the description in Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32: l'uaTE U7rO 'tijl;
ijALCXK'ij1; (l6V7j1; cxuY'iic;, 7rcxTp6c; TE Kcxl (l71TP0C; )(Wp(c;, TOV ISPVLV Y(YVEa&cxL Toihov.
S Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32: ~v (sc. rrupa.V/KCXALa.V) ••• ij TwVijALCXKWV a.KT(VWV
KCXTCXcpMYEL &Ep(l6T'fl1;; Carmen in laudem Solis, 36-37: Rupe sedet, capitur
radiis, et lumine Phoebi / suscipit inmissum recidiva morte calorem; Pseudo-
Eustathius, Comm. in Hexaemeron, (PG 18, 732A): K&7rELTCX U7rO 'tijc; a.KTLVOC;
TOU ijAtou Kcxl EtC; K6vLV 7rCXVTEAWC; a.vcxAUEa&cxL.
OAOKcxuT(~Ea&cxL
a Gregory of Tours, De cursu stellarum ratio, 12: ascendit iterum (sc. after
the repeated submersion in the spring, see p. 185) super nidum adtrahitque
denuo super se odoramenta, quae detulit. Imicante autem sole primum ei iubar
inlerit ignem, adprehensumque nidum, tota integre concrematur. On the covering
of the nest with aromatics, see p. 185.
, Dracontius, Romulea, X, 107-109: et verberat alas / ut Ilammas adsciscat
avis (sic nascitur ignis / ante alitem ambrosios iam consumpturus odores);
Pseudo-Augustine, Ad Iratres in eremo sermo XVIII: de invidia cavenda
(PL 40, 1264): ligna alis percutit et sic ignem accendit, et in eodem se comburi
permittet; Coptic I Clement, 25: "It beats with its wings and burns up in the
lire"; Schol. on Lucan, VI, 680, no. 4: plausuque alarum voluntarium sibi
gignit incendium; Syriac Physiologus (ed. Janssens, 64): "il monte SUI' l'autel
et s'y Irotte jusqu'o, ce qu'it en lasse sortir du leu, et se consume"; idem in other
beats with its wings on its scented pyre, it is probable that this is
what was understood. A slightly different version is offered by
Epiphanius: the phoenix beats its breast violently with its wings
and in this way brings forth fire from its own body, ignites its pyre,
and is consumed by the fire, all its flesh and bones becoming ash. 1
Epiphanius uses here the word 'tcxpa6<;, which can be taken in the
sense of 'tcxpao<; 7to86<;, "sole of the foot" or as 'tcxpa6<; 7t-repuywv,
"spread wing".2 In the light of the texts just mentioned, it is most
likely, and also most logical, that Epiphanius meant that the phoenix
struck itself with its wings. 3 We shall see that Epiphanius betrays
an influence of the Physiologus.' He could have taken the word he
uses for wing from this source; in any case its ambiguity explains
the view found only in the Byzantine Physiologus that the phoenix
ignites the fire with its feet. It is probable that here too 'tcxpao( in the
sense of "spread wings" was originally involved. a In the oldest ver-
sion of the Physiologus it is said only that the bird itself starts the
fire, and this is also the case in Ambrose, Zeno of Verona, Pseudo-
Bede, and in a Turkish tradition concerning the bird Kerkes-
phoenix. 6 It is conceivable that in these texts too the plausus alarum
Syriac versions (Janssens, 68; Land, IV, 55, Ahrens, 52); Arabic Physiologus,
(ed. Land, 155, trans.); Deinde alas agitat adeo vehementer, ut ignem sibi
extundat; Physiologus of Vienna, 21-23: KOtl TOU ~A(OU ~~£P)(OILEVOU, &p)(£a&OtL
a,VIlt7tTEpUaa£a&OtL TOV cpO(VLKOt, KOtl -rU7tT£LV TOtL~ 7t'l'EpU~L Ta: ~UAOt ... , Klltl £U&EWC;
Otvll7tTEa&IltL Ta: ~UAIlt, KOtl KOt(£a&IltL TOV cpO(VLKOt, Klltl y(v£a&OtL GUV TOLC; ~UAOLC; aTIltK-
(aTOtKTl)V: conjecture of Delatte, see Hubaux and Leroy,
Tl)V 7tOAU7tA7j&'ij;
XXX, n. 2; Sbordone gives aOtKTl)v). Attar, Conference of the birds, trans.
Nott, 67.
1 Epiphanius, Anc01'atus, 84, 4: KOtl TOtpaOL~ tll(OLC; Ta: <J't"Ij87j Ta: ~OtU'I'OU ILOta-
T(~Ot~ 7tOAAcX, 7t\ip a,7tO TOU aooILOtTOC; OtuTOU 7tpocp£p6IL£vo~ ~IL7t(7tp7jaL Tl)v U7tOK£LILEV7jV
\)A7jV T<j) T67t'll KOtl O\)TWC; ~OtUTOV OAOKOtUTOL KOtl 7tcXaOtC; Ta:~ acXpKOtC; IltU'I'OU GUv
banoLC; ~KT£CPPOUTOtL.
2 See Liddell-Scott, 1759, n, I and 3.
S.V. 'I'lltpa6~,
a Rusch, 421, takes TOtpaOLC; "mit seinen Krallen", but TOtpa6~ cannot
tll(OLC; as
mean "claw", since it is "the part between the toes and the heel" (Liddell-Scott).
, See below, p. 215, 223.
5 Byzantine Physiologus, 10: 7t\ip Ile a,VcX7tTEL ~K TWV 7tollwv IltUTOU, Klltl auYKIlt(£L
TOV ~WILOV TOU &uaLOtaT7jp(ou GUv T<j) OtuT<j) bPVE~, KOtl 7tcXV'I'Ilt a7tolloc; Y(V£TIltL. The
same view is found in Hubaux and Leroy, 158, n. 3.
I Physiologus, 7: KOtl IltUTO (SC. TO 7t£'I'£LVOV) TO 7t\ip a,VcX7tTEL KOtUIltUTOV KOt(£L.
The same conception is found in the Physiologus of Ansileubus, 12: ignem
sibi ipse incendit; Ambrose, De excessu fratris, n, 59: rogum sibi ipsa succen-
dat; Zeno of Verona, Tractatus, I, 16,9 (PL 11, 38IA-B): a semetipsa invitatis
sacris ignibus libentissime concrematur (this is also reminiscent of the prayer
was meant, and the same could hold for the view of the school of
Rabbi Jannai that the !tOl-phoenix is consumed by fire after a
thousand years, when a flame shoots out of its nest. 1
It is particularly in later authors that we find a combination of
the motifs of the kindling of the fire by solar rays and by the beating
wings. Isidore of Seville, followed by several medieval writers, says
that the phoenix, facing toward the sun, voluntarily brings about
the burning by beating itself with its wings. 2 Reinerus correctly
took this to mean that the plausus alarum and the heat of the sun
together brought about the fire. 3 Slightly different is the version in
Pseudo-Jerome, who with a few variations of his own gives a num-
ber of details from the Physiologus: at sunrise the phoenix moves its
wings, the heat of the sun ignites the amber placed by the bird
among the aromatics on the altar, and in this way the scented
wood burns up and the phoenix itself is set afire. 4 With this combi-
nation of the two methods of ignition it is never said that the phoe-
nix beats the wood with its wings to start the fire, and this was also
perhaps never assumed. Thomas of Cantimpre probably understood
the meaning of the combined methods very well when he wrote that
by beating with its wings the phoenix activated the terrible aureole
of the sun against itself:5 thus, the plausus alarum has the purpose
for the flames, as we have seen it in Claudian and in the Didascalia and the
Const. A post. , see p. 200 and 201); Pseudo-Bede, Expositio in Jobum, n,
12 (ad Job, xxix. 18) : in ipso (sc. nido) post multa tempora a semetipsa
dicitur concremari. Kerkes: W. Ouseley, The Oriental collections, n, London,
1798, 64: "she gathers pieces of wood in her bill, and kindling a flame, is con-
sumed in the fire and becomes ashes".
1 Bereshit Rabbah, XIX, 5 (trans. H. Freedman, Midrash Rabbah, Genesis,
I, London, 1951, 152): "a lire issues from its nest and burns it up".
2 Isidore, Etymologiae, XII, 7, 22: et conversa ad radium solis alarum plausu
voluntarium sibi incendium nutrit. Rabanus Maurus, De universo, 8, 6 (PL
Ill, 246B) and Pseudo-Hugo of St. Victor, De bestiis et alUs rebus, I, 49
(PL 177, 48C). Cf. Schol. on Lucan, VI, 680, no. 4 on p. 203 in n. 4·
8 Reinerus, De ineptis cuiusdam idiotae libellus (MGH, Scr.20, 597): plau-
suque alarum atque igneo solis radio usus, incendit se ipsum.
, Pseudo-Jerome, Epistola XVIII ad Praesidium: de cereo paschali (PL 30,
187B): Et primo solis ortu, phoenix quidem movet pennas, soUs vero calore
accenditur electrum et sic exuruntur aromata et ipse phoenix incenditur. For
amber, see p. 164, n. I.
& Thomas of Cantimpre, De naturis rerum, (in Vincent of Beauvais, SPe-
culum naturale, XVII, 74): Tunc sevidos solis orbes alarum agitatione in se
concitans super struem ruit.
of directing the heat of the sun toward the phoenix. l This is also as-
sumed by Theodoric and Honorius of Autun. 2 A similar view is also
found among the Greeks in John of Gaza, who described the burn-
ing of the phoenix in extremely mannered verses: the bird, beating
with its wings, places itself opposite the rising sun and, intending to
steal a burning ray from the sun, it goes voluntarily to the death it
has chosen; its body is reduced to ashes and it has found its wel-
come destiny.3 Albertus Magnus, lastly, gives his own variant of the
idea that the phoenix summons the heat of the sun against itself
with its wings: the bird exposes itself to the burning rays of the
sun and multiplies them by the flashing of its wings until a flame is
kindled by which it is consumed and becomes ash.4 In the foregoing
we have encountered several times the story that the phoenix beat
its wings at sunrise. I) We shall see in due course that in the texts
giving the phoenix as the companion of the sun this is an act with
which the bird's earthly counterparts, the cocks,greet therisingsun. 6
A few texts have the fire ignited by the phoenix itself in other
ways. In the text from the monastery on Mt Sinai, published by
Sbordone in his Appendix Physiologi, it is said that the phoenix
makes its scented nest on a high tower, then flies high up into the
air to let itself fall on this tower, the impact of its body striking the
tower creating a flame that sets its nest afire. 7 We have already seen
1 Hubaux and Leroy, 156-160; as a result of the already-mentioned re-
arrangement of verses 35-54 of Lactantius (see p. 200, n. 6), they have not
only the singing of the phoenix but also the associated plausus alarum im-
mediately precede the cremation, but see p. 210, n. 5 and p. 285, n. 1.
a Theodoric, De mirabilibus mundi, 770-771: Ab radiis solis tum flammas
suscitat alis / sic nidum facit esse rogum demumque sepulchrum; Honorius of
Autun, Speculum Ecclesiae, De paschali die (PL 172, 936A): percussisque
alis ab ardore solis incenditur, in nido comburitur.
8 John of Gaza, Descriptio tabulae mundi, II, 215-218: «."TOALKOU 3E / KLW-
ILEVCJlV 1tnpuyCJlv «vTwmo~ &v'&op£ 3LOKOU / KIltL CPAOY0\; &p1t(i~£L'" 3£30KllILEvO~ !IL1tU-
pov iSPILllV / E~ IL6pov IltUTO~ ~KWV IltUTIXYP£TOV l!3pIltIL£ CPOLVL~ / ncppwollt~ 1tUpt YULIlt,
KIltL ~3Et KEKALTO 1t6TILCJlL.
, Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII, 110 (42): et se radiis ferventibus
soUs obicit et Wos resplendentia pennarum multiplicat donee ignis elicitur, et
sic se cum nido incendit et incinerat.
6 See p. 203, n. 4; 205, n. 4; n. 3 above.
• See p. 262, 273, 275, 278, 291.
7 Appendix Physi%gi, 25: Klltt KTL~£L -rljv KIltAALIltV IltUTOU E1tIXVCJl 7tUPyou UIjnj-
AOU ••• Klltt &p)(£TIltL 1tET£O'&IltL UIjrtjAIX, Klltt KIltTEP)(£O.&IltL lltuTbv «1tO TOU ijq,ou~, KIltL
that this tower is only a variant of the more frequently mentioned

high mountain or rock. 1 Even when it is not explicitly stated, what
is meant is that the phoenix lets itself fall on its nest. The only true
parallel for this is to be found in the Bodleian version of Mandevi1le's
Travels: the bird flies as high as it can and then lets itself fall on the
highest mountain of Arabia on which it has built its nest; the great
heat this causes sets the nest afire, at which the phoenix places it-
self in the flames and is consumed. 2 We have already encountered
the fall of the phoenix in Horapollo, albeit that this writer gives the
motif an entirely different turn. 3
The Arabian tradition concerning the bird (an~a) says that this
bird too loses its life by burning: :&azwini recounts that the male
and the female birds, when they have become old, collect wood and
set it afire by rubbing their beaks together; at this, one of them is
burnt alive, and the young (an~a" previously hatched, takes its
place.' According to a Persian translation of the cosmography of
:&azwini, both birds are consumed by the fire and a new bird emerges
from the ashes. 6 This version is clearly an adaptation to the Classical
phoenix myth on which, in all likelihood, some version of the Physio-
logus exerted an influence. 6 Among the Arabians there was also
some confusion of the stories about the phoenix with those about
the salamander (samand or samandal), the latter being sometimes a
four-footed animal and sometimes a bird. 7 A combination of the
two is found in the Commentary on Job by the Syrian IshQ(dadh,
who has the phoenix arise from a fire kindled by the salamander:
KPOU£LV -rOV mJpyov, i'ua't"E ci7'l:0 'tij.; ciVIXYKl)'; -rou 86(Lcx-ro.; i7'l:£~£A&£rV 7'l:tip, Kcxl <i7'l:'t"EL
Tj KCXAAtCX cxu-rou.
1 See p. 179.
I Mandeville's Travels, ed. Letts, 438.
8 See p. 197.
, A. J. Wensinck, Tree and bird as cosmological symbols in Western Asia,
(Verhand. Kon. Acad. van Wetensch. te Amsterdam, afd. Letterkunde),
Amsterdam, 1920, 40; also Encyclopedia Brittanica, 17. London, 1959, 770.
6 Text and translation in Henrichsen, 11, 21: nee mas rostrum suum leminae
rostro allricare cesset, donee ex hac utriusque Irictione in illo ligno ignis accen-
datur, et Ilammas concipiat, quo uterque Ilagrat et in cinerem redigitur.
• See p. 213.
7 Many places on the salamander in the Arabic literature are given by 5.
Bochart, Hierozoicum, 4th ed., (OPera omnia, 11). Lugd. Batav. et Traject.
ad Rhen., 1712, 822. See also p. 201, n. 4.
the phoenix arrives in Egypt with cinnamon in its beak and perches
on the altar; on this altar the bird salamander lays an egg it then
rubs so hard that flames shoot out by which the phoenix is consum-
ed.! It cannot be said with certainty whether this combination of
Classical and Oriental elements was made by IshQ'dftdh himself.
He was highly dependent on Theodore of Mopsuestia, who may have
written about the phoenix in his now largely lost Commentary on
Job. 2
We have seen above that Claudian has the burning of the phoenix
initiated by the intervention of the sun god himself. This personal
interference of a deity is seldom mentioned in connection with the
death of the phoenix. John Lydus, who assigns no role to the solar
rays in the conflagration, says that the funeral pyre was kindled by
the personal intervention of some deity. 3 Dracontius clearly means
the Christian God when he says in his De laudibus Dei that God re-
news the faded youth of the phoenix by fire and that after being
burnt, the bird reappears in the full strength of its maturity.' The
intervention of God is also found in the Coptic Sermon on M ary: the
phoenix is consumed by fire descending from the heavens. 6 We
have already discussed the meaning of this.' It would be mistaken
to think that Claudian, who has the phoenix struck by a "life-
giving dart of lightning", must have known the tradition of the
descending heavenly fire, since he was making use of a common
image and meant the ray of the sun (one of his golden locks}.7
According to some authors, the phoenix settles into the flames of
1 IsM'Mh, Comm. on Job, trans. Schliebitz, 80.

a See J. Quasten, Patrology, Ill, Utrecht-Antwerp-Westminster, 1960,406.
3 Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11: ~m~lX(ve:LV 'rE: 't"OllTOI) (se. &tj{LOOVOC;;)' o?i S'ij&e:v
~~IX7t't"O{L&VOI) 111t6 't"LVOC;; lX!qlVLS(OI) SIX({LOVOC;; IXU't"QV {L£V rXvIXA(aKe:a&IXL 't"iji mJpl 't"QV
qlO(VLKIX.
, Dracontius, De laudibus Dei, I, 653-655: Phoenieis exaetam renovat Deus
igne iuventam / exustusque senex tumulo proeedit adultus: / eonsumens dat
membra rogus sine sorte sepulcri.
5 Coptic Sermon on Mary, 14, 24-25 (see trans. on p. 45, 47).
8 See p. 119-121.
7 Hubaux and Leroy, 146, are of the opinion that in Claudian Phoebus
assumes the features of Jupiter and that the poet therefore meant a real
stroke of lightning. But see Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, VI, 1515, s.v./ulgor,
A, I, a.
an already burning pyre. We have pointed out above that the

Physiologus ot Pseudo-Basil has the priest of Heliopolis place glow-
ing coals on the altar instead of the usual twigs, on which the phoe-
nix then settles and burns together with the scented branches it has
brought from Paradise. 1 A related account is found in the Ethiopic
Physiologus, which generally keeps rather strictly to the oldest ver-
sion of the Greek text: the priest places grapevines on the altar, and
when he ignites an offering of aromatics the phoenix arrives and
burns itself. 2 According to the scholiast on Persius, in the medieval
Cornuti Commentum,3 the phoenix settles into the flames: the scent-
ed twigs collected by the bird are kindled by the heat of the sun;
at sunset the phoenix allows itself to be burned by the fire and at
sunrise it is reborn, with the sun." Here a close parallel is drawn
with the daily course of the sun, without saying that the bird
renews its life every day. We shall see below that the latter is assum-
ed in a number of other texts, although in them the heat of the sun
plays a quite different role than in the texts under discussion.1i
According to the remarkable tradition in Alanus, the phoenix let
itself be consumed by fire together with the first offering made in
the Jewish temple at Leontopolis: when the priest had placed un-
leavened bread and many kinds of scented woods on the altar and
lit the offering, the phoenix descended and was immediately turned
to ashes in the fire. 6 As with the offering of Abel in the Coptic
Sermon on Mary, here too the phoenix burns itself on an altar not
specially prepared for it: its arrival is not expected. 7
In complete divergence from these traditions, Lactantius does
not have the death of the phoenix caused by fire. He says that the
bird takes aromatic herbs in its beak and places them on and around
1 See p. 199. n. 5.
I Ethiopic Physiologus, 7 (ed. Hommel. 52).
3 For this, see M. Schanz and C. Hosius, Geschichte der romischen Literatur,
II. Munich, 1935, 482-483.
, Schol. on Persius, I, 46: virgulas ... , quae dicuntur solis ardore incendi,
mox autem ut sol occiderit, se tlammis imponit et cum sol oriri coeperit, de
cineribus suis cum sole renascitur.
6 See p. 278.
• Alanus in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, XII, 14:
the text is given in n. 2 on p. 118.
7 See p. 119.
14
its body in order to die at its own funeral; surrounded by all these
scents it gives up the ghost, full of confidence in such a rich funeral. l
Thus, the phoenix dies a natural death on its fragrant nest. We have
seen that on this point Gregory of Tours diverges from Lactantius:
although the phoenix covers itself with the aromatics, it is struck
at sunrise by the first rays and dies by fire. 2 The covering of aro-
matic herbs occurs further only in the Physiologus of Ansileubus, but
there it is said that the phoenix lights the fire itself.3 Since nothing
else in this text indicates any familiarity with Lactantius or Greg-
ory, it is hardly likely that the covering with aromatics was borrowed
from these writers. Nor is it necessary to assume the converse, i.e.
that they borrowed from a given version of the Physiologus, since
it was common practice to strew aromatic herbs over the body
before the funeral or cremation.'
Thus, according to Lactantius, the burning takes place after the
phoenix is dead;6 its body, destroyed by a live-giving death, becomes
warm, and this warmth itself generates a flame, while the body at
the same time takes flame from the distant heavenly light: it bursts
into flame and is reduced to ashes. 6 The cause of the burning is there-
fore sought in the increasing heat of the dead body and in the heat
1 Lactantius, 91-94: Ore dehinc sucos memlwis circumque supraque / inicit
exsequiis inmoritura suis. / Tunc inter varios animam commendat odores /
depositi tanti nec timet illa fidem. The animam commendat (vs. 93) has been
seen as influenced by Vulg. Luke xxiii.46: in manus tuas commendo spiritum
meum (e.g. F. J. Dolger, Sol Salutis, (see p. 200, n. 5), 168). This is indeed
possible. Cf. however Claudian, Phoenix, 94: iam flammae commendat onus,
and Seneca, Epistulae, XCII, 35: nulli reliquias meas commendo .. see also
Rapisarda, 57, who, for ill-defined reasons, thinks the influence of Luke
xxiii. 46 "piu verosimile".
a See p. 203, n. 3.
a Ansileubus, Fragmenta e Physiologo in glossario inserta, 12: super aram
ascendit, et circumvolvens se de aromatibus, ignem sibi ipse incendit et se ipsum
exurit.
, See p. 169-171.
Ii Hubaux and Leroy, 159-160, have given this too little attention; the
pausus alarum which they situate before the burning of the phoenix (see p.
206, n. 1) is pointless at this place because it does not induce the fire. Lactan-
tius is consistent in having the fire spring not from the living but from the
dead bird.
s Lactantius, 95-98: Interea corpus genitali morte peremptum / aestuat et
flammam parturit ipse calor, / Aetherioque procul de lumine concipit ignem: /
flagrat et ambustum solvitur in cineres.
of the sun. We have already pointed out that here Lactantius com-
bined the two main versions of the phoenix myth: the bird dies a
natural death in its nest, but the subsequent decomposition required
by the one version has been replaced by the burning of the other
version. 1
Many authors have nothing to say about the way in which the
phoenix acquires new life, limiting themselves to the statement that
it arises rejuvenated from its ashes or from its pyre. In some cases
the resurrection is more implied than explicitly stated. This need
not necessarily mean that they had no other, detailed information
on this point. Most often, only the fact of the resurrection is of im-
portance to their argumentation, the manner makes no difference;
they refer only briefly to the phoenix myth or give a little more
attention to some special detail.2 In certain cases, however, because
of the rather extensive description of the preparations and the
burning, one would expect more details concerning the resurrection.
Nevertheless in these cases too the phoenix story closes with only a
brief mention of the bird's renewal. s
1 It could be argued that the same conception is to be found in Artemi-
dorus, since he too speaks first of the death of the phoenix and only then
about its burning, Oniricritica, IV, 47: KotL otU'l"o<; eotu'l"ij> 7tOL1jOtX!le:vo<; !K KotoLot<;
'l"£ KotL O!lUpv1j<; 7tUPIXV !vot7to.lh,.IjOKe:L. Kotu3-e:L01j<; 3& rij<; 7tUpii<; !le:'l"IX Xp6vov !K rij<;
o7t030u OKWA1jKot AEyOUOL ye:Wiio3-otL. It is more probable, however, that Artemi-
dorus means that the death and cremation of the phoenic coincide. Eusebius,
Vita Const., IV, 72 too speaks of ll-vijOKe:LV £7t' apoo!ltX'l"ooV, meaning the cre-
mation. But it is in any case certain that Lactantius deliberately meant to
combine the two principal versions of the bird's genesis, as is evident from
his description of the events after its resurrection (see p. 224).
a Martial, Epigramm., V, 7, 1-4; Lucian, De morte Peregrini, 27; Ter-
tullian, De resurr. mortuorum, 13; Solinus, 33,12; Eusebius, Vita Constantini,
IV, 72; ZenoofVerona, Tract., 1,16,9 (PL 11, 38IB); Gregoryof Nazianzus,
Carm., I, 2, 526-533 (PG 37, 620A); Ambrose, De excessu Iratris, Il 59;
Expositio Ps. cxviii, 19, 13; Inscription no. 229a in Diehl, Inscr. Lat. Christ.
Vet., I, 55-56; Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XL, 397-398; Carmen in laudem Solis,
31-35; Sidonius, Carmina, IX, 326-327; Dracontius, De laudibus Dei, 653-
655, Romulea, V, 115-116, X, 107-109; Pseudo-Cyprian, Carmina VI: ad
Flavium Felicem, 133-134; Avitus, I, 240-244; Pseudo-Ambrose, De Trini-
tate, 34 (PL 17, 545A-B); Corippus, In laudem Iustini, I, 349-350; Venantius
Fortunatus, Carmina, 1,15,51-52; Pseudo-Bede, Expositio in jobum, Il, 12;
Schol. on Lucan, VI, 680, nos. I and 2; Schol. on Persius, I, 46; Georgius
Pisides, Hexaemeron, I I 17-1 122 (PG 92, 1520A); Theophylactus, EPist., 72
(PG 126, 497D).
3 Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32: o(hoo 3& 3Lottp3-otpev'l"0<; otU'l"OU, veo<; tK 'l"'ij<;
Most of the authors who did devote some attention to the events
of the resurrection, mention here too the intermediate phase of the
worm. This phase is much less natural in this case than in the version
of the origin of the young phoenix from the decaying body of the
old bird. The most probable explanation of this is that the worm
from that version was simply borrowed for inclusion in the fire
version. Epiphanius seems to have sensed the difficulty, because
after first having said that the flesh and the bones of the phoenix
were completely burned, he shortly afterward, having described the
dying out of the fire, says that still unburned pieces remain and that
from this dead flesh a worm appears one day later.l He was appar-
ently unable to imagine that a worm could arise from dry ashes.
Epiphanius also makes a strange remark about the extinguishing of
the fire: at God's instruction a cloud is sent that releases rain and
puts out the fire consuming the body of the phoenix, but only after
the bird has died and been entirely roasted by the fire. 2 This has
been seen as a rationalistic addition in the development of the
phoenix myth,3 and also as a variant of the plunge into a spring, as
done by the eagle that rejuvenated itself and, according to Lac-
tantius, also by the phoenix. 4 It is much more probable that here
Epiphanius was reproducing an existing tradition he could no longer
understand and therefore distorted. There are a few texts suggesting
that the object of the rain was originally not to put out the fire but
TecpplX~ IXu.&Le; t!npoe; y(yve:'rIXL cpOLVL!; KIX1ToLe; 7tIXTpc!>OLe; l&e:aL Xp'ijTIXL; John of Gaza,
Descriptio tabulae mundi, 11, 220-221: KlXl voe:poe; mXALV ISpVLe; t3e!;IXTo V6aTL{LOV
~~71V / IXUTOcplX~e; Ve:6"7lTL {LlXpIXLVO{Lev71e; li7to TecpP71e;; Isidore, Etymologiae, XII,
7, 22: sicque iterum de cineribus suis resurgit; idem Rabanus Maurus, De
universo, 8, 6 (PL Ill, 246B) and with small deviations Pseudo-Hugo of
St. Victor, De bestiis et alUs rebus, I, 49 (PL 177, 48C) and Schol. on Lucan,
VI, 680, nos. 3 and 4.
1 Epiphanius, A ncoratus, 84, 6: a~e:a&e;(a7je; 3e T'ije; cpAoyoe; Ae:(.jIIXVIX T'ije; alXpKo~
IXUTOU l-rL w{L&: 7te:PLAe;(7te:TIXL KlXl 7tpOe; {L(IXV ~{LeplXv IicplXvLa&evTIX aKwA71KIX ye:vV~.
2 Epiphanius, Ancoratus, 84, 5: tK &e:OU 3e OLKOVO{L(IXe; vecpoe; Ii7tOaTeAAe:TIXL KlXl
Ue:T(~e:L KlXl KIXTlXa~e:vvue:L ~V TO aOO{L1X TOU opveou KIXTIX31X7tIXV~alXaIXV cpMylX, Ve:KPOU
{LeV ~371 ISVTOe; TOU opveou KlXl 07t"7l&evToe; IiKp6TIXTIX.
3 Rusch, 4 21 -4 22 .
4 Hubaux and Leroy, 147-148. They also relate it to the report in the
Physiologus ot Vienna, that the winged worm T'ii 7tpovo(~ TOU &e:OU flies to the
ocean and there eats tK TOU U3IXTO~ KlXl T'ije; !;71pcie; (but see the elucidation of
this passage on p. 338).
to awaken new life from death after the burning. The clearest
parallel with Epiphanius is found in the Turkish tradition of the
bird kerkes ((an~a>, phoenix): when nothing is left of the bird but
ashes, "then by command of the Almighty, the air restores these
ashes to life".1 In the Persian translation of ~azwini's Cosmography,
too, we find this story, without mention of the divine intervention
but with explicit mention of the rain: when rain has fallen on the
ashes of the phoenix it gives rise to a worm on which wings grow,
and from this there develops a bird that lives and dies in the same
way as its predecessor.2 In this last text it is especially clear that
the rebirth of the bird is a consequence of the rain. The same perhaps
finds expression in a Syriac text on the phoenix that otherwise does
not refer to the origin of the bird: because there is moisture there,
thanks to that a kind of worm is born. s We shall have to go in
some detail into the Judaeo-Christian conception of the dew and
the rain as the means by which God brings the dead to life. 4 This idea
must also underly the motif of the rain falling on the ashes. It is in
the light of the cited texts that the passage in Epiphanius about the
rain sent by God must also be read. Epiphanius was not in a position
to understand the meaning of the rain that originally induced new life
after the conflagration, and consequently provided his own explana-
tion, which indeed shows a rationalizing tendency. The same atti-
tude led Epiphanius to decide that some unburnt flesh must have
survived the conflagration, since he was otherwise unable to explain
the origin of the worm. The detail of the life-inducing rain probably
occurred in several Oriental versions of the Physiologus: this can
1 W. Ouseley, The oriental collections, 11, London, 1798, 64 (ibid., 96, "an
exact imitation" of a representation of the burning kerkes).
I Trans. Henrichsen, 11, 21: super quem cinerem ubi pluvia decidit, inde
nascitur vermis, cui dein crescunt alae, atque evadit avis, quae eodem modo quo
superior, quoad /rictionem et cremationem agit.
3 H. F. Janssens, Deux textes Syriaques inedits relati/s au phenix, in Le
Museon, 47, 1934, 69: "Comme il s'y trouve des humeurs, grace a l'humidiee,
il y naU une sorte de ver". But it is also possible that an influence of the other
main version is involved here, or that the moisture is mentioned independ-
ently, because it was considered virtually indispensible in the spontaneous
generation of living beings; see p. 187. A similar obscurity is found in Lac-
tantius, see below, p. 217.
, See p. 341-344. In this respect little difference was seen between rain and
dew. See p. 343, n. 4.
be inferred from the Syriac text that is strongly dependent on the

Physiologus, and Epiphanius' version of the phoenix myth clearly
shows that he too was influenced by this work, as indicated, for
instance, by his mention of the period in which the worm develops
into a fullgrown phoenix. 1
It was usually assumed that after some time the worm appeared
and then became larger, acquired wings, and grew into a bird that
was identical to its predecessor.2 The Constitutiones Apostolorum
say in addition that the worm, "after becoming warm", takes on
the form of the earlier phoenix. 3 We may assume that this is a ref-
erence to the revivifying warmth of the sun-a motif we have al-
ready encountered in Tzetzes.' Only the Physiologus and the texts
related to it say that the worm developed into a phoenix in three
days. Most of the versions and translations state that the priest
of Heliopolis examines the ashes on the altar on the morning after
the burning and finds a worm in them; on the second day the worm
has acquired feathers and has become a young bird, and on the third
day it appears to be a mature bird exactly like its predecessor.1> In
1 See also p. 223. The notion of the rain falling on the ashes seems to have
been known only in the East. Epiphanius could easily have been aware of it,
since he lived in Palestine from his birth in ca. A.D. 315 until he was chosen as
Metropolitan of Cyprus in 367, and according to Jerome he knew Greek,
Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, and some Latin; see J. Quasten, Patrology, Ill,
Utrecht-Antwerp-Westminster, 1960, 384.
B Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, IV, 47: IL&'t'a: Xp6vov ~K 't''iie; 0'7t'o8ou O'K6lA7JKCX
AEyOUO'L ye:vViiO'.&CXL, IIV't'LVCX IL&'t'CX~&.AA&LV cxu~cxv6IL&vOV KCXL ytV&O'.&CXL 7t'IXALV cpotVLKCX;
Didascalia, 40: de cinere autem lit vermis et hic vermis crescens (de) lormatur
et lit iterum phoenix perlectus .. also: Const. Apost., V, 7, 15 (see n. 3); Copt.
I Clement, 25; John Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11; Pseudo-Augustine, Ad
Iratres in eremo sermo XVIII, de invidia cavenda (PL 40, 1264); Pseudo-
Eustathius, Comm. in Hexaemeron (PG 18, 732A); Michael Glycas, Annales,
I (PG 158, 108C); Schol. on Aristides, 45, 107; Thomas of Cantimpre, De
naturis rerum, in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, XVII, 74; Theo-
doric, De mirabilibus mundi, 772-773. See also p. 213, n. 2.
8 Const. Apost., V, 7, 15: ~K 8E 't"ije; 0'7t'o8ou O'K6lA7JKCX a.vCXCPU'iiVCXL, KCXL 't'OU't'OV
'&&PILCXV'&Ev't'CX ILoPCPOO'&'iivcxL de; a.p't'LYe:v'ii CPOtvLKCX.
, See p. 187.
6 Physiologus, 7: -r1i
8E ~7t'CXUPLOV 0 l&p&ue;, ~p&\Jvwv 't'ov ~OOIL6v, &UptO'K&L O'K6lA7JKCX
~v -r1i
0'7t'o8ij>· -r1i
BE 8&u't'ep~ ~ILep~ &UptO'K&L cxu't'ov V&oO'O'ov 7t'&'t'&LVOU KCXL -r1i
't'pt't'"(l
~ILep~ &UptO'K&L cxu't'ov 7t'&'t'&LVOV 't'eA&Lov. Occurring with almost the same words in
the third redaction, the Physiologus 01 Pseudo-Basil, 2 I, which however adds:
iflO'7t'&p ~v '1'0 7t'po't'epov. See also Appendix Physiologi, 4. The same conception in
THE GENESIS FROM THE ASHES OF THE PREDECESSOR 2I5
the Byzantine Physiologus the worm is not mentioned but the devel-
opment of the phoenix again takes three days: on the first day the
priest finds a chick, on the second day it has wings, and on the third
day he finds a reborn, adult bird. 1 Epiphanius is undoubtedly draw-
ing on the Physiologus when he says that after the worm has become
a chick it acquires wings and on the third day reaches maturity.s
In a variant of this tradition the development of the phoenix from
the worm starts only after three days or after three days and three
nights; this occurs in the Coptic Sermon on Mary, in the Arabic and
Viennese Physiologus, and in Alanus. 3 The motif of the three days
was inserted into the existing tradition by the author of the Physio-
logus as a means of bringing out the typological symbolism of the
phoenix: the events in the life of the phoenix are meant to reflect
those in the life of Christ, who also rose from the grave after three
Pseudo-Jerome, Epistola XVIII ad Praesidium; de cerea paschali (PL 30,

I87B); Petrus Damiani, Opuscula varia, LII, I I (PL 145, 773C), and Rei-
nerus, De ineptis cuiusdam idiotae libellus (MGH, Scr. 20, 597).
1 Byzantine Physiologus, 10: Kcd E1tl -rilv a()pLov 1tOpeUeTaL 1tPOC; a\JTov 6 lepeUC;
['tijc; 'HALOU1t6AeCllC;] Kal eup~O'eL aUTov I5pveov veoO'0'6v, Kal T1j 8eUTtp~ ijlLep~ eup~O'eL
aUTov Ev 1tTepU~Lv l5V't'a, Kal T'ij Tp(T7l ij~p~ eup~O'eL aUTov cXvaKaLvoulLEVOV I5pveov
Kal cX1t01tA7JPOUILEVOV [WC; TO cX1t' cXP'Xiic;).
Z Epiphanius, Ancoratus, 84, 6: 6 O'KWA7J~ 1t't'E:pocpue! veo't"t'oc; yeV6ILEVOC;, T1j
8£ Tp(T7l ijlLep~ &.8puveTaL. According to the Ethiopic Physiologus, 7 (ed. Hom-
mel, p. 52) the phoenix did not reach maturity until the fourth day. The same
was probably the case for Schol. on Lucan, VI, 680, no. 3, where it now
reads that the phoenix rises from its ashes on the 40th day (de cineribus suis
post XL dies resurgit); this can hardly be taken to suggest a parallelism with
the ascension of Christ.
3 Coptic Sermon on Mary, 17, 26 (see trans. on p. 45 and 47); Arabic
Physiologus, (ed. Land, IV, 155); Physiologus 01 Vienna, 24-26, see p. 219,
n. I; Alanus in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, XII, 14.
Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII, 1I0 (42) had the worm appear on
the second day, acquire wings on the third day, and then only after several
more days change into a bird with the earlier appearance. Completely inde-
pendent is the Syriac Hist. Nat., 42, published by K. Ahrens, Das Buch der
Naturgegenstiinde, Kiel, 1892, 53: from the ashes comes a worm that trans-
forms into a chick and becomes a mature phoenix on the seventh day.
Ahrens (p. 9) held that these seven days went back to a stage of the Physio-
logus in which the three days had not yet been included in the text. Nothing
is known, however, concerning possible precursors of the present Christian
Physiologus; it seems more likely that a copyist made an error here, at least
if this variant is not the result of a deliberate modification of the tradition
by the compiler.
days. It is also possible that this motif was influenced by a Classical

tradition of what was assumed to be the spontaneous generation of
the butterfly, since, as we shall see below, Lactantius drew an asso-
ciation between the genesis of the phoenix and of the butterfly.
Aristotle, albeit incorrectly, was of the opinion that the larvae of
butterflies developed into caterpillars in three days.l
The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch also speaks of a worm that arises
from the phoenix, but within the context of a story differing com-
pletely from the current tradition: the bird is the daily companion
of the sun, its function being to protect the earth and mankind with
its wings against the burning rays of the sun. A daily renewal of the
phoenix is also probably assumed here, but is not referred to. 2 In this
Apocalypse the worm does not appear spontaneously from the dead
or burnt phoenix but is expelled by the living bird, which lives on
manna and dew, as its excrement. The writer added the remarkable
comment that this worm becomes the cinnamon used by kings and
rulers.s Perhaps this was his way of incorporating into his divergent
version the aromatic herbs in the nest of the phoenix and the worm
appearing from the dead bird or its ashes.' It is also possible that
Pseudo-Baruch reflects a tradition according to which the worm
from which the phoenix develops has a delicious scent, as it is said
to have in the Physiologus of Ansileubus and in Petrus Damiani and
Vincent of Beauvais, both of whom are dependent on the Physio-
logus: on the day of the burning the priest of Heliopolis finds in the
ashes an extremely small worm which fills the air with an exquisite
fragrance. I)
This analysis of all the available information about the worm
from which the phoenix developed, shows that Lactantius went his
own way in this respect too. He says that the ashes of the bird are
1 Aritotle, Hist. Animal., V, 19 (55 la) : nllOVTctL 3' ctl j.L£1I KctAOUj.L&IIctL ljIuXctl
I:K Tiilll Kctj.L7tWII, ••• 7tPWTOII j.L£1I i!Act't"'t"oll dyxpou, £ITct j.LLKpol o"KooA7jKE:C; ctu~ctIl6-
j.L&IIOL, l!7tE:LTct 1:11 TpLO"lll 7Jj.LepctLC; KcXj.L7tctL j.LLKPctL.
I See also p. 273 and 278.
8 Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch, 6, 12: Kctl E:!7tOIl' ' A(jl03E:UE:L TO ISPIIE:OII; Kctl
E:!7t~ j.L0L· ' A(jl03e:UE:L o"KooA7jKct, Kctl TO TOU O"KooA7jKOC; &(jl63E:Uj.Lct YLIIE:'I'ctL KLllcXfLOOfLOII,
<j>7tE:p XPWIITctL ~cto"LAE:LC; Kctl apxollTE:C;.
, As in Hubaux and Leroy, 81-82. For the cinnamon in the phoenix's nest,
see p. 164-169.
6 Ansileubus, Fragmenta e Physiologo in glossario inserta, 12: invenit ibi
moulded together and serve as seed for the phoenix. Unfortunately

the surviving text is rather obscure on this point, which has given
rise to a great deal of editorial conjecture. 1 With a slight modifica-
tion Lactantius can also be read as saying that moisture caused the
ashes of the phoenix to aggregate. 2 If this reading is indeed correct,
it recalls the moisture from heaven generating new life in the ashes
as described in several oriental texts. 3 This seems the most likely
possibility in relation to the tradition in which the phoenix is re-
duced to ashes, though it remains possible that the influence of the
other main version is again at work here.'
But it is in any case clear that according to Lactantius the ashes
aggregated, serving the phoenix as semen. Zeno of Verona also
mentions the ashes as "a seed for the propagation of the body", for
which he may have drawn on Lactantius. o According to Lactantius,
vermiculum modicum suavissimo odore tragrantem; Petrus Damiani, Opuscula
varia, LII, I I : invenit vermiculum valde pertenuem, sed eximii odoris suavitate
tragrantem; Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Naturale, XVII, 74: as Ansileu-
bus, with omission of "modicum".
1 The manuscripts read (with small variants) in vs. 99-100: quos velut in
cineres in more coactos / contlat, et etfectum seminis instar habet. In analogy
with Gregory of Tours, (see p. 219, n. 5) it is generally assumed that
massam should have come before cineres. Brandt reads for vs. 99: Quos velut
in massam cineres natura coactos ... ; Fitzpatrick: Quos velut in massam, gene-
rans in morte, coactos ... For a detailed discussion of the various readings of
vs. 99, see Walla, 167-170.
8 This is arrived at by reading in more in vs. 99 as umore, giving: Quos
velut in massam cineres umore coactos. The reading umore is adopted e.g. by
Klapp, Baehrens, Froehner, Hubaux and Leroy, and Walla, 168. For the
first three of these authors see the app. crit. on the verse in Brandt's edition;
Hubaux and Leroy undoubtedly go too far in reading (p. XII): Quos luteam
in massam Natura umore coactos.
8 See p. 213, cf. the Syriac text, cited there in n. 3, which does not mention
the nature of the moisture. Further support for this view would be obtained
by adopting Klapp's assumption (see n. 2) that in vs. 99 velut is a corruption
of Deus.
, Mela too speaks of an aggregation in the body fluid of the dead phoenix;
see p. 188, n. 5. In that case Lactantius managed here to combine the heat
and the moisture, both of which are important factors in the spontaneous
generation of new life. In this connection Walla, 168, has pointed to Lactan-
tius' remark in Div. Inst., II, 9, 15: calor et umor, quae mirabiliter deus ad
sustenenda et gignenda omnia excogitavit. See also p. 213, n. 3 on the Syriac text
concerning the phoenix.
5 Zeno of Verona, Tractatus, I, 16, 9: sepulcrum nidus est itli, tavillae
nutrices, cinis propagandi corporis semen, mors natalitius dies. For Zeno's
it is said that from this seed there comes a being without limbs, a
worm whose colour is the white of milk. 1 He then describes the devel-
opment of the phoenix in analogy with that of the butterfly. The
worm grows bigger and when a certain time has passed it goes to
sleep curled up in the shape of an egg: the larva has become a cater-
pillar which forms a cocoon. Lactantius then himself points out the
resemblance to a butterfly: just as in the fields the caterpillar
attached by a thread to a stone is changed into a butterfly-an
image obviously inspired by Ovid L-so does the phoenix reacquire
its former shape: its cocoon is ruptured and it comes to life. 3 In the
next part of this account the young phoenix proves to be a callow
infant not permitted earthly food but feeding, surrounded by won-
derful fragrances, on the dew of the nocturnal heavens until it is
fullgrown. The meaning of this and the points of agreement with
the feeding of the young raven will be discussed in detail below.'
The parallelism with the butterfly is clearly an elaboration of the
current version of the phoenix's genesis directly from the worm. It
is possible that the similar initial phase led Lactantius to combine
independently the traditional genesis with that of the butterfly,
but it seems more likely that he found a reference to this similarity
in one of his sources. In the Physiologus 01 Vienna it is said that
after three days and three nights the ashes of the phoenix give rise
to a winged worm, which is compared, probably, to the silkworm
emerging from its cocoon. Just exactly what is meant is unfortunate-
ly not entirely clear, because in its present form the text is untrans-
latable. 6 However, in Basil the Great the various metamorphoses of
dependence on Lactantius, see also p. 366, but cl. Ambrose, Exaemeron, V,
23, 79 and our suggestion concerning vim genitalem in Tacitus, Annales, VI,
2B, both discussed on p. IBB-IB9.
1 Lactantius, 101-102: Binc animal primum sine membris lertur oriri, / sed
jertur vermi lacteus esse color.
s Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV, 372-374; cl. Fitzpatrick, p. BI.
8 Lactantius, 103-loB (with vs. 105 and 106 after vS.l07 and loB): Crescit,
at emenso sopitur tempore certo / seque ovi teretis colligit in speciem. / Ac velut
agrestes, cum lilo ad saxa tenentur, / mutari tineae papilione solent, / inde
relormatur qualis luit ante ligura. / Et phoenix ruptis pullulat exuviis.
, See p. 350-356.
6 Physiologus 01 Vienna, 24-26: KlXl 3LcX TPU";)V lJILepOvuKTlwv yevviia&IXL IL£aov
'lijt; aTIXKT'ijt; (zie p. 203, n. 4) aKwA1jKIX xTepw-r6v (KiX&wt; T7JV civLIL£AIXV T'ijt;
p.eTci~1jt; eaTlv t3erv cixo TOG qlOLllLdAAOU).
the silkworm are taken as unequivocal proof of the possibility of re-

surrection. I It is not unlikely that points of agreement were noticed,
as for the phoenix and the bee, 2 between the phoenix and the butter-
fly: to clarify the circumstances of the life of the rare bird, use was
made of welcome parallels offered by more familiar animals. In some
way or other there must be a link between the traditions of the
Physiologus 0/ Vienna and Lactantius, since both draw a comparison
with the butterfly and then speak, as the only ones to do so, of the
food of the young unfledged phoenix. According to the Viennese
text, the winged worm flies from the rock on which it has come into
being to the shore of the ocean, where it lives from the water and
the dry.3 The most probable explanation is, therefore, that Lactan-
tius made use of a source in which a comparison was made between
the genesis of the phoenix and that of the butterfly, the parallel
concerning the metamorphosis both undergo before they obtain
their final shape. A factor here may have been that in Greek the
butterfly is called t/lux~, while the phoenix could be a symbol of
the soul (t/luX~).4 Gregory of Tours, who says that he conveys Lac-
tantius' material, makes no mention of the comparison with the but-
terfly: after the phoenix is consumed by fire the ash aggregates to
become an egg-shaped mass from which the new phoenix rises. 6 Thus,
Gregory does speak of the aggregation of the ashes but thereafter
diverges from Lactantius and does not even mention the traditional
worm. He may have done so for the sake of brevity,6 but could also
1 Basil, In Hexaemeron, VIII, 8 (PG, 29, 184D): the Indian worm with
horns first becomes a caterpillar, then a pupa, then a butterfly. The Syriac
Hist. Nat., 73 (ed. Ahrens, 64) also speaks of the silkworm. J. Levie, Les
sources de la Septieme et de la Huitieme Homelie de Saint Basile sur l' Hexae-
meron, in Le Musee BeIge, 1920, 145, gives as source Aritotle, Historia ani-
malium, V, 19, 555b. Fitzpatrick, 82, incorrectly assumes that Basil speaks
of the transformation of the phoenix, also in her "List of passages", p. 12,
no. 20.
I See p. 188, 340.
3 See p. 338, n. I.
, Cl. the quotation from Aristotle on p. 216, n. I. For the phoenix as
symbol of the soul, see p. 134ft'. and 363ft'.
5 Gregory of Tours, De cursu stellarum ratio, 12: Tunc pulvis exustus ad se
collegitur et in unam massam quasi in ovi specie conglobatur; hac exinde
iterum surgens, resumpta vita, nutritur.
e Gregory must have cited Lactantius from memory, which led to a rather
large number of deviations from his source; see Fitzpatrick, p. 79.
have been under the influence of another source, since it is striking

that in the school of Rabbi Jannai the /:tOt (= phoenix) undergoes a
periodic resurrection agreeing completely with the description given
by Gregory: after a thousand years a flame shoots out of the /:tOt's
nest and consumes it, "yet as much as an egg is left, and it grows
new limbs and lives again".1 Here again we have the comparison
with the egg and the genesis of the bird directly from it, without
mention of the worm. Perhaps Gergory knew this version and adopt-
ed it rather than Lactantius' own version, with which he is never-
theless in agreement about the fact that no one takes care of the
featherless young phoenix, which feeds on the dew of heaven. 2
Claudian gives a description of the resurrection of the phoenix that
diverges from the above stories, but nevertheless assumes, like Gre-
gory of Tours and the rabbinic tradition just referred to, that the
bird arises directly from its ashes. We have already seen that accord-
ing to Claudian, Phoebus reigns in his horses and stops when the
phoenix entreats him. 3 But it is not only the sun that stops in his
courses; all movement ceases throughout the cosmos: astonished,
the moon reigns in her shining bulls and the heavens cease to turn
on their slow axis when the pyre brings forth new life.4. Thus, all
nature, as it were holding its breath, is involved in the birth of the
phoenix. We have here a striking parallel with the famous passage
in the Protevangelium ] acobi in which J oseph speaks of a quiescence
of nature at the birth of Christ: "I looked up to the air and I saw
the air in amazement. And I looked up to the vault of heaven and
I saw it standing still and the birds of heaven without motion".5
1 Bereshit Rabbah, XIX, 5 (see 205, n. I.)
I For this, see p. 350, n. I.
8 See p. 201.
, Claudian, Phoenix, 60-62: Nitidos stupefacta iuvencos / Luna premit pi-
grosque polus non concitat axes / parturiente rogo.
i Protevangelium Jacobi, 18, 2 (ed. A. de Santos Otero, Los EvangeZios
Apocrifos, (= Biblioteca di Autores cristianos, 148), Madrid, 1956, 176):
tXVe~AEIjIIX Et~ 't'ov tXeplX, KIXL e!30v 't'ov tXeplX !K&IX!L~OV' KIXL tXve~AEIjIIX Et~ 't'ov 1t6AOV
't'OU OUPIXVOU, KlXl e!30v IXU't'OV ~a't'(j)'t'IX, KIXL 't'Ot 7tE't'£LVOt 't'ou OUPIXVOU ~PE!LOUV't'IX. On
earth too everything stops: labourers at their meal, sheep being herded, the
shepherd driving them, and the goats about to drink from a river. This
passage does not occur in the oldest text, see M. Testuz, Papyrus Bodmer, V,
Nativite de Marie, Cologne-Geneva, 1958,25, who thinks that it was included
in the Protevangelium toward the end of the third century. The same theme
A direct relationship need not be assumed here, for the lack of

motion and the silence of nature and man is a well-known theme of
the epiphany of a deity.1 Thus, if Claudian assumed that nature stood
still at the rebirth of the phoenix he did so to emphasize once again
the unearthly, even divine character of the sun bird. But nature
does more: she strives to prevent the eternal bird from perishing and
urges on the trustworthy flames to give the phoenix back its im-
mortal glory.2 Immediately, a seething vitality spreads through its
scattered limbs and new blood flows through its veins. The ashes to
be revivified begin to move of themselves and become covered with
feathers: a bird just like the father now appears, reborn, and the new
bird replaces the old: only the brief interval of fire separates the two
lives. 3 It is not entirely clear what agent Claudian thought actually
caused the resurrection of the phoenix; the Ilammae lideles urged
on by nature to return its old glory to the phoenix can be taken
equally well as the burning pyre and the sun, and probably the latter
was intended. 4 In Claudian's description marked emphasis is placed
occurs in the Liber de infantia Salvatoris, 72 (De Santos Otero, 282-283): in

illa hora requieverunt omnia silentio maxima cum timore. N am et venti cessave-
runt non dantes flatum suum, neque aliquis ex foliis arborum motus est neque
aquarum sonitus auditus est, ... etc.
1 De Santos Otero, 177, n. 104 gives among other references for the Bible
Hab. ii.20, Zephaniah, i.7, Zech. ii.13, and job iv.2, and for the Classical
authors Euripides, Bacchae, 1084-1085: GtY'lGE 3' IXt-91jp, GiylX 3' ()AL{LO; VCX7t71 /
cpull' eI)(E, '&71PWV 3' OUK ti.v ~KOUGIX; ~o7jv. See also H. R. Smid, Protevangelium
jacobi. A Commentary, Assen, 1965, 128-129; for other Classical parallels,
see E. R. Dodds, Euripides, Bacchae, Oxford, 1944, 201. According to the
midrash on Exodus, Shemot Rabbah, 29, 9, there was a similar paralysis in
nature the angels, and men during the law-giving on Mt. Sinai, see Ginzberg,
Ill, 97; VI, 39, n. 213, and Bin Gorion, Sagen der juden, 479.
B Cf. Theodoric, De mirabilibus mundi, 774-775: Ex se Phenicem propriam
format genitricem, / ne pereat terris decus hoc insigne volucris.
3 Claudian, Phoenix, 62-71: curis Natura laborat, / aeternam ne perdat avem,
flammasque fideles / admonet, ut rerum decus inmortale remittant. / Continua
dispersa vigor per membra volutus / aestuat et venas recidivus sanguis inundat; /
victuri cineres nullo cogente moveri / incipiunt plumaque rudem vestire favil-
lam. / Qui fuerat genitor, natus nunc prosilit idem / succeditque novus: geminae
confinia vitae / exiguo medius discrimine separat ignis.
, The resurrection of the phoenix from the flames of its pyre is not men-
tioned in any Classical, Early Christian, or medieval text. The Scholiast on
Aristides, 45, 107, does say that after the cremation tK Tii; clV&pIXKLii; IXU't'OU
GKWA71KIX clvlXcpu6{LEVOV but here the clV&pIXKLcX from which the worm appears is
on the identity of the old and the new phoenix, even to the extent
that one is surprised to read a little further on that the young phoe-
nix brings its father's remains to Egypt.! This must represent a con-
cession to the other version, since the old phoenix even comes
to new life here. The similarity in the appearance of the young
phoenix and its predecessor is of course assumed by all the authors
and stated by a few of them. 2 The Carmen in laudem SoUs too says
explicitly that it is a single bird, which is repeatedly reborn and dies. 3
The identity of the birds, despite renewal and change, was especially
stressed by Christian authors, who were concerned with belief in
resurrection. Tertullian emphasizes the fact that the reborn phoenix
is the same as the one that has died, another and yet the same. 4 Zeno
of Verona develops this idea in more detail: the new phoenix is not
a spectre but reality, not an image but the phoenix itself, not another,
certainly meant to be the bird's ashes. Cf. Liddell-Scott, 140, S.V. rXV&potKLci,
2: "black sooty ashes". J. W. Irwin, Liber I Dracontii de Laudibus Dei, with
introd., text, trans. and commentary, Thesis Univ. of Pennsylvania, Phila-
delphia, 1942, 95, thought that Dracontius, I, 656-662, where the revival of
an almost extinguished fire is described, concerns the resurrection of the
phoenix mentioned earlier (see p. 208, n. 4). but the renewed phoenix and
the revived fire are two separate examples out of a whole series of phenomena
with which the Creator endowed Nature to show the reality of the resur-
rection to mankind. What determines the sequence of the two examples was
the fire by which God renews the youth of the phoenix.
2 Byzantine Physiologus, IQ: 001; TO rX7t' rXPx'iil;; Physiologus of Pseudo-Basil,
21: &a7tE:p Tiv TO 7tp6't'£pov; Eusebius, Vita Constantini, IV, 72: Kotl rXvot7tTcivTot
TOLOUTOV orol; Kotl 7tp6't'£pov Tiv CPUVotL; Lactantius, 107: reformatur qualis fuit
ante figuram; Coptic Sermon on Mary, 19, 27 (see p. 45, 47); Pseudo-
Eustathius, Comment. in Hexaemeron: Kotl EK TOU aKWA71KOI; etl; TOV 7tPWTOV
CPOLVLKot (.LeTot~ciAAea-l}otL; most detailed in Gregory of Tours, De cursu stellarum
ratio, 12: ad pristinam speciem revocatur et ipsius figurae, eisdem plumis
eodemque colore reparata progreditur, ut prius fuerat ante mortem; also Theo-
doric, De mirabilibus mundi, 773: primam sensim reparando figuram; Thomas
of Cantimpre, De naturis rerum in Vincent of Beauvais, SPeculum naturale,
XVII, 74: in avem pristinam reformatur. Cf. for similar remarks in the other
principal version, p. 195, n. I.
3 Carmen in laudem Solis, 35: una cadit, totiens surgitque ac deficit una.
, Tertullian, De resurrectione mortuorum, 13: natali fine decedens atque suc-
cedens, iterum phoenix ubi nemo iam, iterum ipse qui non iam, alius idem;
Pseudo-Ambrose, De trinitate, 34 (PL 17, 545A) retained the following of
Tertullian's lapidary sentences: naturali fine discindens, atque succindens,
iterum phoenix, iterum ipsa est et non alia.
but, albeit better, still the same as the predecessor. l Lactantius

closes his poem with a similar statement: the new bird is itself and
yet not the same, it is the same and yet not itself, because it has
acquired eternal life by the boon of death. 2
After its resurrection the phoenix flies back to its native land,a
but John Lydus says that when the phoenix has grown wings it
immediately flies to the sun, which must certainly have been in-
spired by the idea of the phoenix as bird of the sun. 4 Some versions
of the Physiologus say that before leaving, the phoenix salutes the
priest; the Pseudo-Basilian version has the priest utter a prayer at
this point, and the Ethiopic translation adds that the bird shows
itself first of all to the priest. 6 The latter embellishment is also found
in Epiphanius: when it has become mature, the phoenix shows it-
self to those who have served it in that place and then returns to
its own country, where it en joys its rest. 6 Epiphanius makes no earlier
mention of the "serving" of the phoenix; this occurs only in the
Physiologus, where the priest prepares the altar and later inspects
1 Zeno of Verona, Tractatus, I, 16, 9: mol's natalitius dies. Denique post
momentum festo exsultat in tumulo, non umbra, sed veritas, non imago, sed
phoenix, non alia, sed quamvis melior alia, tamen prior ipsa. Zeno was un-
doubtedly influenced by Tertullian; this holds even more for Avitus, I, 240-
241: Natali cum fine perit nidoque perusta / succedens sibimet quaesita morte
resurgit. Cl also Ambrose, Expositio Psalmi cxviii, 19, 13: sibi avis superstes,
ipsa et sui heres corporis et cineris sui fetus.
2 Lactantius, 169-170: Ipsa quidem, sed non (eadem est), eademque nee ipsa
est, / aeternam vitam mortis adepta bono.
8 For Artemidorus, Didascalia and Horapollo, see p. 309, n. 3; Copt.
I Clement 25: "He rises and goes forth on his ways", Albertus Magnus, De
animalibus, XXIII, 110 (42): et tunc avolat; see also n. 5, 6; p. 225, I.
, Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11: 7tnp07tOL1)'&evTcx ae 7tCXPCX)(P'ijILcx t7tL TOV fjALov-
liv(7tTcxa'&cxL; but Lydus also gives another view; see below.
6 Byzantine Physiologus, 10: lia7ttX~e:TcxL Tij> le:pe:;: [T'ije; 'HALOU7tOAe:We;] KCXL livcx-
KCXLVL~OILe:VOV li7tep)(e:TcxL 7ttXALV de; TOV taLoV T07tOV; Basilian Physiologus, 21:
e:ll)(e:TCXL ae 0 !e:pe:ue;, KCXL e:UAOYWV CXUTOV li7tOaTpetpe:TcxL e:te; TcXe; ta(cxe; ILOVtXe;. Cf.
Appendix Physiologi, 4. The Syriac Physiologus, (ed. Janssens, 65) has the
bird greeted by the priest: "Et le pretre le salue et l'oiseau part vel's son pays".
Ethiopic Physiologus, 7 (trans. Hommel, 52): "und zeigt sich dem Diener una
grusst den Priester und kehrt wieder zuruck an seinem alten A ufenthaltsort".
The oldest Greek redaction of the Physiologus and e.g. Pseudo-J erome,
Ansileubus, and the Syriac texts in Land, IV, 55 and Ahrens, 53 mention
only the return to its own country.
8 Epiphanius, A ncoratus, 84, 6: KCXL &apuv.&e:le; TO;:e; Tij> Tom!> t~U7t1)pe:TouILeVOL~
eCXUTOV tILtpCXV(~e:L KCXL CXO.&Le; liVCXTpe)(e:L e:te; T7)V ta(CXV 7tCXTp(aCX KCXL liVCX7tCXUe:TCXL.
the ashes. This again indicates that Epiphanius must have drawn on
some version of the Physiologus. In the Physiologus the phoenix is
a symbol of Christ, and it is conceivable that the motif of the new
bird's showing of itself was inserted to provide a parallel with the
appearances of Christ after his resurrection.
There was also a tradition that people came from all parts of
Egypt to see the new bird. After telling how the phoenix is burned
in India, rises again, and flies to the sun, Lydus adds a different
story: according to Apollonius, he says, the bird does all this on the
altar in Heliopolis, after which the most prominent men of Egypt
gather together. Then the phoenix mounts high into the air and to
the sound of their acclamation it flies back to the country from
which it came. l Who this Apollonius was, we do not know. We have
assumed that it might have been Apollonius of Tyana, although
these details are not mentioned in Philostratus' report of his views
on the phoenix. 2 The crowd admiring the phoenix also occurs in
De ave phoenice. But Lactantius, like Claudian, gives a different
story of the phoenix's acts after its resurrection than any other
author mentioning the burning. This difference is the result of their
combining of this version with that of the genesis from the decom-
posing remains of the predecessor. After the bird's rebirth, which
they place outside Egypt, they have it go first to Heliopolis to
perform the last honours for its predecessor.
We have seen that some versions say that the old phoenix is
brought to Egypt in a ball of myrrh. 3 This is also the view of Lac-
tantius: when the phoenix is given back its youth it flies away to
go to its ancestral home. But before doing so it puts the remains of
its own body-ashes, bones, and the cocoon from which it has ap-
peared-together with balsam salve, mirrh, and incense from Saba,
which it forms into a ball with its pious beak. Then it carries the
ball in its claws speedily to the City of the Sun (Heliopolis) and
places it in the temple, perching itself on the altar. The bird allows
1 Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 11: 7tPcX't"TE't"CXL 3E: 't"oiho ~7tl 't"OU ~v 'H).(ou 7t6).e:L
[)CJ)(Lou KCX..a: 't"ov 'A7tOAAWVLOV' 't"ouv't"e:li&e:v 3~ 't"WV ~v30~o't"cX't"CJ)v KCX't"cX ~v AtYU7t't"ov
auve:).&6v't"CJ)v 't"LVWV (Le:'t"ECJ)POC; lip&e:lc; (Le:'t"cX 7tCXpCX7to(L7t'ijc; 't"WV !X&poLa&Ev't"CJ)v &7te:LaLv
1I&e:v ~Ke:v. For this text, see Hubaux and Leroy, 243.
2 See p. 148.
3 See p. 190-191•
itself to be admired and worshipped, because it is of an overpower-

ing beauty, which is described in great detaiP When it arrives, all
Egypt collects to see its marvellous appearance and with acclama-
tions the throng greets the rare bird. 2
Claudian gives a description of how, immediately after its re-
surrection, the phoenix first prepares the last honours for the body
of its father,3 which it carries formed into a ball to Egypt; it speeds
to that alien country with the remains enclosed in a grass capsule."
This last point deviates from the traditional version in which the
dead phoenix is transported enclosed in a ball of myrrh. In another
poem in which Claudian describes the journey to Egypt he again
omits the traditional myrrh but has the fragrant herbs of the pyre
spread their scents a second time: the young bird takes the ashes and
bones of its father in its pious claws and travels to the banks of the
Nile. The eagles and the other birds of the world gather to admire
the sun bird: the gleaming bird shines from afar and the cinnama of
its fragrant funeral pyre have an enchanting perfume. 6 The im-
pression is obtained that Claudian here took the story of Ovid and
Ambrose-according to which the dead phoenix was transported in
1 Lactantius, 115-123: Ast ubi jwimaeva coepit florere iuventa, / evolat ad
patJ'ias iam J'editura domus. / Ante tamen PJ'ojwio quidquid de corpOf'e restat /
ossaque vel cineres exuviasque suas / unguine balsameo myrraque et ture Sabaeo /
condit et in fOf'mam conglobat Of'e pio. / Quam pedibus gestans contendit Solis
ad urbem / inque ara J'esidens ponit in aede sacra. / Mirandam sese pJ'aestat
pJ'aebetque veJ'endam: / tantus avi decor est, tantus abundat honOf'. The manu-
scripts give in vs. 121 SoUs ad ortus, but since Egypt is mentioned in vs. 151
(see n. 2), SoUs ad urbem makes more sense; but see Fitzpatrick, 83-84.
For pius in connection with the phoenix, see Ovid, Metam., XV, 405 (p. 190,
n. 3) and Claudian, (n. 5 here).
I Lactantius, 151-152: Hue venit Aegyptus tanti ad miJ'acula visus / et
J'aJ'am volucrem turba salutat ovans.
8 Cj. texts cited on p. 189, in n. 3.
, Claudian, Phoenix, 72-75: Protinus ad Nilum manes sacrare pateJ'nos /
auctoremque globum Phariae telluris ad oras / feJ're iuvat. Velox alienum peJ'git
in Of'bem / pOf'tans gramineo clausum velamine funus.
6 Claudian, De consulatu Stilichonis, I1, 414-420: Sic ubi fecunda reparavit
morte iuventam / et patrios idem cineres collectaque portat / unguibus ossa piis
Nilique ad litora tendens / unicus extremo Phoenixproceditab Euro : / conveniunt
aquilae cunctaeque ex Of'be volucres, / ut Solis mirentur avem; procul ignea
lucet / ales, odorati redolent et cinnama busti. Fitzpatrick, p. 83, has errone-
ously taken unguibus in vs. 416 as unguinibus and therefore concluded that
here Claudian refers to the wrapping in spices.
15
the fragrant nest in which it had died1-and inserted it rather awk-

wardly into his own version of the burning on the aromatic pyre.
We have seen that according to Pomponius Mela and Tacitus the
old phoenix was burned in Heliopolis. 2 Claudian says the same, and
it was probably assumed by Lactantius. This burning, which is in
fact the second undergone by the old phoenix, is again the result of
the combination of the two versions of the genesis of the new sun
bird. Claudian says that the phoenix goes to a city renowned through-
out Egypt, where the sun is worshipped with placid rites, and there
enters the temple supported by a hundred Theban pillars; there, it
is said, according to custom it places the remains of its father, and
while worshipping the image of the god that is its master, it confides
its burden to the flames, offering its own relics from which it was
produced. The burning is accompanied by strange phenomena: the
astonished temple glows with clear light, a divine smoke rises from
the altar, and even as far away as the Pelusiac marshes the Indian
scent can be smelled and has a salubrious effect on people; a light
breeze, sweeter than nectar, blows over the seven mouths of the
dark Nile. 3 Here the supernatural character of the phoenix is stress-
ed once more. A clear shining light and an exquisite vitality-restoring
scent had from ancient times been forms in which the divine and the
holy made their appearance in the earthly world.' These ancient
1 See p. 190.
B See p. 196.
3 Claudian, Phoenix, 89-100: Clat'a pet' Aegyptum placidis notissima sact'is I
ut'bs Titana colit, centumque adcline columnis I invehitut' templum Thebano
monte t'evulsis. I Illic, ut pet'hibent, patt'iam de mOt'e t'eponitlconget'iem vultum-
que dei venet'atus et'ilem I iam Ilammae commendat onus, iam destinat at'is I
semina t'eliquiasque sui: mit'ata t'elucent llimina .. divino spit'ant altaria lumo I
et Pelusiacas Pt'oductus ad usque paludes I Indus odot' penett'at nat'es completque
salubYi I tempestate vit'os et nectat'e dulciot' aut'a I ostia nigt'antis Nili septena
vapOt'at.
, See E. Lohmeyer, Vom g6ttlichen Wohlget'uch, (Sitzungsber. der Heidel-
berger Akad. der Wiss., Philos.-historische Klasse, 1919, no. 9), Heidelberg,
1919, passim, for health p. 14. According to the Jewish tradition, the cave
of Machpelah was filled with the fragrance of Paradise and a heavenly light
glowed in it: cl. Ginzberg, I, 289, V, 372, Bin Gorion, Sagen det' juden, 388.
For light and fire in connection with the epiphany of a deity, especially
Dionysus, see Dodds, EUt'iPides, Bacchae, Oxford, 1944, 200-201 on Euri-
pides, Bacchae, 1082-1083. Cl. also the light in the cave at Christ's birth in
Pt'otevangelium j acobi, 19, 2; according to Jewish tradition, a clear unearthly
images persisted with great tenacity in Christian times, especially in

the legends of martyrs and saints. 1
We have already seen that the arrival of the phoenix in Egypt is
an indication that a certain fixed period has again been completed. 2
Lactantius too draws attention to this when he writes that imme-
diately after the coming of the phoenix its image is carved in con-
secrated marble and a new inscription is made to record the fact of
its appearance and the day on which it occurred. 3
Lastly, it may also be mentioned that various authors include in
the version of the burning the story that the rejuvenated phoenix
was accompanied by a huge flock of birds honouring it as their
king. 4 According to Corippus, the birds await the appearance of the
new phoenix tensely: the avian choir watches for the sun and the
sun bird, and as soon as it appears they loudly acclaim their new
king. 5 Corippus evidently assumed that the phoenix and the sun
appeared simultaneously-a point into which we shall go in more
detail below. 6 As already mentioned, Claudian, in his panegyric on
Stilicho, has the eagles and all the birds of the world gather together
to admire the bird of the sun. 7 In his long poem on the phoenix, too,
he has a great cloud of birds accompany it to Egypt: a huge army
light shone also at the birth of Noah and Moses, among others; see Ginzberg,
I, 145, Il, 264, 265, V, 167, 213, 245, 397. For the appearance of God in fire,
see e.g. Exod. xiX.16-18.
1 Lohmeyer, 46-50 and H. GUnter, Psychologie der Legende, Freiburg, 1949,
112, 258, 264, 265. The awareness of the continuity between Classical and
Christian conceptions is demonstrated from the exclamation made by the
father of St. Vitus when angels entered the saint's chamber: Lohmeyer,
46: Cubiculum ... inaestimabili claritate fulgebat ... ; respersumque est suavis-
simo odore ... Qua admiratione attonitus Hylas pater beati Viti dixit: Putas,
dii venerunt in domum meam ad filium meum? For fragrant scents and strange
light at the death of Mary, see the Transitus Mariae apocrypha in lames,
Apocr. N.T., 208 and 213.
I See p. 195-196.
3 Lactantius, 153-154: Protinus exculpunt sacrato in marmore formam / et
titulo signant remque diemque novo.
, For the same theme in the other version of the renewal of the phoenix,
see p. 193, and in Sidonius, p. 179.
6 Corippus, In laudem Iustini, I, 349-352: Ales ut exustos cum phoenix
innovat artus / a busto rediviva suo, concentus in unum / stans avium spectat
solem solisque volucrem, / dum veniat, regemque novum salutant.
• See p. 261, 274, 291.
7 See p. 225, n. 5.
darkens the sky but none of the many thousands dares to approach
the leader, content to worship the traces of their fragrant king. The
wild hawk and even the eagle of Jupiter do not attack: respect for
the phoenix brings the birds to make a truce with each other.1 The
phoenix, says Claudian, resembles a Parthian general at the head of
his horsemen-an image also requiring further discussion. 2 Even
before Claudian, the peaceful gathering of the birds was described
by Lactantius, who assigns them a role at the departure from He-
liopolis: every kind of bird assembled but not one thought of prey
and none feared another; closely attended by the choir of birds the
phoenix flies high in the air. The crowd follows it exulting in this
pious duty. When it has reached the region of pure ether, the birds
turn back, but the phoenix retires to its own country.3
We have already mentioned that the motif of the birds gathering
from all directions at the appearance of the phoenix and accom-
panying it reverentially, was probably borrowed from traditional
descriptions of the installation of a new ruler.4 Reference can be
made here, for instance, to an inscription from Assos concerning
the inauguration of Emperor Caligula: "Each town and each
people hastened to the presence of the God, because the most pleas-
urable time for people had now arrived". 5 Of the same emperor
1 Claudian, Phoenix, 76-82: Innumerae comitantur aves stipatque volantem /

alituum suspensa cohors. Exercitus ingens / obnubit vario late convexa meatu. I
Nec quisquam tantis e milibus obvius audet / ire duci, sed regis iter tragrantis
adorant. / Non terus accipiter, non armiger ipse Tonantis / bella movet : commune
tacit reverentia toedus. According to Attar, Cont. ot birds, trans. Nott, 67,
the song of the phoenix has a similar effect.
S See p. 256.
8 Lactantius, 155-160: Contrahit in coetum sese genus omne volantum / nec
praeda memor est ulla nec ulla metus. / Alituum stipata choro volat illa per
altum, / turbaque prosequiur munere laeta pio. / Sed postquam puri pervenit ad
aetheris auras, / mox redit " illa suis conditur inde locis.
4 See p. 193. The Chinese teng-huang had several characteristics in common
with the phoenix, including the appearance at the inauguration of a new
ruler as omen of a fortunate period (see p. 415). Of this bird it is said:
.. Wherever it goes all the other three hundred and sixty varieties ot birds assemble
to pay it homage", according to J. C. Ferguson, Chinese Mythology, (The
Mythology of all Races, VIII), Boston, 1928, 99.
5 W. Dittenberger, Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum, ed. 3, Il, Leipzig,
1917, 484, no. 797: 7tiiGlX 8e 7t6AL~ KlXl 7tiill f.&lIo~ t7tl T'ijll TOU .&e:OU ISIjILII ~a7te:uKe:v,
~~ &11 TOU ~8taTou IiIl.&pW7tOL~ IXtwIIO~ vUII tve:aTwTo~.
Suetonius says that when he journeyed to Rome with the body of

Tiberius he had to pass through a very closely packed and very joy-
ful crowd which had come to meet him.1 In Corippus the gathering of
the admiring crowd is even the sole point of comparison: like the
joyous birds for the phoenix, people gather from all sides out of
love for their lord and acclaim the new emperor.2
Lactantius and Claudian stress the fact that peace rules wherever
the phoenix is present, not only in its own perfect abode and at
the place at which it renews itself, but also among the birds accom-
panying it during its stay in our world. 3 It is the peace of the Golden
Age and of Paradise, which in our reality manifests itself around the
phoenix.
Peace among the animals is a common motif in descriptions of
circumstances resembling Paradise. As an eschatological figure it
was described the most impressively in words by Isaiah (xi. 6-8):
"Then the wolf shall live with the sheep, and the leopard lie down
with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall grow up together, and
a little child shall lead them; the cow and the bear shall be friends,
and their young shall lie down together. The lion shall eat straw
like cattle; the infant shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the
young child dance over the viper's nest". This motif recurs repeated-
ly in the later descriptions of the Messianic time,' but it also occurs
in the Classical literature. Virgil, for instance, says in his description
of the Golden Age under Emperor Augustus that the ox will not
fear huge lions. 5
1 Suetonius, Caligula, 13: densissimo et laetissimo obviorum agmine incessit.
For the notions connected with the inauguration of a new ruler, see E. Kober-
lein, Caligula und die iigyptischen Kulte, (= Beitr. zur Klass. Philol., 3),
Meisenheim am Glan, 1962, 39-43, from which the two examples given here
are taken.
I Corippus, In laudem I ustini, I, 356-358: domini sic vulgus amoye / undique
conveniens laetarum more volucrum / "tu vincas, Iustine!" canunt.
8 See p. 183 and p. 329ff. The same is found in the Jewish traditions con-
cerning the bird ziz, cl. Ginzberg, I, 4-5: "Again, in Tishri, at the time 01 the
autumnal equinox, the great bird ziz Ilaps his wings and utters his cry, so that
the birds 01 prey, the eagles and the vultures blench, and they lear to swoop down
upon the others and annihilate them in their greed".
, See the places mentioned by B. Kotting, Tier und Heiligtum, in Mullus
(Festschrift Theodor Klauser), (Jahrb. fUr Antike und Christentum, Erg.-
Bd., I), Munster, 1964, 209-210.
6 Virgil, Eclogae, IV, 22: nec magnos metuent armenta leones.
I t is also possible that the notions about the return of the Golden
Age with the coming of a new ruler had some influence on the idea
that all was peaceful among the birds assembling for the phoenix.
The paradisiacal peace among the animals acquired an ethical twist
in the descriptions of the blessings that the new ruler brings to his
subjects: he restores law and justice and puts an end to all strife
and injustice between men. This idea was general throughout the
Near East and was also adopted in the Roman imperial ideology. 1
We may in any case conclude that the motif of peace among the
birds that worship and accompany the phoenix shows once again the
extent to which the bird was a symbol of conditions belonging to the
Golden Age or Paradise, conditions which will recur at the end of
time and are sometimes already realized in the present.
The burning phoenix was portrayed at various times in Classical
and Early Christian art. The oldest known representations date
from the third century A.D. In the first half of that century a fresco
showing the phoenix at the moment at which it is consumed by the
flames was painted on the walls of the Cappella Greca in the Cata-
comb of Priscilla. 2 The wall paintings in the Cappella Greca are
among the oldest products of Early Christian art. It is proof of the
great symbolic value attached by the Early Christians to the phoe-
nix that we encounter it both in the earliest Christian literature (1
Clement, 25) and in the earliest Christian art. The phoenix in the
Catacomb of Priscilla is unquestionably, as in Clement, a symbol of
the resurrection of the flesh.
On the urn of M. Marcius Hermas (second half of the third cen-
tury), at both sides of the inscription, there is large bird in all pro-
bability representing the phoenix standing on its still unignited
funeral pyre. 3 The fact that two birds are shown need not argue
against its identity, since the symmetry of the decoration of the
urn is sufficient to explain the double occurrence. Further evidence
that for non-Christians too the phoenix was a symbol of the life
1 For the conceptions current in the ancient Near East: J. Zandee, De
Messias. Opvattingen aangaande het koningschap in de godsdiensten van het
oude Nabije Oosten, Leiden, 1970, 13-20. For the Roman conceptions: K6ber-
lein, Caligula, 39-43, 74-76.
2 See pI. XII.
8 See pI. XIV.
after death is provided by the phoenix mosaic in Edessa and the

epitaph of Domitius Primus. 1
The Christian expectation of the resurrection of the flesh must
also be kept in mind in connection with the burning phoenix in the
Basilica of Aquileia, dating from the fourth century.2 The flames
are rendered rather statically, as vertical lines.
The phoenix in one of the apses of the hall with the Great Hunting
Scene in the Roman Villa in Piazza Armerina is also shown at the
moment of its burning. 3 Here it forms part of a symbolic picture of
Africa, or the Earth, in which it probably symbolizes Egypt. The
nest has a remarkable ovoid shape, reminiscent of the egg of myrrh in
which, according to Herodotus, the young phoenix bears the body
of its father to Egypt. There is no Classical or Early Christian text,
however, conveying any suggestion even that it is from this egg
that the bird is brought to new life by burning, and this would be
impossible to reconcile with either of the two main versions. One
obtains the impression that under the phoenix are the fragrant
twigs so often mentioned in the literature, so that the nest or the
pyre may have been meant. Nevertheless, it is probable that the
man who was responsible for the mosaic attempted to combine the
tradition concerning the transportation of the old phoenix in the
egg of myrrh and the tradition concerning the fire, without any
great concern about how such a combination should be visualized.
Equally remarkable is the representation of the phoenix in the
mosaic on the floor of the church of Umm Jerar (now called Horvat
Gerarit), near Gaza. 4 This phoenix too is not yet afire. It is shown
sitting in the bowl of an unusual chalice-shaped altar, with the wood
it has collected projecting upward on both sides of its body. There
are many birds in this mosaic; if a symbolic meaning was assigned
to the phoenix, it must have been the eschatological resurrection.
The work of sculpture in the Vatican Museum showing the phoe-
1 See pI. XIII, and Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, XIV, 113, no. 914: sit
mihi terra lebis set tamen ad manes foenix me serbat in ara qui mecum properat
se reparare sibi.
I See pI. XXI.
3 See pI. XVIII.
, See pI. XXXII.
nix burning on its nest is in all probability not Classical but Medie-
val. This is the earliest three-dimensional phoenix we know. 1
1 See pI. XXXVIII, 2. The gem with a burning phoenix in Kassel must also
be considered not to be Classical; illustrated in F. Imhoof-Blumer and O.
Keller, Tier- und Pflanzenbilder aut Munzen und Gemmen des klassischen Alter-
tums, Leipzig, 1889, 157, pI. XXVI, 21. The Kasseler collection is to be pub-
lished by Dr. Peter Zazoff (Hamburg), who has written me (letter of October 2 I,
1969) that the stone carrying the phoenix is a modem specimen, as in-
dicated by the material used. Interesting later representations of the burning
of the phoenix are those from the lost Physiologus (Smyrna manuscript) and
the painted ceiling in Amhem, reproduced in pI. XXXVII and pI. XL,
respectively. In the Smyma Physiologus the phoenix is shown burning itself
on a large column. In the sixth-century Itinerarium incorporated in De locis
sanctis, a work written in 1137 A.D. by Peter the Deacon (ed. P. Geyer in
CSEL 39, 115), the ~w!L6t; of the Physiologus is also said to be a large column
(probably an obelisk): Ibi (se. in Heliopolis) vero est et viridarium SoUs, ubi
columna est grandis, quae appellatur Bomon, in qua Phoenix post quingentos
annos residere consuevit.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE PHOENIX AS BIRD OF THE SUN
I. EXTERNAL ApPEARANCE
It has become evident that in all the versions of the phoenix myth
a connection between the bird and the sun was understood with
respect to the bird's death and resurrection. l A number of authors
mention it explicitly. The Roman Senator Manilius said, according
to Pliny, that in Arabia the phoenix was consecrated to the sun; the
same is found in Tacitus. 2 For the later poets in particular the term
"sun bird" had become the established indication for the phoenix.~
HorapoUo calls the bird a symbol of the sun.4 We shall see that
its abode was often sought in the extreme East, where the sun rises:
in this sense Lactantius has it live in the "grove of the sun".5
The close connection between the phoenix and the sun is also ex-
pressed in the external appearance assigned to the bird. This holds
especially for the attributes usually associated with the head of the
phoenix: a nimbus with or without rays. Before going further into
this point it should be mentioned that a more natural adornment
of the head was also described. In his report of the phoenix Pliny
says that its head is ornamented with a crest of feathers.8 We shall
see in due course that in Classical times the appearance of the phoe-
1 See p. 187, 194, 199-203, 205-206, 210, 214, 223, 226.

8 Pliny, X, 4: sacrum in Arabia Soli esse; Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28: sacrum
Soli id animal.
S Claudian, Phoenix, 7: Titanius ales; Cons. Stilich., II, 419: Solis avem;
Sidonius, Carmina, VII, 354: Phoebeius ales; John of Gaza, Descriptio tab.
mundi, II, 210: 'HeAlou 'rOtXU~ ISPVL~ e~1t'repo~; Corippus, In Laud. lust., I,
351: Solisque volucrem.
4 Horapollo, Hierogl., I, 34: 7)A(OU ~o"'rlv 0 CPOiVL~ O"U(LIiOAOV. Cl. also for the
twelfth century Theophylactus of Bulgaria, Epist. 72 (PG 126, 497D): o3e
ye 'rou 7)A(OU 1tOti~ cpOiVL~.
6 See p. 311 .
• Pliny, X, 3: caputque plumeo apice honestante.
234 THE PHOENIX AS BIRD OF THE SUN
nix was compared to that of the peacock,l This led some medieval
scholars to claim that both birds also had the same kind of head
array.2 But this view, which also found expression in art,S does not
occur in the available Classical and Early Christian sources. Pliny
even made an explicit distinction between the crest of the phoenix
and that of the peacock: the phoenix has a row of feathers on its
head, a longer one projecting above the others in the middle, the
peacock has "hairy little trees".4 The pointed shape of the crest is
also mentioned by Solinus; Claudian speaks of a comb. 5 In art, this
natural decoration without the addition of a nimbus or rays occurred
only occasionally. On a gem in Berlin the phoenix is represented
with six vertical feathers on its head, the fourth from the front
bearing a small bulbous tip, making it unlikely that an aureole was
intended. In the phoenix mosaic in Edessa the bird bears a cruci-
form figure on its head, and on the early Christian sarcophagus in
Verona the head clearly carries a kind of comb. 6
1 See p. 252-253.
2 Thomas of Cantimpre, De nat. rerum, in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum
Naturale, XVII, 74: caput habens oneratum ut pavo; adopted by Albertus
Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII, 110 (42): caput habens coronatum ut pavo.
According to an English version of the Romance ot Alexander, too, the
phoenix has a "creste" like a "pacokke", see J. S. Westlake, The prose Lite
ot Alexander trom the Thornton MS, (Early Eng. Texts Soc., Orig. Ser.,
no. 143), London, 1913, 93-94. According to Mandeville, the crest of feathers
on the phoenix's head is larger than that of the peacock, e.g. A. W. Pollard,
The travels ot Sir John Mandeville, New York, 1964 (Dover edition = Lon-
don, 1900), 32-33.
8 See e.g. the phoenix in the Bestiarium in the British Museum (Hadey,
3244) in O. E. Saunders, English illumination, 11, Florence-Paris, 1928, pI.
51b. The same head ornament is carried by the phoenix in an early edition
of the Travels of John Mandeville, see A. Schramm, Der Bilderschmuck der
Fruhdrucke, IV, Leipzig, 1921, 19, pI. 91, no. 597 (Anton Sorg, Augsburg,
1481); in other editions it wears a crown: Schramm, XXI, Leipzig, 1938,
pI. 76, no. 409 (Bernhard Richel, Basel, ca. 1481) and, almost identical,
Schramm, XX, Leipzig, 1937, pI. 128, no. 1044 (Johann Priiss, Strassburg,
1483).
, Pliny, XI, 121: ... apices, diversi quidem generis: phoenici plumarum serie
e medio eo exeunte alia, pavonibus crinitis arbusculis.
5 Solinus, 33, 11: capite honorato in conum plumis extantibus, on which de-
pends Theodoric, De mirab. mundi, 762: surgit honoratus plumis a vertice
conus. Claudian, Phoenix, 19: cristatus apex; In his description of the head
ornament of the phoenix, Claudian made very free use of the data in Pliny,
see p. 236
8 See pI. X, 2; XIII; XXVI, 2.
EXTERNAL APPEARANCE 235
Achilles Tatius, who wrote his Leucippe et Clitophon in the second

century of our era,l described the head array of the phoenix in tenns
suggestive of a rayed nimbus, clearly stressing the connection with
sun. According to his report, the phoenix prides itself that the sun
is its Lord. This is also borne out by its head, since it is encircled
by a well-shaped ring. This ring is an image of the sun; it is dark
blue in colour, like roses, beautiful of aspect, and ornamented
with rays formed by upright feathers.2 These last words are, at
least if they correctly convey the meaning of Achilles Tatius, some-
what surprising, since they reverse the original impression that the
phoenix carries a radiate nimbus. 3 It is conceivable that the text is
corrupt here, and that Achilles Tatius meant to say that the rays
emanating from its feathers are like a sunrise. Pseudo-Eustathius,
who adopted the description of Achilles Tatius almost word for
word, also seems to have had difficulty with this last phrase: he
wrote that the phoenix was ornamented with rays, "like the sun
standing at the zenith".' He omitted Achilles Tatius' remarks on
the connection between the head array of the phoenix and the sun,
1 Formerly, Achillus Tatius was usually dated as ca. A.D. 300, but new
papyrus discoveries have shown that his work was already known in the
second century A.D., see E. Vilborg, Achillus Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon.
A commentary, (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, XV), Gothenburg,
1962, 9-10, and his edition, Gothenburg, 1955, XVI-XVII.
I Achillus Tatius, Ill, 25: OtuXe:! 3e 't"ov "fjALOV 3e:a7t61:7jv' KOtl TJ Ke:qlOtA~ (.LOtp't"Upe:!,
~a't"e:q)(xv(a)ae: yap OtuT7jv KUKAOC; e:uqlU~C;' TJAtOU 3l: ~a't"Lv 6 't"OU KUKAOU a't"l:qlOtVOC; e:!KOOV.
KUOtve:6c; ~a't"LV, p630LC; ~(.Lqle:p~C;, e:ue:L3~c; T7jv .&l:OtV, &K't"!aL KO(.Lti, KOtl e:!aLv OtU't"OtL
7t1:EPWV &VOt't"OAOtt.
3 Various explanations have been put forward: S. Gaselee, Loeb ed., 187,
translates" ... of great beauty, with spreading rays where the feathers spring";
Vilborg, Commentary, 78: "The crown of feathers is an image of the sun, and
its upright feathers can thus be called a sunrise". T. F. Camay, Achillus Tatius,
Leucippe and Clitophon, Book Ill, The Classical Association of Rhodesia
and N yassaland, (1960), 177, thinks that- instead of KO(.Lti, Kollii't"OtL must be
read: "The meaning is "it is joined together with rays and these rays are the
up-growing feathers" ". He thinks that seen from above, the crown of feathers
resembles a wheel, the feathers forming the spokes: "The "upgrowings" of
the feathers are the thick bases of the quills easily visible where the feathers grow
from the flesh", which seems rather farfetched.
, Pseudo-Eustathius, Comment. in Hexaem., (PG 18, 729C): Ke:KEpOta't"OtL
yap Otu't"<i> xpua<i> KOtl 7t0PqlUPqc 't"a 7t1:e:pcX, e:uqlue:! 3e KUKACj> a't"e:qlcXVOU TJ Ke:qlOtA~
Otu't"OU K£K6a(.Ll)'t"OtL qluaLKWC;. "Ea't"L 3e 6 KUKAOC; KUcXVe:OC;, KOtl p630LC; ~(.Lqle:p~c;.
EU£L3~c; 3e &V T'ii '&l:qc, KOtl &K't"!aL KO(.LWV, &a7te:p "fjALOC; ~qI' Gljlouc; ta't"Ot't"OtL.
probably because there was no room for it in the Christian inter-

pretation of the phoenix current in his time. But Lactantius follows
an uncontaminated Classical tradition in saying that the crown of
rays around the head of the phoenix is a reference to the sublime
head array of Phoebus. 1 In Ausonius radiatus has evidently already
become an established epitheton ornans for the phoenix. 2 According
to the Syriac and one of the Latin translations of the Alexander
Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes, the great Alexander met the phoe-
nix in the wondrous country of India: it was sitting in a tree lacking
fruit and leaves, and on its head it had shining rays as does the sun. 3
The Physiologus 01 Vienna too assigns a rayed aureole to the phoe-
nix; the Byzantine Physiologus implies one. 4 The description of the
headdress of the phoenix in the Phoenix of Claudian is truly re-
markable: a flaming halo encircles the bird's head, the comb-shaped
crest on the ruddy head bears a kindred star, piercing the darkness
with its clear light.1> What Pliny gives as a feather projecting above
the others in the crest, is in Claudian a shining star. The parallelism
1 Lactantius, 139-140: aptata est noto capiti radiata corona.! Phoebei relerens
verticis alta decus. In this connection Miss Fitzpatrick erroneously mentions
Pliny and Solinus as writers that had mentioned the aureole before Lactan-
tius (p. 86, ad vs. 139).
I Ausonius, XXVI: Gryphus, 11, 17: ales ... radiatus.
3 For the Syriac translation, see V. Ryssel, Die syrische Vbersetzung des
Pseudo-Callisthenes, ins Deutsche ubertragen, in Archiv lur das Studium del'
neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 90, 1893, 364, and E. A. W. Budge, The
History 01 Alexander the Great ... , Cambridge, 1889, 101. In the Latin Historia
de Preliis by Leo of Naples the text reads (Letter to Aristotle, X): abinde
venimus ad quendam locum, in quo erat arbor, quae non habebat Iructum neque
lolia, et sedebat super avis, quae habebat super caput suum lucentes radios sicut
sol, quae vocabatur Fenix. A new text is given in D. J. A. Ross, A new manu-
script 01 archpriest Leo 01 Naples, Nativitas et Victoria Magni, in Classica et
Mediaevalia, 20, 1959,98-158, the phoenix on p. 148. This passage also occurs
in the German, so-called Strassburger Alexander, see H. H. Braches, Jenseits-
motive und ihre Verritterlichung in del' deutschen Dichtung des Hochmittelalters,
Thesis Utrecht, Assen, 1961, 77; variant in the cited English Romance 01
Alexander, see p. 234, n. 2.
, Physiologus 01 Vienna, 5: !xeL<v> 8£ -rljv Ke!pa.A7)v a.U'rOU liK'rLvoeL87j. Byzan-
tine Physiologus, 10: a're!pot; 8£ !pope;: tn;l -rljv Ke!pa.A~V, Ka.1 a!pa.;:pa.v tn;l 'ro;:t;
n;oa1v a.u'rou i:lan;ep l3a.aLAeut;. Here, the influence of the phoenix figure on coins
seems unmistakeable.
5 Claudian, Phoenix, 17-20: igneus ora I cingit honos. Rutilo cognatum
vertice sidus / attollit cristatus apex tenebrasque serena / luce secat.
with the sun is unmistakable: just as the sun is preceded by the

morning star Venus, which drives away the darkness and announces
the new day, so does a clear star lift itself above the phoenix with
its radiant head. 1
The mention of the rayed nimbus in the literature is the reflection
of a pre-existing iconographic tradition: the oldest representations
of the phoenix show a nimbus with rays. Where and when these
attributes entered the iconography of the phoenix remains a prob-
lem, but they were in any case known in Rome in A.D. II8. In that
year, on the occasion of the consecration of his predecessor Trajan,
Hadrian had two coins struck, on the reverse of which the phoenix
is shown alone. 2 These two representations of the phoenix show only
minor differences. On one coin the bird is perched on a branch of
an unidentifiable species of tree, 3 its head surrounded by a nimbus
within which eight or nine rays can be seen; on the other the branch
is missing and the head carries a nimbus just barely pierced by
seven rays emanating from the head.
From the texts cited above it is evident that it was generally
thought that the phoenix owed its rayed nimbus to its close con-
nection with the sun. In Greece, Helios was represented with this
attribute from the end of the fifth century B.C. on. Despite related
representations elsewhere, this motif seems to have developed in-
dependently in Greek art. 4 Before that time the god of the sun was
shown with a solar disk above his head, but it is improbable that
the nimbus derived from the disk of the sun. 6 Stephani pointed out
that the aureole does not always indicate a relationship with the sun:
1 An aureole was also assigned to Phosphorus, see below. Hubaux and
Leroy mistakenly concluded from this passage that there was a special
relationship between the phoenix and Venus, but here the phoenix is com-
pared with the sun, the star shining ahead of it with Venus. See also p. 163.
I See pI. VI, I, 2.
8 Probably a laurel or palm branch, cf. Mattingly, GBM, Ill, 245, no. 49
and RIG, Il, 343, no. 28; see also p. 246, n. 3.
, Rather out of date but on many points indispensable is: L. Stephani,
Nimbus und Strahlenkranz in den Werken der alten Kunst, in Memoires de
l'Acad. des Sciences de St. Petersbourg, VIe Serie, sciences politiques, histoire
et philologie, IX, St. Petersbourg, 1859 (also published separately), 93-102
(origin), 25-29 (Helios), 84-86 (phoenix); also K. Keyszner, Nimbus, in RE,
17, I, 1936, 600 (origin) and 606-608 (Helios, phoenix).
5 Keyszner, 600.
they generally depict the lustre which according to the Greeks ra-
diates from gods and beings endowed with supernatural power.1
But, especially in later times, the nimbus and rays could be special
solar attributes of beings having a definite connection with the sun.
This is the case for the phoenix.
We thus come to the question of when and where the solar attri-
butes were first given to the phoenix. In early times these attributes
were rarely given to animals, so that it is unlikely that the bird
possessed them from the beginning. Although the lack of older Greek
and Roman representations makes strict proof impossible, close
study of the oldest available representations of the phoenix strongly
suggests the place, and vaguely indicates the time, in which the
bird was first provided with the rayed nimbus.
This problem must be approached via the so-called liturgical
garment of Saqqara, which was published and extensively discussed
by Perdrizet in 1934.2 On dubious grounds, Perdrizet dated the robe
in the first year of the rule of Antoninus Pius. 3 The back and front
are decorated with Egyptian religious motifs. On the lower right
corner of the back the benu is shown, standing on a hill, as a long-
legged bird with a large nimbus around its head, from which seven
rays arise.
The iconography of this benu differs markedly from that of the
ancient Egyptian representations. In the vignettes of the Book of
the Dead and on many monuments the benu is shown as a heron-like
bird with long legs and a pair of long feathers projecting horizontally
1 Stephani, 3-13, has collected a large number of texts on this point. In
his opinion it is evident from the fact that the phoenix often has only an
aureole: "dass jedoch die Kunstler nicht immer gerade das hell strahlende Licht
der Sonne im Sinne gehabt haben, sondern nur uberhaupt g6ttlichen Lichtglanz"
(p. 85). In addition to the phoenix, a rayed aureole was also assigned to
Phosphorus and Phaeton; Keyszner, 603, 606 and Stephani, 29.
B See pI. Il and III here. Now in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo. According
to a communication from Prof. F. A. Meinardus of the American University
of Cairo (letter dated July 10, 1963), "the official description of the object as
given by the Museum reads as follows: "Graeco-Roman garment painted and
gilt, probably for ceremonial use, Saqqara" ".
8 Perdrizet, La tunique, 110-113. He relates the garment to the beginning
of the new Sothic period in A.D. 139; see above, p. 70, but the ornamen-
tation does not justify such an exact dating. The garment may well date
from the first century A.D.; see below, p. 245.
from the back of its head. l It has no aureole, but occasionally the
solar disk is shown above the bird's head. We find the latter, for
instance, in the Theban sepulchral art of the New Kingdom: a
wall painting in the grave of Irenifer shows the dead man in the
boat of the sun standing in front of the benu, which is shown as a
blue heron with two feathers at the back of its head and on it a red
solar disk. 2 The benu with the solar disk is also found in papyri.s
This attribute was given to various animals connected with the
sun, for instance Hathor, the cow goddess, who as mother of the
sun god bears a solar disk between the horns, the Apis bull, and the
crocodile.' These sun animals always carry the disk unmistakably
on the head; this attribute was never shown as a nimbus around the
head, and rays were never used. 'The only solar disk giving off rays
that occurs in Egyptian art is the one used as a symbol of the sun.
It was in this way that the heretical King Ekhnaton had his god
Aton represented in Amarna. 5
Thus, although there are points of connection, the transition from
the solar disk to the nimbus or aureole occurred in Egyptian art only
under the influence of Graeco-Roman forms. But by that time
Egyptian art could no longer be considered pure; even though many
Egyptian motifs persisted, they had come to carry a strongly syn-
cretistic character.
1See pI. I, I, 2.; for other representations of the benu, see p. 15, n. I.
ISee pI. I, I, showing an illustration from the Book of the Dead, 83,
"The transformation into a benu". Many of the wall paintings in Theban
graves are actually enlargements of vignettes from the Book of the Dead.
This also holds for the Theban tomb of Anchorchawi, a benu from which is
reproduced in e.g. G. Posener, Dictionnaire de la civilisation egyptienne, Paris,
1959,223·
a Fitzpatrick, 87. mentions, under reference to A. S. Cook, Old English
Elene, Phoenix and Physiologus, New Haven, 1919, XIII, n. I, a papyrus
in the Louvre "containing a representation of the phoenix (benu) with the red
sun-disk on his head" (Unfortunately, I have been unable to gain access to
this book by Cook).
, For these animals, see Bonnet, 277-282 (Hathor), 46-51 (Apis) and 392-
394 (crocodile); for the last of these, see also below, p. 297-299, and the text of
Clement of Alexandria, Strom., V, 41, 2 and 3 quoted there.
5 See e.g. Encyclopedia of World Art, IV, New York-Toronto-London,
1961, pI. 365 and col. 683 ("detail of a relief on an altar from Tell el 'Amarna')
and pI. 391 and col. 685 ("Throne of Tutankamen, I35z-I346 E.C.").
The syncretism which flourished in the first century A.D. in

Egypt showed a certain predilection for assigning a rayed nimbus
to animals that had been related to the sun in ancient Egyptian
religion. As examples of this we may mention the sphinx and the
scarab, the sphinx sometimes being combined in a most remarkable
way with the crocodile. I But it is especially on the magical amulets,
formerly usually called "gnostic", that this phenomenon can be
found. The lion, also connected with the sun in the ancient Egyptian
religion, 2 is shown on these amulets with seven rays on its head and
neck,3 or with its head bearing a solar disk with one ray in front of
it and five behind it, along the neck. 4 Another interesting motif is
that of Harpocrates riding on a lion with a large nimbus around its
head from which six-probably originally seven-double rays spread
out. 5 Harpocrates was also shown alone with a seven-rayed nimbus
around his head and above that the solar disk. 6 The amulets often
show a deity with a lion's head bearing a solar disk 7 or seven rays,S
or a combination of the two, 9 or a nimbus with seven rays.IO The
lion's head with rays, and usually also with a nimbus, is seen too in
1 Stephani, Nimbus und Strahlenkranz, 79-84 (sphinx, interpretation out-

dated!), 90-91 (scarab), with a reference to Horapollo, I, 10: 'lrpw'O) ILEV
<xt).oup6ILopqlo~, Kcd ciKTLvWTij, ~V'lrEP Kcxl 7)).!'Il cive&EO"cxv aLa Tb aUlL~O).OV; for the
sphinx combined with the crocodile: P. Perdrizet, Les terres cuites grecques
d'1f.gypte de la collection Fouquet, Nancy-Paris-Strassburg, 1921, I, 79, and II,
pI. LIV, no. 191 and also below, p. 299.
B See C. de Wit, Le r6le et les sens du lion dans 1'1f.gypte ancienne, Leiden,
1951, especially 138-147.
8 C. Bonner, Studies in magical amulets, chiefly Graeco-Egyptian, Ann
Arbor, 1950, pI. XI, no. 238; under its body is qlP'Il, "the sun"; see the de-
scription in Bonner, p. 293.
, Bonner, Amulets, p. XI, no. 242, description on p. 293.
I Bonner, Amulets, p. X, no. 211, description on p. 288; Bonner assumes
that there were orginally six double rays, but the distribution of the rays
over the nimbus makes it likely that two pairs of rays have been lost; because
of minor damage, this cannot be determined with certainty.
• Bonner, Amulets, pI. XIII, no. 265, descr. p. 297; pI. X, no. 210, descr.
p.288.
7 Bonner, Amulets, pI. XIII, no. 283, descr. p. 300.
8 Bonner, Amulets, pI. XI, no. 234, descr. p. 292; and no. 232 (eight rays).
8 Bonner, Amulets, pI. XI, no. 229, descr. p. 291-292.
10 Bonner, Amulets, pI. XI, nrs. 235, 236, descr. p. 292-293. Bonner thinks
that these amulets might have been made for Sethian Gnostics, because the
inscriptions on the back show a J udaeo-Christian influence.
EXTERNAL APPEARANCE
the familiar representation of the Chnoubis. This name is the Greek

form of the Egyptian Chnum, the ancient ram god. As protector of
the sources of the Nile and as god of creation, Chnum was also
identified with the sun by the Egyptians. He was shown as a ram
with long horns or as a man with a ram's head. The Chnoubis of the
Roman period no longer had much to dowith the ancient Chnum:
the former was represented as a serpent with a lion's head surround-
ed by rays sometimes piercing a ringed halo and sometimes with
only this halo. 1
The man who made the Saqqara garment and provided the benu
with these attributes must have lived in the syncretistic ideological
climate in which a nimbus or a crown of rays were assigned to the
sphinx, the scarab, the lion, and the Chnoubis. In the upper left
corner of the back of the garment there is a winged crocodile with
a Horus head, lying on a pedestal formed by nine vertical lotus
flowers,2 a motif which was very popular in Roman Egypt. We
find it, for instance, on a wall painting in a temple at Coptos,3 on
bas-reliefs,' on a salver used for offerings,1i and on amulets. 6 The
Coptos temple was built in the time of Emperor Claudius (A.D.
1 On Chnum-Chnoubis: Bonnet, 135-140; K. Sethe, Chnubis, I, in RE,

3, 1897,2349-2352, and especially, W. Drexler, Knuphis, in Rocher, Lexikon,
Il, I, 1890-1897, 1250-1264. The older publications of Chnoubis gems are
mentioned in W. Drexler, Mythologische Beitriige I: Der Cultus der aegyp-
tischen Gottheiten in den Donauliindern, Leipzig, 1890, 61 -67; see also Stephani,
Nimbus und Strahlenkranz, 89-90; a number of clear illustrations in Bonnet,
Amulets, pI. IV, nrs. 81-94, pI. V, nrs. 95-98 (nrs. 94 and 98 without rays),
descr. p. 266-269 (see also p. 321, no. 393), the meaning of Chnoubis is dis-
cussed in Bonner, 54-60.
S See pI. 11.
8 A. J. Reinach, Le temple d'EI-Kala tl Koptos, in Ann. du Serv. des Anti-
quites de l'Egypte, 11, 1911,229.
, C. C. Edgar, Greek Sculpture, (Cat. general des Antiq. egypt. du Musee
du Caire, nrs. 27425-27630), Cairo, 1903, pI. XXVIII, no. 27575 and p. 59;
R. V. Lanzone, Dizionario di mitologia egiziana, Turin, 1882, pI. 116, 1 and
3; pI. 117, 2, discussed on p. 578-581.
11 W. Weber, Die iigyptisch-griechischen Terrakotten, (Konigliche Museen
zu Berlin, Mitteilungen aus der agyptischen Sammlung, Il), Berlin, 1914,
Textband, 139-140, fig. 84; on p. 140, in n. 9, many references to other monu-
ments. Also illustrated in Perdrizet, La tunique, 107, fig. 5.
8 Perdrizet, La tunique, 106, fig. 4 (gem from the collection of E. de Lorey,
later described by Bonner, Amulets, 320, no. 390 and p. 326).
16
41-54),1 which means that this motif must have been known at
least as early as the middle of the first century A.D. Lower down
on the same side of the Saqqara garment there is a related motif: on a
kind of altar lies a crocodile whose head is a scarab with outspread
wings; between the uppermost wings is a solar disk. 2 In the Roman
period th~re appears to have been a preference for such combina-
tions of animals that had from ancient times played a role in the
Egyptian religion. 3 With respect to such ancient traditions a degree
of freedom was often exercised that would have been unthinkable in
ancient Egypt and even in Ptolemaic times.
This is also evident from the entire iconography of the benu of
Saqqara. This bird seems to have no resemblance at all to the heron
we know so well from the purely Egyptian representations: the
characteristic feathers at the back of the head are lacking, the legs
are longer and straight, the body is smaller and carries a long,
hanging tail. It has already been shown above that the rayed nim-
bus of this benu is not of ancient Egyptian origin. Nevertheless,
the nimbus betrays a distinct influence of early Egypt, since its
shape and size agree so completely with those of the solar disk ini-
tially shown over the benu's head that it is difficult to avoid the im-
pression that the maker of this garment considered these two attri-
butes to be identical. We have seen that this identification would
have seemed obvious to someone belonging to the Egyptian world,
even though it does not seem to have given rise to the Greek nimbus.
Confirmation of the conclusion that the artist had the solar disk in
mind in using the nimbus is provided by another motif on the same
garment. Between the wings of the crocodile with the falcon head of
Horns there is a solar disk within which Harpocrates is shown, and
this disk too is provided with seven rays.3
1 Reinach, o.e., 234-237.
I See pI. 1I.
B See p. 240, n. 1 for the combination sphinx-crocodile and also below,
P·299·
, The bird in the temple of Isis at Pompei, on the open sarcophagus of
Osiris standing vertically in the "sacred gate", shows no iconographic re-
lationship with the early Egyptian, Roman-Egyptian, or Classical benu-
phoenix figures; see pI. IV, V. According to V. Tran Tarn Tinh, Le eulte d' I sis
aPompei, Paris, 1964, 142, this concerns "un phCnix aux longues aWes etendues,
la tOte surmontee d'une ureus avee un disque solaire et un eroissant de lune" (ej.
If this bird had been encountered quite apart from the Egyptian
context of this liturgical garment, it would have occurred to no one
that a representation of the benu was concerned. It would have
seemed completely self-evident that the bird was a phoenix. It
must be kept in mind in this connection that the iconography of the
bird on the Saqqara garment is not an isolated case. A number of
amulets show a bird usually taken to be a phoenix but exhibiting
strong agreement with the Saqqara benu. Among the many gems
showing Harpocrates there is one with not only the young sun god
but also a large, long-legged bird around whose head is an aureole
with seven rays.! Of particular interest, too, is a group of amulets on
which a similar bird forms the centre of a remarkable composition.
The bird is represented with extreme elongation, with stretched
legs, and a straight or slightly curved neck, its head surrounded by
a nimbus from which seven rays shoot out. It ordinarily stands on
a rounded object,2 sometimes resting on an altar. s Further down is
a crocodile, but separated by some space so that it cannot be inter-
preted as supporting the round object or the altar. When these
objects are absent, however, the bird stands directly on the croco-
dile's back. 4 Above the bird's head there is always a scarab, and on
Bonnet, 845, 846 on the ureus serpent as sun's eye and moon's eye). Even
in ancient Egypt the benu bore the solar disk on its head, see p. 239, but
never combined with the ureus and the moon. For the representation of a
bird on the sacrophagus of Osiris, one indeed thinks first of the benu, which
was used as a symbol of Orisis (see p. 18). However, the exceptional icono-
graphy of this bird demands a cautious approach to the problem. Tran Tarn
Tinh suggested in a letter to me (January 16, 1971) that the painter may
have had no idea of how the phoenix was usually represented. This is pos-
sible but not probable, since this artist can be judged in other respects to
have been well aware of the way in which the Egyptians expressed their
religious ideas pictorially.
1 See pi. IX, I.
2 See pi. XI, 1-3. We have already mentioned that the sphere on the
altar may well represent the ball of myrrh in which the old phoenix is
wrapped by the young bird (see p. 196). It is unlikely that in this connection
it would be the globe of the world on which the phoenix is shown standing
on many Roman coins and, in imitation of them, in the Chronograph 01 354
(see pi. VI, 3; VII, 1-9; VIII, 1-6, 9-10, and pi. XVII, I.
a See pi. XI, I, 2.
4 See pi. XI, 4, 5.
either side of it, in descending sequence, a bird, a scorpion, and a

snake, with sometimes a crab between the last two. 1 Between the
scorpions and the birds' feet there are often a couple of snake- or
worm-like curved lines. 2 Most of these amulets were found in
Syria, but the motifs they carry betray an Egyptian origin. 3 Like
those bearing the Chnoubis, they were worn to promote good di-
gestion.'
The same type of bird is found on the Alexandrian coins issued by
Antoninus Pius in the second and sixth years of his reign. 6 Within
the circumscription on the reverse of these coins there is a bird with
the same perfectly straight stilt-legs and the same nimbus with seven
rays around its head. This bird has always been unhesitatingly called
a phoenix, but its appearance agrees so strongly with that of the
birds on the gems just mentioned and on the Saqqara garment that
it could equally well be called a benu. One cannot avoid coming to
the conclusion that in early Roman Egypt the two birds were iden-
tified and for this reason were given the same appearance. This is
confirmed by the fact that on the coins of Antoninus Pius the phoe-
nix bears-albeit in a highly stylized rendition-the two backward-
projecting feathers adorning the head of the benu on the ancient
Egyptian representations. An indication of this head ornamentation
is also clearly visible on a gem now kept in Athens, on which a
phoenix striding to the right is shown, the head surrounded, as on
the coins of Antoninus Pius, by a seven-rayed nimbus. 8 The adop-
tion of a similar iconography for the benu and the phoenix must have
been arived at easily, because from the time of Hecataeus-Herodotus
a relationship had been drawn between the phoenix and the Egyp-
tian Heliopolis, where the benu was worshipped.
This analysis brings us back to the question of where and when
1 See pI. XI, 2.

B See pI. XI, I, 4; cf. Bonner, Amulets, 60.
8 Bonner, Amulets, 270, ad no. 103.
, See the discussion of these amulets in Bonner, Amulets, 60-62.
6 See pI. VI, 8, 9.
• See pI. IX, 3. The phoenix in the Orpheus mosaic at Piazza Armerina
also has a long feather projecting from the back of its head; see pI. XIX.
It is possible that here too the influence of the iconography of the benu still
had its effect.
the nimbus and rays were first assigned tb the phoenix. It is clear
that in Egypt many ancient Egyptian sun animals were represented
with these attributes from the first century A.D( onward, and the
Saqqara garment shows that this was also the case for the benu. The
benu was identified with the Classical phoenix, whereupon it lost
the elements of its old Egyptian iconography in which it had the ap-
pearance of a heron. It therefore seems highly likely that it was in
Egypt, around the first century, that the phoenix was first shown
with a rayed nimbus. The oldest example of this that can be dated
with certainty is the phoenix on the coins of Hadrian issued in A.D.
II8, but it is possible that the Saqqara garment and some of the
amulets are older. Hadrian spent the first year of his rule in the East,
mainly in Syria. In II8 he returned to Rome to celebrate the con-
secration of his predecessor Trajan with great pomp. The coins
struck on the occasion of these events give the first indications of
Hadrian's interest in coinage; they show new types and legends. 1
The use of the phoenix on some of these coins as a symbol of conse-
cration is an entirely new phenomenon and one which, furthermore,
did not occur again in this form in later Roman coinage: it took the
place usually reserved for the eagle. 2 It is quite possible that during
his stay in the East, Hadrian became acquainted with the phoenix
as a symbol that he found to be highly suitable for these coins. We
recall in this connection the phoenix mosaic at Edessa, from which
it can be inferred that a century later in Syria the bird could play a
role in a non-Christian milieu as a symbol of life after death. 3 And
it has already been said that a number of amulets bearing the Egyp-
tian benu-phoenix originated in Syria.
In this connection we must draw attention to a group of Egyptian
coins from the second century of this era on which the phoenix is
shown on the obverse in a way agreeing closely with that on one of
1 See RIC, I1, 319-320. G. Camozzi, La Consecratio di Traiano. in RIN,

14, 1901, 12-13. thinks that the coins with the phoenix were minted before
the official consecration ceremony. in A.D. 117.
a On the eagle on consecration coins: G. Camozzi. La Consecratio nelle
monete da Cesare ad Adriano, in RIN, 14, 1901, 42-44; on the peacock. ibid.
45; on the phoenix ibid., 51-53. The phoenix on these coins is "un tipo asso-
lutamente nuovo nella monetazione romana".
8 See pI. XIII.
Hadrian's coins of A.D. !IB.l In this case the phoenix has no aureole
but the characteristic feathers of the benu are visible at the back of
the head, as on the Alexandrian coins of Antoninus Pius. The type
of bird is not the same on all these coins. Under or in front of its
feet there is a twig. On the reverse side the Apis bull is shown with
the solar disk between its horns. Above the bull's back are the char-
acters LB, used to indicate that the coins had been struck in the se-
cond year of an emperor. s This could equally well be the second year
of Hadrian (A.D. !IB) or of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 13B/139). Both
emperors issued coins bearing a phoenix in their second year and
there are arguments in support of both possibilities, but a decision
is difficult to reach on the basis of the available evidence. 3
These oldest known representations of the phoenix show one
particular detail requiring further discussion: the bird's head almost
always carries an aureole with seven rays. Although it is evident that
this number was not considered imperative,4 it is encountered far
into Christian times, lastly in the apse of St. Cecilia in Rome dating
from the pontificate of Pascal I (BI7-B24}.6 But in this final instance
the representation is entirely traditional, since the mosaic is an
imitation of the much better known example in the apse of the
1 See pI. VI, 5-7.
2 Cf. R. Stuart Poole. Catalogue of the coins of Alexandria and the Nomes,
London, 1892. xi. The symbol L for h'o~ frequently occurs in Greek papyri
too. cf. L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken. Grundzuge und Chrestomathie der Papyrus-
kunde. I. I. Leipzig-Berlin. 1912. XLV ("aus dem Demotischen").
8 R. Stuart Poole, Catalogue. 337. gives the following description: "Phoenix
(Numidian Crane). crested. I.: in front olive-branch". G. Dattari. Appunti di
numismatica alessandrina. in RIN. 13. 1900. 381-382, assigned the coins on
dubious grounds to Caligula (A.D. 37/38). Adopted with a certain amount of
hesitation by G. Macdonald. Catalogue of Greek coins in the Hunterian
Collection. Ill. Glasgow, 1905. 406. no. 28 (descr. "Bird with long legs and
neck. standing I .• with closed wings") and J. Vogt. Die alexandrinischen
Munzen. Stuttgart. 1924. I, 22 and 11. 4 (taken as Ibis). The two feathers
projecting backward make it virtually certain, however. that this is a
phoenix. It seems most probable that the coins were struck under Hadrian
at the same time as his Roman coins carrying the phoenix. which may also
be indicated by the branch in front of the bird. One is then led to wonder
at the absence of the rayed nimbus. since it occurs on the coins and gems of
the second century and on the Saqqara garment. This may mean that after
all the coin was minted under an earlier emperor.
, Cj. e.g. pI. VI. 2; X. I; XI. 5; XII; XVII. 2.
6 See pI. XXX. 2.
church of SS. Cosma e Damiano, made under Felix IV (526-530).1

That the use of seven rays in later times was not purely a matter of
chance or an uncomprehended stereotype is made clearly evident
by the phoenix in the apsidal mosaic in the hall of the Great Hunt-
ing Scene in Piazza Armerina. Because he lacked sufficient space
above the bird's head, the artist curved one of the rays even though
the symmetry of the aureole was disturbed as a result. With this
solution there are four rays on the anterior part of the head, and
these have a different shape than the three at the rear.2
The phoenix owes these seven rays to its relationship with the sun.
On the Egyptian amulets from the Roman period, Harpocrates,
Helios, the sun god with the lion's head, as well as the lion linked to
the sun, and Chnoubis, were also preferentially shown with seven
rays.3 An excellent example of the sun god with a nimbus and seven
rays is provided by the Helios of the Casa di Apolline in Pompei. 4
On the Mithras monuments, too, Sol was often shown with this
number of rays.6 The same holds for the sepulchral monuments. On
a fragment of a Roman sarcophagus the moon brings the soul of the
deceased, represented as a winged child, to the sun, whose head
bears seven rays.8 The deceased is also shown with a seven-rayed
crown as an indication of the elevation of his soul to the world of the
1 See pI. XXIX, 2. It is furthermore probable that this mosaic too is based
on an older example; cf. G. J. Hoogewerff, Il mosaico absidale di San Giovanni
in Laterano ed aitri mosaici romani, in Rendiconti della Pontilicia Accademia
Romana di Archeologia, 27, 1952-54, 297-326.
I See pI. XVIII. The phoenix in the Orpheus mosaic has six rays, see pI.
XIX.
8 Harpocrates: Bonner, Amulets, pI. X, no. 210 (descr. p. 288), pI. XIII,
no. 265 (descr. p. 297); Helios: Bonner, pI. XI, nrs. 223 and 226 (descr.
p. 290-291), pI. XXI, no. 391 (descr. 320); in pI. XI, nrs. 227 and 228 Helios
has six rays; for the Chnoubis: Bonner, pI. IV, nrs. 83, 85, 86, 89, 92 (descr.
p. 267-268), pI. V, no. 96 (descr. p. 268); cl. no. 84: four rays, nrs. 81 and
87: six rays, no. 88: nine rays; nrs. 90, 91, 95: twelve rays.
, Good illustration in D. Levi, Aion, in Hesperia, 13, 1944, 303, fig. 21.
On the Saqqara garment too, the solar disk surrounding Harpocrates has
seven rays; see pI. II.
I See Cumont, Textes et monuments, I, 123, especially n. 6.
• Cumont, Symbolisme luneraire, 245, pI. XXII bis, I; idem, Lux perpetua,
I8x; also Nilsson, Gesch. der gr. Rei., II, 475, pI. 5, I.
stars and in particular to the sun. l In a more spiritualized form these

themes acquired great importance in the "Chaldean" theology of
Julian the Apostate, Proclus, and others: the sun god draws the
souls upward and in this function he is called "the one adorned with
seven rays". 2 The number seven had been sacred from ancient times,
so that the seven rays must have had a religious meaning. Here they
could be a reference to the perfection of the life after death awaiting
pure souls in the sphere of the planets and of the sun. It is in the
context of such conceptions that an interpretation could have been
given to the seven rays of the phoenix, a bird which could be a
symbol of life after death.
With respect to the colour of the nimbus of the phoenix, the liter-
ature contains only a single indication given by Achilles Tatius, at
least if he indeed had a nimbus in mind: 3 according to him, the
aureole around the bird's head is dark blue, like roses. By blue roses
the Alexandrian Achilles Tatius must have meant the Egyptian
blue lotus or sea-rose (Nymphaea caerulea).4 He could have derived
1 Cumont, Symbolisme funbaire, 243-244, pI. XXI; idem, Lux perpetua,
181-182 and Nilsson, Gesch. del' gr. Rei., II, 475, pI. 4, 3.
a For this, see W. Theiler, Die chaldiiischen Orakel und die Hymnen des
Synesios, (Schriften der Konigsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, Geisteswissen-
schaftliche Klasse, 18, I) Halle, 1942, 35; H. Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles and
theurgy, (PubI. de l'inst. Fran~. d'arch. orientale. Recherches d'arch., de
philoI. et d'histoire, XIII), Cairo, 1956, 199, n. 97; O. Perler, Die Mosaiken
del' Juliergruft im Vatikan, (Freiburger Universitatsreden, N.F. no. 16),
Fribourg, 1953, 4,5 and n. 141 on p. 68-69; also Cumont, Textes et monuments,
1,123 and idem, Etudes syriennes, 106-107;]. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les mages
hellenises, II, Paris, 1938, 284-285, and Deresurrectione (Epistula ad Rhegi-
num), (ed. Malinine, Puech, Quispel, Till, Zurich, 1963), XVI. The morning
and evening star Venus was also shown with seven rays, as indicated e.g.
by the stele of Albano, cf. Cumont, Lux perpetua, 184,297, pI. II; the editors
of the Epistula ad Rheginum were mistaken in interpreting the seven rays
on the star shown above a two years old child on this stele as: "les sept
rayons de la couronne Mliaque"; see also p. 271 here.
8 See p. 235.
, On the blue lotus: F. Woenig, Die Pllanzen im alten }lgypten, Leipzig,
1886, 30-34, figs. 5-11; V. Loret, La flore pharaonique d'apres les documents
hieroglyphiques, Paris, 1887,55-56; Steier, Lotos, in RE, 13, 1927, 1521-1522.
Callixenus in Athenaeus, XV, 6nd, distinguishes between two kinds of lotus
flowers used for making wreaths: the lotus occurs in two colours (Ked denv
CXUTOU XPoLcx18uo), one resembling that of the rose (~ (Ltv Tij) p68Cj> ~OLKUrCX), this
one serving for the so-called CJTCCPCXVO'; •AVTLV6e:LOI;; the other lotus was used
for the so-called aTccpcxvo,; /..cIlTLVOI; which is dark blue (KUCXVCCXV IX(o)v Tijv XpOLcXV).
this detail from a picture of the phoenix. Kriicke's research has

shown that initially the Christians followed the Classical model for
the colour of a nimbus. In profane Classical art the nimbus was
usually given a greyish-blue or greenish-blue colour, and in the
Christian frescos and mosaics of the third and fourth centuries
tones of blue predominate. It was not until the fifth century that
blue was replaced by gold. l For the first four centuries no example
of a phoenix with a blue nimbus is known, 2 but there are later
monuments showing that it had not completely disappeared even
though gold and related colours occur for the phoenix too. 3 The
beautiful phoenix from Antioch, now in the Louvre, has a purplish-
grey nimbus with five pink rays.' On the already-mentioned mosaic
of SS. Cosma e Damiano, the phoenix bears on its head a greyish-
blue aureole from which project seven similarly coloured rays mak-
ing a gradual transition to the sky-blue of the background. The
ninth-century mosaic in the apse of St. Prassede also shows de-
pendence in this respect: the phoenix has a blue nimbus, here carry-
ing a white border from which nine rays project. 6
Thus, even the oldest known representations of the phoenix show
the nimbus and rays. They form such a fixed element in the icono-
Achilles Tatius' text makes it likely that both the red and the blue lotus
were called "rose".
1 Cl. A. Kriicke, Det' Nimbus unll vet'wante Attribute in det'/t'uhcht'istlichen
Kunst, (Zur Kunstgeschichte des Auslandes, XXXV), Strassburg, 1905, II9-
122.
I All the motifs on the Saqqara garment are done in a reddish-brown, so
it gives no indication of what the colour of the phoenix's nimbus was thought
to be in Roman Egypt (communication of Dr. Meinardus, see p. 238, n. 2).
In the catacomb of Priscilla the nimbus of the phoenix is not coloured; the
nimbus of the burning phoenix in the Piazza Armerina mosaics is red; see
e.g. G. V. Gentili, Die Villa Et'culia in Piazza At'met'ina, Stuttgart, s.a.,
pI. XXXVI. The phoenix from Old St. Peter's, however, is encircled by a
blue nimbus; see Frontispiece.
a One of the first examples is the yellowish-gold, peripherally reddish
nimbus of the phoenix in S. Giovanni in fonte at Napels: see also Kriicke,
30, no. 157. Wilpert, MM, I, 103-104, neglects in his discussion of the rayed
nimbus of the phoenix the fact that in this respect the Christians were
entirely dependent on the Classical iconography of the bird.
, Lassus, La mosaique, 100, 102; D. Levi, Antioch mosaic pavements, I,
Princeton-London-The Hague, 1947, 353, refers to the KUOtV£Oc,; of Achilles
Tatius, "similat'to the colout' in out' mosaic".
6 See also Kriicke, 72 and 27, no. 122, and 28, no. 136.
graphy of the phoenix that the bird can almost always be recognized
by their presence. 1 Only in a few cases do these attributes occur sep-
arately.2 On the sarcophagi these traditional head ornaments are
entirely absent, due to the material and to the fact that in this case
the bird forms only a small detail of a larger composition. 3 In a few
other representations of the phoenix, some of them rather primitive
in execution, the nimbus and rays are also missing. 4 In several of
the cases in which these attributes occur there is also an indication
of a crest but without any suggestion of an influence of the two
feathers at the back of the head shown by the Roman-Egyptian
1 The only other distinct characteristic is the flames in which the phoenix
is sometimes shown. In that case the phoenix usually has a rayed nimbus
too (e.g. Catacomb of Priscilla, pI. XII, and Piazza Armerina, pI. XVIII). In a
few cases the name phoenix was added to indicate which bird was the subject,
as in the phoenix mosaic of Edessa and the Christ-phoenix in the tomb of
the Valerii under the Vatican, see pI. XIII and XV. Above the entrance to
S. Paolo fuori le Mura at Rome there was-now lost by fire-unmistakeably
a dove with a twig in its beak but carved above it the word FENIX (see
pI. XXXVI, 3). In alllikelyhood a dove was originally represented and later
on an attempt was made to transform it by the inscription. Several other birds
were also shown with a nimbus (but without rays): the eagle as symbol of
John the Evangelist has only the nimbus, see Kriicke, 89-91, like the eagle
on many floor mosaics in Greek churches, see Keyszner, (p. 237, n. 4), 623-
624. In the tesoyo of the Sancta Sanctorum of the Lateran there is a silk
cloth showing cocks with a nimbus, cf. Ph. Lauer, Le Usor du Sancta Sanc-
.torum, MMAI, 15, 1906, 111-113, pI. XVII (middle of the ninth century,
influence of Coptic textiles). A similar bird with a nimbus but with the crest
of a peacock is seen in a Merovingian mosaic at Thiers, ct. L. Br~hier, Les
mosaiques merovingiennes de Thiers, in Melanges litUraires publUs par la
Faculte des Lettres de Clermont-Ferrand a l'occasion du Centenaire de sa crea-
tion (I8IO-I9IO), Clermont-Ferrand, 1910,69-85, pI. 11; the bird reminded
Br~hier of the peacock, but on the basis of the nimbus he assumed that the
phoenix was meant; although the mosaic is damaged, one has the impression
that the peacock was shown with spread wings and tail, the eyes of the tail
being rendered like flowers on stems (a good illustration is found also in
O. M. Dalton, Byzantine art and archaeology, Oxford, 1911, 692, fig. 440).
I Only rays: pI. XI, I; XI, 7; XXXVI, I, 5. Also the phoenix in S. Sil-
vestro at Tivoli (cf. p. 251, n. 2, and p. 451). Only nimbus: pI. XXIII;
XXIX, I.
a See also Kriicke, 72; this might also explain why the birds on the urn
of Marcius Hermas, at least if these are phoenixes (see p. 230), show no
nimbus or rays.
, See pI. V; IX, 2; XI, 6, 8; XXXIV, I; XXXVI, 3, 4; For some of these
the phoenix might be doubted, but see remarks and references in the docu-
mentation to the plates. For other dubious phoenixes, see below, p. 458.
EXTERNAL APPEARANCE
benu-phoenix. 1 The rayed nimbus occurs in three variations on the

monuments more or less concurrently, making it impossible to
distinguish a developmental line in the iconography of the phoenix
with respect to this point. These three variants are: a) a nimbus
containing the rays; b) a nimbus with rays arising from the periph-
ery; and c) a nimbus pierced by rays arising from the bird's head. 2
The descriptions of the other physical features of the phoenix also
clearly show the extent to which it was considered to be the bird
of the sun in Classical times. The agreement between its exotic ap-
pearance and aspects of other sun birds is most striking. This holds
especially for the detailed descriptions given by Ezekiel the Drama-
tist, Lactantius, and Claudian, but also for those in Pliny and the
Byzantine Physiologus. In addition to explicit references to the eagle
and the peacock, there are also unmistakable points of agreement
with the descriptions of the Indian birds orion and catreus, the
oriental cosmic cock, and the closely related Arabian (an~a). It
seems certain that in the descriptions of all these sun birds the orien-
tal tradition of the immense cosmic bird had an extremely strong
influence. We shall see in the next section that another important
element of this tradition was also borrowed for the phoenix.
Herodotus, who admitted that he had only seen a picture of the
phoenix, says that in appearance and size this bird shows the most
resemblance to the eagle. 3 The same comparison is to be found in
Pliny, Solinus, and Philostratus.' If Herodotus, or rather his source
1 See Frontispiece (cf. p. 425); pt XVII, I; XXIII; XXXV; XXXVI, 2.

B In the Middle Ages the phoenix was usually shown without nimbus or
rays, because it was then no longer taken as symbol of the sun. When these
attributes were given it, there was always a direct Early Christian influence
involved, e.g. in the traditio legis in S. Silvestro at Tivoli. In the Abbey of
Farfa the phoenix is shown standing on the Paradise mountain where the
Lamb of Christ usually stands, cf. 1. Schuster, Reliquie d'arte nella badia di
Far/a, in Archivio della R. Societa Romana di Storia Patria, 34, 1911, 328-331.
This bird carries a cruciform nimbus usually reserved for Christ. Here, there-
fore, the nimbus is determined not by the sun symbolism but by the Christ
symbolism.
3 Herodotus, II 73: !YC» ILtv ILLV OUK e:!Bov Et ILl) lIaov ypot<p1j •.. !a't"L Be, e:t 't"1j
ypot<p1j 7totp6ILOLOt;, 't"oa6aBe: Kotl 't"oL6aBe:· 't"eX; ILEV otu't"ou xpua6KoILot 't"wv 7t't"EPWV, 't"eX;
BE epu&pcX, et; 't"eX; ILcXALa't"ot otte:'t"ij> 7te:pL~Y7JaLV OILoL6't"ot't"Ot; Kotl 't"0 ILeyot&Ot;.
, Pliny, X, 3: Aquilae narratur magnitudine; Solinus 33 11: aquilae mag-
nitudine; Philostratus, Vita Apoll., Ill, 49: xpuaij> AcXIL7tOV't"ot, ILeye:&Ot; cU't"ou
Hecataeus, actually saw a picture of the Egyptian benu, this re-

presentation must have deviated widely from the current type, since
the benu was usually rendered as a heron. 1 But it would hardly
be wise to take Herodotus' report seriously, because the preceding
description of the hippopotamus is also far from accurate. 2 The
Alexandrian Jew Ezekiel the Dramatist, who gives the oldest survi-
ving detailed description of the phoenix, says that it is almost twice
as large as the eagle. 3 It is not hard to understand why comparison
with the eagle was made in describing the phoenix: both were sun
birds, both were seen as king of the birds, and the traditions of
both tended to cross and recross. 4
Lactantius compares the phoenix with the largest bird known to
the Classical world; he says that even the ostrich can barely equal
the phoenix in size. 6 He thus shares Ezekiel's conviction that the
phoenix is larger than the eagle, but is alone in drawing the com-
parison with the ostrich. Still greater dimensions are attributed to
the phoenix only in the texts in which it is identified with the orien-
tal cosmic sun bird. 6 Both Ezekiel and Lactantius reveal clear traces
of this oriental tradition, and it is perhaps this tradition which led
them to believe that the phoenix was the largest of all birds.
AchillesTatius andPseudo-Eustathius, who was dependent on him,
say that the phoenix is as large as the peacock. The former then
says immediately that the phoenix far surpasses the peacock in
beauty; the latter says only that there are differences on this point.?
KOtl £t3o.;. So also Corpus Gloss. Lat., V, 381, 4: Fenix genus aquile, and
Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII, 110 (42): est autem, ut dicunt,
aquilinae magnitudinis.
1 See pI. I, and p. 15.
t Herodotus, 11 71; see also p. 401-402.
a Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 256: 3L7t"AOUV yc!cp ~V TO ILijKO'; «£TOU Gx£36v.
, For the mixing of the traditions of the phoenix and eagle, see p. 161, n. 4.
6 Lactantius, 145-146: magnitiem terris Arabum quae gignitur ales I vix
aequare potest seu lera seu sit avis.
• Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch, 6: 00'; I5p7J EWeOt; Disputatio panagiotae cum
Azymita: 00'; «7t"O 7t"7jX(;)v EWeOt; Slavonic Henoch, 6 (ed. Vaillant = 12 Char-
les): "neulcents mesures" .. Physiologus 01 Vienna, 3: 00'; ivo.; V7jGtou TO ILeY£&Ot;;,
TOU AeyoIL£vou cpOLVLK(;)VOt;;.
7 Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, I: !L£y£&ot;; KOtTIX TOtOOV· Tij Xp6" Tcxwt;; EV KcXAA£L
3£UTEP0';; Pseudo-Eustathius, Comm. in Hexaem., (PG 18, 729C): 6 3~ IPOLVL;
,"yE&o.; ILiv £!X£L TCX(;)VO';, 3LCXIP£P£L 3~ Tiji KcXAA£L TOU TCX(;)VOt;; Tij XPOLij.
Strabo and Aelian report, on the authority of Clitarchus, that the

catreus too resembles the peacock in size. l The comparison of the
beauty of the phoenix with that of the peacock, to the latter's disad-
vantage, is also found in in the Byzantine Physiologus and Tzetzes. 2
The appearance of the phoenix made Lactantius think of a mixture
of peacock and pheasant.3 Only in Ausonius does the comparison fail
to favour the phoenix: in a letter to Paulinus of Nola he argues that
even though he is older than Paulinus he is surpassed in talent by
the younger man-the bird of the Ganges (i.e. the phoenix) does
not surpass the hundred eyes of the peacock's tail just because it
lives a thousand years!4 In considering the comparison of the size
and beauty of the phoenix with those of the peacock one must not
loose sight of the fact that in the Middle and Far East the peacock
had from ancient times been a sun bird. 6
The exquisite blazing colours of the phoenix are celebrated by all
the authors who describe it. On this point it differs from all other
birds, says Tacitus. 6 Herodotus knew that it had gold and red
feathers, and these colours recur in all the later descriptions. 7 They
1 Strabo, XV, 1 69: -rljv yap l3EIXV "t"1Xii> ILcXALO'' t"1X £yyt~e:LV; Aelian XVII,
23: "t"o ILEye:.&o; yap e:(71 civ KIX"t"a "t"ov "t"IXOOV. The agreement between the phoenix,
the catreus and the orion was first pointed out by Hubaux and Leroy, 30-37;
appearance: p. 36-37.
2 Byzantine Physiologus, 10: nj; "t"IXOOVO; wpIXL6"t"e:pov U7tcXPXe:L see also p. 256,
n. 5); Tzetzes, V, 388: TlXoovot; wpIXL6"t"e:po; KIXL ILd~wv ciO'uYKphw;. Hubaux
and Leroy, 36, are of the opinion that here Tzetzes reflects Chaeremon (first
century A.D.), but the latter is first mentioned in vs. 395, after Philostratus
(vs. 394); it seems more likely that Tzetzes was dependent for this on the
Physiologus. Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De prop. rerum, XII, 14, says of the
phoenix: pavonis in plumis similima, but cl. p. 234.
8 Lactantius, 143-144: EI/igies inter pavonis mixta figuram / cernitur et
pietam Phasidis inter avem.
, Ausonius, Epist., XX, 9-12: Nee quia mille annos vivit Gangetieus ales, /
vineit eentum oeulos, regie pavo, tuos. / Cedimus ingenio, quantum praeeedimus
aevo: / adsurgit musae nostra eamena tuae I How easily the phoenix and the
peacock are mentioned in the same breath is evident in Martialis, V, 37,
13-14, where praise is sung for a small slave, who died at the age of six: Cui
eonparatus indeeens erat pavo, / inamabilis seiurus et frequens phoenix I
Ii See e.g. Forstner, Welt der Symbole, 331 and Wensinck, Tree and bird, 38.
8 Tacitus, Annales, VI, 28: et ore ae distinetu pennarum a eeteris avibus
diversum eonsentiunt qui formam eius el/in (x) ere. The word ore probably
refers to the song of the phoenix, see p. 200-202, 282-284.
7 Herodotus, 11, 73; see p. 251, n. 3; also Philostratus, Vita Apoll., Ill,
are the colours of the sunrise, and this raises again the question of
what connection there is between the often mentioned purple-red
colour of the bird and its name. l Ezekiel the Dramatist reports that
the phoenix has long saffron-coloured "locks" along its throat. 2 The
same is found in Pliny and Solinus: it has a golden shimmer around
its neck and a tuft on its throat. 3 These details may be the result of
the influence of a traditional aspect of the ancient Egyptian benu,
which was usually shown with such a tuft. 4 But a somewhat similar
statement was also made about the Arabian (an~a>: this bird was
supposed to owe its name to a white collar around its neck. 5
According to Pliny and Solinus, the rest of the body was purple
and the tail bluish with rosy quill-feathers. 6 Ezekiel the Dramatist
says that the breast is purple and the wings multicoloured; he makes
no mention of the tail.7 Lactantius too says that the wings were of
many colours: Iris, goddess of the rainbow, colours the wings of the
phoenix as she does a cloud. 8 This comparison with the rainbow
recurs only in the Slavonic Enoch, which also mentions purple, and
in the description of the Persian simurgh-(an~a>.9 With respect to
the dominant colour on the body, the various manuscripts of De ave
phoenice give mutually divergent readings, which has led those who
have published editions of this poem to many different emendations,
49; see p. 251, n. 4; Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, I: KEdpIXO""rIXL (.L£V "rde X"rEpde XpuO"<I>
KlXt xopcpuplJ.; Tzetzes, V, 389: KlXt XpuO"oxpEx6l8eO"npo~.
1 See p. 61-62 and p. 402.
2 Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 259-260: KlXt KIX"r' lXuxevlX / KpOK6l"rEvOL~
(.LIXAAOiO"LV EU"rPEXE~E"rO.
3 Pliny, X, 3: auri tulgore circa colla, cetero purpureus, caeruleam roseis
caudam pennis distinguentibus, cristis tauces. Solinus, 33, 11: cristatis taucibus,
circa colla tulgore aureo, postera parte purpureus absque cauda, in qua roseis
pennis caeruleus interscribitur nitor.
, See pI. I.
6 See The Encyclopaedia ot Islam, I, Leiden-London, 1913, 356.
e See n. 3.
7 Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 257-258: x"rEpoim XOLKE).OLO"L lj8/: Xpw-
(.LIXO"L· / O"TI).&o~ (.L£V IXU"rOU xopcpupouv ecpIXEvE"rO.
8 Lactantius, 133-134: Alarum pennas insignit desuper Iris / pingere ceu
nubem desuper aura solet.
I Slavonic Henoch, 6, (ed. Vaillant, 91): "leur aspect pourpre comme l'arc-
en-ciel des nuages". For the simurgh-canlJa' see Henrichsen, De phoenicis
tabula, 11, 29: "Quod ad tormam ... attinet, immensa describitur et miraculosa
tigura, eiusque pennae coeli sole occidente rubentis iridis colores reterre dicun-
tur".
some of which lie very far apart. 1 Lactantius compared the colour
of the phoenix with the colour of ripe pomegranates and the petals
of the wild poppy, which gives the impression that he meant red.
But the difficulty is that the manuscripts speak of the saffron-
coloured skin of the pomegranate, 2 although this is mainly red.
Nevertheless, emendation is not required here, because the red
colour of the pomegranate takes life on a background of yellow and
white. S Lactantius must have had saffron yellow and red in mind:
it is with these colours mixed together that the bird's shoulders,
breast, head, neck, and back are covered.' This is confirmed by his
remark that as far as its external appearance is concerned the
phoenix resembles not only the peacock but also the pheasant. 6 On
the tail of the phoenix, according to Lactantius, there are yellowish-
gold spots in which the purple shines red. s Claudian gives the wings
a blue colour with gold spots.? These last two descriptions are
strongly reminiscent of the catreus, which according to Aelian had
bluish-green feathers on its head and scattered saffron spots, the
tips of its feathers being emerald green. s Strabo says it is generally
1 Except for a few insignificant differences, the two most important
manuscripts (Veronensis 163 and Leidensis Vossianus Q. 33, ninth and tenth
century, respectively) offer the following reading: Principio color qualis sub
sidere caeli / mitia quae croceo punica grana legunt, / qualis inest loliis quae
lert agreste papaver, / cum pandit vestes llore rubente caelo (polo). For a
discussion of the conjectures on this point, see Fitzpatrick, 52, and Walla,
172-175, as well as the editions of Riese, Baehrens and Brandt. In vs. 125-
126, Fitzpatrick reads: primo qui calor est malis sub sidere Cancri, / cortice
quae croceo Punica grana tegunt; Hubaux and Leroy who also offer their own
version (p. XIV), albeit highly dependent of Brandt, give here: Puniceo colore
est quali sub sidere Cancri J mitia quod corium punica grana tegit.
B See n. I; "croceo" omitted by e.g. Brandt, and Hubaux and Leroy.
8 See 1. Benzinger, Fruchtbiiume in Paliistina, in Realenc. f. prot. Theol.
und Kirche, 6, 3rd ed. Leipzig, 1899, 305: "von lieblich roter Farbe, die aus
Gelb und Weisz hervorspielt" " otherwise in Fitzpatrick, 84 (ad vs. 126) and 85
(ad vs. 129).
, Lactantius, 129-130: Hoc humeri pectusque decens velamine lulget, / hoc
caput, hoc cervix summaque terga nitent.
6 See p. 253, n. 3.
• Lactantius, 131-132: caudaque porrigitur lulvo distincta metallo, J in
cuius maculis purpura mixta rubet.
7 Claudian, Phoenix, 21-22: Antevolant Zephyros pennae, quas caerulus
ambit / flore color sparsoque super ditescit in auro.
8 Aelian, XVII, 23: TIX 3E ilKpa: T61V 7tTE:POOV ~oLKe afLa:piXy3Cjl ...• TIX T'ijc; KecpO(/..'tjc;
7tTt>'a: YAa:UKCil7trX, Ka:l ~xeL ~a:vt3a:C; olovel Kp6KCjl 7ta:peLKa:afLtva:c;, e!'t'a: ilAA'IlV ilAA n
3Lea7ta:PfLtva:C;.
variegated, and Nonnus gives it yellow feathers and purple wings. l

Toward the end of his poem Claudian again summons up a picture
of the beauty of the phoenix when he compares the royal bird, follow-
ed by all the other birds, with a Parthian general leading his bar-
barous horsemen, exotically attired with precious stones, costly trap-
pings, and his head wreathed with a royal garland, his steed bridled
with gold, and his purple-dyed robe embroidered with Assyrian
motifs.2 This comparison brings out the most striking aspects of the
exotic appearance of the phoenix: the precious stones, the wreath,
the gold, and the purple. The precious stones are mentioned by
Lactantius in his description of the bird's beak, which has a whitish
colour mixed with the green of emeralds, being composed of pure
ivory and set with precious stones. 3 Furthermore, the eyes remind
Lactantius of blue hyacinth stones (Le. sapphires).4 These same
stones are mentioned in the description of the wings of the phoenix
in the Byzantine Physiologus: the peacock has wings covered with
gold and silver, those of the phoenix are covered with hyacinths and
emeralds and other precious stones.o Here again the resemblance to
Aelian's description of the catreus is unmistakable: this bird too
resembles the peacock, and the tips of its feathers are emerald
green. 6 The relationship of all this to oriental conceptions is clearly
shown by the fact that the description in the Arabic literature of the
immense cosmic cock also mentions gold and silver, hyacinth and
emerald.?
1 Strabo, XV, I, 69: AOt(.L7tp6't'0t't'ov 3£ KOt't'iX Tljv ()1jJ~v KOtL 7tAdaT'llv l)(ov't'Ot
Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XXVI, 209: 'PO~V~KtOt~C;
7tO~K~A(OtV 't'bv KOtAOU(.LEVOV KOt't'ptOt;
7t't'EpuYEaa~ KEKOta(.Ltvoc;.
I Claudian, Phoenix, 83-88: Talis Barbaricas flavo de Tigride turmas /
ductor Parthus agit: gemmis et divite cultu / luxurians sertis apicem regalibus
ornat. / Auro frenat equum, perfusam murice vestem / Assyria signatur acu
tumidusque regendo / celsa per famulas acies dicione superbit.
8 Lactantius, 135-136: Albicat insignis mixto viridante zmaragdo / et puro
cornu gemmea cuspis hiat. The remarks on the beak of the phoenix in the
Physiologus of Vienna, originally pertained to the crocodile, see below, p. 296.
, Lactantius, 137-138: Ingentes oculi, credas geminos hyacinthos, / quorum
de media lucida flamma micat.
5 Byzantine Physiologus, 10 (continuation of citation on p. 253, in n. 2):
7J yiXp 't'OtWV 3~iX 7tpOta(vou KOtL )(pua(ou (or: )(pua(ou KOtL a.pyup(ou) Tljv )(p(j>OtV 't'wv
7t't'EPUYWV OtuT"ijc; ~)(E~, 6 3£ 'POLV~~ 3La uOtK~V&(vwv KOtL a(.LOtpliy3wv KOtL At&WV 7tOAU-
't'EAWV. • See p. 255, n. 8.
7 See Wensinck, Tree and bird, 36: "his breast is from yellow gold, his belly
The eyes of the phoenix are described more than once as very
striking. Ezekiel the Dramatist says that they are yellow and that
the pupils shine like the red "berry" of the kermes oak; he also re-
marks that the head as a whole looks something like that of the
cock, which is again reminiscent of the oriental cosmic cock. l The
colours red and yellow are also found in the more detailed descrip-
tion of the eyes of the catreus given by Aelian after Clitarchus: the
iris is vermilion, the pupil yellow, and even the white is yellowish;
the bird has a sharp gaze. 2 Nonnus says of the catreus that its eyes
shine as the rays of the rising sun. 3 The strange shining of the eyes
is also mentioned by Lactantius, who says that the eyes are very
large and remind one of a pair of blue hyacinth stones (i.e. sapphires)
from which a lucent flame flashes.' According to Aelian, the arian,
which with the catreus forms an inseparable pair, also has blue eyes. 6
Claudian speaks of the mysterious glow shining out of the eyes. 8 On
the Antioch mosaic the phoenix also has a black-bordered, brilliant-
ly shining eye which immediately attracts attention. 7 The clear,
radiant eyes of the phoenix emphasize its great beauty but are also
an indication of its supernatural character and refer to the all-seeing
god of the sun whose servant and symbol it is. 8
The legs of the phoenix are red according to Ezekiel the Dramatist,
purple according to Claudian. 9 Lactantius says that they are scaly
is trom white silver; his teet are ot red hyacinth, his teet (?) ot green emerald".
1 Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 261-263: KIXPCX Bt KOTTO't~ iJlJ.£POLI; 7tCXpEIJ.-
tpEP£~, I KcxllJ.l)Alv1l IJ.£V Tij K6p1l 7tpOa£~AE7tE I KUKACf>· K6pl) Bt K6KKOl; &1; etpcxtvETO.
I Aelian, XVII, 23: epE't~ Bt KLVVCX~IXPLV<OV> E!VCXL TO /SIJ.IJ.CX 7tA1)V T'ijlj; K6pl)l;·
EtKEtVl) Bt lJ.ilACf> T1jv xp6cxv 7tCXpetKCXaTCXL, Kcxl ~A£7tEL 6~u. T6 yE lJ.1)v TO't1; r:.7tIXVTCIlV
6tp'&CXAIJ.O't1; AEUK6v, IiUoc TO't~ TOU KCXTP£CIl~ TouBE wXp6v eaTL.
8 Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XXVI, 213-214: ~cxv.&otpuil~, ALyUtpCllVO~·Ii7tO ~AEtptipCIlV
B£ ol CXtYAl) I 7t£IJ.7tETCXL 6p.&pLv'iiaL ~OACX't~ IiVTtpp07tO~ 'Hou~.
, See 256, n. 4.
I Aelian, XVII, 22: 6tp.&cxAIJ.OUI; Bt KUCXVOUI; IXEL.
• Claudian, Phoenix, 17; Arcanum radiant oculi iubar.
7 Ct. Lassus, La mosaique, 102.
8 Ct. Deonna, Le symbolisme de l'oeil, (Trav. publ. sous les ausp. de la
Soc. suisse des sciences morales, 5), Bern, 1965, 102, 108-111, 256-258;
P. Wilpert, Auge, in RAC, I, 1950, 961-962; L. Bieler, 0EIO'E. ANHP, I,
Vienna, 1935, 54·
I Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 259: aK£Al) Bt IJ.LAT6XPCllTCX; Claudian,
Phoenix, 20: Tyrio pinguntur crura veneno.
17
and yellowish-gold, the claws of a rosy hue. l Aelian reports, from

Clitarchus, that the orion resembles the heron in size and like it has
purple legs, the claws of the catreus having the orange of sandarac. 2
These colours occur on the mosaics too: the Antioch phoenix has
long pink legs, those of the bird in the apse of SS. Cosma e Damiano
are yellowish-gold. 3
Only Ezekiel the Dramatist and Lactantius have something to
say about the gait of the phoenix. The former describes the way in
which the phoenix strides ahead of the other birds: proud as a bull,
with a rapid, light step.' This light-footedness is also found in
Lactantius: although it is about as large as the ostrich, it is not as
sluggish as other large birds whose weight makes them slow, but is
light and quick, full of royal dignity. I) When pictured the phoenix is
usually shown standing, but on the amulet published by the Count
of Caylus it indeed has the described proud light gait. 6 On this point
the agreement between the wording of Ezekiel and Lactantius is
so striking as to suggest literary dependence of the latter, but apart
from this and a few other similarities the differences in their de-
scriptions as a whole are too great for a direct connection to be likely.
This detailed survey of the literature on the colours of the phoenix
1 Lactantius, 141 -143: Crura tegunt squamae lulvo distincta metallo / ast
ungues roseo tinguit honore color. Without any reasons provided by the
manuscripts, Hubaux and Leroy changes lulvo distincta metallo in vs. 141
into Tyrio bis tincta veneno (p. XIV -XV), Baehrens gives here depicta veneno,
apparently because lulvo distincta metallo has already occurred in vs. 131;
see 255, n. 6.
I Aelian, XVII, 22: TOr~ IL~V epw3toL~ g!LOLO~ TO ILey£.&o~, £OTL 3~ KlXl TeX
OKEA7j oo~ £Ke:!VOL q>O!VL~; idem, XVII, 23 (concerning catreus): 1t63e:~ 3~ lX{mj>
olXv3cip1XKLVOL.
8 For the phoenix from Antioch, see also Lassus, La mosaique, 102.
, Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 268-269: lX\ho~ 3~ 1tp6o.&e:v, TIXUpO~ &~
YIX\lPOUILe:vO~, / ~~IXLVe: KPIXL1tVOV ~1jILIX ~IXOTcil:wv 1to36~. Hubaux and Leroy, 46,
propose that the rather unexpected TIXUpO~ be read as YIXUPO~, as a result of
which YlXupo<; 00<; YlXupouILe:vO<; would have to be interpreted as a Hebraism.
I Lactantius, 147-149: non tamen est tarda ut volucres quae corpore magno /
incessus pigros per grave pondus habent, / sed levis et velox, regali plena decore.
See also Claudian on p. 256, in n. 2.
8 See pI. X, I; this phoenix is suggestive of a cock, which is also suggested
by the light, proud gait described by Ezechiel and Lactantius; see also
Ezekiel on the head of the phoenix on p. 257, in n. I. One is led here to
wonder wether there was also an influence of the oriental tradition of the
cosmic cock.
shows that there was no clearly defined tradition on this point in the
Classical world. The gold and red mentioned by Herodotus prove to
have been generally accepted, but in all other respects none of the
authors giving detailed descriptions are in accordance with any
other writer. The same uncertainty holds for the frescoes and mo-
saics: none of the artists seems to have known what colour was to
to be given to the various parts of the bird; in any case the colours
vary from case to case. It is striking, however, to note that the pur-
plish-red mentioned so often in the literary descriptions is rarely
used in the painted and mosaic portraits. In contrast, the gold-
yellow and gold-brown tones occur frequently, not only for the bird's
breast but also for the neck and the wings folded against its body.l
Because there is no iconographic tradition in this respect, there is
little point in describing the coloured representations in detail. 2 We
have also been unable to find a single case in which an artist was
governed in his choice of colours for the phoenix by a given writer,
although parallels can be indicated for a few details. 3
We have seen that the phoenix shares many aspects of its appear-
ance with other birds of the sun. It is not only explicitly compared
with the eagle and the peacock, but it is also given many external
characteristics agreeing with or reminiscent of those of the catreus
and orion, which are considered to be Indian, the Arabian-Persian
(an~a)-simurgh, and the cosmic cock. This can only be explained by
assuming that the authors who described these birds, including the
phoenix, drew on an oriental tradition concerning "the" bird of the
sun. It seems likely that this tradition was dispersed via Alexandria.
Ezekiel the Dramatist lived and worked in Alexandria, and the
same holds for Clitarchus, who was the first to discuss the catreus
1 In SS. Cosma e Damiano the neck and wings of the phoenix are a golden
brown, in S. Prassede the bird's breast is a golden yellow.
S The degree of freedom exercised can be inferred from these three
examples: in S. Giovanni in Fonte at Napels (fifth century) the phoenix has
a white breast and is otherwise a bluish-grey with white stripes to indicate
the wings; in the Antioch mosaic it is predominantly green. the dark shadows
brown, and in the lighter parts grey, yellow, and white appear; the legs are
pink; in SS. Cosma e Damiano (sixth century) the breast is green, the neck
and wings golden brown. and the legs a golden yellow.
8 See e.g. for the Antioch mosaic. p. 257. 258.
and orion in detail. l Claudian, whose first works were written in

Greek, also came from Alexandria. 2 Concerning the remarkable ideas
on the phoenix in the Slavonic Enoch, it will be shown below that
they must have originated in Alexandria and that the Byzantine
Physiologus contains concepts that can only be explained on the
basis of an Alexandrian origin. s This cosmopolitan city was long a
centre of science and pseudo-science, and as for religion, the climate
there proved to be favourable for the development of many syncre-
tistic systems.
We have devoted considerable attention above to the role of the
Roman-Egyptian benu-phoenix in the development of the rayed
aureole, the most characteristic component of the Classical icono-
graphy of the phoenix. Unfortunately, we cannot determine what
colours were visualized for this benu-phoenix, because all the figures
on the Saqqara robe, including the bird we are interested in, were
carried out in the same shade of reddish-brown. The ancient Egyp-
tian representations of the benu seem to have contributed to the
general picture of "the" sun bird, since this bird's characteristic
tuft, on the lower part of the neck, was also given to the phoenix.
The comparison of the orion with the heron in Clitarchus-Aelian is
also perhaps a reminiscence of the benu. 4 All this leads to the con-
clusion that Lactantius, who lived for a long time in the East,6 also
made welcome use of that tradition concerning the appearance of the
sun bird in general when he came to describe the phoenix. Only in
this way, and not by the assumption of some literary dependence,
can the many parallels and related imagery we have identified in
his description be explained. We have postulated that in this tra-
dition concerning the appearance of the sun bird oriental influences
predominate, and in the following it will become clear that Lactan-
tius was quite aware of the oriental conception of a cosmic sun bird.
1 See A. Dieterich. Ezechiei Tragicus, in RE, 6, 2, 1909. 1701-1702, and

F. Jacoby, Kieitarchos, in RE, 11, 1921, especially 622-627.
2 Cl. e.g. B. Altaner and A. Stuiber, Patroiogie, 7th ed., Fribourg-Basel-
Vienna, 1966, 295-302.
3 See below p. 295-302.
4 See p. 258, n. 2.
I> See Altaner and Stuiber. Patroiogie, 185.
ESCORT OF THE SUN
2. ESCORT OF THE SUN
The foregoing has made clear how closely the Classical world
connected the phoenix with the sun. We come now to the discussion
of a number of texts in which the special character of the phoenix as
bird of the sun is expressed in an unusual way. We are concerned
here with the conception that the phoenix accompanies the sun on
its daily journey along the vault of the heavens. The texts in which
this idea is found prove to be closely related, and it will also become
evident that the phoenix was neither the only nor the first bird to
be assigned this function. The texts to be discussed, which diverge
widely from the Classical phoenix traditions, also make it possible
to explain a number of verses from Lactantius' De ave phoenice.
It will be best to start with the long phoenix passage in Chapters 6
to 8 of the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, a Jewish book dating from
the second century of our era. 1 The context of this part of the book
is so important in relation to our subject that it will be well to para-
phrase it in some detail:
6. The seer is taken to the place where the sun rises by the angel
who explains everything Baruch sees. There he beholds a four-
wheeled chariot with fire under it, and in it a man bearing a crown
of fire. Forty angels propel the chariot; and a bird as large as nine
mountains 2 goes before it. The angel explains to Baruch that this
bird is the guardian of the earth, for it flies along with the sun the
whole day long and catches the burning rays of the sun with its
wings: if it failed to do so, neither mankind nor any other living be-
1 For the dating, see the edition by lames, in TS, V, I, Cambridge, 1897,
LXXI, V. Ryssel in Kautzsch, Apokr. und Pseud., Il, 448, H. M. Hughes in
Charles, Apocr. and Pseud., Il, 530, and A.-M. Denis, Introduction aux Pseud-
epigraphes grecs d'Ancien Testament, (Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseud-
epigrapha, I), Leiden, 1970, 82. The text is cited here according to the edition
by j.-C. Picard, Apocalypsis Baruchi Graece, (Pseud. epigr. Vet. Test.
Graece, Il), Leiden, 1967. For one of the two Slavonic versions, see W. R.
Morlill, The Apocalypse of Baruch, translated from the Slavonic, (TS, V, I),
Cambridge, 1897.
2 Ch. 6, 2: ~t; I5p"Il twecr.; the Mss. have I5pe:L. For the various suggested
readings, see Hughes, p. 536, who however himself infers an indication of the
ing would remain alive. God has appointed this bird to its task. l On
its right wing appears in huge letters: "Neither earth nor heaven
bring me forth, but wings of fire bring me forth". 2 On being asked, the
angel says that this bird is called "phoenix", feeds itself with heaven-
ly manna and earthly dew, and excretes a worm that becomes cin-
namon, which is used by kings and rulers.3 Then, with a thunderous
din, the 365 gates of heaven are opened. A voice cries: "Giver of
light, give thy light to the world!'" The bird makes a sound meant,
according to the angel, to waken the cocks on earth so that they can
announce the rising of the sun by their crowing. 5
7. The phoenix raises itself slowly till its full size can be seen; the
sun follows it, accompanied by the angels who set a crown upon his
head. Baruch cannot bear the brilliance, but the more strongly the
sun begins to shine the wider the phoenix spreads its wings.
8. After they have observed the sunrise in this way, the angel
takes Baruch to the west to show him the sunset as well. The phoe-
nix is still leading the way, and the angels who accompany the sun
remove the crown from his head. The bird stands still in exhaustion
with its wings contracted. 6 The angel explains that four 7 angels will
carry the crown to heaven to refurbish it there, because it and its
rays had been defiled upon earth. When Baruch asks how this can
occur, the angel answers that it happens because of the sight of the
unlawful and unjust deeds of men; the list of these deeds forms an
impressive catalogue of sins. That the phoenix is at the end of its
strength need cause no surprise, because throughout the day it has
distance and uses the text of the Disputatio (see below, p. 274) without
qualification in emendation; we;; IX7tO 7t7l)(WV ~vveoc: "about nine cubits away".
Nevertheless, it is certainly an indication of size; see p. 252, n. 6.
1 Ch. 6, 6: IX),),a 7tpoae.. oc~ev 0 .&e:oe;; ..oiho .. 0 /lpve:ov; cf. Lactantius, vs. 33-34
on p. 281, in n. 2.
z Ch. 6, 8: oil"tE: y'ij !Le: "(K"tE:L oil..e: oupocv6e;;, IX),AIl ..(K..ouaL !Le: 7t..epuye:e;; 7tup6e;;;
here the Slavonic translation has (Morfill, 99): "Neither heaven nor earth hath
produced me, but the Son of the Father".
3 For food, worm, and cinnamon, cf. respectively p. 340-348 and 216.
, Ch. 6, 14: <l>oo..630..oc, 30e;; ..<jl K6a!LCj) ..0 cpeyyoe;;.
5 The Slavonic translation has the phoenix itself make this call to the sun
(Morfill, 99). Hubaux and Leroy, 3, assume that the call is directed to the
phoenix, but this is wrong; see below.
8 Ch. 8, 2: ..0 3e: /lpve:ov ~a'O) "tE: .. OC7te:Lvoo!LeVov Kocl aua..e),),ov .. ae;; 7t..epuyoc<; ocu .. oii.
7 Here the Slavonic translation reads 400 angels (Morfill, p. 99).
ESCORT OF THE SUN
received the fire of the burning rays on its wings, thus protecting
life on earth from being scorched to death.
So, according to this text, the phoenix makes the heat of the
sun bearable: now the rays only behold the sins of mankind, but if
the phoenix was not there the sun would be a consuming fire for
those same sinners. Underlying this conception is the ancient East-
ern and Classical view of the sun as the god of law and justice, who
"sees and hears all things".1 But the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch is
a Jewish book, and this implies that not the sun but God has the
final word: He stands above the sun, and shows Himself to be not
only the Holy One but also the Merciful One. He has given the
phoenix its protective task: 2 for the author of this apocalypse the
bird is a sign of God's grace. James was the first to point in this
connection to a related passage in the Christian Apocalypse 01 Paul. s
According to the latter text, the sun repeatedly implored God to
permit him to deal with mankind according to his powers, so that
they would recognize that God alone is God. The sun asked this
because each day he looked down upon the godlessness and iniquity
of man. But his pleas were refused with the explanation that al-
though it is true that God sees and hears everything, He tolerates the
sinners in his forbearance until they repent; but if they fail to do so
He will Himself judge them. 4 According to this apocalypse, appeals
1 For Mesopotamia, cl. E. Dhorme, Les religions de Babylonie et d'Assyrie,

(Les anc. relig. orient., 11), Paris, 1945, 63-64, 87-88 and F. M. Th. de Liagre
Bohl in G. van der Leeuw (ed.), De godsdiensten del' wereld, P, Amsterdam,
1948, 133-135. For Israel, see e.g. Ps. xix.7 and the commentary on it by
H.-J. Kraus, Psalmen, I, Neukirchen, 1960, 156-157; cf. jes. Sirach, 43, 1-5,
and the rabbinical views below. For Greece, see Homer, Ilias, In, 277 and
also Jessen, Helios, in RE, 8, I, 1912, 58-59, and F. Cumont, Il sole
vindice dei delitti ed it simbolo delle mani alzate, in Atti della Pontilicia Acca-
demia Romana di Archeologia, Ser. Ill, Memorie, I, I, Roma, 1923, 65-80.
2 See p. 262, n. I.
3 James, p. LXVII, where he also mentions Test. Levi, 3, I: the lowest
heaven is dark because it sees all the injustices committed by man.
, Apoc. 01 Paul, 4. Cf. M. Lidzbarski, Das johannesbuch del' Mandiier, n,
Giessen, 1915, 183, to the sun: "Kreise in del' Welt und sei ein Richter uber
alle Welten. Wenn du eintrittst und wenn du austrittst ... erhitze dich nicht und
wute nicht an meinen S6hnen. Versundige dich nicht an meinen jungern, die
bei dir in del' Welt wohnen".
like that of the sun are also addressed to God by the moon, the stars,
the sea, the waters, and the earth, but the forbearance of God always
proves to be greater than that of nature. 1 A related conception is
the Jewish idea that the sun and the moon must be compelled to
fulfil their daily courses, because they can no longer bear the sight
of man's iniquities. 2 When, according to the Midrash on Lamenta-
tions, Moses asked the sun why it did not become dark when the
enemy entered the temple, he receives the answer: "By thy life,
o Moses, faithful shepherd, how could I become dark when they did
not permit me and did not leave me alone? But they beat me with
sixty whips of fire and said to me: "Go, pour forth thy light"". 3
These last words recall the summons to the light-giving sun in the
Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch and some other texts to be mentioned
shortly.' The conception that the sun becomes tarnished and weaken-
ed by the sins of man also occurs in the rabbinical literature: it
explains why the sun is blood-red at setting, for blood is a sign of
corruption. 5
It seems certain that Pseudo-Baruch transposed to the phoenix
a tradition originally applied to a bird unknown to the Greeks and
called by the Jews ziz, among other names. This name was derived
from the Hebrew ziz sadai, "the teeming life of the fields", which
according to Ps. I. I I stands before God. In the targum on this verse
the term is interpreted as "the wild cock whose ankles rest on the
ground and whose head reaches the sky". 6 The enormous dimensions
of this bird are also conveyed in the Babylonian Talmud, where it
is connected with the ocean: Rabbah ben Bar J:Ianna and his com-
pany saw the ziz with the water reaching to its ankles, and taking
this to mean that the sea was not deep there, they were about to
swim when a voice from the heavens warned them that seven years
1 Apoc. of Paul, 5-6.

B See Ginzberg, I, 25, Ill, 297-298, IV, 309, V, 37-38, n. 105 and VI, 397,
n. 38, 39.
a Midrash Rabbah Lamentations, Proems, XXIV, trans. A. Cohen, Midrash
Rabbah Lamentations, London, 1951,47-48; cf. Ginzberg, IV, 309.
, See p. 272, 275, 291.
6 Ginzberg, I, 25, and V, 37-38, n. 105.
S See the abundant data in Ginzberg, I, 4-5, 28-29, V, 46-47, n. 129-139,
from which the following material is borrowed.
ESCORT OF THE SUN
earlier an axe was dropped into the water at that place and had not
yet reached the bottom. 1 According to Rabbi J udah, who also discuss-
ed the phoenix, when the ziz spreads out its wings it darkens the
disk of the sun. This identifies the ziz with the hawk of which it is
said in Job xxxix. 26(29) that it spreads its wings to the south where
the sun stands at the zenith. 2 Rabbi Judah does not refer here to
the protective function of the sun bird, but the Talmud does so,
albeit in a slightly different form: Rabbi I:Ianan transmitted as a
teaching of Rab that four winds blow every day, but the north wind
mixes itself with all of them because otherwise the world could not
endure them for a moment. But the heat of the south wind is so
great that it would nevertheless destroy the world if it were not
that the ziz-hawk of Job xxxix.26 held it back with its wings. 3 The
ziz is also called renanim, because it is the celestial singer. Renanim
is actually the Hebrew word for the female ostrich, whose name
derives from the verb for "cry loudly, jubilate".4 In the Targum on
Job this bird is called "the wild cock" and identified with sekwi, "the
seer".5 In the Talmud it is also called bar yokni, "the son of the
nest", because its young hatch without help. Bar yokni is an enor-
mous bird: an addle egg that it carelessly threw out of its nest flooded
sixteen cities and destroyed three hundred cedar trees. 6
These Jewish traditions concerning the ziz and some other birds
equated with it, are related to a whole complex of ideas about an
1 Baba Bathra, 73b, trans. M. Simon-I. W. Slotki, Baba Bathra, I, London,
1935, 291, where note 9 gives a translation of Targum, Ps. 1.1I.
8 Midrash Leviticus, 22, 10, trans. J. Israelstam- J. Slotki, Midrash Rab-
bah Leviticus, London, 1939, 289-290. Bereshit Rabbah, 19, 4, trans. H. Freed-
man, Midrash Rabbah Genesis, I, London, 1951, 151 (For Rabbi Juda's
conception of the phoenix, see p. 152).
8 Baba Bathra, 25a, trans. Simon-Slotki (n. I), 124; GilJin, 31b, trans.
M. Simon, Gi!!in, London, 1936, 129-130.
, Cl· Koehler and Baumgartner, Lexicon, 895-896, s.v. 13., and D'~'.
6 Targum on job iii.6, xxxviii. 36, XXxiX.13, cl. Ginzberg, V, 47, n. 136.
According to Rosh Hashana, 26a (trans. M. Simon, Rosh Hashana, London,
1938, 118), south of Aleppo the cock was called Sekwi: Rab Judah trans-
mitted in the name of Rab, or Rabbi Joshua ben Levi that this bird is
mentioned in job xxxviii.36.
• Bekoroth, 57b, trans. L. Miller-M. Simon, Bekoroth, London, 1948, 1391;
Menaltoth, 66b, trans. E. Cashdan, Menaltoth, London, 1948, 392 ad job
xxxix. 13. Ginzberg, I, 29, mentions 60 cities; for bar-yokni, see also Ginz-
berg, V, 47, n. 138.
immense cosmic bird developed in the Near and Middle East, and
in which Persia seems to have played a leading part. In the A vesta,
Ahura Mazda reveals to Zarathustra that the servant of Sraosha is
the cock par6dars which is mockingly called kahrkatas. At the break
of day this bird incites mankind to arise and drive away the evil
spirits. l Sraosha is the God who never sleeps and who protects the
worshippers of Mazda in the night; the cock is consecrated to him,
the name par6dars meaning "he who foresees [the lightl".2 This is
directly connected with the Jewish cosmic cock ziz, which is indeed
called the celestial singer and seer. But in the course of its develop-
ment this conception seems also to have been influenced by certain
traditions concerning the Indian bird garuda. It is said of this im-
mense monster, half bird, half man, that it hatched from its egg
without help-like the Jewish bar yokni-and then grew so rapidly
that in no time at all its body reached as high as the sky.3 Further-
more, the garuda played an important role when the sun planned to
destroy the earth by its heat: it carried Aruna on its back to the
point at which the sun was to rise, so that Aruna could place him-
self in front of the sun to act as his charioteer and to take away his
heat by veiling his disk. Although it is not expressly stated that this
was done by the wings of the garuda, it seems to be assumed.'
It is difficult if not impossible to trace the development of the
1 Vendidad, 18, 15-16, English translation in J. Darmesteter, The Zend-

Avesta I: The Vendidad (SBE, IV), Oxford, 1880, 139-196, German trans-
lation in K. F. Geldner, Die zoroastrische Religion, (Religionsgesch. Lesebuch,
I) Tiibingen, 1926, 38. For these Persian conceptions and their influence on
the Pythagoreans (i.e. the prohibition against killing a white cock), see the
important article by F. Cumont, Le coq blanc des Mazdeens en les Pythagori-
ciens, in Comptes rendues de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1942,
284-300, and idem, Luxperpetua, 409-41 I; for the influence of these ideas in
the Early Christian Gallicinium, see G. van der Leeuw, Gallicinium. De haan
in de oudste hymnen der Westerse Kerk, in Mededeelingen der Ned. Akademie
van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterk., IV, 19, Amsterdam, 1941,833-852 (on the
Iranian conceptions, 844-851), cl. also L. H. Gray, Cock, in ERE, Ill, 1910,
694-698, and for the Greek views, Thompson, Glossary of Greek birds, 33-44.
2 Van der Leeuw, 846-847; Gray, 694.
3 Mahabharata, 23, trans. Pratapa Chandra Ray, The Mahabharata 01
Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa translated into English prose, Calcutta, 1893, 87.
, Mahabharata, 24, trans. Chandra Ray, 90-91. Reference is made to this
text by James in the introduction to his edition of the Greek Apocalypse 01
Baruch, p. LXVI.
ESCORT OF THE SUN
Jewish traditions concerning the cosmic cock, but there is no doubt

that we encounter many later conceptions closely related to them.
For instance, the Arabian (an~a), which after the rise of Islam was
definitively assimilated to the Persian simurgh and probably also to
the Indian garuda, l was described as a huge creature whose eggs
were as large as mountains, 2 which in turn is reminiscent of the bar
yokni. The simurgh-(an~a) is, like the garuda, a sun bird;3 both
these birds feed mainly on elephants. 4
The cosmic cock later became a familiar conception in Islam, un-
doubtedly influenced by Jewish ideas about the ziz but not exclu-
sively, since the rabbis' references to the bird strongly suggest the
traces of a popular folk tradition. 5 The Moslem traditions describe
the cosmic cock as a bird whose wings reach from the east to the
west. It stands on the lowest earth, its head bowed under the throne
of God. Every night it summons mankind to prayer three times.
When the earthly cocks hear the sound of this great white cock,
they beat their wings and crow in chorus. When the day of re-
surrection comes, God will say to this giant bird; "Take thy wings
in and lower thy voice, that the inhabitants of heaven and earth
know that the hour is near".6 In the summons to prayer taken over
by the earthly cocks, we can clearly detect the Persian ideas about
the function of parodars.
All these points make it virtually certain that the author of the
1 See Ch. Pellat, 'an(la', in Encyclopaedia 01 Islam, New ed., Leiden-

London, 1960, 509.
B See A. J. Wensinck, Tree and Bird as cosmological symbols in Western
Asia, in Verhandelingen der Kon. Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam,
Afd. Letterkunde, Amsterdam, 1921, 40.
3 For simurgh, see Wensinck, 41-42, for garuda e.g. F. D. K. Bosch, The
golden germs. An introduction to Indian symbolism, The Hague, 1960, 149-150.
, For simurgh-'an(la', see Henrichsen, I1, 30; for garuda, Mahabharata,
29, trans. Chandra Ray, 97-102.
5 They often mention the bird without details, evidently assuming these
to be known; cl. e.g. Midrash Numbers, 21, 18 (ziz), and Sukkah, 5a, Yoma,
80a (bar-yokni). But Wensinck (p. 37) says: "The origin of Muslim tra-
dition in this point is to be found in Jewish folklore", and then cites the
Targum on Ps. 1.1I.
8 Wensinck, 36; J. A. Janssen, Le coq et la pluie dans la tradition palesti-
nienne, in Rev. Biblique, 33, 1924, 574-582; cl. also H. Gressmann, Der heilige
Hahn zu Hieropolis in Syrien, in Beihelt ZA W, 41, 1925, 88-95.
Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch made use of an oriental tradition, also

known to the Jews, concerning a huge bird capable of covering the
sky with its wings and thus robbing the sun of its worst intensity.
The writer used this tradition to illustrate God's mercy and His
dominion even over the sun. We have seen that the origin of this
conception must be sought mainly in Persia. This origin is also con-
veyed by the 365 gates of heaven, which is a typically Persian idea. 1
In this apocalypse the bird of the sun carries the name, so familiar
to the Greeks, of "phoenix", even though these particular con-
ceptions were not reconcilable with the Classical traditions con-
cerning the phoenix. The phoenix of Pseudo-Baruch is the oriental
heavenly singer and seer, the cosmic cock. This also clarifies the re-
lationship with the earthly cocks: the sound made by the phoenix to
awaken the cocks is the summons to the sun mentioned just before
that: "Giver of light, give thy light to the world".2
Nevertheless, Pseudo-Baruch was not the first to call the daily
companion of the sun "phoenix". An earlier case is found in a frag-
ment, preserved in Charisius, of the poem Pterygion phoenicis by the
poet Laevius, who lived around 100 B.C.3 In his collection of poetry
entitled Erotopaegnia in which this poem occurred, Laevius had ex-
perimented with the artificial verse form of the Technopaegnia, first
applied by Simias of Rhodes at the beginning of the Hellenistic
period. 4 In this form the poem is constructed in such a way that
1 Cf. M. P. Nilsson, review of Hubaux and Leroy, in Gnomon, 17, 1941,
21 3-214.
2 See p. 262. Cumont, Textes et monuments, I, 44, 125, 173, n. 2, thinks that
the details in the Greek Apocalypse of Bat'uch, concerning the sun's course,
the cocks and the sun's crown which is renewed daily, are to be traced to
Persian influences. Ginzberg, V, 48, did the same for the idea that the wings
of the ziz eclipse the sun; but neither author gives textual evidence.
8 On Laevius in general: W. Kroll, Laevius, in RE, 12, 1925, 452-454,
M. Schanz-C. Hosius, Geschichte del' t'omischen Litet'atut', I, (Handbuch der
Altertumswissenschaft, VIII, I), Munster, 1927,268-271, and H. Bardon, La
littet'atut'e latine inconnue, I, Paris, 1952, 189-195. On Ptet'ygion phoenicis in
particular: O. Ribbeck, Geschichte del' t'omischen Dichtung, I, Stuttgart, 1887,
304, H. de la Ville de Mirmont, Etudes SUI' l'ancienne poesie latine, Paris,
1903, 293-306, F. Leo, Die t'omische Dichtung in del' sullanischen Zeit, in
Het'mes, 49, 1914, 183, Hubaux and Leroy, 4-6.
, On the Technopaegnia, and its poets, see A. Lesky, Geschichte del' gt'iechi-
schen Litet'atut', 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1963,776 and Ribbeck, 304; cf. Anthologia
Gt'aeca, XV, 21, 22, 24-27. On Simias, u. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf,
ESCORT OF THE SUN 269
the length of its lines creates the outline of its subject. A poem by
Simias, for instance, concerns the wings of Eros and thus has the
shape of a pair of wings. The special "amusement" of this arrange-
ment was that the reader was supposed to peruse the poem as
though it were an inscription on Eros' wings. 1 Laevius had the same
intention in his poem on the phoenix: like the Eros of Simias, his
phoenix speaks of itself on its wings. We have seen that according
to the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch, the wings of the phoenix bore an
inscription in which the bird speaks of its origin in mysterious words. 2
This raises the question of whether Pseudo-Baruch knew a Greek
poem about the phoenix in which the bird spoke of itself in the
technopaegnic verse form and which could have suggested the re-
markable inscription to him. If this was the case, Laevius must have
borrowed not only the verse form but also the subject of his poem
from a Greek example. His phoenix too speaks of itself, and in doing
so uses the feminine gender, indicating that Laevius must have con-
sidered the bird to be a female creature. 3 The fragment reads:
"0 Venus, who nourishes love and rouses desire, by whose favour
a clear day stretches before me, your follower and your maid
servant ... ".'
It need not be inferred from this passage that the phoenix was
Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1962,
111-113·
1 Anthologia Graeca, XV, 24; in the codex Laurentianus, Eros is shown
with the poem on its wings, see H. Beckby, A nthologia Graeca, griechisch-
deutsch, IV, Munich, 1958, 537; for the humorous meaning, see also Leo,
183, n. I.
a See p. 262. Hubaux and Leroy, 4, n. 3 also referred to this in connection
with Laevius.
8 For the phoenix as female animal, see p. 360, n. 4. H. de la Ville de
Mirmont thought the phoenix to be the speaker, but wondered how Laevius
could make the sun bird a servant of Venus (p. 301, 302). F. Leo, o.c., 183,
n. I, concluded that the servant of Venus could not be the phoenix, "denn
der ist miinnlich und Vogel der Sonne " , and since Laevius clearly followed
Simias' literary joke, he concluded: "Man sieht also nicht warum das Gedicht
Pterygion Phoenicis heisst".
, Laevius, Irg. 22: Venus, (0) amoris altrix, genetrix cupiditatis, mihi quae
diem serenum hilarula praepandere cresti, opseculae tuae ac ministrae ... Ac-
cording to Ribbeck, 304, it is the first two verses; he calls it "ein hohles,
mark- und seeleloses W ortgeklingel" !
consecrated to Venus as well as to the sun. 1 The Erotopaegnia were

amorous poems, and in the Pterygion phoenicis Laevius was evident-
ly making a play on the two aspects of Venus-as morning star and
goddess of Love. The meaning of these lines may be this: just
as the phoenix may be called a follower of Venus because he rises
with the sun after the morning star has announced the new day, so
too is the poet a follower of Venus on the path of love and her faith-
ful servant; he is grateful to her because she has prepared for him a
splendid day that he can spend in her service. It is conceivable that
in the lost portion of his ambiguous poem Laevius drew a clearer
picture of the phoenix as bird of the sun, but in any case the lines
quoted in Charisius give the impression that he knew the image of
the phoenix as escort of the sun.
It would seem reasonable to assume that either Laevius or his
source transposed to the phoenix a conception originally belonging
to the eagle. Superficial examination of the beautiful decadrachma
struck around 410 B.C. in Akragas (Agrigentum) might suggest that
the conception of the eagle as escort of the chariot of the sun must
have been known even this early in Classical times. The coin shows
a four-horse chariot being drawn at full speed, a large eagle above
the horses and under their hooves a crab. Although it has been
assumed that the charioteer is Helios, this cannot be considered very
probable. 2 In any case, in this representation the eagle is certainly
not directly concerned with the main subject, because it is known
that this bird and the crab were the preferred emblems of the city of
Akragas, as can be seen from coins minted as much as a hundred
years earlier. 3 In the time of the late Empire the funerary symbolism
indeed included the combination of the eagle and the chariot of the
sun travelling upward with the soul of the deceased. According to
Cumont, this represents the merging of two originally oriental con-
ceptions, i.e. that the deceased is carried to heaven by the eagle,
1 See p. 269, n. 3. Hubaux and Leroy, 5, think Laevius shows that the
phoenix was also a symbol of Venus, as indicated for example by Claudian,
Phoenix, 17-20 (without justification; see p. 237 here).
I Ch. Seltman, Maste"pieces of week coinage, Oxford, 1949, 105, shown on
pI. 45b; other opinions in L. and M. Lanckoroflski, My then und Munzen,
Munich, 1958, 40-42, fig. 9.
8 Seltman, 102; Lanckoroflski, 42.
ESCORT OF THE SUN 27 1
which was seen as sun bird mainly in Syria, and by a vehicle identi-
fied with the solar chariot,1 But in this combined form it is a rare
representation known so far only from a diptychon dating from the
middle of the fifth century of the present era and showing the apothe-
osis of an emperor: the dead ruler is seen mounting skyward in a
chariot drawn by four horses, two large eagles emerging from the
funeral pyre to escort the chariot. 2 Here, however, the birds form a
distinct reference to the eagle released from the pyre at the conse-
cration of an emperor and which was considered to transport the
soul of the deceased to heaven. 3 The combination of the eagle and
the chariot of the sun is thus not encountered until late in Classical
times and without a known pre-existent tradition. It is of course con-
ceivable that old oriental images persisted in the Roman funerary
symbolism and that there was in this way a distant connection with
the ideas of Pseudo-Baruch, but this cannot be proven and is also
rather improbable.
The relationship seemingly drawn between the eagle and Venus
on the stele of Albano is again determined by a combination of re-
lated ideas. The stele shows a horse ridden by the deceased and led
upwards by an eagle holding its rein. The inscription conveys that
the relief depicts the soul of a two years old child who, conveyed by
the eagle of Zeus, is to become the companion of the morning and
evening star. This star is indeed shown above the child's head.' Thus,
we see here the horse and the eagle, each of which was thought to
convey souls to heaven, represented together. Venus-Phosphorus
was also seen on the one hand as the escort of, for instance, the horse
and the solar chariot, and on the other as the abode of blessed souls. 6
The stele of Albano therefore demonstrates a combination of three
related but originally independent elements, and thus does not supply
any evidence of an earlier relationship between the eagle and Venus.
1 For these ideas, see F. Cumont, L'aigle lunbaire de Hieropolis et l'apo-

tMose des empereurs, in his Etudes syriennes, Paris, 1917, 35-118 and his last
considerations in Lux perpetua, 289-297.
a Cumont, L'aigle luneraire, 101, Lux perpetua, 296-297, with a good
illustration in his Recherches, pI. XIV, b, discussion on p. 176.
8 Cumont, L'aigle luneraire, 72, n. 3, Lux perpetua, 296.
, Cumont, Lux perpetua, 297, and pI. Il; see also p. 248 here.
& Cumont, Lux perpetua, 184, n. I and Recherches, 84, n. 8, and 248.
On the whole, therefore, it is highly improbable that in his poem

Laevius drew on a tradition known to the Classical world concerning
the eagle as bird of the sun; had he done so, furthermore, the trans-
position to the phoenix would be impossible to explain. The most
likely assumption is therefore that he made use of the oriental con-
ception of a huge bird which escorted the sun each day and which
must therefore have been identified with the Classical phoenix long
before the time of Pseudo-Baruch.
The fact that a bird unknown to the Classical world is concerned
here also explains why we find the same details applied to the griffin
in later texts having no dependence on the Greek Apocalypse of
Baruch: in these cases the oriental tradition was applied to another
fabulous creature known to the Greeks. This holds in the first place
for the Byzantine Physiologus. This text says that at the moment in
the morning when the sun lets its rays fall on the earth, the griffin
spreads its wings to catch the rays to prevent the whole world from
burning up. Undoubtedly there was originally only one griffin in-
volved, but the redactor rather unexpectedly added a second to
make the story more suitable for the explanation he intended to
give it. What he says is that another griffin goes along to the west,
and that on the wings of this bird are the words: "Come, giver of
light, give thy light to the world!" In the symbolic interpretation
given at the end of this chapter the rays of the sun are explained as
God's wrath, the two griffins being the Archangel Michael and the
holy Theotokos Mary, who prevent God from destroying the world. 1
The only difference between the essential details is that here the
griffin bears the summons to the sun on its wings, whereas the phoe-
nix of Pseudo-Baruch carries in that place an indication pertaining
1 Byzantine Physiologus, 6: cX7t).,WV£L TotLt; 1tTepU~Lv otUTOU /) otUTOt; ypocjl, Kotl
3e)(£TotL TeXt; TOU ~).,tou cp).,e~£Lt;, (Vot IL~ KotTotKot00"1l ~V otKOUILe:vLK~V yijV. Kotl !npOt;
-ypucjl O"UIL1tOP£OETotL !Wt; 3uO"ILcXt;, Wt; Kotl ye;ypcX1tTotL ev TotLt; 1tTepU~LV otUTOU "1tOPe:OOU
cpwTo36Tot, 30t; T(jl K60"IL<tl TO cprot;". In connection with Pseudo-Baruch, the
first to refer to this text was M. R. James, Notes on Apocrypha, VI: Traces
01 the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch in other writings, in ]ThS, 16, 1915,410-413.
Hubaux and Leroy, 8, n. 2 referred independently to this text, following the
text published by A. Moustoxydes, l:UAAO~ ciV£K36TWV, Venice, 1817 and 1826,
13; in the manuscript he reproduced, the two griffins were related to the
archangels Michael and Gabriel; see also the critical apparatus in Sbordone's
edition, 183.
to its origin. The reaction of the cocks is omitted in the Physiologus.

With small discrepancies and additions this same tradition con-
cerning the griffin is found in an astrological manuscript kept in
Leningrad. In this text it is said that in the morning the turning
vault of heaven brings the sun to the east, in Eden, to the highest
portion of the earth, opposite Paradise. Arriving at the same time as
the sun is a bird called the griffin, which is 200 ells tall. This bird
takes a position opposite the stallions drawing the chariot of the
sun and sprays the sun's rays with water to prevent them from burn-
ing up the earth. The griffin becomes burning hot and its feathers
fall out, but it restores itself completely by submerging itself in the
Nile, an event which is repeated each day. In a rather obscure way
the cocks are related to the sun bird here too: something presses the
cock under its wing so that it knows it is time to crow. Lastly, it is
said that God's throne has 365 gates and that the sun appears
through a different one each day.1 This last element from the orien-
tal tradition concerning the sun bird we have also encountered in
Pseudo-Baruch, albeit in a more corrupt form, since this author has
all of the 365 gates open at the same time. 2
According to the astrologer, the griffin tempers the sun's rays not
by catching them with its wings but by sprinkling them with water.
In addition, we find here for the first time a reference to the in-
dispensable daily renewal of the sun bird, which must also have been
assumed by Pseudo-Baruch: the heat is so great that it loses its
feathers, but it renews itself by immersing itself in the Nile. 3 Re-
1 M. A. F. Sangin, Catalogus codicum astrologorum Graecorum, XII,
Brussels, 1936, 107: ... QVO{LcX. TOU ypuljl, TO \lljloc; otlhou 7t7jJ(wv 3LcxKoaLoov, lippevL-
KOLC; (ltltOLC; liVTLKCX'&lJ{LevOC; Kcxl pcxvTL~eL TeXC; liKTLVCXC; TOU ~AtoU ltpOC; TO (LY) KCXTCX-
KcxuaCXL 't"1jv y'ijv, Kcxl ~e{LCXTL~eTCXL Kcxl ltLltTOV TeX 'ltTEPIl TOU Kcxl ltllALV ~CXltTL
~eTCXL eic; TOV N eLAOV TOV 'ltOTCX{LOV Kcxl YLveTCXL WC; TO ltPWTOV, Kcxl O\lTOOC; 'ltOLeL
'ltiiacxv ~{LEpCXV· Kcxl tv T'ij ltTEPUYL CXUTOU auvEJ(eL 0 liAEKTOOP Kcxl YLvwaKeL 'ltepl T'ijc;
&pcxC; Kcxl KeAcx3eL. '0 3e: .&p6voC; TOU .&eou ~J(eL 'ltUACXC; T~e', Kcxl ltOpeUeTCXL KIl.&e
<
~{LEPCXV 'ltUA71V (LLCXV .•• Kcxl) ACX{L~IlVeL {) -YjALOC; TO cpwC; liltO .&p6vou TOU .&eou Kcxl ~
aeAlJV71 IIltO TOU ~ALOU. See also Hubaux and Leroy, 8.
B See p. 262. The Physiologus of Vienna, 5, in which the tradition con-
cerning the phoenix-griffin reverberates distinctly (see below, p. 278),
says that the bird had 365 feathers: TeX ltTEPeX aTpoyyUAcx TOV liPL.&{LOV T~e'.
3 Cl. Kcxl YLveTCXL wc; TO 'ltPWTOV with similar statements about the phoenix,
p. 222, n. 2. The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch mentions only the refurbishing of
the crown of the sun, but the indispensable renewal of the phoenix is implied.
18
lated conceptions are found in the so-called Disputatio Panagiotae

cum Azymita. This Byzantine text contains a fictitious conversation
supposed to have taken place between an orthodox Greek called
Constantine and an .. Azymite", a Roman cardinal, at the Council
of Lyons in 1274. Thus, this book probably originated in the last
decades of the thirteenth century. Unfortunately, no good critical
edition of the text is available, and we are limited to rather widely
divergent editions.l
In answer to a question from the cardinal about the sun's course,
Constantine answers that the sun is accompanied during the day by
150,000 angels and during the night by 10,000. 2 When the sun sets
they remove his divine garments and carry them to the life-giving
Christ. 3 With the sea, which flows from west to east, the sun returns
to the place where he rises. Early in the morning Christ gives the
crown 4 of the sun back to the angels, which place it on the sun, who
then rises.
At that moment two birds referred to as griffins appear, one called
phoenix and the other chaledris. These birds are nine ells tall and
they moisten the sun to prevent the world from being burned Up.6
1 For this work see H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzan-
tinischen Reich, (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, XII, 2, I). Munich,
1959, 680. The edition he mentions of N. Krasnosel'cev in Letopis' Istoriko-
lilologiceskago obscestva pri novorossijskom universitete, Viz. Otd., Odessa, 3,
1896, 295-328 (for the phoenix see 319-320) does give some variants but can
hardly be called critical. The Disputatio was first referred to by J ames, in
his edition of the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch, LXV, in which he cited the
relevant passage, following the edition of A. Vassiliev, Anecdota Graeco-
Byzantina, I, Moscow, 1893, 184; unfortunately, I have been unable to gain
access to this edition.
s Krasnosel'cev, 319: KccL 687jYouv CCUTOV -riJv 7)(J.EpCCV L£' (J.upLiX8£~ ... &YY£AOL
KccL TcX~ VUKTCC~ XLALiX8£~ L'. Vassiliev, 184, in James, LXV, has: -riJv 7)(J.EpCCV
8£KCC7t"EVT£ XLALiX8£~ &yy£AOL.
3 Vassiliev, 184, in James, LXV: OTCCV ~ccaLA£ull 6 fjALO~, tKBUouaLv CCUTOV ol
&YY£AOL KccL 7tCxpcc8t80uaLv TcX~ .&etcc~ aToAcX~ CCUTOU TOV t:w086T7jv (J.ou XpLaT6v; this
last is missing in Krasnosel'cev, 320.
, Krasnosel' cev, 320: aT£pEw(J.cc instead of aTE(J.(J.cc.
6 Vassiliev, 184, in James, LXV: 6 XpLaTo~ 6 ulot; TOU '&£OU TOU t:WVTO~ 8t8£L
TO aTE(J.(J.CC TWV a.yyEAWV (Krasnosel'cev, 320: TOU~ a.yyEAOU~) KccL tvauouaLv TOV
fjALOV KccL a.VCCTEAA£L· KccL £U.&U~ 8uo 6pv£cc KCCAOU(J.£VCC ypuljIL, TO lv KCCA£LTCCL tptPL~
(= tpOLVL~) KccL TO ~T£pOV xccAE8pL~, 6l~ a.7t"0 7t"7jXWV tWECC, KccL ~pExouaLV TOV fjALOV
fvcc (J.1J KCCuall TOV K6a(J.ov. Another text reads, according to Krasnosel'cev,
320, n. 3: eU.&u~ 6pv£cc 7t"T£PWTcX 6lt; tpOLVL~ KccL XCCAK7j86ve:~.
In another version the birds are two heavenly angels which wet
their wings in the Ocean and then extinguish the sun. 1 The proof
that this is not the original version lies in the fact that a little
further on in this text birds are nevertheless mentioned. But we
shall see that a related concept occurred as early as in Proclus. 2 The
Disputatio goes on to report that the wings of the birds become
charred, leaving only the flesh. After this, they return to the Ocean,
immerse themselves, and recover their feathers. These birds formed
the model for the cocks, whose nature earned them the same name. 3
This is why the cock is called the prophet among the birds. The blood
in its wings is very warm, which disturbs it; it becomes so hot that
it awakens and spreads its wings. In this way it knows in advance
that the two birds mentioned above are about to spread their wings.
It begins to crow, recalling Christ the while.' In answer to the Azy-
mite's question about what the cocks cry in the morning, Con-
stantine answers that one cries "Come", the second "Giver of light",
the third "Give thy light", and the fourth "To the world".5
In this text the separate, albeit essentially identical, traditions
concerning the phoenix and the griffin are combined. The phoenix
thus becomes a special kind of griffin that, together with another
griffin called chaledris, tempers the heat of the sun. This Disputatio
1 Krasnosel'cev, p. 320: Kcd £u.&u~ Mo &YY£AOL OUPcXVLOL ~PEXOUCJL 'I'Ot~ 7t''I'EpUYCXt;

cxu"wv et~ 'I'OV WK£CXVOV 7t'0'l'cx!L6v. KCXt KCX'l'CXCJ~EVOUCJL 'I'OV ijALov £t~ 7t'iiv ivcx !L1) KCX'l'CX-
KCXUCJll 'I'OV K6CJ!Lov.
B See p. 27 6.
3 Vassiliev, 184, in James, LXV: KCXt &71'0 'I'OU 7t'UPOt; KCXLOV'I'CXL cxt 7t''I'EPUY£t; 'I'WV
6PVEWV KCXt &7t'0!LEvOUCJLV !L6vov 'I'Ot KPE71 KCXt 7t'cXALV umxyouCJLV dt; 'I'OV WK£CXVOV KCXt
AOUOV'I'CXL KCXt mXALV 7t''t'£POUV'I'CXL, KCXt &71" CXU'I'WV 'I'WV 6PVEWV &7t'CXLPVOUCJLV !LL!L71CJLV ot
&AEK'I'Op£t; KCXt OVO!LcX~OV'I'CXL KCXt CXU'I'Ot 7t'POt; 'I'1)v qlUCJLV. In Krasnosel'cev the last
sentence is replaced by the one in the following note.
, Krasnosel'cev, 320: 8LOt 'I'OU'I'O KCXt 6 7t'£'t'£LVOt; KCXt CXU'I'Ot; 7t'pOqll)'t'7Jt; &7t't 'I'WV op-
VEWV 6VO!LcX~£'I'CXL' lX£L cxt!LCX dt; 'I'1)v &!LcxCJXcXA71V CXU'I'OU &£P!LOV 7t'cXVU KCXt 'I'6'1'e: Kpouye:L
'I'OV KCXt 7t'VLye:'I'CXL KCXt &~uCJ7t'cx~6!L£vOV KCXt &~U7t'VWV KpOU£L 'I'Ott; 7t''I'Epuycxt; CXU'I'OU &71'0
'I'OU cxt!LCX'l'ot; KCXt &~U7t'V~ KCXt 7t'pOYVW&e:L 'I'OUt; KTU7t'0Ut; 'I'WV 6PVEWV &Ke;(VWV 'I'WV
7t''t'£puywv KCXt [jOWCJL CJ71!LCXLVOV'I'Ot; T1jv &vcX!Lv71CJLV 'I'OU XPLCJ'I'OU. J ames, LXV, gives
only a summary of this text: "He goes on to say that cocks have a certain vein
under their wings which tickles them and makes them crow".
5 Krasnosel'cev, 320: '0 'A~U!LL't'7Jt;· KCXt 'I'L AEye:L lj qlWV1) 'I'OU 7t'e:'t'£LVOU; b
IIcxvcxYLW'l'71t;· 0 dt; AEye:L' "IIope:uou", b f't'£pOt; "qlw'I'086'1'cx" b 'I'PL'l'Ot; "80t; '1'0 qlWt;".
o 'I'E'I'CXP'l'Ot;, "'I'OV K6CJ!Lov".
version developed because its author connected the tradition of the

two griffins-also rather unsuccessfully employed in the Byzantine
Physiologus-with related details in the so-called Slavonic Enoch, as
will become evident from the discussion of the latter.1
In the Disputatio the connection between the sun birds and the
cocks is stressed even more strongly than in the other texts just
mentioned. According to the former, the cocks cry in chorus: "Come,
giver of light, give thy light to the world", and, as we shall see, the
same occurs in the Slavonic Enoch. 2 We have seen that according to
the Byzantine Physiologus these words occur on the griffin's wings,
whereas in the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch they seem to have been
uttered by the phoenix itself. These texts supplement each other:
the original meaning must have been that the cocks take over the
summons uttered by the sun bird(s). This is why the Disputatio
says that the earthly cocks are an imitation of the sun birds and
that they are identified with the latter by reason of their nature.
This is an unequivocal indication that the oriental cosmic cock
underlies the phoenix-griffin. The former has been preserved in a
pure form in an Armenian folk tradition according to which in the
early morning the great heavenly cock crows first, after which the
choirs of angels begin to praise God. This is heard by the cocks on
earth, which rouse mankind and praise God. 3 From a passage in
Proclus' De arte sacra it is evident that the concept of more than a
single heavenly cock was also known. After having said that the
cock knows the courses of the sun and sings a hymn to the approach-
ing "giver of light", Proclus remarks, apparently with the purpose
of explaining this knowledge of the cock: "This is why there were
several sun angels with a similar appearance [Le. to that of the
cocks]; although they actually do not possess a shape, they appear
in this way to us, who are enclosed in a shape." 4 These last words
1 See p. 30 3.
I See p. 292. F. C. Burkitt, Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, (The
Schweich lectures, 1913). London, 1914, 76, n. I, followed by James, (see
p. 272, n. I), 413, thought the cock's words were meant to imitate the
crowing of a cock.
3 See M. Abeghian, Del' armenische Volksglaube, Thesis Jena, Leipzig, 1899,
38, also in Gray, (see p. 266, n. 1),695.
4 Proclus, De arte sacra, (ed. J. Bidez, Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques
grecs, VI, Brussels, 1928, 150): ~M Kal &YYEAO( 't'LYEt; ~ALaKol i:>cp&"ljO'av 't'oLalJ"t"at;
show that the current conception of the sun birds offered certain
difficulties for Proclus, but for the rest his comment reveals his
knowledge of a conception occupying an intermediate position be-
tween the oriental idea of the single cosmic cock and that of the
two griffins in the Byzantine Physiologus and the Disputatio. Ac-
cording to Proclus, the cosmic cocks are angels. We have encounter-
ed the same idea in one of the versions of the Disputatio,1 and it
must also have influenced the copyist of the Byzantine Physiologus
who related the two griffins mentioned there to the archangels
Michael and Gabrie1. 2 In a passage in the Slavonic Henoch to be
discussed below, the phoenix is also included among the angels,
clearly under the influence of the cosmic cock. s
Thus, the arrival of the sun bird(s) causes the cocks on earth to
stir and announce the new day. In the Disputatio we also find the
remarkable conception that the cocks are so irritated by a vein
carrying hot blood, and become so warm that they awaken, spread
their wings, and begin to crow. The same idea must have underlain
the rather cryptic mention of the awakening of the cocks in the
astrological text. 4 In Heliodorus there are two possible explanations
of the crowing of the cocks before sunrise: an instinctive knowledge
of the sun's return incites them to greet the god, or the heat and the
wish to move about and be fed leads them to crow and thus awaken
the household. 5 Heliodorus must therefore have been aware of the
!XOVTe:~ {Lopcpli~, ICod ISvTe:~ !X.{L6PCPWTOL, CPlXtVOVTIXL TOL~ EV {Lopcp'ij ICIXTe:XO{LEVOL~ ~{LLV
{Le:{LOPCPW{LEvOL.
1 See p. 275, n. I.
S See p. 272 n. I.
3 See p. 290.
, Hubaux and Leroy, 8, translate EV T'ij :n;TEPUYL IXUTOU auvExe:L 0 !X."EICTWP
(see p. 273, n. I) as sous son aille se tient le coq, thus making IXUTOU pertain
to the griffin. But the transition is abrupt and the text awkward; probably
the author himself was no longer certain what was meant. A related con-
ception is found in Zohar, Wayikra, Ill, 22b, 23a, according to L. Ginzberg,
Cock, in The Jewish encyclopedia, IV, 1905, 139: when God visits Paradise
at night to converse with the souls of the pious, there arises from that place
a flame that touches the wings of the cock, which thereupon begins to praise
God and to awaken the people to do the same. Ct. also Ginzberg, Legends ot
the Jews, I, 44-45, V, 61-62, n. 194 and Gray, (see p. 266, n. I), 695.
6 Heliodorus, Aethiopica, I, 18: e:he: w~ A6yo~, IXta&ijae:L cpuaLK'ij rij~ TOU
~"tou KIX&' ~{Lii~ :n;e:pLaTpocp'ii~ ... e:he: imo &e:p{L6TljTO~ &{LIX KlXl rij~ :n;e:pl TO KLve:i:a&IXL
KlXl aLTe:La&IXL &iiTTOV E7tL&U{LtlX~. Ct. however, Democritus in Cicero, De divin.,
conception that the cock becomes warm before sunrise and starts to
move, and it is possible, although not certain, that he also knew the
theory concerning the warmer blood in the wing.
All this also serves to clarify a passage in the Physiologus 01 Vienna.
In this text the phoenix's daily flight with the sun is not explicitly
mentioned but is certainly implied: when the bird stands rejuvenat-
ed on the shore of the Ocean early in the morning and begins to
move, all the birds begin to move with it, ruffling their feathers and
making a soft murmuring sound at the same time. But the cock
becomes warm, puffs out its feathers, and cannot bear the heat; it
spreads its wings, catches the wind in them, beats them and cries
out; in short, it crows. l Just as in the Disputatio and the astrological
work in Leningrad, here too the crowing of the cock is related to the
appearance of the phoenix and the cock's becoming warm. At the
beginning of this confused compilation of many different phoenix
traditions it is also said that the phoenix acquired its name because,
via the cocks, it "makes the night bright", i.e. turns the night to day. 2
Only the Disputatio and the astrologer speak of the daily renewal
of the sun birds. Because of the terrible heat to which they are ex-
posed throughout the day, they have lost their feathers before night
falls; to this the Disputatio explicitly adds that only flesh remains.
In both cases they are renewed by immersing themselves in water,
according to the astrologer that of the Nile and according to the
Disputatio that of the Ocean. The same conception also occurs in
a distorted form in the Physiologus of Vienna: from midnight
to sunrise the bird exposes itself to the heat of the sun, is warmed
by it, and grows new feathers.s The motif of the immersion also
11, 57: depulso enim de pectore et in omne corpus diviso et mitilicato cibo cantus
edere quiete satiatos, cl. D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, A glossary 01 Greek
birds. 2nd ed., London, 1936, 39.
1 Physiologus 01 Vienna, 10-15: l!~w t7tl rljv ~71POtV KIX.&~ILevov t7tl TOV IXtYLIXAOV
TOV WKEIXVOV KlXl IXUTOV 7tTEpUaaOILevou KlXl KLvouILevou auYKLvEi:a'&IXL KlXl 7tciVTIX
TOt ilPVEIX KlXl aIXAEuEa'&IXL, U7toYOYYU~ELV TE KlXl ILOUPILOUpl~ELV KIX'&' i:IXUTOt IXUT'ii
T'ii i:>p~, KlXl TOV ciAEKTpu6vIX civlX&EPILlXlvEa'&IXL KlXl Op.&OTPLJ(Liiv KlXl ILl) IPepELV
TO &IXA7t6v, ciAAOt tK7tETiiv KlXl civEILl~Ea&IXL KlXl TU7tTELV TOtI; 7tTepuYIXI; KlXl ~oiiv,
~TOL ~BELV.
I Ibid., I: cI>oi:VL~ IhL IPIXVEP07tOLEi: BLOt TWV ciAEKTpu6vwv rljv VUKTIX.
3 Ibid., 8- 11: KlXl tv Tc"ii civL&vIXL TOV flALOV TO fLEaOVUKTLOV t7tl TOV civlXTOALKOV
7tUAOV, ci7tO T6TE tKIPepEa&IXL rljv '&ePfL71V TOV ~Alou, KlXl &EpfLlXlvEa&IXL TOV IPOlVLKIX
KlXl civlX7tTEpuaaEa&lX~ K!X&' ~IXUT6v.
occurs in this text, but with a remarkable twist: toward the end of
the passage it is said that once the sun has risen the phoenix can no
longer bear the heat and consequently submerges itself in the Ocean
until the sun goes down. l It is clear that the compiler of this text
must have drawn on a source in which the phoenix was described
as the daily companion of the sun and as the protector of life on
earth.
The motif of the immersion is also found in one tradition concern-
ing the rejuvenation of the eagle. In connection with the well-
known text of Ps. cii. 5 (LXX): " ... thy youth shall be renewed like
an eagle's", the Physiologus says that the old eagle, whose wings
have become heavy and the sight weak,2 seeks a clear spring and
then flies to the heaven of the sun. There it burns its old feathers
and regains its sharp sight, after which it submerges itself three
times in the spring; in this way it renews itself and becomes young
again. 3 Here, as for the phoenix-griffin, we have the combination of
the burning of the feathers by the sun and the renewal by immersion.
In all probability the raising of the immersions to three was done
by the redactor of the Physiologus to provide an opportunity for a
symbolic explanation, since he relates this point to Christian bap-
tism.'
1 Ibid., 29-32: IL~ cpepoov /) cpOrVL~ -rijv .&epIL6T'1)TOC TOU 1t\lpOt; TOU ~AtOU, U7t08UeL
EOCUTOV dt; TOV cilKeocv6v, foot; /) ~ALOt;, Tcl lLeye.&-tj TOU oupocvou 7tepcXO"oct;, ~7tl Tclt;
~cilvoct; 7tepLfjcXAA1l, Kocl IL1jKUV7l tOCUTOV cx7to TWV cilKeocve(oov yocLWV. It is said in a
scholion on Persius, I, 46, that the phoenix burns itself at sunset and arises
from its ashes with the rising sun. This contains the echo of the tradition
discussed here of the phoenix as bird of the sun, albeit that the daily renewal
is combined with the Classical story of the burning; see also p. 209.
B For the agreement between the phoenix and the eagle on this point, see
p. 16I.
3 Physiologus, 6: IITOCV Y1lPcXO"1), fjocpuVOVTOCL OCUTOU 01 bcp.&OCAILOl Kocl ocl 7tTepuyet;
Kocl cXlLfjAuoo7ter. Tt O~V 7tOLer; ~1jTer 7t1j~V G8OCTOt; KOC.&OCpcXV, Kocl cXVt7tTOCTOCL elt; TOV
oct.&epoc TOU ~AtOU, Kocl KocleL Tclt; 7tTepuYOCt; OCUTOU Tclt; 7tOCAocLclt; Kocl -rijv cX(J-ocuptocv TWV
bCP.&OCA(J-WV OCUTOU Kocl KocTocfjoctveL ~7tl ~v 7t1jyfjv, Kocl fjOC7tTt~eTocL Tptt;, Kocl cXVOCKOCL-
Vt~ETOCL, Kocl veot; ytVETOCL. For the age and renewal of the eagle, see Hubaux
and Leroy, 136-140.
, Physiologus, 6: Kocl fjcX7t't"LO"OCL Tplt; ~ T'ij cXEVVcXcp 7t1jyjj, dt; TO I5VO(J-OC TOU
llOCTPOt; Kocl TOU Ylou Kocl TOU &:ytou llVEU(J-OCTOt;. Ambrose, De paenitentia, 11,2, 8
also cites, in the discussion of the renewal by baptism, Ps. ciii.5; he does not
give, however, the explanation of the Physiologus but assumes for the eagle
the renewal of the phoenix: quod etiam aquila, cum luerit mortua, ex suis
Classical physiology did know a tradition concerning the old age

of the eagle, but without its rejuvenation by burning and immer-
sion. 1 These elements are, however, encountered in the Arabian re-
ports on the nasI' and the (u~db, usually interpreted as the eagle
and the vulture. According to Damiri, the eagle flies from the east to
the west in a single day.2 He does not say that the bird does this
each day, but the agreement with the tradition concerning the
phoenix-griffin on this point is nevertheless striking. According to
another source, it comes so close to the sun that it must, like the
griffins of the Disputatio, submerge itself in the Ocean, where it
revives and regains its youth. 3 I>.azwini tells the same things about
the vulture (u~db) as the Physiologus says about the eagle: when
its eyes are weakened by age it flies upward until its feathers are
burned; then it descends and immerses itself several times in a
spring from which it rises young and refreshed. 4 Damiri offers the
variant that the old vulture is brought to a spring by its young and
there rejuvenates itself by bathing in its water.5 Even if it is taken
to be probable that I>.azwini drew on an Arabic Physiologus for
the passage on the vulture just referred to, it must still be considered
unlikely that the related traditions concerning the renewal of the
griffin-phoenix, the eagle, and the vulture are all to be traced to the
reports on the eagle in the Physiologus. It seems more likely that
the burning of the plumage and the rejuvenation by immersion
belonged originally only to the oriental tradition of the sun bird
reliquiis renascitur. According to a late Physiologus, (ed. Sbordone, 314) the

eagle, like the phoenix, lives 500 years.
1 According to Aristotle, Rist. Anim., IX, 32 (619a) and Pliny, X 15, the
beak of the old eagle becomes so severely hooked that the bird finally dies
of starvation; cl. Thompson, Glossary 01 Greek birds, 10 and Hubaux and
Leroy, 136, who also (p. 137) refer to the appropriate form of renewal in
Augustine, Enarratio in Ps. cii, 9 (PL 37, 1323-1324): the eagle beats its
hooked beak against a stone to free itself of the deformation threatening it
with death. In the Byzantine Physiologus, 8, both forms of renewal are connect-
ed (i.e. beating against a rock and submersion), whereas the eagle, perched on
a rock, renews its eyes by the heat of the sun.
2 Damiri, n, 403 according to Wensinck, Tree and bird, (see p. 267, n. 2),
38.
a Wensinck, 38.
, J>:azwini, 418, according to Wensinck, 39.
6 Damiri, n, 146 according to Wensinck, 39.
ESCORT OF THE SUN
accompanying the sun, since it is only there that these elements

have a natural and organic place: the burning is unavoidable and the
daily renewal imperative. This is the source from which this form
of rejuvenation must have been tranferred to other sun birds, in-
cluding the eagle.
All this makes it possible to explain a passage in De ave phoenice of
Lactantius, a passage which until now has given scholars a great
many problems. Lactantius says that before sunrise the phoenix re-
peatedly immerses itself in the spring of living water located in the
grove of the sun. It seems certain that Lactantius took these
elements from the above-discussed oriental tradition concerning the
sun bird-phoenix or griffin-which accompanies the sun. This im-
pression is immediately created by the verses introducing the passage
in question: the phoenix is called a memorable follower or attendant
of the sun, submissive to Phoebus and obedient to him-as imposed
on it by Mother Nature. 1 The unsuspecting reader might take this
to be a somewhat circumstantial parallel of the statement made by
Achilles Tatius that the sun is the lord of the phoenix. 2 But in the
light of the foregoing discussion it is impossible not to see in his
choice of wording, in which the concept "follow" resonates, a re-
miniscence of the conception that the phoenix is the daily com-
panion of the sun. This is supported by a comparison of Lac-
tantius' words on the command of Mother Nature with Pseudo-
Baruch's statement that God had appointed the bird to its protective
task. 3 But since Lactantius followed the Classical tradition of the
burning after a thousand years,' he could only incorporate the orien-
tal conception of the sun bird, which implies a daily renewal, in a
severely modified form. This is immediately evident from his care-
ful choice of words-still betraying the original conception-in speak-
ing about the phoenix as servant of the sun, and it is also evident
from his treatment of the motives underlying the immersion and
the singing of the bird. It will be well to discuss this in more detail.
1 Lactantius, 33-34: Paret et obsequitur Phoebo memoranda satelles .. thoc

natura parens munus habere dedit.
B See p. 235.
8 See p. 262, n. I.
, See p. 69, n. 6.
As soon as the dawn breaks and the stars begin to pale, says Lac-
tantius, the phoenix submerges its body three or four times in the
sacred water of the spring, and three or four times it takes a little
of the water of life. 1 This closely resembles what the Byzantine
Physiologus has to say about the eagle, which was supposed to renew
itself by submerging itself three times in a pure spring. 2 The agree-
ment between this conception and that concerning the phoenix-
griffin has already been analysed above. It is clear that Lactantius
drew on this tradition here, but because he had to omit the preceding
burning of the feathers of the sun bird, the rejuvenating character
of the submersion is lost in his text. Instead, it has become a sacred
act recurring each day, thus suggesting an explanation of the long
life and virtual immortality of the phoenix.
Lactantius devotes considerable attention to the bird's behaviour
after it has completed the rite of immersion. The phoenix rises
from the water and settles in the top of a high tree so tall that it
looks down over the entire grove. s In view of Lactantius' identifi-
cation of the abode of the phoenix with Paradise, 4 there can be no
doubt that we are concerned here with the image of the sun bird on
the tree of life, which was especially popular in the oriental world. s
On this tree the phoenix, turned toward the east, awaits the rays
and the light of the rising sun. As soon as the soft glow of the first
light becomes visible, the bird begins to sing a sacred song and to
summon the new day with a beautiful sound. This sound cannot be
surpassed by either the voice of the nightingale or the flute with its
Cirrhaean tones; the same holds for the song of the dying swan and
1 Lactantius, 35-38: Lutea cum primum surgens Aurora rubescit, / cum
primum rosea sidera luce fugat, / ter quater illa pias inmergit corpus in undas, /
ter quater e vivo gurgite libat aquam.
I See p. 279, n. 3.
8 Lactantius, 39-40: Tollitur ac summo considit in arboris altae I vertice,
quae totum despicit una nemus.
, See p. 311-326.
5 Garuda: Bosch, (see p. 267, n. 3), 149, pI. 47d; Simurgh: A. Bricteux,
Histoire de la Stmourgh ... , in Le Museon, N.S., 6, 1905, 57-58; in Avesta,
Rashn Yast, X, (17), (trans. Darmesteter, SBE, XXIII, Oxford, 1883,
173 and n. I) the tree of all seeds is called "the tree of the eagle" (= SaAna,
Sinamru, simurgh); see also H. Bergema, De Boom des Levens in Schrift en
Historie, Thesis Free Univ. Amsterdam, Hilversum, 1938, 416, n. 506. For
the eagle stylized as tree, see Wensinck, 43, figs. 30, 31, and 32. According
ESCORT OF THE SUN
the melodious strings of the Cyllenian lyre. 1 We have seen that the
idea that the sun bird summons the new day as dawn breaks and
asks the "light-giver" to bestow his light on the world, formed a
permanent element in the tradition concerning the phoenix-griffin,
although the descriptions of this summons differ. We shall see that
according to the Slavonic Enoch too, the phoenix begins to sing at
sunrise. 2 The reaction of the cocks on earth to this song is omitted
by Lactantius, although the following passage indicates that he was
aware of the relationship between the phoenix and the cock. He
does not have the cock take up the phoenix's early morning song
but, to the contrary, ascribes to the phoenix a diurnal song that
other authors assume for the cock.
It was certainly noticed in Classical times, too, that the cock does
not crow only at dawn. 3 But on the basis of its morning chant it was
seen so predominantly as an indicator of time that its other crowing
was considered to occur at regular intervals. Pliny said that during
the day the cock crows every three hours, and even long before him
the comic poet Cratinus (fifth century B.C.) had said that "the
Persian cock" crowed each hour in a loud voice.' Lactantius assumes
the same thing for the phoenix: once the sun has become entirely
visible, the phoenix greets him thrice with a repeated beating of its
wings and it remains silent after having worshipped his fiery head
thrice in this way; in addition, throughout the day and the night it
marks the rapid hours with ineffably beautiful tones. In this con-
to the Germanic mythology too, in the world-tree Yggdrasill there sits an

eagle, ef., J. de Vries, Altgermanisehe Religionsgesehiehte, 11, Berlin-Leipzig,
1937,403.
1 Lactantius, 41-50: Et eonversa novos Phoebi nascentis ad ortus, / expeetat
radios et iubar exoriens. / Atque ubi Sol pepulit tulgentis timina portae / et
primi emieuit luminis aura levis, / ineipit illa saeri modulamina tundere
eantus / et mira lueem voce eiere novam, / quam nee aedoniae voces nee tibia
possit / musiea Cirrhaeis adsimulare modis, / sed neque olor moriens imitari
posse putatur / nee Cylleneae fila eanora lyrae. Cj. Ezekiel the Dramatist,
Exodus, 264: CP61V~V ae 7tIXVT61V e:!XEV EK7tpe:m:crTIXT7jV.
2 See p. 262, 264, 272, 275, 291.
3 Ct. Cicero, De divinatione, 11, 56: Quod autem est tempus quo ilti non
eantent, vel noeturnum vel diurnum?
, Pliny, X, 46: ternas distinguunt horas interdiu eantu; Cratinus, in
Athenaeus, IX, 374d: Clcr7te:p 0 7te:pcrLKOC;; Clpa.v 7tiicra.v Ka.Va.XWV oMcp61voc;; <XAtKT61P;
Babrius, 124, 15 calls the cock ~p6!La.VTLC;;.
nection Lactantius calls the phoenix the venerable priest of the grove
of the sun and the sole initiate of the secrets of Phoebus. 1 It seems
certain that Lactantius made use of these conceptions, as indicated
by Pliny and Cratinus, to fortify the symbolism of the phoenix he
had in mind. The threefold salute to the rising sun may be an allusion
to the Early Christian morning-prayers, and the beautiful song
indicating the hours may be related to the numerous daily and
nightly prayers, which were customary among ascetics in particular.
If this assumption is correct, we are concerned here with evidence
of the Christian character of De ave phoenice. 2
Reference must be made in this connection to some of the inscrip-
tions associated with the double phoenix in the tomb of the Valerii
under the Vatican, having to do with the song of the phoenix. If
Margherita Guarducci's reading is correct, this Christ-phoenix is
spoken to with the words: "Thou singest amid the stars, 0 celestial
bird" and "Thou singest thrice in the early morning".3 The graffito
of the head of Christ with the double phoenix dates from ca. A.D.
300.4 I t does not seem impossible that Lactantius' influence is present
here. If this were the case, De ave phoenice must have been com-
pleted before A.D. 300, which is quite possible. But if the writer of
these inscriptions was not influenced by the poem, there must have
been a tradition that the phoenix sings to and worships the rising
sun three times, from which Lactantius too took elements. There is
of course no way of obtaining certainty on this point, and it must
be kept in mind as well that with respect to the inscriptions we are
wholly dependent on the readings of Guarducci. 6
1 Lactantius, vss. 51-58: Postquam Phoebus equos in aperta ettudit Olympi, /

atque orbem totum protulit usque means, / ilia ter alarum repetito verbere plaudit /
ignilerumque caput ter venerata silet. / Atque eadem celeres etiam discriminat
horas / innarrabilibus nocte dieque sonis, / antistes luci nemorumque verenda
sacerdos / et sola arcanis conscia, Phoebe, tuis.
2 See also p. 320-326, 348-356, 381-385.
8 M. Guarducci, Cristo e San Pietro in un documento preconstantiniano della
Necropoli Vaticana, Rome, 1953, 40, 38, cl. p. 160 here.
, Guarducci, 31, 70.
G The inscriptions are virtually impossible to read with the naked eye. See
Guarducci, 16 and 17, on their rapidly deteriorating condition. The numerous
photographs she made are: "eseguite con i piu vari mezzi tecnici: luce normale,
raggi ultravioletti ed inlrarossi, luci monocromatiche" (p. 16).
ESCORT OF THE SUN
We may thus take it as definitely established that the conception

of the phoenix as daily companion of the sun, with the related ele-
ments of the restorative immersion and the song at dawn, left
distinct traces in Lactantius' poem. 1 But it is no longer possible to
detect any trace of the actual function assigned to the sun bird(s)
in the most important texts: the protection of the earth against
destruction by the rays of the sun. According to the Apocalypse of
Baruch and the Byzantine Physiologus, the birds accomplished this
by holding back the most extreme heat with their wings and, accord-
ing to the astrologer of Leningrad and the Disputatio, by moistening
the rays. For the latter the assumption seems to have been that the
birds first dipped their wings in the water by which they had been
restored. 2
This protective function of the sun bird is also indicated in several
other texts without mention of the phoenix or the griffin. The
Spanish abbot Valerius, who lived at the end of the seventh century,
has a certain Balderius tell about a trip he claimed to have made to
heaven. 3 When the angels were ready to bring him back, God com-
manded him to wait because the sun was just about to rise. The
brilliance was incomparable, but the sun was preceded by a huge
bird. This bird was a shade of red, but its back was darker. By fre-
quently beating its wings, which stirred the air to a loud roar, it
tempered the violent heat of the sun. In this way it rapidly passed
1 There is therefore no reason whatsoever to join Hubaux and Leroy,
XII-XIII, in inserting verses 55-90 between verses 34 and 35, see also
p. 206, n. 6 and p. 206, n. I. M. Schuster, Del' PhOnix und del' PhOnixmythos
in del' Dichtung des Lactantius, in Commentationes Vindobonenses, 2, 1936,
60-63, infers that in the submersion, the song, and the wing-beating of the
phoenix and also in the fruit that does not drop (vs. 30), Lactantius was
inspired by a large Alexandrian clock: "man wird dabei geradezu an eine
Schwarzwiilder Kuckucksuhr erinnert' (p. 61). Charles, Apocr. and Pseud,
n, 436 assumes that Lactantius is dependent on II Enoch; there is indeed
a connection, because in this work we find a variant of the tradition discussed
here (see below, p. 291), but there is no direct dependence, because in II
Enoch the submersion does not occur. Walla, 158-159, refers for the sub-
mersion to the Physiologus of Vienna and the codex of Leningrad. She
considers it impossible to determine whether here Lactantius is dependent on
the tradition concerning the cosmic sun bird.
S See p. 275. n. I.
8 In this context, lames, (p. 272, n. I), 413, was the first to refer to this
text.
Balderius and the angels, who began their descent to earth only
after this awesome scene had passed out of sight.! The description
of the appearance of the giant bird is distinctly reminiscent of the
Classical descriptions of the phoenix, 2 and the fact that Balderius
saw it during a heavenly journey strongly recalls the Greek Apoca-
lypse 0/ Baruch. But this apocalypse cannot have been Valerius'
direct source, because he says that the heat of the sun is cooled by
the air churned by the bird's wings, whereas in Pseudo-Baruch
its wings catch the sun's rays. We must therefore conclude that
Valerius must have had the phoenix in mind and that his report is
vaguely related to the tradition of the Greek Apocalypse 0/ Baruch.
A reference to the protective function of the sun bird is also made
in a fragment of a Coptic Christmas sermon preserved in Turin. In
this fragment it is said of Christ: "He who protected all creation with
the shadow of His wings to save all from destruction and death, was
protected by others when He lay as a stranger in the manger". 3 It
seems probable that this writer too was thinking of the phoenix:
even already in the Early Church the phoenix was seen as a sym-
bol of Christ, whereas this meaning was given to the griffin only
later, in the Middle Ages. 4
The conceptions concerning the sun bird under discussion un-
doubtedly also underly the description of the heliodromus given in
the so-called Cyranides. The heliodromus is an Indian bird which
flies to the rising sun as soon as it is hatched, but which goes to the
west as soon as the sun has passed the zenith. It does not live more
than a year, and leaves an androgynous progeny behind. It is also
1 Valerius Abbas, Opuscula, 24 (PL 87, 436B): Ante ipsum (sc. solem)
autem praecedens ingenti magnitudine avis rufa, et desuper posteriora eius
fusco colore fuscata, saepe revoluto alarum remigio crepitanti fragore impulso
aere temperabat exaestuantem eiusdem solis ardorem. Quae alacri velocitate
properans praeteriit. Post cuius terribilis visionis abscessum coepimus remeare
deorsum.
I For this, see p. 253-256.
3 F. Rossi, I papiri coptici del Museo Egizio di Torino, I1, 1892, fasc. 2
(1889), 70; Italian, not always accurate, trans. on p. Ill; Deut. xxxii.1I
cannot be the source.
, See J. J. M. Timmers, Symboliek en iconographie der christelijke kunst,
Roermond-Maaseik, 1947, 788, no. 1869 (cf. p. 362, no. 745: griffin as symbol
of Satan); see also M. Vereno, Greil, in Lexik. I. Theol. und Kirche, 3rd ed.,
IV, 1960, 1219-1220. For the phoenix as symbol of Christ, see p. 160, 215.
ESCORT OF THE SUN
said that anyone who carries with him the embalmed entrails of this
bird will become very wealthy, and anyone who eats of it will be
healthy throughout his life. l Although not explicitly stated, it is
implied that the heliodromus ascends each day together with the sun.
Its lifespan of a single year shows that it was associated with the
annual solar cycle rather than with the sun's daily course over the
heavens. The reference to India is equally suggestive of the phoenix
and the griffin, 2 and the hermaphroditic offspring recalls the in-
determinate sex of the phoenix. 3 For the final element of the frag-
ment we may refer to the use of the ashes of the phoenix for medici-
nal and magical purposes. 4 This tradition concerning the heliodromus
seems to be a mixture of Classical phoenix elements and the oriental
idea of the bird that escorts the sun along the heavens.
Lastly, we must examine the mentions of the phoenix in the Book

0/ the secrets 0/ Enoch, usually called the Slavonic Enoch or II Enoch. 5
Of this Apocalypse, which is preserved only in Slavonic, a short and
a long recension are known, their mutual relationship and age still
offering uncertainties. We must go into the present status of research
on this subject, because the two texts differ completely with respect
to the phoenix. It was long thought that the more extensive text
was the oldest and most original, and that it had been written by
an Egyptian Jew even before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.6
1 F. de Mely, Les lapidaires de l'antiquite et du moyen dge, II, Paris, 1898,
89: 'HAL03p6(Lo<; ~a-rl 7te:'"lVOV tV3LKOV 1)7te:p cX(La: ye:vvlJ.&'jj eX7tL7t-rOt-rOtL 7tpo<; rljv
eXVOt-rOA~V -rou ~ALOU· &(LOt 3e -rpOt7t'jj /) ~ALO<;, OtML<; 7tpo<; 3ua(LcX<;. OU ~'jj 3e 7tAeOV
~LOtU-rOU, eXAAa: TE:KvoyoVe:r eXppevo.&eAlJ. (see p. 367 for Festugicre's emendation).
The first reference to this text in this context was made by Cumont, Etudes
syriennes, 57 (58), n. I; discussed by Hubaux and Leroy, 7-8, who (p. 7, n. I)
also refer to Papyri graecae magicae, V, 254 (not 248): ... <pOLVLKO<; eXe:pO<pOL-
TlJ-rou, in which, however, the escorting of the sun need not be assumed.
B For the phoenix, see p. 147; for the griffin, see below p. 304.
3 See p. 364-366.
, See p. 409.
6 Critical edition and French translation by A. Vaillant, Le Livre des
secrets d'Henoch, (Textes publ. par. l'Inst. des Etud. slav., IV), Paris, 1952;
older translations e.g. by N. Forbes, with annotations by R. H. Charles, in
the latter's Apocr. and Pseud., II, 431-469 and by G. N. Bonwetsch, Die
Bucher der Geheimnisse Henochs, (TU 44, 2), Leipzig, 1922.
8 Charles, II, 426, Bonwetsch, XVIII; followed by many scholars, see
H. H. Rowley, The relevance 0/ apocalyptic, 2nd ed., London, 1947, 96, n. 3.
Strong objections to this dating were raised by a number of British

scholars, who placed the work in the seventh century because the
astronomical considerations it contains could hardly have been made
before that.! For us the important thing here is that the information
about the phoenix is found in this astronomical passage. Independent
of this discussion, Schmidt demonstrated as early as 1921 that the
short text could not possibly be a resume of the long one. He con-
cluded that the short text was the older of the two, and thought that
it had been written in Aramaic or Hebrew before A.D. 70. The long
text he ascribed to an Alexandrian Jew who saw very clearly that
all kinds of material of importance to him could be interpolated into
the original text; quite independently, the short text must have been
translated into Greek, perhaps in the first century of this era. 2 Ac-
cording to Vaillant too, the latter text offers the original form of the
1 Cf. Mrs. Maunders, The date and place of writing of the Slavonic Enoch, in
The Observatory, 1918, 309-316; referred to under the same title by
J. K. Fotheringham, in JThSt, 20, 1919, 252; these conclusions were rejected
by R. H. Charles in an article with the same title in JThSt, 22, 1921, 161-163,
fully and convincingly answered by Fotheringham, The Easter calendar and
the Slavonic Enoch, in JThSt, 23, 1922, 49-56. In connection with Bonwetsch's
translation, this debate was referred to by Kirsopp Lake, The date of the
Slavonic Enoch, in Harv. theol. rev., 16, 1923,397-398, who accepted Fothering-
ham's dating (seventh century) as definite; F. C. Burkitt, Robert Henry
Charles (I8SS-I93I), in Proc. of the Brit. Acad., 17,1931,441-443, describes
Charles as "not very patient of adverse criticism", as evidence of which he
mentions Charles's stubborn retention of his early dating despite the con-
vincing arguments put forward by Fotheringham: "In other words "Slavonic
Enoch" is not Jewish, but a Christian work of the seventh century A.D."
(p. 433). Burkitt, in his Jewish and Christian apocalypses, (see p. 276, n. 2),
75-76, had already doubted the typical Jewish character ascribed to II Enoch.
It may be mentioned once again that these discussions concerned the date
of the long recension, which in agreement with Charles' opinion was held to
be the original.
2 N. Schmidt, The two recensions of Slavonic Enoch, in Journ. 01 the Amer.
Orient. Soc., 41, 1921, 307-312; he points out that the indications for the
Egyptian origin of the work are all found in the long recension, and that the
short recension reflects the ideas of the Aramaic-speaking Jews in Palestine.
Very important with respect to the Jewish background are the numerous
comments in Ginzberg, V, 158-162; also L. Gry, Quelques noms d'anges et
d'ctres mysterieux en 11 Henoch, in Revue Biblique, 49, 1940, 195-203 and
R. Otto, Reich Gottes und Menschensohn, Munich, 1934, 142, 148-150, 162-
164, 345-347; see also A. Rubenstein, Observations on the Slavonic Book
Enoch, in Journ. 01 Jewish Stud., 13, 1962, 15-19.
ESCORT OF THE SUN
apocalypse, which in his judgement must have been written in the

second century of the present era by a Christian Jew, in close con-
nection with the Ethiopic Enoch (1 Enoch). This text is thought by
Vaillant to have been translated into Slavonic in the tenth or at the
latest in the eleventh century, and much later, probably as late as
the fifteenth century, acquired the interpolations resulting in the
long recension. Of this latter version, therefore, there was never a
Greek text; furthermore, the Slavonian redactor is supposed to have
made use of the Disputatio, which cannot have been written be-
fore 1274.1 We shall see that this last hypothesis is open to serious
objections, but we must in any case accept, as the result of this re-
search, that the short recension is the original one and that it dates
from the first or the beginning of the second century of the present
era, as well as that the long recension-in particular the astronomi-
cal passage with which we are concerned here--could not have been
written, in the form in which we know it, before the seventh century.
According to the short text, Henoch sees the sun and the moon in
the fourth heaven. The chariot of the sun has four stars on each side
and is drawn by flying spirits, each of which has twelve wings;
these spirits govern the descent to the earth of dew and heat with
the sun's rays, according to the command of the Lord. When the sun
sets, four angels remove his crown and take it to the Lord, where-
upon the sun turns his chariot and returns without light; in the east
his crown is placed on his head once more. 2 The phoenix is not men-
1 Vaillant, VIII-XIII (Eth. Enoch, Judaeo-Christian), XIII-XV (Slavonic

trans.), XV-XXII (interpolations). Vaillant's views have been adopted by
J. Trinquet, Henoch slave (Livre d'), in Catholicisme, Hier-Aujourd'hui-
Demain, V, Paris, 1963,603, and also by A. Rubenstein, o.c. 1-21, who assumes
that the short recension implies knowledge of the Letter to the Hebrews.
J. Danielou, Theologie du Judeo-christianisme, Paris-Tournai, 1958, 25-28,
also sees in 11 Enoch a Judaeo-Christian work, which in his opinion must
have originated at the end of the first century A.D. in Syria. O. Pfioger,
Henochbucher, 2. Das slawische H-.buch, in Die Religion in Geschichte und
Gegenwart, 3rd ed., Ill, Ttibingen, 1959, 224, makes no mention of the
problem of the two recensions and betrays no familiarity with the literature
on this point in English. O. Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das A .T., 3rd ed., Ttibin-
gen, 1964, 843-844, appears to consider the long recension the oldest (seventh
century) and assumed a Jewish "Grundlage" that probably originated even
before A.D. 70, perhaps in Alexandria. See also Denis, (cf. p. 261, n. I), 28-29.
2 II Enoch, 6 (ed. Vaillant, 13-15 = ch. 12, 14 in Charles and Bonwetsch).
19
tioned in this passage, but otherwise the entire account is reminis-

cent of the chapters of the Greek Apocalypse oj Baruch we have dis-
cussed. There too, the sun's crown is brought to God by four angels,
and there an explanation is given of why this was done: it had to be
refurbished. Both texts give the same tradition without any clear
evidence that either is dependent on the other.l
Enoch sees the phoenix not in the fourth but in the sixth heaven,
and then even sees seven at the same time. This sixth heaven is in-
habited by the angels controlling the processes of nature, including
those governing the courses of the stars, the sun, and the moon and
giving necessary instructions to the angels leading them. Amid all
these angels Enoch sees seven phoenixes, seven cherubs, and seven
seraphs singing the praises of the Lord as one voice. They are called
the footstool of God, whom they delight in the seventh heaven. 2 Here
the phoenix has lost its unique character: in its multiple form it
belongs to a group of high-order angels, and there is nothing to re-
call the Classical conceptions. Here again the oriental tradition of the
sonorous cosmic cock emerges: according to the later Mohammedan
accounts, this bird too was found below the throne of God. 3 There
was no difficulty in taking the sun bird as an angel. We have already
pointed out that Proclus calls the cosmic cocks "sun angels", that
in one version of the Disputatio the sun birds are "heavenly angels",
and that in one manuscript of the Byzantine Physiologus the two
griffins are interpreted as the archangels Michael and Gabriel.'
Thus, in the original, short recension of II Enoch the phoenix is
not mentioned in connection with the visit to the fourth heaven, but
1 For the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, see above, p. 262. Vaillant, re-
markably enough, overlooked this connection: he assumed (p. 15, n. 4)
that the four angels might be a reminiscence of the four spirits of I Enoch,
82, 11.
I II Enoch, 8 (ed. Vaillant, 21 = ch. 19 in Charles and Bonwetsch).
It is quite incomprehensible how Vaillant could have taken as certain
(pp. VIII, XVII) that the Disputatio based its mention of the phoenix on
this passage, as though there were no other relevant texts. He deduces from
this that "le texte gree de I'Henoeh chretien existait encore au XIIle siecle";
he also thinks that the removal of the sun's crown by the angels was taken
for the Disputatio from the short recension.
a See p. 267.
, See p. 277.
ESCORT OF THE SUN 29 I
it does occur in the long, interpolated text. The four stars on each
side of the sun's chariot each have a thousand stars under them,
so that a total of eight thousand stars accompany the sun. l Further-
more, they are preceded during the day by I50,000 angels and at
night by a thousand-probably originally ten thousand 2-and a
hundred angels give the sun its fire. Of the "flying spirits" which,
according to the short text, draw the sun's chariot, it is said in the
long text that they have the shape of birds, one resembling the
phoenix and the second the chalkedri (singular). These latter "birds"
have the body of a lion but the feet, head, and tail of a crocodile and
their colour is the purple of the rainbow. Their size is nine hundred
measures and they have the wings of angels, twelve each. These
creatures draw the sun's chariot and convey dew and heat to the
earth; at the Lord's command they reverse the course of the chariot
which descends and rises in the sky and on the earth with the light
of its rays.s When the sun sets, four hundred angels remove his
crown and bring it to the Lord; they turn the sun with his chariot,
and he returns, without light, during the seven great hours of the
night. At the eighth hour the four hundred angels bring the crown
back and place it on the sun again. Then "the elements", which are
called phoenix and chalkedri, begin to sing, at which all the birds
begin to flutter their wings, praising him who brings the light, and
singing: "The giver of light arrives and gives the light to his cre-
ation".4
The points of agreement between this text and those discussed
above are immediately evident. The four hundred angels that re-
I According to Vaillant, (XVIII and 91, n. 2) this is to be traced to a
misunderstanding on the part of the Slavonian revisor, who must have read
a word in the Slavonic translation of the short version that closely resembled
"thousand". But Cumont, Text et mon., I, 44, n. 5 points to related Iranian
conceptions.
I Vaillant, 91, n. 3 makes it likely that here I (se. myriad) must be read
instead of 1,000.
3 The interpolator has distorted the original idea that the dew and warmth
descend with the rays of the sun (thus in I Enoeh, 75, 4-5), so that now the
birds of the sun do this with the ascent and descent of the chariot of the sun;
the interpolation is extremely unsuccessful, because the mention of the rays
of the sun has become pointless.
« 11 Enoeh, 6 (long recension, ed. Vaillant, 91-93 = chs. 12, 14-15 in
Charles and Bonwetsch).
move the sun's crown at evening and return it in the morning have
become a hundred times as many as those who perform the same
function according to the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch and the short
recension of the Slavonic Enoch, but four hundred angels are also
mentioned in the Slavonic translation of the former.l The same
tendency to a multiplication by a factor of a hundred can be seen
in the indications on the bird's size: the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch
speaks of a size like that of nine mountains and the Disputatio of
nine ells, but 11 Enoch mentions nine hundred measures. 2 The
reaction of the earthly birds to the song of the phoenix and the
chalkedri corresponds to that of the cocks in the texts on the phoe-
nix-griffin. J ames pointed out that here "birds" must have the
restricted sense of "cocks", as is so often the case in Greek. 3
Because of all the texts concerning the phoenix-griffin mentioned
above Vaillant knew only the Disputatio, he took it for granted
that the Slavonian redactor of the long text must have taken his
information from that work. On closer examination, however, the
points of direct agreement prove to be limited to the roughly equal
number of angels escorting the sun 4 and the mention of the chaledris-
chalkedri, both of which names may be assumed to indicate the
same bird. The differences, on the contrary, are so great that the
assumed borrowing must be considered extremely improbable. That
in the Slavonic Enoch the birds draw the chariot, whereas in the
Disputatio they protect the earth against the sun's heat, could in-
deed be explained by the fact that in the long text the passage con-
cerning the two birds was interpolated after the "flying spirits",
which according to the short text draw the chariot. But the decisive
1 For the Greek and Slavonic Apocalypse 0/ Baruch. see p. 262.

I According to the first Slavonic translation of the Disputatio. the size
is 60 ells (c/. Vaillant. 91 (90). n. 7); the astrologer of Leningrad puts the
griffin at 200 ells (see p. 273. n. I); for the Physiologus 0/ Vienna (as large
as the island of Phoinik6n). see p. 54. n. 3. '
3 James. LXV. adopted by Burkitt (see p. 276. n. 2). 76. n. I. and repeated
in R. H. Charles (p. 288. n. I). 442. For /Spw; = cXAEKTPUWV see Thompson.
Glossary 0/ Greek birds, 33. and Liddell-Scott. 1254. S.v. /Spw;. Ill.
4 Various readings are given for the texts of the Disputatio (see p. 274.
n. 2) and the correct reading of II Enoch is also uncertain; see p. 291.
n.2.
fact is that II Enoch could not possibly have borrowed the descrip-
tion of the external appearance of the sun birds from the Disputatio,
since the Byzantine text refers only to the size of nine ells. Further-
more, it is difficult to see why the supposed Slavonian redactor
would have changed the concrete "ells" to the vague "measures".
In both texts the phoenix and the chaledris-chalkedri are taken as
similar creatures: in the Disputatio they are griffins, in 11 Enoch
their appearance is the same. But just as in the former text two
separate traditions concerning the phoenix and the griffin (both
ultimately traceable to the same oriental cosmic sun bird) are re-
lated,l in the latter text the details concerning the bird's appearance
seem originally to have been divided between different creatures.
The "birds" have a winged lion's body, each with twelve wings, but
for the rest the legs, head, and tail of a crocodile, and they have the
purple colour of the rainbow. The twelve wings were taken by the
interpelator from the short text, in which the same is said about the
"flying spirits". 2 Of the external features only the purple colour re-
calls the traditional descriptions of the phoenix, and even then it
must be kept in mind that the comparison with the rainbow occurs
only in Lactantius and in the description of the simurgh-(an~a),
which may also represent an indication of an oriental influence. 3 The
combination of a winged lion and a crocodile is inconceivable for a
phoenix, however, and can only have originally been related to the
chalkedri. The results of an investigation into the meaning of this
name and the nature of this monstrous creature clearly reveal the
ultimate source of the material in II Enoch.
The Disputatio gives the name chaledris to the companion of the
phoenix; in the first Slavonic translation of this text it is called the
chalkedri and in the second the chalendri. 4 The correct spelling of this
term was evidently not certain: in another manuscript of the Dis-
putatio we find the plural form chalkedones, which must have origi-
nated as an error of the pen. 6 In the existing translations of the
1 See p. 275-276.
B See p. 289.
3 See p. 254.
, See Vaillant, 91, n. 4.
5 See p. 274, n. 5. In the unimportant third recension of 11 Enoch, the
Slavonic Enoch the name is spelled chalkydri, chalkedrius, and chal-

kedri.l Various derivations have been proposed to explain this name,
for instance from the Indian bird garuda and the Persian cock
kahrkatds. 2 But it is improbable that either of these birds gave rise
to chaledris-chalkedri, in spite of the relationships we have traced3
and even though the most unexpected changes can indeed occur in
adoptions of names. For the first part of the name Vaillant pointed
to the parallelism between CPOr:VL~ and XOCAlOj (KOCA)(1j) or purple, and
for the second part to the parallelism between w~ CPOr:VL~ ... wo-et
Ke8po~ in Ps. Xci.I3 (LXX), names of trees susceptible to imagi-
native elaborations. 4 But no evidence at all can be offered to sup-
port the hypothesis that on the basis of this text-in which the palm
is indeed taken, according to an old tradition, as phoenix 5-the
cedar mentioned there was transformed into a bird. The simplest and
therefore the most likely explanation is still Charles's opinion that
the name chalkydri, which he considers to be a plural form, is a
transcription of XCXAKU8pCXL, bronze hydras. s
Now, a hydra, as the term suggests, is a water-snake. In addition
to the hydra, other water snakes-the hydros and the enhydris-
were known in the Classical world, as well as amphibious snakes,
the chersydros and the chelydros. The differences between these
snakes are so small that they were even confused in Classical times.
According to Aristotle, the hydros and the enhydris too were am-
phibious, although only the latter, like the crocodile, had legs. 7
Nicander distinguished between the hydros, the chersydros, and the
chelydros, but in an inserted, spurious verse the hydros and the
chelydros are taken as the same. s Philumenus takes the hydros and
word chalked'l'i is written in the plural, see Vaillant, XXIII. XCXAK'lj8&lv
occurs only in Rev., Xxi.19, where it is a precious stone.
1 Chalkydri: Forbes, 436; chalkedrius: Bonwetsch, 11; chalked'l'i: Vaillant,
91.
I Ga'l'uda: James, LXVI, followed by Ryssel, (p. 261, n. I), 452, n.e.
Kah'l'katds: Bousset-Gressmann, Die Religion des Judentums, 498.
8 See p. 266-267.
, Vaillant, 91, n. 5.
6 See p. 57.
• Charles, Apoc'l'. and Pseud., II, 436.
7 Aristotle, Hist. Anim., I, I, 487a, 21-23.
8 Nicander, The'l'iaca, 359-371 (che'l'syd'l'os) , 411-437 (chelyd'l'os) , 421
(hyd'l'os), 414 (hyd'l'os = chelyd'l'os).
the chersydros as the same animal, 1 and Isidore of Seville says

that the chersydros and the chelydros are identical. 2
The name chelydros immediately suggests the chaledris of the
Byzantine Disputatio. If these two names originally indicated the
same animal, the chaledris must originally have been a serpent-like
animal living on land as well as in the water. It is quite possible that
the name of the companion of the phoenix reminded a copyist of
the water-snake usually called chelydros. Nevertheless, it seems im-
probable that this was the original spelling of the name, because in
II Enoch and in one of the Greek manuscripts of the Disputatio, as
in the first Slavonic translation of the latter, the first syllable of the
name is always chalk-, and the insertion of the letter k in chaledris
would be difficult to explain. Moreover, the Byzantine text has been
handed down in a rather corrupt form: the name of the phoenix is
also spelled incorrectly (phirix). Consequently, Charles's suggestion
that the name chalkedri indicates a "water-snake", hydra or hydros,
qualified as "bronze", remains probable.
The animal actually meant by chalkedri is not difficult to deter-
mine. It has the winged body of a lion and the legs, head, and tail of
a crocodile. The latter in itself suggests that the bronze water-snake
could have meant the crocodile. The combination with the lion,
which we shall discuss shortly, is not contradictory, because the
crocodile is described in this way in the Physiologus of Pseudo-Basil,
according to which it resembles a lion from its head to its navel and
below that a serpent. 3 Here again we find the comparison with the
snake, and, furthermore, the oldest version of this work, in discuss-
ing the viper, says that it resembles a man as far down as its navel
but has the tail of a crocodile.' From these texts it becomes clear
1 Philumenus, De venenatis animalibus, 24, I.
I Isidore, Etymol., XIX, 4, 24: chelydros serpens, qui et chersydros dicitur,
quia et in aquis et in terris moratur.
3 Physiologus ot Pseudo-Basil, 8: /) clIUO'LOMYOI; ~AE1;E 1tEpl "t'OU KPOK08dAOU
/)"t'L ~O"'t'L ILtv ~ij>ov M8pov, h "t'otl; 1to"t'IXILotl; KlXl h "t'OtLI; ALILVOtL; EUPLO'K6ILEVOV,
~IL1tPOO".&EV ILtv IL~)(PL 0ILqlIXAOU qllXtVE"t'IXL ~; A~c.>V, li1to 8e "t'OU 0ILqlOtAOU 1tIXPOtKcX"t'c.>
~; IIqlLI;.
• Physiologus, 10: t!c.>1; 0ILqlOtAOU liv.&pc;mou ~)(OUO'L ILOPqll)V, OUPI1V 8e ~)(OUO'L
KPOK08EtAOU (similarly in Byz. Physiol, 22). This representation of the viper
is determined by the conception of the monster Echidna, the upper part of
whose body was that of a woman and the lower part that of a snake; cf. L.
that the crocodile and the snake were considered to be so closely re-
lated that in describing one reference could be made to the other.
This interpretation of chalkedri is confirmed by the U ntitled Gnostic
treatise in which the crocodiles are also indicated as water-snakes
(U8pOCL).1 In this Coptic text, furthermore, the crocodile is mentioned
together with the phoenix-and the bull-as a sacred animal of
Egypt. That the crocodile covered by the name chalkedri is called
"bronze" is easy to understand in view of the hard, bronze-coloured
plates on its back. Reference may be made here to the magnificent
description of the crocodile in Job x1.25-xli.26 (Masora, LXX). In
xli.7 it is said that its back consists of protective shields; the Sep-
tuagint puts this as "bronze shields".2 We may therefore conclude
that by the "bronze water-snake" which Charles was so discerning
as to distinguish in the chalkedri, the crocodile was meant.
The compilation of phoenix traditions in the Physiologus 01 Vienna
also preserves an unmistakable indication that the crocodile was the
companion of the phoenix. In the description of the bird it is said
that it can move its upper jaw but not the lower one. 3 Herodotus
and Aristotle both state, however, that the only animal for which
this holds is the crocodile. 4
The chalkedri, on the other hand, is described as a combination of
a crocodile and a lion. We have seen a striking parallel to this in the
description of the crocodile in the Physiologus 01 Pseudo-Basil.
Since the phoenix and the chalkedri are both mentioned in a part of
the Slavonic Enoch, which in its present form may not be dated
Von Sybel, Echidna, in Roscher, Lexikon, I, 1884-1890, 1212-1213, and
Escher, Echidna, in RE, 5, 1905, 1917-1919.
1 Untitled Gnostic treatise, 170, 18 (ed. Bohlig-Labib, 95).
I The translation of Job xli.7 had alIeady offered difficulties in Classical
times. See F. Field, Origenis Hexapla, Il, Hildesheim, 1964 (= Oxford,
1875), 78. LXX: 't"a l!YKCX't"CX cx6't"ou «o7;t8tt; XcXAKtLIXL, the meaning of which is
that his internal organs were enclosed by bronze shields: Aquila and the
Vulgate have oW(LCX and corpus, respectively, in place of l!YKCX't"CX.
8 Physiologus of Vienna, 6-7: Kcxl -riJv l;7;cXVW YEWV OCXAtUtLV, 06Xl 't"at; KcX't"W
>-riJv yevuv.
(LCX~D.CXt;, «AA' l;7;c1vw l!XtL( v
, Herodotus, Il, 68: 068& KLVEtL -riJv Kc1't"w yvc1&ov, «AAa Kcxl 't"OU't"O (LOUVOV
&7jptwv -riJv 4vw YVc1&ov 7;POOcXYtL 't"'jj Kc1't"w. Aristotle, Hist. animal., I, 11 (492b,
23): KLVt"L 8& 7;c1v-rcx 't"a ~<ilcx -riJv Kc1't"w&tV YEWV, 7;A~V 't"OU 7;O't"IX(LtOU KPOK08t(AOU.
Similarly, Achilles Tatius, IV, 19, 5: «VOtYtL 8& -riJv yevuv -riJv 4vw, -riJv 8& Kci't"w
OnptaV qtL.
earlier than the seventh century in any event, and since the Dis-
putatio with its mention of the chaledris dates from the end of the
thirteenth century, it might be thought that the combination of the
crocodile and the lion too originated in the Byzantine period. 1 This
is, however, unlikely, because the crocodile and the lion were al-
ready sun animals in ancient Egypt, and their merging fits most
logically into the Egyptian syncretism of Roman times.
Long before the Hellenistic period the crocodile god Sobk was
combined with the sun god to become Re-Sobk (Souchos).2 This god
was represented with a human body and the head of a crocodile
provided with rams horns, feathers, and the solar disk. s In the Pto-
lemaic temple of Kom-Ombo dedicated to this god, there is a figure
representing a crocodile on which the solar disk rests, and before
it an offering of bread, meat, and flowers. 4 Clement of Alexandria
says too that: "Some Egyptians show the sun on a ship, others on a
crocodile".5 Lastly, the sun itself could assume the shape of a cro-
codile: 6 In a magical papyrus kept in Berlin it is said, in an invo-
1 F. C. Burkitt, R. H. Charles, (see p. 288. n. I). 442.

2 Bonnet. 393. 755-757.
8 Bonnet. 755. fig. 180.
« F. Zimmermann. Die agyptische Religion .... (Stud. z. Gesch. undo Kult.
d. Altertums. V. 5-6). Paderborn. 1912. 106.
6 Clement of Alexandria. Stromat .• V. 41. 2-3: Atyu7tTlwv ot ILEV E7tl
7tAolou. ot 3E E7tl KpoKo3elAou TOV ~ALOV 3eLKV\IOUaL (see also p. 299. n. 7); this
text is referred to by Zimmermann. 106. In a slightly different form we find
the same conception in Porphyry. De cultu simulacrorum.lrg. 10. in Eusebius.
Praep. Evang .• Ill. 11. 48. who says that the sun god's boat rests on a croco-
dile. Comparison of the two texts shows that Clement must have drawn on
the same source (probably Chaeremon) as Porphyry. whose report reads:
"HALOV 3E O7)ILOtlvouaLv 7tOTE ILEV 3L' aV.&p6>7tOU Em~e~'ljK6TO~ 7tAO!OV. TOU 7tAolou
E7tl KPOK03elAOU KeLILEvou. 3'1jAO! 3E TO ILEV 7tAO!OV -rljv EV uypcj> Klv'ljaLv. 0 3E KPOK6-
3eLAo~ 7t6TLILOV G3wp. EV ij) cpepeTOtL 0 ~ALO~. 'E07)ILOtlveTo Tolvuv 0 ~ALO~ 3L' aepo~
uypou KOtl YAUK£O~ -rljv 7tepL7t6A'ljaLV 7tOLe!a'&OtL. Especially this last sentence
(cl. p. 299. n. 7) points to a common source. but it is not possible to
determine which of the two authors renders the original text most accurately.
The sun-character of the crocodile is also clearly expressed in the report of
Achilles Tatius. IV. 19. 6. that this animal has as many teeth as there are
days in the year: cpOtal 3E 6TL TOV apL'&ILOv 't'U-yxcX.vouaLv. 6aOt~ 0 .&eo~ et~ 6AOV
i!TO~ aVOtAciIL7teL Tc!t~ Tj(L£pOt~.
• See Bonnet. 757. who mentions that this conception especially concerns
the sun in the first hours of his revolution. The text in n. I on p. 298 shows
that this is not always true.
cation of Apollo, that in the west he has the shape of a crocodile

with the tail of a serpent. 1 From ancient times the lion too was as-
sociated with the sun: in Heliopolis a pair of lions were worshipped
as animals of the sun. 2 The dead man who identified himself with
the sun god could say, "I am he who crosses the heaven, I am the
Lion Re".3 According to the Greek magical papyri, a lion's body was
assigned to the sun in the fifth or sixth hour of its daily course in
particular. 4 We have already seen how often the lion occurs as
symbol of the sun on the later magical amulets. 5 This identification
was extraordinarily persistent: in an alchemistic manuscript dating
from the fifteenth century the sun is still shown riding on a lion. 6
The lion and the crocodile are together related to the circling sun in
the remarkable work by Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae
et M urcurii, in the second book of which Philologia makes a ce-
lestial journey to the "immense plains of light and the springtime
of the ethereal peace". For the last part of her journey she travels in
the boat of the sun, which is manned by seven sailors; on the prow
of this ship a cat is painted, on the mast a lion, and on the stem a
crocodile. 7 This story must ultimately go back to an Egyptian source,
since the Classical world knew only a chariot for the sun, the boat of
the sun being typically Egyptian.
The combination of the crocodile and the lion into a single creature
must have arisen in Egyptian syncretism, which went through a
very flourishing period at the beginning of our era. We have al-
ready seen how popular the formation of all kinds of monstrosities
was at that time: we need only think of the garment of Saqqara, on
which there is not only a benu-phoenix but also a combination of a
crocodile and the scarab, with above that the representation of the
1 Papyri graecae magicae, I1, 111-112 (ed. Preisendanz, I, 26): ~ 3£ TOi:<;
npo<; Al~or. fL£Pe:aL !LOptp~1I ~)(e:L<; KPOK03e:LAou, OUP!XII (Stpe:CJ)<;.
8 Aelian, XII, 7.
3 Book of the Dead, 62; Bonnet, 427.
, Bonnet, 427.
6 See p. 24 0 .
8 Cf. J. Schwabe, Archetyp und Tierkreis, Basel, 1951,413, fig. 130.
7 Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, I1, 183: In prora
felis forma depicta, leonis in arbore, crocodilli in extimo videbatur. According
to Pistis Sophia, 136 (trans. Schmidt-Till, GCS 45, 233) the moon's ship
also carried a cat's face on the prow.
winged crocodile having the falcon's head of Horus, which appears

to have been particularly popular in the first century of this era. l
In later times the crocodile was often connected with the sphinx,
which was also taken as a sun animal. 2 The sphinx was shown not
only with its usual human head but also with an additional croco-
dile head projecting from the wide breast of the lion's body. This
latter motif was particularly favoured in the first decade of the
second century A.D., as can be seen from the representations on
coins of Trajan and Hadrian as well as on limestone bas-reliefs and
pottery, for instance lamps.3 The griffin was also combined with
this motif. On one of Hadrian's coins dating from A.D. 135/136, the
sphinx-crocodile is shown walking to the right with a female griffin
riding on its back.' In Fouquet's collection there is an even more re-
markable variant in the form of a lamp having the shape of a sphinx
with a nimbus, the head of a crocodile emerging from its breast and
from its hind end the head of a predatory bird interpreted by Per-
drizet as the falcon-head of Horus or the eagle's head of the griffin. 6
To explain the crocodile-lion combination we must start with the
already established fact that the borderline between the crocodile
and the snake was exceedingly vague. 6 This is additionally confirm-
ed by the explanation given by Clement of Alexandria together
with the statement cited above concerning the way in which the
Egyptians represented the sun, i.e. on a boat or on a crocodile. These
representations indicate "that the sun, by making his journey
through the sweet and moist air, generates time, which the crocodile
also suggests by reason of another sacred story.? This last must
1 See p. 241.
• For the sphinx as sun animal, see W. B. Kristensen, De Egyptische
stinx, in his Ve1'zamelde bijd1'agen tot kennis de1' antieke godsdiensten, Amster-
dam, 1947, 44-47, also Bonnet, 746-747
8 A. Mallon, Bas-1'eliets de Sphinx, in Rev. a1'cMol., 4e Serie, 5, 1905, I,
169-179; P. Perdrizet, Les te1'1'es cuites g1'ecques d':£gypte de la collection
Fouquet, Nancy-Paris-Strassburg, 1921, I, 79-80, Il, pIs. LIV-LVI; R. Herbig,
Sphinx, in RE, 2. Reihe, 3, 2 1929, 1732-1733.
, Mallon, 177, 178, fig. 9.
& Perdrizet, I, 79, n. 191; Il, pI. LIV.
e See p. 295. cf. also Job xI.25 (LXX), where the crocodile is called 3P!XKCIlII.
7 Clement of Alexandria, St1'omat., V, 41, 3: c:T7jILOCLIIOuaL 3e /I'n /) llALOC;,
3L' &epoc; YAuKepou Kocl uypou T1)1I 7tOpeLOCII 7tOLOUILEl/OC;, yEl/llq. TOil Xp6110ll, &11 ocMaaeTOCL
/) KpOK63eLAOC; 3L!X TLIIOC liUljll !epOCTLK~1I !aTopLOCII.
3 00 THE PHOENIX AS BIRD OF THE SUN
refer to the representation of the snake biting its own tail, which was
a symbol of Aion-Cronus and, as such, closely related to the sun. l
In the gnostic Pistis Sophia the sun is described as a huge dragon or
serpent holding its tail in its mouth, 2 and as shown by Clement, this
creature could also be interpreted as a crocodile.
In the symbolic representations of Aion-Cronus the snake and the
lion are consistently associated with each other. The best-known rep-
resentation of this syncretistic deity is that of an erect man with a
lion's head and a snake wound around his body.3 To the same series
belongs theChnoubis,4 which indeed was also represented as a serpent
with a lion's head. s In the gnostic Apokryphon 01 John, ]aldabaoth,
the first archon and world-creator, has the body of a serpent (dra-
gon) and the face of a lion. 6 This gnostic image was identified with
the planet Saturn-Cronus = Chronos, all-generating Time. 7
This is the conception underlying the report in the Pysiologus 01
Pseudo-Basil that the crocodile resembles a lion from the front and
a snake from the back, and this is the sense in which the "bronze
water-snake", which according to the Slavonic Enoch escorts the
sun together with the phoenix, must be understood. The fact that in
the latter case not the head but the body is leonine, the rest resem-
1 Cf. Nilsson, Gesch. d. gl'iech. Religion, Il, 479, n. I, 481; H. Leisegang,
Das Mysterium del' Schlange, in Eranos Jahrbuch, 1939, 152-250; on Hellos
as serpent, especially 190-194.
I Pistis Sophia, 136 (trans. Schmidt-Till, GCS 45, 233).
a Cumont, Text. et mon., I, 74-85, R. Pettazoni, The monstrous ligure 01
time in Mythraism, in his Essays on the History 01 Religion, (Suppl. to Numen,
I), Leiden, 1954, 180-192.
, Nilsson, Gesch. d. Griech. Religion, Il, pI. 6, 3.
6 See p. 241.
a Apocr. 01 John, Ill, 15, 11 (ed. Krause-Labib, Wiesbaden, 1962, 69) and
idem, Il, 10, 8-9 (ed. Krause-Labib, 136). Proc1us, De arte sacra (ed. Bidez
(see p. 276, n. 4), 150), says that TLC; TWV llALOCKWV 3OCL!L6vwv AtOvTO'ltp6aw'ltov
qlocLv6!LtvoC; becomes invisible when the cock has learnt of the arrival of the
sun. The combination lion's head/snake's tail in hybrids has a long history:
very early, Chimaera (Homer, Ilias, VI, 181) was already visualized thus,
cf. e.g. R. Engelmann, Chimaira, in Roscher, Lexikon, I, 1884-1886, 893-895;
E. Bethe, Chimaira, in RE, 3, 1899, 2281-2282.
7 See G. Quispel, Gnosticism and the New Testament, in VC, 19, 1965, 75;
cl. also H. Leisegang, Die Gnosis, 4th ed., Stuttgart, 1955, 173. The identifi-
cation Kronos-Chronos is found as early as in Pherecydes of Syrus (sixth
century B.C.), see W. ]aeger, Die Theologie del' Iruhen griechischen Denker,
Darmstadt, 1964 (reprint = Stuttgart, 1953), 83-84.
ESCORT OF THE SUN 30I
bling a crocodile, is not a valid objection, since its import is only

that in this creature the snake-like character is dominant, as in the
other cases of the snake-lion combination. We may therefore con-
clude that the chalkedri was originally a symbol of self-renewing time
having its origin in the Egyptian syncretism of the first or second
century of the present era. In this milieu it thus formed a perfect
parallel with the phoenix, 1 and it was obviously under the influence
of the oriental tradition of the bird of the sun that both animals came
to be seen as the constant attendants of the sun.
The kind of thinking in which the phoenix and the chalkedri were
symbols of the sun and of Aion is well illustrated by the already-
mentioned magical papyrus in Berlin. It is said there that in the
eastern part of the Red Sea the sun carries the "sacred bird", i.e.
the phoenix, on his garment; furthermore, in the north it has the
shape of a child sitting on a lotos flower (Harpocrates), in the south
the shape of the sacred hawk, in the west that of a crocodile with a
serpent's tail, and in the east that of a winged dragon.2 An exact
representation of this formulation is seen on a gem in the British
Museum. In the middle, within an oval, the phoenix is shown (with-
out nimbus or rays but probably with the solar disk on its head).
The area outside the oval is divided into four compartments; in the
upper lefthand one Harpocrates is represented on the lotus flowerS
and in the righthand one a winged serpent; the lower lefthand
corner is damaged but a crocodile can be distinguished, and in the
righthand compartment there is a hawk. 4
1 See e.g. p. 70 and 75.
I Papyri graecae magicae, II, 105-114 (ed. Preisendanz, I, 26-28): aU "0
te:pov ISpve:ov l!XELt; &v -r'ii a-rOAn tv "Ort; 7tPOt; Ii7n)AL6>'OlV ILepEaLv 't'ljt; tpu.&pit; '&OtAeXaal)t;,
C>a7tEp l!XELt; &v "Ort; 7tPOt; ~oppi ~pEaL ILOPtp~V Vl]7ttou 7tOtL30t; t7tt ACsl"ci> KOt&rjILEvOU,
IiV"OA~, 7tOAU6>VUILE ... &v 3£ "rort; 7tPOt; v6"ov ILepEaL ILOPtp~V l!XELt; "rou &ytou tepOtKOt;,
.•. , tv 3£ "Ort; 7tPOt; At~Ot ILepEaL ILOPtp~V l!XELt; KOPK03Et).OU, oupcXv IStpECslt; ... , tv 3£
"Ort; 7tPOt; Ii7n)AL6>'OlV ILepECJL 3PcXKOV"0t l!XELt; 7tnpotpu'ij. Ct. Th. Hopfner, Griechisch-
iigyptischer Otlenbarungszauber, II, (Stud. z. Palaeogr. u. Papyruskunde,
23), Leipzig, 1924, 96.
8 For the relation of the phoenix and Harpocrates, see also the gem in pI.
IX, I.
, See pI. IX, 2. The relationship between this gem and the Berlin
magical papyrus was first remarked by A. A. Barb, Abraxas-Studien, in
Hommages a Waldemar Deonna, (ColI. Latomus, XXVIII), Brussels, 1957,
81-86, shown there in pI. XVIII, I, 2, 3. However, Barb confused the photo-
This magical papyrus and gem clearly demonstrate how closely

the phoenix, the crocodile, and the winged serpent or dragon were
related to each other as symbols of the sun. The description of the
chalkedri, the companion of the phoenix in 11 Enoch, also evokes
the image of a winged dragon. And in the magical papyrus the phoe-
nix and the winged dragon are connected with the sun rising in the
east.
The foregoing interpretation of the phoenix and the chalkedri in II
Enoch is given a remarkable confirmation by a seventeenth century
painting on a ceiling once part of an old mayoral residence in
the city of Arnhem and now kept in the Arnhem Municipal Museum. l
On this ceiling the young sun god stands in his chariot drawn by
four horses, under which a fire and clouds are shown. 2 In the fire a
salamander can be seen, and above the horses the phoenix and a
flying dragon. To leave no doubt about the identity of the phoenix,
the painter has shown it being consumed by fire on the outstretched
left hand of the sun god. The companion of the phoenix is a winged,
serpent-like beast with two legs and a fire-breathing crocodile head.
The source from which the painter of this ceiling borrowed his image-
ry cannot be determined with certainty. Since the moon is also
shown-as a woman in a chariot drawn by two oxen-it seems not
improbable that it was an emblem book. 3 The ultimate literary
source cannot be established. The only texts we know so far in
which the phoenix and the chalkedri (chaledris) are mentioned as
attendants of the sun are the Slavonic Enoch and the Byzantine
Disputatio. But in the former these animals draw the sun's chariot,
and the latter makes no mention of the crocodilic aspect of the chale-
dris. In any case, however, the painting is entirely explained by the
present analysis of the original description in II Enoch. It is con-
ceivable that a thorough study of the other motifs of the Arnhem
ceiling will provide further clarification.
graphs of the original with the plaster positive. which had its effect on his
description (p. 83).
1 See pI. XL.
I The same occurs in the Greek Apocalypse of Baruck. 6. see 2; p. 261.
8 A. Henkel and A. Schone, Emblemata. Handbuck zur Sinnbildkunst des
XVI. undXVII. jakrkunderts. Stuttgart, 1967. 794-797givemanyphoenixes
but none resembling the one in Amhem.
ESCORT OF THE SUN 30 3
The mutual relationship and the development of the conceptions

discussed above can be stated as follows. The starting-point is
formed by the oriental tradition concerning an immense cosmic sun
bird, the heavenly cock, of which our earthly cocks are counterparts.
This bird is identified with the phoenix by the writer of the Greek
Apocalypse of Baruch, who also presents it as a sign of God's for-
bearance toward the sins of mankind. If our interpretation of the
Laevius fragment is correct, this identification cannot have been
invented by the Jewish author. On the other hand, the bird of the
sun was also visualized as a griffin, as shown by the Leningrad astro-
loger and the Byzantine Physiologus. The latter mentions two grif-
fins, and it is probable that this too goes back to an oriental in-
fluence, since Proclus refers to more than one cosmic cock. Both the
phoenix and the griffin(s) use their wings to protect the world
against the destructive heat of the sun.
In Egyptian syncretism the phoenix was developed into a symbol
of continually self-renewing time. This lay close to the idea that it
escorted the sun each day, whether or not it influenced the sym-
bolic interpretation directly. Similar ideas about the serpent, croco-
dile, and lion gave rise to the composite creature called chalkedri in
11 Enoch. Both were placed in connection with the circling sun, and
this led to an image showing close agreement with the first-mention-
ed, but nevertheless diverging to a high degree: the birds of the sun
do not have the function of diminishing the destructive power of the
sun but are rather symbols of the sun itself and of the time brought
forth by the sun's daily revolution.
The only original element in the Disputatio consists of the com-
bining of all these divergent ideas. The author of this work managed
to interrelate the parallel traditions concerning the protective func-
tion of the phoenix and the griffins by starting from the idea that
two griffins accompany the sun. In 11 Enoch he found two sun ani-
mals which accompanied the sun and were called phoenix and chal-
kedri. By borrowing this he reduced the phoenix and its crocodilian
companion, which he called chaledris, to forms of the griffin. We
are forced to conclude that the Disputatio is dependent on 11 Enoch,
because the other points of agreement can also be explained quite
satisfactorily in this way.l This implies that all the conclusions

drawn by Vaillant from the reverse assumption are incorrect; so
we must conclude, for instance, that there must also have been a
Greek version of the long recension of 11 Enoch.
The author of the Disputatio could have felt himself supported, in
stating that the phoenix and the chalkedri are actually griffins, by
the description of these animals in 11 Enoch itself, because there
they fulfil a function that was similarly ascribed to the griffins in
the Classical world: the drawing of the chariot of the sun. Philostra-
tus reports that among the Indians the griffin is consecrated to
Helios and that in their art the chariot of the sun god is drawn by
four griffins. 2 This report must concern ideas current in Syria and
borrowed from there by the Classical world. 3 It is improbable,
however, that the drawing of the sun's chariot belongs to the origi-
nal conception of the phoenix and the chalkedri as sun animals. We
have already pointed out that this could have been taken from the
short text of II Enoch, because the passage on the birds of the sun
was interpolated after the mention of the "flying spirits" which draw
the chariot of the sun. Furthermore, the above-indicated original
symbolic meanings of the phoenix and of the "bronze water-snake"
or crocodile combined with the lion, give no reason to assume that
they were considered to fulfil a similar function. The redactor of
11 Enoch, however, found no reason not to assume this. Perhaps he
was led by the question the Lord asks Job in the description of the
enormous strength of the crocodile: "Couldst thou play with it as
with a bird or bind it like a little sparrow for thy child?" 4 The
answer to this rethorical question must of course be in the negative.
According to II Enoch, however, God himself is able to do this: He
plays with this enormous monster and harnesses it like a bird to the
chariot of the sun.
1 In the opinion of Vaillant, XVIII, 89, 91, the redactor of the long
recension of II Enoch borrowed the description of Paradise from the
Disputatio too. The conceptions occurring there all occur in Jewish literature,
however; see Ginzberg, V, 159.
2 Philostratus, Vita Apoll., Ill, 48.
a See Ziegler, Gryps, in RE, 7, 2, 1912, 1921-1925, and Cumont, Etudes
syriennes, 94-95.
, Job xl. 29 (LXX): 7tott!; 11 B& ~v ot?mil &am;p OPV&Cj) f) B~ae:LC; otu't'ov &a7te:p
a't'pou.&tov 7totLBtCjl;
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ABODE
The phoenix appears in the world of man only to renew itself.

Once it has risen from the ashes it immediately departs for the bless-
ed abode that is its true dwelling place. In Classical times it was
generally believed that this place was to be sought in the East, but
opinion differed as to just where. Herodotus had heard that the
phoenix came from Arabia, and many later authors accepted this
view. 1 Since Arabia was the land of spices and perfumes that play-
ed an important part at the death of the phoenix, it is not impossible
that this gave rise to the association of the phoenix with Arabia.1!
But according to another tradition, the phoenix made its home
in India. This was first reported in the second century after Christ
by Lucianus and Aristides. 3 India was then the wonderland par ex-
ceUence, and it is hardly surprising that the wonder bird was thought
to live there. 4 The same holds, indeed, for Ethiopia, which was also
mentioned as the native country of the phoenix; according to Achil-
les Tatius, the phoenix lives with the Ethiopians and dies among the
1 Herodotus, 11, 73; Pliny, X, 3; I Clement, 25; Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28;
Tertullian, De resu". mort., 13; Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 98; Diogenes
Laert., IX, 79; Aurelius Victor, IV, 14; Solinus, 33, 11; Comt. Apost.,
V, 7, 15; Ambrose, De exc. fratris, 11, 59, Exameron, V, 23, 79; Epiphanius,
Ancor., 84; Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome, IV, 9; Isidore, Etymol., XII,
7, 22: Schol. on Lucian, He,mot., 53.
I The significance of the phoenix myth is seriously underestimated when
the version given by Herodotus and others (see p. 190 here) is interpreted
solely as an illustration of the importation of southern Arabian spices into
Egypt, as is done by D. H. Miiller, A,abia, I, in RE, 2, 1896, 346.
a Lucian, De morte pe,eg,ini, 27, Navigium, 44; Aristides, XLV, 107;
Philostratus, Vita Apoll., Ill, 49; Sidonius, Ca,mina, 11, 407, VII, 354, IX,
326, XXII, 50-51; Ausonius, XXVI, 16, EPist., XX, 9; Gr. Physiologus, 7;
Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32; Lydus, De mens., IV, 11; Romance of Alexander
(Historia de p,eliis), X; Schol. on Persius, 1,46; Schol. on Aristides, XLV,
107. Petrus Damiani, Opusc. va,ia, LII, 11 (PL 145, 773B), offers both possi-
bilities: in Indiae vel in A,abiae pa,tibus; see also Heliodorus on p. 307, n. 2.
, See Nilsson's review of Hubaux and Leroy, in Gnomon, 17, 1941, 214
and also p. 306, n. 6 below.
20
306 THE ABODE
Egyptians. l The reverse situation is found in Tzetzes, but this must

have been based on a misunderstanding,2 since he refers to the Vita
Apollonii of Philostratus, and the idea that the phoenix lives in
Egypt and dies in Ethiopia is nowhere to be found in this work.
Philostratus says that the phoenix lives in India and builds its nest
near the sources of the Nile, and also that it travels to Egypt before
its death. 3 In all probability Tzetzes read his source carelessly and
interpreted "sources of the Nile" as Ethiopia, although Philostratus
placed the source of the Nile in the swamps of the Euphrates. 4 A
confused view is also found in Ambrose, who has the bird live in
Arabia but then says that it brings its dead father from Ethiopia to
Lycaonia. 5
India and Ethiopia were not only lands of unprecedented won-
ders 8 _a direct geographical connection was assumed to exist be-
tween them, because the Persian Gulf was considered to be an in-
1 Achilles Tatius, III, 25, 3: lLE:p(~OVTCXL /lE: CXUTOU AUHo7tE:~ 1LE:v T"ljv ~CI>ijv,
Atytl7tTLOL /lE: T"ljv 't'&Ae:u~V ... 7. ~wv ILE:V oov AUHoljI ~aTl Tjj TP0tp'ii, li7to&cxv6>V /lE:
AtyU7tTLO~ Y(VE:TCXL Tjj TCXtp'ii. In the medieval letter of the legendary archpriest/
king John, ch. 14, too, Ethiopia is called the country of the phoenix, see
F. Zarncke, Der Priester Johannes I, in AM. der. kngl. sachsischen Gesellschaft
Mr Wiss., Philol.-hist. Klasse, 7, Leipzig, 1879, 911: et avis quae vocatur
fenix.
I Tzetzes, Chiliad., V. 393-394: 'Em/l7jILE:r /l' E:t~ Atyu7tTOV, &vijaKE:L /l' AUho-
7t(~, / w~ 6 <l>LA6aTpotTO~ tp7jaL ' A7tOAACI>V(OU ~(Cfl' Some writers mention only
Egypt, but probably referring only to the place of the death and the rebirth
of the phoenix: Antiphanes, frg. 175: 'Ev 'HA(OU ILEV tpotaL Y(VE:a&otL 7t6AE:L
tpO(VLKot~; Statius, Silvae, Il, 6, 87: Phariaeque volucri; Philostorgius, III, 11:
6 tpOrVL~ ... 7totp' otUTOr~ (sc. Atyu7tT(OL~) 't'UYXcXVE:L YLV61Le:vo~.
8 Philostratus, Vita Apoll., Ill, 49: ~~ AtYU7tTOV flKOVTot, 7tETEa&otL ILE:V E:v Tjj
'Iv/lLK'ii TOV lCP6vov TOUTOV (sc. 500 years). ... ~~ KotA(otV TE !~cXVE:LV T"ljv ~K TOU
Iip~lLotTO~ 7tOLOUILEv7jV otUTij> 7tPO~ Totr~ TOU N E(Aou 7t7jYotr~.
, Vita Apoll., I, 14. On the sources of the Nile: E. Honigmann, Nil, in
RE, 17, 1936, 556-561 (oriental origin: 557-558).
6 Ambrose, De exc. fratris, Il, 59: Avis in regione Arabiae, ... thecam, in
qua resurrexit, ex Aethiopia in Lycaoniam vehet. The most satisfactory
explanation of Lycaoniam is given by Harnack, Neue Studien, 607: according
to the Latin translation of I Clement, 25 the bird goes e regione Arabiae
usque in Aegiptum, in colonia(m) quae vocatur Solis civitas; Ambrose knew
this translation; the Lycaoniam he mentions must go back ultimately to the
in colonia(m) of the Latin I Clement. Cj. Tiirk, 3460: "Lykaonien wird wohl
auf irgend ein M issverstandnis zuruckgehen".
8 Cf. Pliny, VII, 21: Praecipue India Aethiopumque tractus miraculis
scatent.
THE ABODE 30 7
land sea. It was also believed that the Ethiopians had originally
been an Indian people. 1 Some writers of course knew that these
names belonged to the inhabitants of difference regions. This seems
to hold for Heliodorus, since he gave the two views together without
indicating a preference and says that the phoenix came either from
Ethiopia or India. 2
In Ovid, Martial, and Lactantius Placidus the phoenix is mention-
ed in connection with Assyria, by which they probably meant Phoe-
nicia. 3 It is not clear whether they thought that the phoenix lived
there or went there to die, as Lactantius indicated. 4
Attention must also be given in this connection to the abode
assigned to the phoenix in the various versions of the Physiologus.
The oldest version has the phoenix live in India and fetch perfumes
from the forests of Lebanon for its cremation in Egypt. 5 Several
reasons can be suggested for the introduction of the short visit to
Lebanon. 6 In the later Byzantine version Lebanon has become the
fixed dwelling-place of the phoenix, but this region is said to lie
near India. 7 In the still later recension of Pseudo-Basilius, mention
is no longer made of Lebanon and India; the phoenix brings its
perfumes from Paradise. 8 A related conception is found in the phoe-
nix passage from the Coptic Sermon on M ary: the phoenix feeds on
the flowers of the trees of Lebanon and brings the perfumes on which
it burns itself from Paradise. 9
The shift of the phoenix's dwelling-place from India to Lebanon
found in the second recension of the Physiologus may have been
determined by a Christian theological factor. As early as the Old
1 See R. Pietschmann, Aithiopia, in RE, I, 1894, I09S-II02; Wecker,
India, in RE, 9,1916,1268; R. Aigrin, Arabie, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et
de Geographie eccZesiastique, Ill, 1924, II60-II6I; Schippers, Avitus, 94-9S.
2 Heliodorus, VI, 3,3: TOV tpOtVLKIX TOV e~ AUh61tColV ~ 'Iv8wv.
3 See p. SI-S2.
, Lactantius, vss. 60ff., see p. 182.
6 Cr. Physiologus, 7: "EaTL m:nLvov ev T1j 'Iv8t~, tpOiVL~ A&y6IJ-EVOV· KIXTeX
7tEVTIXK6aLIX !T1j Etaep)(ETIXL de; TeX ~UAIX TOU AL~a.VOU.
8 See p. 171.
7 Byzantine Physiologus, 10: "EaTL 8e IXlhoe; 0 tpOiVL~ 7tAllatov rije; 'Iv8tlXe;,
IJ-EvEL 8e Ete; TeXC; Ke8pouc; TOU AL~a.VOU.
8 Physiologus ot Pseudo-Basilius, 21: KIXTeX TPEiC; )(p6vouC; !X7tep)(ETIXL ev TCi>
7tlXpIX8da<p. For this, see p. 172-177.
9 Coptic Sermon on Mary, 22-23 (see transl. on p. 4S).
THE ABODE
Testament, Lebanon was given an importance out of all proportion

to simply a nearby chain of mountains. The prophet Hosea de-
scribes the future bliss that God will bestow on his recalcitrant
people in images taken from Lebanon: Israel shall strike roots like
Lebanon, its fragrance shall be as that of Lebanon, it shall flourish
like a vine and be famous as the wine of Lebanon (Hos. xiv.S-8). The
cedars of Lebanon are called, in Ps. civ.r6, "the trees of the Lord
which he has planted". From this the rabbis later deduced that the
cedars were originally small and insignificant, having obtained their
impressive size only after God had transplanted them in the Garden
of Eden. 1 Ezekiel portrayed the eschatological bliss of Israel in the
form of a world tree: a huge cedar will arise from a tender shoot
that God will plant high on a lofty mountain, the highest mountain
in Israel (Ezek. Xvii.22-24).2 In the negative sense Ezekiel applies
this image in Chapter xxxi, where he describes a cedar of Lebanon
towering high with its crown (vs. 3) and in whose shadow lived all
the great nations (vs. 6). It surpassed the cedars in God's garden
(vs. 8), and all the trees of Eden in the garden of God envied it
(vs. 9). After its fall, all the trees of Eden, all the choicest and best of
Lebanon, drew comfort in the world below (vs. r6).
For a proper understanding of these prophecies of Ezekiel, ref-
erence must be made to the commentaries. s In this context it will
suffice to note that here the eschatological bliss of Israel is com-
pared to a cedar of Lebanon and that the trees of the Garden of
Eden are said to be "the choicest and the best of Lebanon". In our
earthly reality Lebanon with its cedars forms the closest approxi-
mation to the paradise and the City of God of the eschaton.
In the later Jewish and Christian exegesis, this line was twisted
to imply the signs of the glory of God in the present, in which the
eschatological glory is already reflected. The Jewish interpreters of
the Targums understood "Lebanon" preferentially as an indication
of Jerusalem and especially of the temple;4 the Qumran community
1 Be'Yeshit Rabbah, XV, I (trans. H. Freedman, Genesis Rabbah, I, London,
1951, 151-152).
B For the meaning of the "highest mountain in Israel", see here, p. 314.
8 Cf. e.g. W. Zimmerli, Ezechiel, (Biblischer Kommentar A.T., XIII),
Neukirchen, 1969, I, 388-390, II, 746-762.
, See the many texts mentioned by G. Vermes, The symbolical inte'Yj»'e-
THE ABODE
took it as referring to the Council of the Community;1 and the

Christians could take it as a description of the Church. 2
The cedars of Lebanon continue to appeal to the imagination of
anyone who is in any way familiar with the language of the Bible;
they evoke suggestions of power and imperishability. It is not im-
probable that the rich symbolism associated for both Jew and
Christian with the concept "Lebanon" led to the substitution of
Lebanon for India as the abode of the phoenix in the second re-
cension of the Physiologus: for the Christians, a dwelling-place for
this bird in paradisial Lebanon had much more point than one in
fabulous India. In these texts it is difficult to ascribe a clearly de-
fined symbolic meaning to Lebanon, but we can probably ap-
proach the sense most closely by regarding it as the earthly reflection
of Paradise.
From these geographical indications of the province of the phoe-
nix it is evident that in the ancient world and in later times as well,
various traditions were current, although all of them pertained to
the mysterious world of the East. This oriental element was certain-
ly determined, at least in part, by a more general consideration: the
permanent abode of the bird of the sun could hardly be situated
anywhere except in the region in which the sun rises. Artemidorus
seems to have drawn a logical conclusion from the uncertainty sur-
rounding the exact location of the phoenix's dwelling-place when he
wrote that people do not know where the bird comes from.3
A few authors give more detailed descriptions of the blessed
abode of the phoenix: they place it in a world in which all the causes
of our cares are lacking. In describing this world they could draw on
tation of Lebanon in the targums, in ]ThS, NS, 9, 1958, 1-12, especially 3-6.
1 Commentary on Habakkuk, XII, 3-4 (ad ii.17), cf. Vermes, 7.
Z See H. F. D. Sparks, The symbolical interpretation of Lebanon in the
Fathers, in ]ThS. NS, 10, 1959, 264-279, especially 282.
8 Artemidorus, IV, 47: ~P)(ETotL Elt; AtYU7tTOV &&EV OUK taotcnv &v.&PW7tOL ... Kot1
cicp(7tTota'&otL AtyU7tTOU &KELaE &&EV ~Kev /) 7tPO otUTOU cpOLVL~. In Suidas, who drew
largely on Artemidorus for the phoenix, the now meaningless final sentence
cicpt7tTota.&otL Ett; AtYU7tTOV hEL'&ev &&ev must be modified according to Artemi-
dorus. Several other writers who do not mention a native country also end
their report on the phoenix in the same vague fashion: Didascalia, 40: et
tunc recedJt denuo et pergit ibidem unde et venit (the otherwise highly dependent
Const. Apost., V, 7, 15 here mention Arabia); Horapollo, II, 57: /) vEoaaOt;
7tCXALV &7t1 T7)V t8totv 7totTp(8ot &7tELaLv.
310 THE ABODE
a rich tradition, many centuries old. The happy circumstances under

which the phoenix lives prove to be the same in many aspects as
those of the abode of the gods, of the time of the Golden Age, of the
Isles of the Blessed and the Elysian Fields, and of those prevailing
for a few, partially legendary peoples for whom the primeval fe-
licity had not entirely disappeared. l We need not go into the distinc-
tion between these different conceptions;2 it will suffice to note here
that in the description of these places and the conditions prevailing
in them, the Classical authors formulated their thinking on the ideal
life. Among the Christians, furthermore, Judaeo-Christian concep-
tions of Paradise exerted an influence.
Ovid was the first to locate the phoenix in Elysium. At the foot
of a hill there is a forest of dark oak trees, the moist earth bears a
cover of imperishable grass: this is said to be the abode of the pious
birds, all evil birds being excluded; among its inhabitants are the
swans, the long-lived phoenix, the peacock, and the dove. 3 Here the
phoenix is not exceptional, it is only one of the many "pious" birds.
1 In the following, for the Golden Age, the Isles of the Blessed, and the
distant and legendary peoples, grateful use has been made of the extensive
collection of Classical texts in A. O. Lovejoy and G. Boas, A documentary
history 01 primitivism and related ideas, I: Primitivism and related ideas in
Antiquity, Baltimore, 1935. The second volume of this work has never
appeared, but for the Early Church and the Middle Ages it has been continued
on a different basis by G. Boas, Essays on primitivism and related ideas in the
Middle Ages, Baltimore, 1948. For the Classical views, see also E. Rohde, Der
griechische Roman und seine Vorliiuler, 4th ed., Darmstadt, 1960, 178-288
("Ethnographische Utopien, Fabeln und Romane"), especially 210-260, and
B. A. van Groningen, Heimwee en lantasie. Griekse dromen van volmaakt
leven, Amsterdam, 1947, especially 16-24. For the Early Christian and medie-
val conceptions of Paradise, see in addition to the above-mentioned work of
Boas also H. R. Patch, The other world according to descriptions in medieval
literature, Cambridge (Mass.), 1950, especially 134-174.
2 For this, see Th. C. Vriezen, Onderzoek naar de paradijsvoorstellingen bij
de oude Semietische volken, Thesis Utrecht, Wageningen, 1937, I-I I, whose
distinctions are adopted by F. M. Th. de Liagre Bohl, Paradis, I, in Die
Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd ed., V, Tiibingen, 1961, 95. A
slightly more detailed classification in J. W. Schulte Nordholt, De Tuin der
Hesperiden, Thesis Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1951, 9-19.
3 Ovid, A mores, n, 6, 49-54: Colle sub Elysio nigra nemus ilice Irondet, /
udaque perpetuo gramine terra viret. / Si qua tides dubiis, volucrum locus ille
piarum / dicitur, obscenae quo prohibentur aves: / illic innocui late pascuntur
olores / et vivax phoenix, unica semper avis.
THE ABODE 3I I
In the Middle Ages we encounter this same theme in the description

of Paradise given by Ernaldus of Bonneval, not necessarily under
the influence of Ovid: in Paradise the birds sang the praises of the
Creator; high in the branches of the cedars and the other trees the
long-lived phoenix and the parrot sang hymns of praise and the
many-voiced sound of the singing birds formed a harmonious choir.1
But ordinarily the phoenix lives entirely alone in its glorious
abode, of which Lactantius gave a detailed description. His phoenix
lives in the futhermost East on a level plain without hills or valleys
but rising twice six ells above our mountains whose peaks seem so
high to us. Here lies the grove of the sun, a holy place with many
trees, green with the splendour of eternal foliage. This plain is so
high that it remained untouched when Phaethon set the world
afire and when the waves of Deucalion swept over the earth. 2 Con-
cerning this grove of the sun in which the phoenix dwells he also
says that at its centre there is a spring called "the living"; this
spring is clear, flows gently, and has an abundance of sweet water.
Once every month it suddenly sends forth much more water, and
in this way it irrigates the entire forest twelve times each year. Here,
there are tall trees bearing ripe apples that do not fall to the ground. 8
The passage on the spring and the trees in the grove of the sun
have been considered by many scholars to show Biblical influences,
reference being made to Gen. ii.g-I4, Ezek. xlvii.I-I2, and Rev.
xxii.I-2.' It is, however, impossible to account satisfactorily for
1 Ernaldus of Bonneval, Hexaemeron, (PL 189, 1537D): et ne auditui desit,

quae demulceat, melodia, superne in ramis cedrorum vel aliarum arborum
phoenix vivax psallebat, et psittacus, et multiplici eoncinentium avium sono una
erat eonsonantia.
I Lactantius, vss. 5-14: Illic planities tractus diflundit apertos, / nee
tumulus crescit nec cava vallis hiat, / sed nostros montes, quorum iuga celsa
putantur, / per bis sex ulnas eminet ille locus. / Hie solis nemus est et consitus
arbore multa / lucus, perpetuae Irondis honore virens. / Cum Phaethonteis
Ilagrasset ab ignibus axis, / We locus Ilammis inviolatus erat, / et cum diluvium
mersisset Iluctibus orbem, / Deucalioneas exsuperavit aquas.
3 Lactantius, vss. 25-30: Sed Ions in medio(est>, quem vivum nomine
dicunt, / perspieuus, lenis, dulcibus uber aquis, / qui semel erumpens per singula
tempora mensum / duodecies undis inrigat omne nemus. / Hie genus arboreum
procero stipite surgens / non lapsura solo mitia poma gerit.
, Cl. Fitzpatrick, 33, 35 and 66; Hubaux and Leroy, 56-57 and the other
literature mentioned there. see also Rapisarda, 27-31.
312 THE ABODE
all of Lactantius' details on the basis of these texts; there have

always been other scholars who remained unconvinced, l and their
opinion seemed to be confirmed by other details given by Lactantius
about the abode of the phoenix for which striking Classical parallels
can be cited. 2 In the following it will be shown that Lactantius took
his inspiration not so much directly from the Bible as from the
Judaeo-Christian eschatological ideas concerning the place in which
the chosen are to enjoy eternal life. These conceptions, which have
rarely been noticed by students of De ave phoenice and have never
been properly appreciated, require discussion before we go any
further.s
In the Old Testament we find, in addition to the description of the
Garden of Eden in which the first people lived (Gen. ii), scattered
remnants of a tradition concerning a divine garden in Eden charac-
1 C. Pascal, Sui carme "De ave phoenice" attribuito a Lattanzio, in Rendicon-

to della R. Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli, NS, 18,
Naples, 1904, 221-235, attempted to demonstrate that the entire poem was
permeated by a Stoic spirit; cl. also his objections to the assumed Chxistian
influence in his Letteratura latina medievale. Nuovi saggi et note critiche,
Catania, 1909, 3-14. C. Landi, Il carme "De ave phoenice" e il suo autore, in
Atti e memorie della R. Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padova, NS,
31, 1914-1915, 33-73, concluded that the inspiration had been Neoplatonic.
I See below p. 327-330, for the climate and the absence of all evil.
8 Only Fitzpatrick has pointed to a few texts forming a very distinct
parallel with the conceptions in Lactantius; see here p. 316, nts. I and 5.
But because she did not place them in a broader framework, she failed to
see their great importance for the explanation of the abode of the phoenix
in Lactantius. Unfortunately, I have been unable to gain access to G.
Crescenti, Gli elementi cristiani del carme De ave phoenice di Firmiano Lattan-
zio, Messina, 1960, 37 pp. (cl W. Schneemelcher, Bibliographia patristica, V,
Berlin, 1962, 48, no. 637), reviewed by G. Rochefort in REL, 38, 1960,
376-377. S. Gennaro, Il classicismo di Lattanzio nel De ave phoenice, in
Convivium Dominicum. Studi sull' Eucarestia nei Padri della Chiesa antica e
Miscellanea patristica, Catania, 1959, 337-356 (also printed in Miscellanea di
studi di letteratura cristiana antica, 9, 1959, 1-18 (cl. Schneemelcher, Bibl.
patr., V, 48, no. 638), has given numerous examples of a related choice of
words in Lactantius and Lucretius, but these points of agreement are seldom
relevant with respect to the content as well. Gennaro attempted to show
that Lactantius, by using the same words as Lucretius, argued against the
Epicurean view "che proclamava il dissolvimento dell' individuo e la vanittl
della lede" by demonstrating on the basis of the phoenix "la ResutTezione di
Cristo, che prepara la resutTezione dell' uomo e sua eternittl in Dio" (p. 355).
But for the symbolism of the phoenix in Lactantius, see p. 381-385 here.
THE ABODE 31 3
terized by great fertility, fabulous riches, and superb trees, situated

on a mountain. Here we may mention Gen. Xiii.IO, Isa. li.3, Ezek.
xxviii.I3ff., xxxi.8f., xxxvi.35, and Joel ii.3. 1 This high garden of
God in Eden is the Syro-Canaanite divine mountain, which was
placed in the north. This is the mountain meant by Isaiah in a satyr-
ical rendition of the arrogant ideas of the King of Babylonia (Isa.
xiv. 13) : "I will scale the heavens, I will set my throne high above the
stars of God, I will sit on the mountain where the gods meet, in the
far recesses of the north".
In the Israelite religion this idea of the Canaanite Olympus was
transferred to Mt Zion with Jerusalem and the temple, which ex-
plains how Ps. xlviii.2 could speak (literally) of "mount Zion, in the
far north". According to Ugaritic texts, on the divine mountain
there was a spring from which two rivers flowed. This too was trans-
ferred to Mt Zion without qualification, leading to the conception of
the divine river rising from the temple in Jerusalem: "whose streams
gladden the city of God", says Ps. xlvi.4. This river is repeatedly
mentioned in the descriptions of the coming bliss of God. In addition
to Joel iii.I8 and Zech. xiv.8, special reference must be made to
Ezek. xlvii.I-I2 in which a river seen in a vision is described as
flowing eastward from the temple. Many trees grew along its
course. It is said that its water shall be life-giving, it shall make the
salt water sweet. It shall be full of fish and its banks lined with fruit
trees whose foliage does not wither and which perpetually bear fruit.
They shall bear every month because they drink water coming from
the temple; their fruit shall be for food and their foliage for enjoy-
ment.
1 For this, see Vriezen, o.c., on the texts mentioned, and ibid., p. 227.
An elaborate discussion of the conceptions of Paradise in the Old Testament,
the later Judaism and the New Testament in E. Cothenet, Paradis, in
Dictionnaire de la Bible, Suppl., VI, 1960, 1177-1220. For the data following
here about Syro-Canaanite conceptions and their impact on the Israelite
religion, we refer to the important Exkurs 5 in H. J. Kraus, Psalmen, I,
(Biblischer Kommentar A.T., XV, I), Neukirchen, 1960, 342-345 (ad Ps.
xlvi). For a broader frame in which the conceptions mentioned should be
placed, see e.g. A. J. Wensinck, The ideas at the Western Semites concerning
the Navel at the Earth, in Verh. der Kon. Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd.
Letterkunde, NR, 17, I, Amsterdam, 1916, especially 1-36 and M. Eliade,
Le mythe de l'eternel retour, Paris, 1949, 30-37.
THE ABODE
The integration of these Canaanite conceptions into Israelite re-

ligious thinking also explains why according to Isa. ii.2 and Mic.
iV.I "in the days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be
set over all other mountains" and why the above-mentioned cedar
of Ezek. xvii.22-23 shall be planted "high on a lofty mountain, the
highest mountain in Israel".1
These ideas emerged powerfully in Jewish eschatology. This has
been assumed to have occurred under the influence of related con-
ceptions originating from Iran. 2 According to Iranian mythology,
the garden of Yima, the king of the Golden Age, was situated on a
high mountain called Hukairya. 3 At the top of this mountain rises
Ardvi Sura Anahita, the divine spring from which all the waters of
the earth come. 4 1f there is any question of Iranian influence, which
is not at all certain, this could only have been in the sense of a
revival of an existent conception. On the basis of their content, the
Jewish-and later the Christian eschatological ideas as well-can
only be explained by the Old Testament data just discussed. The
lofty divine garden and the transfer of the Canaanite ideas to the
City of God make it clear how the final abode of the chosen could be
portrayed on the one hand as Paradise situated on a high mountain
or even in the third heaven and on the other hand as the heavenly
Jerusalem. 5
According to the Ethiopic Enoch, Enoch saw Paradise on a high
1 Cl. also Ezek., x1.2, where the seer sees the new temple on "a very high
mountain', which has its echo in Apoc. Xxi.IO. This also explains why in the
targums "Lebanon" could be taken as an indication of Jerusalem and the
temple; see p. 308. For the identity between temple and Paradise, see
Wensinck, o.c., 13-16.
a Bousset and Gressmann, Rei. des ]udent., 489-490.
3 Zend-Avesta, Aban Yast, VII, 25 (trans. J Darmesteter, SBE, 23,
Oxford, 1883, 59).
, Aban Yast is devoted entirely to this river (SBE, 23, 52-84), see also
Yasna, LXV (trans. L. H. Mills, SBE, 31, Oxford, 1887, 316-320). The
Persian material is also discussed by L. H. Gray, Blest, Abode o/the (Persian),
in ERE, 2, 1930, 702-704 and E. Cothenet, O.C., 1197.
6 The J udaic conceptions on this point are discussed by Bousset and Gres-
mann, ReI. des ]udent., 282-285, who, however, assume without good
grounds that there is no relationship between the two conceptions (p. 285);
also important: Cothenet, o.c., 1207-1213.
THE ABODE 31 5
mountain rising above all other mountains; in the middle, between

the fragrant trees, stood the Tree of Life whose fruit is to be the
food of the chosen. 1 Elsewhere in the same book it is said that the
"garden of justice" (Paradise) lies in the north. 2 In the Slavonic
Enoch, the seer sees paradise in the third heaven: the Tree of Life
stands at its centre and from its roots rise two springs, one containing
honey, milk, oil, and wine and dividing into four rivers; these rivers
descend to the earthly Paradise from which they spread over the
whole earth. 3 One obtains the impression that in these texts the con-
ceptions relating to the paradisial mountain and the Garden of Eden
are related to each other, the first having become the heavenly and
the second the earthly Paradise. It is clear that the author could not
have taken the idea that the earthly rivers rise at the foot of the
Tree of Life from Gen. ii.10-14, which speaks only of a river arising
in Eden and dividing into four streams in or near Paradise. The idea
of the source at the foot of the Tree of Life is also clearly expressed
in the anonymous poem De ligno vitae and is distinctly implied in
other texts. 4 Without detailed localization, the spring within Para-
dise is mentioned frequently: according to the Apocalypse 01 Abra-
ham, the patriarch saw in the Garden of Eden the source of the river
flowing thence to the earth; 0 and in Christian poetry this source
became a persisting component of the descriptions of Paradise, as
shown for instance by Sedulius, Marius Victor, Avitus, and in the
Carmen de resurrectione. 6
The image of a Paradise on a high mountain took firm root in
1 Eth. Enoch, 24 and 25.
8 Eth. Enoch, 77, 3; in 70,3 it is placed in the north-west, and in 32, 2ff.
in the east. For the various localizations of Paradise in the Eth. Henoch, see
Cothenet, o.c., 1209-12IO.
8 Slav. Enoch, 5 (Vaillant, 9, 89-91 (long recension) = ch. 8, Charles). In
the Apocalypse 01 Moses, 37, 5, and the Apocalypse 01 Paul, 19 (see below,
p. 318) Paradise is also placed in the third heaven, as also assumed by Paul
in 2 Cor. xii.2-4.
, Pseudo-Tertullian, De ligno vitae, 26-27 (PL, 2, 1113 C): ecce sub ingenti
ramorum tegminis umbra Ions erat; Apocalypse 01 Paul, 45 (see below, p. 319).
Cf. also p. 320., n. 6.
5 Apocalypse 01 Abraham, 21, 6.
• Sedulius, Carmen paschale, Ill, 173-174; Marius Victor, Alethia, I,
269; Avitus, I, 258-259; Pseudo-Cyprianus, Carmen ad Flav. Felicem de
resurrectione, 238-239; see also texts mentioned on p. 319, and 320, n. 6.
316 THE ABODE
Christianity. Ephraem the Syrian says in the first of his Hymni de

Paradiso that the peaks of all other mountains lie below that of
Paradise and that the waves of the Flood kissed the feet of the Para-
dise mountain in adoration but drowned all the other mountains. 1
The Cave 01 Treasures, also of Syrian origin, says that Paradise
reaches three spans above the other mountains "according to the
measure of the Spirit".2 In its description of the Deluge, Ephraem's
indication is found in a more detailed form: the water of the Flood
rose 25 ells "according to the measure of the Spirit" above the high-
est mountains and lifted Noah's ark until it reached the border of
Paradise. The Flood-thus blessed and purified by Paradise-turned,
kissed the heels of Paradise, and gave itself over to the destruction
of the entire earth.s The idea that Paradise was spared at the time
of the Flood also goes back to Jewish sources, although it is evident
from the rabbinical and the apocryphal literature that there was no
general agreement on this point. 4
The Paradise situated in a high place is also encountered in a
sermon formerly ascribed to Basil of Caesarea: a select place pro-
jecting above all creation and without shadow because of its height. 5
1 Ephraem, Hymni de paradiso, I, 4 (trans. E. Beck, CSCO, 175, 1-2):
"Mit den Augen des Geistes sah ich das Paradies, / und die Gipfel aller Berge
lagen unter seinem Gipfel. / Bis an seine Ferse nur kam das Haupt der Flut, /
... Die Ferse (des Paradieses) kusste sie, das Hauptjeden Berges bezwang sie".
Fitzpatrick, 63, refers to the Greek text in J. S. Assemani, Opera omnia quae
extant Graece ... , Ill, Romae, 1743, 563.
2 Cave 01 Treasures, 3, 15 (trans. C. Bezold, Die SchatzhOhle, I, Leipzig,
1883,5).
8 Cave 01 Treasures, 19, 2-4 (trans. Bezold, 23). The 25 ells mentioned in
this passage are not consistent with the 3 spans mentioned in 3, 15.
, According to some rabbis, Noah's dove brought the olive leaf from the
Mt of Olives, because the Holy Land was not affected by the Flood, but
according to others it was indeed flooded, and they therefore thought that
the dove had flown to Paradise, cl. Ginzberg, I, 164, V, 185-186. Cf. also
Wensinck, Navel 01 the earth, (see p. 313, n. I), 14-16, who refers also to the
Samaritan idea that the holy mountain Gerizim was not covered by the
Flood, and similar Mohammedan ideas concerning the Ka'ba. According to
the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, 4, 10, the waters reached even to Paradise:
eta'ijA.&e: 't'o n8wp e:t~ 't'ov 7t'rxpri8e:LO'OV Krxl ~pe:v 7t'iiv &v.&o~; in Jubilees, 4, 24,
mention is made of the flooding of all Eden, but the foregoing does not imply
that the Garden of Eden was flooded.
6 Pseudo-Basil, Orationes, Ill: De Paradiso, 2 (PG 30, 64 B): 't'67t'ov
~7t'LAe:~ri!Le:vO~ ~7t'L't'~8e:LOV um:pcpepov't'rx nj~ ISA71~ K't'tO'e:W~ Krxl 8Lc!t 't'o nljio~ liVe:7t'L-
O'K6"7l't'OV.
THE ABODE 31 7
Jerome interpreted "God's holy hill" referred to in Ezek xxviii.14

as Paradise. 1 In Avitus, Paradise is a sacred grove in a high place
forbidden to mortals and lying beyond India, where heaven and
earth meet. 2 The general acceptance of this lofty situation is shown
by Early Christian art, where Paradise is consistently represented
as a mountain from which the four world rivers arise. 3 The idea of
the high mountain of Paradise persisted throughout the Middle
Ages, and we even find it in the writings of Columbus, who thought
he had discovered the mountain.' The tradition that the great height
of the mountain saved it from the Deluge occurs also in Western
medieval literature, for instance in the Venerable Bede and Peter
Lombard.o
The conception of the heavenly Jerusalem is known specially from
Rev. xxi.g-xxii.5; John saw the new Jerusalem descend from heaven
to a great high mountain. 8 In it he saw the river of the Water of
Life, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of
the Lamb. On either side of this river stood a Tree of Life which
bears twelve times annually, once each month; its leaves serve for
the healing of the nations. The derivation of this conception from the
1 Jerome, Comm. in Ezech., IX, 28 (PL 2S, 272 A): Haud dubio quin
paradisum signi/icet ... ; ibid. (272 B, ad Hebr., xii.22): Vel certe mons sanctus
Dei, paradisus, ut diximus, intelligendus est.
• Avitus, I, 213-214: Lucus inaccessa cunctis mortalibus arce I permanet
aeterno conclusus limite,' idem, I1, IS2: paradisi in vertice.
a For this, see F. v. d. Meer, Maiestas Domini, tMophanies de I'Apocalypse
dans l'art chretien. (Studi di Antichita cristiana, XIII), Rome-Paris, 1938,
32-81 and passim, and pI. XX, XXVI, 2, and XXVIII here.
, See R. H. Patch, (see p. 310, n. I), 144-174; for Columbus: Boas, Essays
on primitivism, 172-173.
fi Beda, Hexaemeron, I (PL 91, 44 A): unde nec aquae diluvii, quae totam
nostri orbis super/idem altissime cooperuerent, ad eum pervenire potuerunt;
literally adopted by Rabanus Maurus, Comm. in Gen., I (PL 107, 476 BC);
Strabo, Glossa ordinaria in lib. Gen., I1, 8 (PL 113, 86C) and Peter Lombard,
Sententiae, I1, 17,4 (PL 192, 686). Patch, o.c., ISI, also mentions Alexander
Neckam and Godfrey of Viterbo.
8 G. von Rad, Die Stadt aut dem Berge, in Evangelische Theologie, 8,
1948-1949,447, has related Matth., v. 14: "A town that stands on a hill" to
the "mountain of the Lord's house" of [sa., ii.2 and Micah iV.I (see above,
p. 314). This is confirmed by the Gospel according to Thomas, log. 32: "A city
being built on a high mountain (and) fortified cannot fall nor can it (ever)
be hidden"; cf. J. J eremias, Die Gleichnisse ] esu, 7th ed., Gottingen, 1965, 21S.
318 THE ABODE
temple-river of Ezek. xlvii is unmistakable. l According to the Syriac

Apocalypse of Baruch, God had already shown the heavenly Jerusa-
lem of the eschaton to Adam before he sinned and to Abraham and
Moses. 2 The great similarity of the heavenly Jerusalem and the
Paradise of the end of time in the eschatological expectations of later
Judaism and early Christianity is shown by such texts as the Testa-
ment of Dan, ch. 5, 12: "And the saints shall rest in Eden and in the
New Jerusalem shall the righteous rejoice", and 4 Ezra 7,26: "Then
shall the city that now is invisible appear, and the land which is now
concealed be seen. "3
The various ideas concerning the abode of the elect crossed and
recrossed each other. Almost every one of these eschatological ideas
can be found in the Apocalypse of Paul. After a visit to the abode of
the damned, Paul is first brought by the angel guiding him to the
Paradise in the third heaven, where he meets Enoch and Elijah, who
have never known death. 4 Then the angel shows him the Land of
Promise where Christ and his saints are to live during the millenium
and where the souls of the just already live. He sees there a river of
milk and honey bordered by trees covered with thousands of fruits
which they bear twelve times each year. li The origin of the river is
no longer mentioned: here the monthly-bearing trees have become a
symbol of the marvelous fertility of the coming aeon. 6 The theme of
1 The temple river with the trees also occurred in the eschatological
expectations of the rabbis, cf. H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar
zum N. T. aus Talmud und Midrash, Ill, Munich, 1926, 854-857. The concep-
tion of the spring in the temple was so common that it is found in the Letter
of Aristeas, 89, and in Tacitus, Hist., V, 12 as actually existent, cf. M. A.
Beek, Inleiding tot de apocalyptiek van het oud- en nieuwtestamentisch tijdvak,
(Theologia, VI), Haarlem, 1950, 24.
2 Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, 4, 3-6.
3 Testaments of the I2 Patriarchs, VII, 5, 12: KCXt IiVCX7tCXUaOVTln £V 'E8EIL
&YLOL KCXt t7tt -r'ijt; vecxt; 'Ie:pouaCXA7JIL e:Uippcxv.l}ijaov't"CXL 8LKCXLOL. 4 Ezra, 7, 26: et
apparebit sponsa et apparescens civitas, et ostendetur quae nunc subducitur terra;
cf· also 8, 52; 10, 54; 13, 36.
, Apoc. of Paul, 19-20.
5 Ibid., 21-22.
I In the rabbinical literature the tree bearing twelve times also occurs
without the temple river, cf. E. Lohmeyer, Die Offenbarung des johannes,
(Handbuch zum N.T.), 2nd ed., Tiibingen, 1953, 176. For the uncommon
fertility in the eschaton, see also Syr. Apoc. of Baruch, 29, 5 and the fragment
of Papias in Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., V, 33, 3-4, cf. A. Resch, Agrapha, (TU,
THE ABODE
monthly fertility is also found in 4 Ezra, in an apocryphon cited by

Epiphanius, and in Avitus. 1 After the Land of Promise, Paul is
shown the City of Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, which is circled
by four rivers, one of honey, the others of milk, wine, or oil, bearing
the same names as the rivers in Gen. ii.n-I4.2 At the end of this
apocalypse, probably representing an addition to the original textS,
the visit made to the Paradise of Adam and Eve is recounted and
there Paul sees a tree on which the Holy Ghost rests and from whose
roots flows the water forming the source of the four world rivers.4
That these places described in the Apocalypse 01 Paul are almost
certainly the same, is shown by the fact that he meets the same
Old Testament saints both in the City of Christ and in the Paradise
of Adam and Eve.
After this rather detailed but necessary discussion of the Judaeo-
Christian conceptions concerning the abode of the elect, we are
ready to return to De ave phoenice of Lactantius, whose description
of the abode of the phoenix, as recapitulated above, 6 can be best
explained by the assumption that its basis was formed by the J udaeo-
Christian conception of the mountain of paradise.
The" grove of the sun" in which the phoenix resides was located on
a mountain plateau rising twelve ells above the highest mountains
in the world and which was untouched by the catastrophes associat-
ed with the names of Phaethon and Deucalion. For the latter, Lu-
can's report that the peak of Mt Parnassus did not disappear under
the waves of Deucalion's flood might be considered, 6 but it is more
likely that here Lactantius was alluding to the tradition that the
NF, 15, 3/4) 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1906 (Reprint: Darmstadt, 1967), 166-167
where the texts of Epiphanius and 4 Ezra cited below are also mentioned.
1 4 Ezra, 2, 18: paravi tibi arbores duodecim gravatas varUs Iructibus;
Epiphanius, Panarion, 26, 5, I: e:!8ov 8ev8pov CPEPOV 8w8e:KCX KCXP7tOUC; 'tou
evLCXIJ'tOU Kcxl e:!7te:v ILOL· 'tou't6 ~a'tL 'to ~UAOV -r'ijc; ~6)'iic;; Avitus, 1,231-232: Nam
quidquid nobis toto nunc nascitur anno, / menstrua maturo dant illic tempora
fructu. Cf. also the Coptic Lile 01 Apa Onnophrius, cited on p. 142, n. 4.
I Apoc. 01 Paul, 23-30.
8 See james, Apocr. N.T., 525-526, 555.
, Apoc. 01 Paul, 45-51.
6 See p. 31I.
8 Lucan, V, 75-76: Hoc solum Iluctu terras mergente cacumen / eminuit,
mentioned by Fitzpatrick, 63.
320 THE ABODE
Paradise mountain was not covered by the Deluge. The mention of

Phaeton and Deucalion does not argue against Lactantius' author-
ship or against a Christian influence in his poem, because in a sum-
marization of the catastrophes that can overcome all humanity, in
his Divinae Institutiones, he gives the same names in the same se-
quence. I
The mountain on which the phoenix lives rises above the highest
mountains of the world, like the Paradise mountain in the J udaeo-
Christian tradition. Many editors and commentators have had dif-
ficulties with the small difference in height given in De ave phoenice, i.e.
twice six ells. 2 This difference is indeed surprising, but a still smaller
one is given in the Syrian Cave of Treasures, where it is put at 3 spans,
albeit with the qualification that this is calculated "according to the
measure of the Spirit". 3 It is possible that both in Lactantius and in
the Cave 01 Treasures a tradition concerning the height of the Para-
dise mountain was used that was no longer clearly understood by
the authors and which we can in any case no longer explain.
In the middle of the grove of the sun there is a spring. 4, We have
seen that according to the Slavonic Enoch, the Apocalypse 01 Paul,
and the Carmen de ligno vitae there is a spring at the foot of the Tree
of Life from which the world rivers later arise. 6 According to Gen.
ii.9, this tree stood in the centre of Paradise, which is also mentioned
by Enoch. Isidore of Seville also says that a spring welled up in the
centre of Paradise. 6 Lactantius drew here on the Judaeo-Christian
1 Lactantius, Div. Inst., n, 10, 23: ... vel incendio in Ot'bem inmisso, quale
iam luisse sub Phaethonte dicitur, vel diluvio aqua,um, quale sub Deucalione
traditur, cum praeter unum hominem genus omne deletum est.
• See Fitzpatrick, 61.
8 See p. 316. In the Greek system of measures, one ell is equal to two
spans, cl. F. N. Price, Measures, in Oxlord Classical Dictionary, Oxford,
1953, 547; but according to Epiphanius one ell covers three spans, cl. J. E.
Dean, Epiphanius' treatise on weights and measures, The Syriac version,
(Orient. Inst. of the Univ. of Chicago, Stud. in anc. orient. civilization,
no. 11), Chicago, 1935, 70. By the expression "measure of the Spirit", the
Cave 01 Treasures probably indicates that here "span" must not be taken in
the ordinary sense but as a much greater unit of length.
& See p. 311, n. 3.
& See p. 315 and 319.
• Isidore, Etymol., XIV, 3, 3: E cuius medio Ions prOt'umpens totum
nemus inrigat; cl. also Ernaldus of Bonneval, Hexaemeron, (PL 189, 1535 B):
Emanebat e medio Ions vitreus i"igans et humectans omne gramen radicitus.
THE ABODE 321
Paradise tradition, and for him too we must consider not only a
spring but also a river arising from it, since this clarifies the passage
concerning the monthly watering of the grove. We have not yet
spoken of the climate in the abode of the phoenix, but we shall see
that according to Lactantius the heavens there are always cloudless
and that rain is unknown there. 1 In a region in which no rain falls,
the vegetation is completely dependent on a regular, heavy dew or
a periodic flooding by a river. Avitus, who also says that it does not
rain in Paradise, assumes that dew is responsible for growth there. 2
Lactantius makes a repeatedly flooding river responsible, analogous
to the Nile in virtually rainless Egypt. Just as the Nile usually flows
calmly through Egypt but once each year overflows its banks and
fructifies the entire country, so does the gentle water of the spring
drench the grove of the sun once each month. 3 The meaning of this
is obvious: each flood makes a harvest possible, and since the abode
of the phoenix is watered once a month, it can have twelve harvests
each year. Thus, Lactantius assumes, with Ezekiel, the Apocalypse
01 John, 4 Ezra, the apocryphon in Epiphanius, the Apocalypse 01
Paul, and Avitus, that the trees bear fruit each month.' Despite the
1 Lactantius, vss. 23-24, see below, p. 327, n. 3. Fitzpatrick, 65, has
correctly pointed out that vs. 25 ff. (on the source) may not be taken out
of the context of the foregoing. The absence of the rain and the moistening
of the earth by a spring may have arisen from the reading of the Septuagint
(and the Vulgate) in Gen. ii.5 and 6: 0\1 'YcXp !~pe:~EV 0 .&e:o~ t1tl rlj\l y'ij\l, •.. ,
7tljr7J 3~ (ive~CXL\lEV tK -rij~ y'ij~ Kcxl t1t6TL~EV 1tii\l TO 1tp6aCll1to\l -rij~ y'ij~.
8 Avitus, I, 225-226: Nec poscit natura loci quos non habet imbres, / sed
contenta suo dotantur germina rore; on the source: vs. 251 ff., 258.
8 Cl. Lactantius, vss. 26, 27 (p. 311, n. 3): lenis ... erumpens with Avitus'
description of the Nile, I, 264, 266: lenis ... perrumpit.
t Hubaux and Leroy, 58-61, were of the opinion that several scholars
mistakenly took the abode of the phoenix in Lactantius as Paradise. They
saw such a great difference between the Biblical details and those of Lactan-
tius concerning the monthly-bearing tree and the monthly irrigation of the
grove of the sun that they felt compelled to seek another explanation,
which they thought they had found in the description given by Ezekiel the
Dramatist, Exodus, vss. 243-253, of the oasis Elim (cl. Exod., xv.27), where
twelve springs arise from one rock and there are seventy palm-trees. They
concluded that it was from this or a related text that Lactantius took the
idea of a spring flowing twelve times a year, and therefore that Lactantius
describes not Paradise but an oasis. They ignored the situation of the grove
of the sun in a high place. See also here p. 331, n. 3, for their opinion that
the description of the Essenes in Pliny, V, 73, is related to the Classical
views on the phoenix, including those on its abode.
21
3 22 THE ABODE
poetic and perhaps somewhat artificial form of expression, Lactan-

tius reveals a Christian influence here too.
The report of the ripe apples that shall never fall to the ground
must also be regarded in the light of the monthly fertility. All it
means is that the supply of apples on the trees in the abode of the
phoenix, as on those along the temple river of Ezek. xlvii. 12, can
never be exhausted; these trees are always hung with apples. In 4
Ezra 7, 123 (53) and in Aphraates the same is said about the trees
of the eschatological paradise. 1 According to Lactantius, the trees
have tall trunks; and this is also noticed by Paul during his visit to
the Land of Promise, where he even saw palm trees thirty ells high.2
The grove of the sun is clad in the green of eternal foliage, just as
according to Enoch the leaves, flowers, and branches of the Tree of
Life never fade. 8 The Gospel according to Thomas and Aphraates also
say that the trees of Paradise never drop their leaves.'
The theme of marvellous fertility is, however, not restricted to the
Biblical and J udaeo-Christian images of Paradise; it also occurs in
many other descriptions of a paradisial region. This theme is a
persisting element in the fantasies about a perfect, care-free life, in
which mankind everywhere in the world has always indulged. 6 The
Greeks and Romans visualized a boundless fertility in the Golden
1 4 En-a, 7. 123: et quoniam ostendetur paradisus cuius Iructus inco"uptus

perseverat. This text and Eth. Enoch, 24 (see n. 3 below) were first referred
to by H. Dechent. Ober die Echtheit des Ph{}nix von Lactantius. in RhMPh.
NF, 35. 1880, 42. Aphraates. Demonstr .• XXII. 12: De morte et novissimis
temporibus. (trans. Parisot, in PS. I. 1894, 1015): arbores Wic pulcherrimae
plantatae sunt. quarum Iructus non deliciunt nee decidunt 10Iia.Lactantius·
influence is unmistakable in Petrus Damiani. Hymnus de gloria paradisi, 3.4
(PL 145,862 D): pendent poma Iloridorum non lapsura nemorum.
2 Apocalypse 01 Paul. 22 (ed. Th. Silverstein. 137): et vidi ibi palmas
cubitorum XXX, alias autem cubitorum X. The text of James, in TS, 11, 3.
Cambridge. 1893. 22 gives 20 and 10 ells. For the palms. see also n. 3 here.
8 Eth. Enoch, 24 (trans. Charles, Apoc. and Pseud., 11, 204): "And its
leaves and blooms and woods wither not forever: and its fruit (is beautiful
and its fruit) resembles the dates of a palm". Lactantiustoomay have thought
of palm trees, cl. Hubaux and Leroy, 60-61. For the eternal blooming of the
flowers of Paradise, see also Slav. Enoch, 5, and Apoc. of Peter, (Akhmim frg.).
15 (trans. James. Apoc. N.T .• 508).
, Gospel according to Thomas. log. 19: "And their leaves do not fall"; for
Aphraates. see n. I here.
5 See e.g. art. Blest, Abode 01 the, in ERE, 2, 1930. 680-710.
THE ABODE 32 3
Age, on the Isles of the Blessed, and among such peoples as the
Scythians, the Cyclopes, and the Phaeacians, where ploughing and
sowing are superfluous and land is not parcelled out.! The descrip-
tions of these regions, given with such evident delight and abundant
detail, also had a great influence on the Christian literature concern-
ing Paradise. 2 The clearest parallel with the monthly-bearing fruit
trees is found in Lucian's description of the Isle of the Blessed, where
the grape vines bear fruit twelve times a year and the fruit trees
even thirteen times a year, since in the month of Minos they bear
twice. 3 Although it is conceivable that with his lively imagination
Lucian, improvising on the traditional theme of the fertility of the
abode of the Blessed, 4 arrived independently at the idea of a month-
ly fertility, it is also quite possible that for him, too, this idea ulti-
mately went back to a Jewish or Christian source.o
Concerning the spring in the grove of the sun that was responsible
1 Spontaneous genesis: Hesiod, Erga, 117-118: KClp7tOV 8' ItpEPE ~El8wpot;

IipOUpCl / ClUTOILci't'lj 7toAMv TE KCll litp&ovov; Plato, Politic., 274c; Lucian, Sat.
EPist., I, 20, 402; Babrius, Fab. Aesop., prol. 12; Ovid, Metam., I, 108-110
(Golden Age). Hesiod, Erga, 171-173: ~ ILClKcipwv vi)aoLaL mXp' 'ilKEClVOV ~tX&U8L
VIlV, / lSA~LOL ~PWEt;, TOLaLV ILEALl)8ECl KClp7tOV / Tpl,. ITEOt; '&ciAAoVTCl tpEPEL ~El8wpot;
IipOUpCl; Horatius, Epod., XVI, 41 (Isles of the Blessed). Homer, Odys., IX,
108-109: olln tpunuouaLv I(Epalv tpUTOV ollT' dp6waLv, / dAAei Tei y' lia7tClpTCl KCll
dVi)pOTCl mXVTCl tpU6VTClL (Cyclopes), VII, 11 2 - I 26 (Phaeacians); Mela, 11 I, 37;
Diodorus Sic., Bibl. Hist., 11, 47, I (Hyperboreans); Aeschylus, Irg. 196
(Gabii); Strabo, XI, 4, 3 (Albani); Junior Philosophus, Expos. totius mundi
et gentium, E. 6 (Camerini). Unparcelled land: Ovid, Amor., Ill, 8, 41-42: nec
valido quisquam terras scindebat aratro, / signabat nullo limite mensor humum;
Virgil, Georg., I, 125-127; Tibullus, Eleg., I, 3, 43-44 (Golden Age). Horatius
Odae, Ill, 24, 12-13 (Scythians). The first Christian mention of spontaneous
genesis and the unparcelled land is found in Oracula Sibyllina, 11, 319-321:
YClLCl 8' ran 7tciVTWV ou nLJ(EaLV ou 7tEPLtpPClYILOLt; / 8LClILEPL~OIL~ KClp7tOUt; T6TE
7tAELovClt; olaEL / ClUTOILIX't'lj, KOLvol n ~lOL KClL 7tAOUTOt; IiIL0LPOt;.
I See e.g. Dracontius, De laud. Dei, I, 180-189; Avitus, I, 225-237; and
Pseudo-Cyprian, Ad Flav. FeUc. de resurrectione, 193-239; cl. also Ephraem,
Hymn. de paradiso, X.
8 Lucian, Verae narrationes, 11, 13: Cl! ILeV yeip IiIL7tEAOL 8w8EKIXtpOpoL
daLv KCll KClTIi ILliVCl fKClaTov KClp7totpopouaLv· Tlit; 3e {lOLlit; KClI Teit; ILl)AEClt; KCll -rljv
IiAAl)V 67t6JPClV nEYOV E!vClL TpLaKClL8EKcitpopov· ~vOt; yeip ILl)VOt; TOU 7tClP' ClUTOLt;
MLVci>OU 81t; KClP7tOtpOPELV.
, Cl. Hesiod, Erga, 172-173 (see n. I) where a threefold annual fertility
is assumed, and Diodorus Sic., Bibl. Hist., II, 47, I (for Hyperboreans, two-
fold).
6 See also p. 339 for the dew as food in Lucian.
32 4 THE ABODE
for the monthly fertility, Lactantius says explicitly that it was

called "Living". A Ions vivus is a source of living, fresh, running
water; the opponents of the view that De ave phoenice contains Chris-
tian ideas have not neglected to indicate a number of examples of
this import in Latin literature. 1 But on the other hand, the concepts
"living source" and "living water" acquired a deep symbolic signi-
ficance in Christianity and became identical with "Source of Life"
and "Water of Life".2 The emphasis with which Lactantius gives
the name of the spring 3 and the agreement we have shown between
this spring and the river of "Water of Life" (Rev. xxii. I) , which
according to the Judaeo-Christian conception arises in the City of
God and in Paradise, make it rather certain that the religious mean-
ing of "Source of Life" resonates in the "living source" of Lactantius. 4
This spring is clear, just as the "Water of Life" in Rev. xxii: I is clear
as crystal; it is has an abundance of sweet water, just as the temple
river in Ezek. xlvii.8-I2, whose waters sweeten the Dead Sea.
Various elements of Lactantius' description of the abode of the
phoenix can be shown to have Classical parallels. This agreement
holds especially for the aspects we have not yet discussed-the
climate and the absence of all evil-but also applies to some of the
elements explained above on the basis of the Jewish and Christian
Paradise traditions. Such correspondence could occur because on the
one hand the Greeks and Romans shared various conceptions with
1 Hubaux and Leroy, 58, n. I, give the most examples, e.g. Martial,
Epigr., 11, 90, 8: Ions vivus.
I For a discussion of the many Early Christian data and reference to other
studies, see E. Peterson, Die "Tau/e" im Acherusischen See, in his Fruhkirche,
Judentum und Gnosis, Freiburg i. Br., 1959, 323-327, and J. Danielou, L'eau
vive et le poisson, in his Les symboles chretiens primitils, Paris, 1961, 49-63.
3 Already pointed to by A. Riese, Ueber den PhOnix des Lactantius, in
RhMPh, NF, 31, 1876, 447.
4 This seems to be confirmed by Lactantius' (vss. 37-38) statement that
in the first glow of morning the phoenix plunges ter quater in the pias undas.
We have seen above that here Lactantius used a tradition concerning
the eagle and the griffin, see p. 282. But it is highly probable that he drew
on this tradition to refer to baptism EV 680tTL ~WVTL (Didache, 7, I). This
conception was Judaeo-Christian in origin (cl. Danielou, o.c., 51) and was
coupled with e.g. that of Paradise, the City of God, and the Jordan (Danielou,
60-63). The daily submersion of the phoenix in the Ions vivus, which became
a river bestowing great fertility, is reminiscent of the daily baptismal rites of
the Mandeans in "the great Jordan of living waters" (see Danielou, 50, 63).
THE ABODE 32 5
other peoples outside their sphere of influence and on the other

because Lactantius, "the Christian Cicero", was so familiar with
Classical literature and drew freely on this background. l
For example, the mountain of the gods, which in Jewish imagery
devloped into the mountain of Paradise, was also well known in the
Classical world. We of course think first in this connection of O1ym-
pus, but there is also the mountain, inaccessible to man, on Cyprus,
where according to Claudian the palace of Venus was situated. 2 The
Classical world also knew the idea of a beautiful grove in which a
clear spring rises. For comparison with Lactantius reference has been
made to the "spring of the sun" located, according to Diodorus
Siculus, in the oasis of Amman,s and to the description by the same
author of the island of Panchaia: there is a spring of fresh water,
which is called "water of the sun" and bestows health. The spring is
ringed by unusually tall trees, the palms are especially high and
bear an extraordinary quantity of fruit; all kinds of birds nest in
these trees and their beautiful plumage and melodious song delight
the eye and the ear.4 According to Apuleius, Psyche saw a grove of
high trees and a crystal-clear spring in the valley where she was to
experience her great love, and precisely in the centre of the grove
stood the palace of Amor.5 The "spring of the sun" and the "water
of the sun" of which Diodorus speaks are reminiscent of the "grove of
the sun" of Lactantius. His choice of this name for the paradisial
abode of the phoenix was determined by the close relationship be-
tween the phoenix and the sun, which just Lactantius puts so much
emphasis on.' It may be that for this name he drew on an existing
1 Lactantius' knowledge of the Classical literature is extensively discussed
by W. Krause, Die Stellung der Iruhchristlichen Autoren zur heidnischen
Literatur, Vienna, 1958, 179-254, see there also the statistics on p. 126 and
129
Z Claudian, Epithalamium, 49-85, cl. vss. 49-50: Mons latus Ionium Cypri
praeruptus obumbrat, / invius humano gressu; cl. Avitus, I,213-214;seep.317,
n. 2; also Patch, (p. 310, n. I), 175-178.
8 Diodorus Sic., Bibl. Hist., XVII, 50, 4: umiPXEL lCP~V1) 8La: TO aU!J.~E~1)KO~
Ovo!J.ot?;o!J.ev1) 'HA-tou KP~V1).
, Diodorus Sic., Bibl. Hist., V, 43, 2: a spring of sweet water forming a
river, which in 44, 3 is called 'HA-tou ii8wp.
5 Apuleius, Metam., V, I: videt lucum proceris et vastis arboribus consitum,
videt Jontem vitreo latice perlucidum ,. medio luci meditullio prope Jontis adlap-
sum domus regia est aedificata.
8 See e.g. p. 281.
THE ABODE
tradition. In this connection we may refer to one of the versions of

the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes, where Alexander
writes to Aristotle about a region visited by the rising sun and con-
secrated to the sun and moon: this was a place with very delightful
trees, which his guides called paradisus. 1 These parallels clearly show
that the non-Christian contemporaries of Lactantius could recognize
many familiar images in De ave phoenice. But taken as a whole, the
descriptions in it of the abode of the phoenix cannot be explained
from the Classical models but only from the Judaeo-Christian con-
ceptions concerning Paradise.
The view that the phoenix lives in Paradise is also found in the
rabbinical traditions. The bird I:z.6l, which was also called mal/:tam
or maltam, was said to have been the only bird or beast to refuse the
fruit offered by Eve and for this reason to have been given the gift
of eternal life by God. 2 Here it is probably also assumed that this
bird was allowed to remain in Paradise after the Fall. According to
one tradition, after the fall of man the Jewish phoenix went to reside
in the mysterious city of Luz, to which even the angel of death could
not gain admittance. 3 It is not in itself impossible that Lactantius
was aware of these traditions to some extent, but it is not necessary
to assume that this suggested to him the idea of placing the phoenix
in Paradise, since the conception is totally determined by the sym-
bolism of the phoenix. In early Christain times the bird became a
symbol of the resurrection of the flesh and of life in the heavenly
Paradise or the new Jerusalem. In several traditional subjects of
Early Christian art, i.e. the Traditio legis and the Adventus in
gloria, we see the phoenix in Paradise perched on a palm tree. 4 In
the apse of S. Giovanni in Laterano at Rome, the phoenix is shown
in the City of God, also on a palm tree. 5 The phoenix in Paradise or
1 Julius Valerius, Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis, Ill, 24: Eo ergo cum
venissemus, ducor in quendam locum arboribus consitum vel amoenissimis.
Hunc illi paradisum vocitavere.
2 For the texts, see Ginzberg, Legends, I, 32, 74, V, 51, n. 151, and 95,
n. 67. For the bird lz~l and Job XXiX.IB, see p. 5B. Ginzberg, V, 51, n. 151,
on mallzam or maltam: "a word 01 obscure origin which is very likely corrupt'.
3 See Ginzberg, Legends, IV, 30, 175, V, 51, n. 151, 119, n. 113, VI, IB6,
n.2B.
, See pIs. XXIV-XXX; also pI. XXXV.
6 See pI. XX.
THE ABODE 32 7
in the heavenly Jerusalem is a symbol of the redeemed in the escha-

tological glory. We shall attempt to show further on that in De ave
phoenice Lactantius may well have had in mind the realization of
the eschaton within the time of earthly life. l
Lactantius provides some other details about the abode of the
phoenix whose form and content were clearly determined by Classi-
cal ideas, but without detriment to the hypothesis that he was think-
ing of the Judaeo-Christian Paradise. His phoenix lives in an isolated
fortunate place in the extreme East, where the huge gate of the
eternal skies stands open; in this region summer and winter are
unknown, and it is eternally springtime. 2 Lactantius returns to this
point in more detail: violent storms are unknown there, frost does
not cover the earth with its icy dew, there are no clouds, and no
torrential rains fall. 3 From the time of Homer these had been fami-
liar themes in the literature about the abode of the gods, the Golden
Age, and the Isles of the Blessed. 4 But the striking Classical parallels
1 See p. 384-385.
2 Lactantius, 1-4: Est locus in prima felix oriente remotus, / qua patet
aeterni maxima porta poU, / nee tamen aestivos hiemisve propinquus ad ortus, /
sed qua Sol verno fundit ab axe diem. Cf. for VS.2 (patet maxima porta poU)
the citation from Ennius in Div. Instit., I, 18, II: mi soli eaeU maxima porta
patet. Especially the form of De ave phoeniee (porta poli) recurs repeatedly
in later authors, see Fitzpatrick, 58 and P. von Winterfeld, Ad Laetantium,
De ave phoeniee, in Philologus, 62, 1903, 478-480. Gennaro, 11 elassieismo di
Lattanzio, (see p. 312, n. 3), 347, compares VS.l of Lactantius with Lucretius,
De rer. nat., I, 333 and Il, 331: but no agreement can be distinguished either
in the choice of words or in the content apart from the shared occurrence of
the word locus.
3 Lactantius, 2 I -24: Non ibi tempestas nee vis furit horrida venti / nee
gelido terram rore pruina tegit, / nulla super eampos tendit sua vellera nubes, /
nee cadit ex alto turbidus umor aquae.
, Abode of the Gods: Homer, Odyss., VI, 43-45: o(h·' «v£ILoLaL -rLvlXaae:-rcxL
o(he: 7t6-r' IlIL[3P<t> / 3e:Ue:-rCXL o(\-re: )(LOOV E7tL7ttAVCX-rCXL, «AAc!c: ILIXA' cxt.&p'7j / 7t£7t-rCX-rCXL
riV£qle:AOC;, Ae:UK7) 3' Em3£3polLEV CXtYA'7j; adopted almost literally by Lucretius,
De rer. nat., Ill, 18-22, for the Epicurean gods. The same elements are
found in Claudian's description of the mountain with the palace of Venus
(see p. 325, n. 2) and in that of Sidonius of the region where Aurora's palace
stands: Carmina, Il, 407-417. Golden Age: Virgil, Georgiea, Il, 338-339: vet'
illud erat, ver magnus agebat / orbis, et hibernis paseebant flatibus Euri; idem,
Il, 149-150 (description of Italy with the features of the Golden Age, ef.
W. Richter, Vergil, Georgiea, (Das Wort der Antike, V), Munich, 1957,206);
Ovid, Metam., I, 107. Abode of the Blessed: Homer, Odyss., IV, 566-568:
ou vLqle:-r6e;, o(\-r' &p )(e:LILOOV 7toMe; o(\-re: 7t6-r' IlIL[3poc;, / «AAdc: riel Ze:qlUPOLO ALyU
THE ABODE
do not prove that Lactantius could not have had Paradise in mind.
As early an author as Flavius Josephus described the ideas of the
Essenes about the hereafter in phrases clearly inspired by Homer: it
was a country on the other side of the Ocean which did not suffer
from heavy rains, blizzards, and summer heat but was always fresh-
ened by the soft Zephyr of the Ocean.l The idea that summer heat
will be unknown in the abode of the pious seems highly appropriate
for the Essenes. Second Isaiah had already posed this for those who
were to return from the Babylonian captivity: "They shall neither
hunger nor thirst; no scorching heat or sun shall distress them; for
one who loves them shall lead them and take them to water at bub-
bling springs" (Isa. xlix.IO), a theme taken over by John for the
New Jerusalem (Rev. Vii.I6-17). The eternal spring characterized by
the absence of storms, scorching heat, and winter cold is also found
in the descriptions of Paradise given by Aphraates, Ephraem, Pseu-
do-Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Prudentius, Marius Victor, Dracon-
tius, Pseudo-Cyprianus, Avitus, and Isodore of Seville. 2 It is possible
that the influence of De ave phoenice is to be detected in some of
them, but it is in any case clear that Lactantius was not the first
to include elements from the Classical traditions concerning the
abode of the Blessed in the Christian image of Paradise. 3 After the
Olymp., Il,
me:lovToc; a~TIXC; / 'OK£IXVOC; avLllaLv aVlXljluxe:LV aY&pC:mouc;. Pindar,
71-73; Pseudo-Plato, Axiochus, 371d; Horatius, Epod., XVI, 53-56; Lucian,
Verae narr., Il, 12. Cl. also Pliny, IV, 89, on the Hyperboreans: regio aprica,
lelici temperie, omni adllatu noxio carens.
1 josephus, De bello Judaico, Il, 155: ... Kcd xwpov olJn 1S!L~pOLC; OlJTe:
VLCP£TO'LC; olJn KIXU!LlXaL ~lXpuv6(L£Vov, aA).' av e~ WK£IXVOU 1tpIXOC; ad ~ECPUpOC; emmEwv
aVlXljluX£L.
I Aphraates, Demonstr., XXII, 12; Ephraem, Hymni de paradiso, X, 2-6,
XI, 2; Pseudo-Basil, Drat., Ill: de paradiso, 2 (PG 30, 64 BC); Ambrose,
De bono mortis, 12, 53; Augustine, De civit., XIV, 26; Prudentius, Cath.,
Ill, 103; Marius Victor, Alethia, I, 228; Dracontius, De laud. Dei, I, 185,
189-193, 199; Pseudo-Cyprian, Ad Flav. Fel. de resurrectione, 240-244;
Avitus, I, 222-226; Isidore, Etym., XIV, 3, 2-3· In 4 Ezra, 7, 39-44, this
theme has become a negation of all possible earthly circumstances; cl. 41:
neque aestatem, neque verem, neque aestum, neque hiemem.
8 As supposed by W. Ganzenmiiller, Das Naturgefuhl im Mittelalter,
(Beitr. zur Kulturgesch. des Mitt. und der Renaiss., 18), Leipzig-Berlin,
1914, 16, whose view is adopted by Schippers, Avitus, 16, n. 4, and 93 (with
the name misspelled: Galgenmiiller). Patch, (see p. 300, n. I), 137, sees a
strong influence of De ave phoenice in Pseudo-Cyprian (see n. 2). Boas,
THE ABODE 32 9
precedence J osephus assigns to the Essenes, we find a Christian

identification of Elysium with Paradise as early as the Apocalypse
ot Peter and the Oracula Sibyllina. 1 Tertullian even derived from
it evidence to support the truth of Christianity: since Paradise is the
older of these two related conceptions, the pagan philosophers and
poets must have drawn on the sacred beliefs of the Christians!2
Lactantius' description of the fortunate conditions prevailing in
the abode of the phoenix is also not free of Classical influence: in the
grove of the sun there is no pale illness, sorrowful old age, cruel
death, or raw fear; unutterable crime does not occur there, nor mad
passion for money and killing; and bitter sorrow, ragged poverty,
sleepless cares, and gnawing hunger are not known. 3 Here Lactan-
tius gives a list of the physical and moral evils characerizing our
world, for which a number of close parallels can be found in the Clas-
sicalliterature. 4 The Classical world was convinced that in the Gol-
den Age, on the Isles of the Blessed, and among such peoples as the
Hypoboreans, all these forms of human misery were unknown or
occurred only to a much smaller degree. a But since this misery is
o.c .• 157. too calls Lactantius' poem the first example of a description of
Paradise into which the Classical ideas concerning the Golden Age are inc-
porated.
1 Apocalypse of Petet'. Gr. It'g. (ed. Wessely. PO. 18. 1924. 482): KOt1 awaCl)
OtUTOLt; KOtAOV ~117tTLaILOt ~v aCl)"'lptqc 'Axe:pouatOtt; AtILV71t; ~v KOtAOUaLV ~ T(j)
'HAuatCj> ne:atCj>. ILepOt; aLKOtLoaUV71t; ILe:Ta TWV «ytCl)v ILou. Ot'acula Sibyllina. II
334-338: Ae:~I1ILe:VOt; yap ~aOt;:Hht; tXno cpAOYOt; tXKOtlLl1TOLO / &lloa' tXnoaTIjaOtt;
neILIjle:L aLa AOtOV i:OtUTOU / e:!t; ~CI)~V i:TepOtV KOt1 Ot!WVLOV ci&OtVI1TOLaLV / 'HAuatCj> ne:atCj>.
&&L ol neAe: KUILOtTOt ILOtKPI1 / AtILV71t; tXe:v110U 'Axe:pouatOtaOt; ~a..&uK6Anou.
I Tertullian. Apolog .• 47. 13-14. : et si pat'adisum nominemus ... Elysii
campi lidem occupavet'unt (according to the opponents). Unde haec. ot'o vos.
philosophis aut poetis tam consimilia? Non nisi de nostt'is sact'amentis!
8 Lactantius. 15-20: Non huc exsangues mot'bi. non aegt'a senectus. / nec
mOt's ct'udelis nec metus aspet' adest. / nec scelus inlandum nec opum vesana
cupido / aut it'a aut at'dens caedis amot'e lut'Ot'; / luctus acet'bus abest et egestas
obsita pannis / et cUt'ae insomnes et violenta lames.
, See Fitzpatrick. 63-64; cl. e.g. Virgil. Aeneis. VI. 273-281. mentioning
among others luctus. cut'ae. mOt'bi. senectus. metus. fames. egestas. bellum.
discot'dia.
6 Golden Age: Hesiod. Et'ga. 112-117: Clan .&e:01 a' ~~CI)OV tXK71aeOt '&UILOV
~xovnt; / v6acpLV &Te:p n n6vCI)v KOt1 o!~UOt;. oun TL ae:LAOV / y'ijpOtt; ~n'ijv. Ot!e:1 ae:
n6aOtt; KOt1 Xe:LPOtt; OILOLOL / TepnovT' ~ '&OtAtnaL. KOtKWV ~KToa.&e:v «nI1VTCI)v· / .&v'ijaKov
a' &)(1'&' U7tVCj> ae:aIL71ILeVOL" ~a'&Aa ae nl1VTOt / TOLaLV ~v; Aratus. Phaenomena.
330 THE ABODE
universal among mankind, the longing for and the description of a

world free of all these ills occurs outside the Classical world too. In
India the Golden Age was drawn with the same features 1 and it does
not diverge in the Iranian mythology: in the land of Yima there was
no hunger and no thirst, no heat and no cold, no senility, death, or
hatred. 2
I t would be extraordinary if these same themes did not return in
the Jewish and Christian images of Paradise. According to Enoch,
in the eschaton the elect will no longer know sorrow, plague, torment
or calamity.3 In the New Jerusalem, according to Rev. xxi. 4, there
will be no kind of pain whatever: "He will wipe every tear from their
eyes; there shall be an end to death, and to mourning and crying and
pain; for the old order has passed away". Aphraates too expected
that in the final Paradise desire and sensuality, wrath and insolence,
hate and greed would be unknown and that only mutual love would
bum in the hearts of the chosen." According to Ephraem, in Paradise
there is no labour, no hunger, and no sin, no care and no pain, no
fear and no war.5 This also held, according to the Cave of Treasures,
108-lIO; Ovid, Metam .• I. 89-91; Tibullus. Eleg .• I. 3, 47-48. Hyperboreans:

Pindar. Pytk., X, 41-44: v6aoL 3' 0(\'<£ y'ijpot~ OUA6(.LEVOV dKpot-rotL / tepij YEVeij'
7t6vwv 3e Kotl (.LotX«v !-rep / otdoLaL cpuy6v'<£~ U7t&P3LKOV N&(.LeaLV; Pliny. IV. 89.
Gennaro. (see p. 312. n. 3). 348. compares Lactantius. 15-24. with Lucretius.
De rer. nat .• II. 646-651. where the undisturbed rest of the Epicurean gods is
described. Because he limited himself to comparing Lactantius and Lucretius.
he did not see that parallels can be indicated in many other authors as well.
He therefore mistakenly came to the conclusion that: "l'ideale beatitudine
e gli elementi della natura. piu cke essere ispitari alla S. Scrittura. sono tras-
figurati nelloro aspetto polemico e poetico. e .. si accostano alla natura lucre-
ziana" (347-348).
1 See the striking parallel in P. E. Dumont. Primitivism in Indian litera-
ture. in Lovejoy and Boas. (see p. 310. n. I). 434.
I Cf. e.g. Zend Avesta, Zamyad Yast. VII. 32-33 (trans. Darmesteter.
SBE. 23. 1883. 293) and Yasna. IX. 5 (trans. Mills, SBE. 31. 1887. 232);
see also references given on p. 314. nn. 2-4.
3 Etk. Enock. 25. 6; see also Rev .• viL16-17 and 4 Ezra. 7. 114.
, Aphraates. Demonstr. XXII. 12 (PS I. 1014/5): Nulla illic invenietur
naturalis cupiditas.. ab omnibus voluptatibus procul kabebuntur. Ira nec
procacitas in corda eorum ascendent. et quaecumque peccatum pariunt ab eis
tollentur. Fervescet in cordibus eorum mutuus amor. neque 1111um omnino inter
eos odium se intromittet ... Non illic avaritiae cupidine constringentur. nec
recordatione in errorem inducentur.
6 Ephraem. Hymni de paradiso. VII, 1I-13. 22-23.
THE ABODE 33 I
for the holy tribe of Seth, which lived on the slopes of the Paradise
mountain;1 and of the mysterious people of the Camerini, who live
in the land of Eden, it is said that the people are very good and pious
and that they know none of the ills of the body or the souP In the
poem by Pseudo-Cyprian on the resurrection, the absence of all
earthly ills in Paradise is also emphasized: anger and deception and
vicious lust are unknown there, fear and care are shut out, evil and
affliction banished. 3 It is evident from these texts that the ne-
gation of all human misery was a fixed theme in the literature on
Paradise, both the Paradise of Adam and Eve and the future one."
1 Cave of Treasures, 7, 5-11 (trans. Bezold, 10).
I Junior Philosophus, Expos. totius mundi et gentium, D.4: isti autem
homines sunt valde pii et boni, apud quos nulla malitia invenitur, neque
corporis neque animi.
8 Pseudo-Cyprian, Ad Flav. FeZ. de resurrectione, 246-249: Iraeque insi-
diaeque absunt et dira cupido, / exclususque metus pulsaeque a limine
curae. / Binc malus extremas relegatur exul in oras, beatosque labor vetitus
contingere fines.
, Hubaux and Leroy failed to see the connection between the abode of
the phoenix according to Lactantius and the J udaeo-Christian and Classical
conceptions of Paradise. They attempted to demonstrate (p. 110-115) that
Lactantius was inspired by the Essenes report in Pliny, V, 73. Their main
arguments are: I. This Jewish sect was called a gens socia palmarum by
Pliny; cf. (j)OLVL~ = phoenix and palm. 2. It lives sine ulla femina, omne venere
abdicata; cf. Lactantius, 164: Felix quae Veneris foedera nulla colit; 3. None-
theless: Ita per saecuZorum milia (incredibile dictu) gens aeterna est, in qua
nemo nascitur; cf. the lifespan of 1,000 years in Lactantius; 4. The emphasis
on the absence of all evil in the abode of the phoenix is not really consistent
with this bird (which is already happy by nature) but answers very well for
a cenobitic community like that of the Essenes (of whom it is said that they
rejected money and commerce, and that among them the difference between
rich and poor or master and servant did not occur). In a later study: Pline
et Zes Esseniens, in Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences Morales et
Politiques de I'Academie Royale de Belgique, 5th Series, 44 ,Brussels, 1958,
475-495, Hubaux again attempted to demonstrate a close relationship
between the legend of the phoenix and that of the Essenes, but assumed for
this a more intensive interaction in the sense that in the description of the
Essenes he saw a distinct influence of the traditions concerning the phoenix,
"symbole et modete, semble-t-il, des Esseniens" (p. 493). The points of
agreement mentioned are rather superficial; to the extent that they are
realistic it must be kept in mind that the Classical and Jewish traditions
concerning life in the Golden Age and the like and in Paradise-both of
the primeval period and of the eschaton- seem to have influenced the descrip-
tions of the Essenes, who may themselves have contributed to this to the
extent that they saw their way of life as a realization of the eschaton.
33 2 THE ABODE
Lactantius assumes the same for the abode of the phoenix and does
so in words strongly reminiscent of Classical examples, but this does
not provide us with arguments against the hypothesis that he had
the Christian paradise in mind.
The analysis of the material in Lactantius concerning the abode
of the phoenix leads us to the conclusion that he was led by the
Jewish and Christian traditions concerning Paradise, which played
an especially strong part in the eschatological expectations of the
Early Church. For a proper understanding of this point we must
keep in mind the fact that even before his time the Christians had
seen the parallelism between this Paradise and, for example, the
Golden Age and the Elysium of the Classical world and made use of
the relevant Classical ideas in their descriptions, at least whenever
the Judaeo-Christian tradition offered an opportunity to do so.
This tendency is very marked in Lactantius, and it would indeed be
strange if this were not the case for this "Christian Cicero". For the
chiliast Lactantius, too, we may certainly assume a knowledge of
the popular Christian echatological expectations. These conclusions
are of course important with respect to the interpretation of De ave
phoenice. 1
According to Claudian, too, the phoenix dwelt in a sacred grove
near the place where the sun rises, but his description diverges so
widely from that of Lactantius that there is little probability of de-
pendence on De ave phoenice. 2 The grove lies beyond India and the
East, the Ocean flows around it. In the morning it is the first place
to receive the light of the sun rising from the Ocean: it shakes under
the snorting steeds of the sun chariot, it hears near by the roaring
crack of the whip, where the moist thresholds echo to the clanking of
the still dripping chariot, the dawn breaks and the night flees before
the flashing wheels. 3 We have already seen that according to certain
1 See here, p. 382. According to a few Old-English and Old-Norse texts,

too, the phoenix lives in Paradise; cl. H. Larsen, Notes on the phoenix, in
Journal 01 English and German philology, 41, 1942, 79-84.
I This is assumed by e.g. Riese, Ueber den Ph. des Lact. 446 ff., Rapisarda,
76, and Walla, 135-136. The relationship between Lactantius and Claudian
is difficult to determine; see reference in n. 3 on p. 158.
8 Claudian, Phoenix, 1-6: Oceani summo circumlluus aequore lucus / trans
Indos Eurumque viret, qui primus anhelis / sollicitatur equis vicinaque verbera
THE ABODE 333
traditions a relation is also drawn between the death of the phoenix

and the rising sun. 1 In this region, according to Claudian, the fortu-
nate sun bird rules entirely alone and protected by the inaccessibi-
lity of the region. Its abode is free of sick animals and it does not
have to suffer dire infection of the world of man. The bird is the
equal of the gods; the duration of its life makes it the match of the
stars, and it has eternal life because of its capacity to renew itself.2
From the foregoing it is not difficult to discern in Claudian the
traditional description of the Isles of the Blessed. The phoenix lives
on an island surrounded by the Ocean and crossed by the sea-winds
from which, as we shall see, it takes its food. s Sicknesses are un-
known in its region, because there are no animals to carry them. 4 By
"the dire infection of the world of man" Claudian probably meant
the moral and physical ills dealt with in such detail by Lactantius
rather than that man might endanger its life and safety.5 Thus the
phoenix of Claudian too enjoys the perfect life perpetually sought and
never found by man on earth. We shall see that Claudian's poem was
inspired by the popular Stoic-Eclectic philosophy,6 and that it is
probable that his phoenix was a symbol of "redeemed" man, i.e. the
soul freed of this earthly life.
Only when the theme of the care-free, perfect life of the phoenix
had become detached from its abode in Paradise, in the Classical as
well as the Christian sense, could the meaning of this theme become
sentit, / umida roranti resonant cum limina curru, / unde rubet ventura dies
longeque coruscis / nox ad/lata rotis re/ugo pallescit amictu.
1 See p. 203, 205, and 206. According to Sidonius, Carmina, Il, 416-417,
the phoenix brings the cinnamon for its funeral pyre from the region where
Aurora's palace stands, in the vicinity of which it lives.
8 Claudian, Phoenix, 7-12: Haec /ortunatus nimium Titanius ales / regna
colit solusque plaga de/ensus iniqua / possidet intactas aegris animalibus oras /
saeva nec humani patitur contagia mundi. / Par volucer superis, stellas qui
vividus aequat / durando membrisque terit redeuntibus aevum.
3 For the refreshing sea-wind (zephyr), see texts mentioned in n. 4 on
p. 327, under Abode of the Blessed, from Homer, Pindar, Lucian; see also
Josephus, on p. 328, in n. 1. For the food, cf. p. 336.
, Cf. Ovid, Amores, 11, 6, 52 (cited p. 310, n. 3) and Horatius, Epod., XVI,
50, on the Isles of the Blessed: nulla nocent pecori contagia. See also here,
p. 183, on the circumstances in the abode where according to Lactantius
the phoenix renews itself.
5 As in Hubaux and Leroy, II3-II4.
• See p. 338-340.
334 THE ABODE
reduced to the bare fact that man could not pursue it. We find this
in Dionysius of Philadelphia: the phoenix lives the longest of all
birds and completely without fear, because ill-disposed men cannot
harm it with bows, or with stones, or with lime-twigs, or with nets. 1
1 Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32: Kotl ~LOU" !potaL" l:1tl 1tAE!aTO" Kotl !LET!X 1t/ia7)1:
acpo~Lot~ otUT6", ~~ O/hE T6~OL~, O/hE A(.&OL1;, o(\n KotM!LOL~ ~ miyotLt; TW" a"3pw,, n
Kot..' otU"OU 1tOLE!" 1tELPW!LCvW".
CHAPTER NINE
THE FOOD
The mortality of all earthly beings is expressed in their recurrent

need for food, but the immortality of the phoenix is accentuated
by its food. Only a few authors consider the food of the phoenix.
Manilius says that no man has yet seen the phoenix eaU The mean-
ing of this statement may be that the bird probably never eats
or that if it does so its food cannot be of an earthly nature. According
to the descriptions, the latter is indeed the case.
Ovid was of the opinion that the phoenix lived on aromatics:
"Not from fruits or herbs does it live, but from drops of frank-
incense and juice of amomum".2 Aromatics are a miraculous food,
they break the power of death: according to Pausanias, the poison
of the snakes living under the balsam tree is not injurious because
they eat of this most fragrant of spices. s We have already seen that
aromatics play a major part at the death and resurrection of the
phoenix; for the latter they form an obligatory condition and sym-
bolize the victory of life over death. 4 Ovid says that the bird is also
dependent on aromatics for the continuation of its life. Thus, there
is a distinct parallelism between the food of the phoenix and its
death and revival; these are two aspects of the same thing: the aro-
matics guarantee it immortality.
A complete identification of the fragrant food of the phoenix and
1 Pliny, X, 4: neminem extitisse qui viderit vescentem.

I Ovid. Metam., XV, 393-394: non jruge neque herbis, / sed turis lacrimis
et sueo vivit amomi. Followed by Dante, Injerno, XXIV, I09-IIO: Erba ne
badio in sua vita non pasce ,/ ma sol d'incenso lagrime ed amomo. Bartholo-
maeus Anglicus, De prop. rerum, XII, 14, retains the food rejected by Ovid,
albeit with the qualification that it is "pure": granis et jructibus mundis
cibum querens.
8 Pausanias, IX, 28, 4: &:re: yelp OLTOUIL£VOL~ TOL~ i!Xe:OL lLuPOOV TO e:UOOIL6TCltTOV,
ILe:TCltKe:pcivvUTlXt 0tpLOLV iK TOU .&IXVIXT6180U~ i~ TO il'rL61Te:poV 6 t6~. This text is cited
and discussed by M. Laurent, Le pMnix, les serpents et les aromates dans une
miniature du XIIe siecle, in AC, 4, 1934, 382.
, See here, p. 169-171.
THE FOOD
the perfumes it collects before its death is found in John of Gaza: in

preparation for its death "it feeds abundantly on fragrant meadows,
eating of a fragrant flower".1 This line is immediately followed by
the story of its death; the collection of aromatics has disappeared.
Like its periodic death, the food of the phoenix has become the sign
of its essential immortality.
The other reports on the food of the phoenix are determined even
more strongly than the foregoing by the symbolic meaning given to
the bird. For a systematic treatment of this material we can best
start with the data in the Phoenix of Claudian. Although related
ideas occur in earlier writers, only Claudian's report can be explain-
ed exclusively on the basis of Classical conceptions.
Claudian too emphasizes the fact that the phoenix does not eat
ordinary earthly food: "The bird is not accustomed to satisfy its
hunger with food, or stave off its thirst at any spring, but the purer
heat of the sun feeds it and it drinks the windy nutriments of Tetys,
taking nourishment from the innocuous vapours". 2 So Claudian has
the rays of the sun serve as the food and the sea mists as the sustain-
ing drink of the phoenix.
To start with the last of these points, the idea that a fresh breeze
can give health and life was not unknown in the Classical world,3
although everyone knew that it is impossible for human beings to
"live on air".4 However, this form of nutrition was assumed for a
few species of animals thought to be unable to feed in the normal
manner. Ovid and Pliny report that the chameleon, which was con-
1 John of Gaza, n, 214-215: yota't'&pot 7tLotA&7jV e6w3EaL.&~Kot't'0 7tOtotL~, / &v.&EO~
EM3fLOU ~o't'otV7j!pliyo~.
B Claudian, Phoenix, 13-16: Non epulis saf.urare famem, non fontibus ullis I
adsuetus prohibere sitem; sed purior ilium / SoUs fervor alit ventosaque pabula
potat / Tethyos, innoeui earpens alimenta vaporis. The great Dutch poet
Joost van den Vondel seems to have been inspired by Claudian in his Joseph
in Dothan (1640),1. 11 55ff. : "Aldus, gevoedt van hemelseh vier / en zon en daeuw,
bereiekt mijn dier / zoo menige eeuw van hondert jaer".
a E.g. Plato, Rep., 401c: otlSpot !p&pouaot li7to )(p7ja't'oov 't'6mllv UytELotV. Philo,
De vitibus, 93: Kotl fLotAotKel~ 3p6aou~, ~W't'LKW't'ot't'ot~ otlSpot~.
, E.g. Sophocles, Philoetetes, 1158-1162: li7to yelp ~tov ot,htKot Ae:tIjiW. / 7t6.&e:v
yelp la't'otL ~Lo't'li; 't't~ w3' ~v otlSpotL~ 't'P&!PE't'otL, / fL7jK&'t'L fL7j3e:vo~ KPot-ruVWV lSaot
7t&fL7tEL ~L63wpo~ / otlot; Athenaeus, Deipnos., n, 47c: 00 prja't" lid 7tELVOOaL
KEKpom300v K6pOL / KIi7t't'ov't'e:~ otlSpot~, ~A7tt3ot~ aL't'oufLe:vOL; see also idem: IX,
405 d.
THE FOOD 337
sidered to be filled with air, feeds itself with substances taken from
the air, supplied to it by the wind. 1 According to a report made by
Ctesias in Plutarch, a bird was known in Persia that passed no dung
but whose insides were full of fat; this led the Persians to conclude
that it fed on wind and dew. 2 A similar assumption is made in
Eusebius for the young raven spoken of in Ps. cxlvii (LXX: cxlvi).9:
they are fed with Ha certain food from the air driven into their
mouth by a gentle breeze", and this is repeated at the beginning of
the twelfth century by Euthymius Zigabenus. 3 The idea that the
winds bring food is also found in Lucian's caricature of the Isle of
the Blessed: at the banquet of the fortunate held in the Elysian
Fields, the winds serve up everything except the drinks.4 Remark-
ably enough, we find the same assumed for Paradise in Ephraem the
Syrian; there, the winds wait on the just, one providing satiation,
the other drink. 6 In addition to the popular vision of a kind of
Cockaigne, Ephraem also knew a very spiritual concept of Paradise. s
1 Pliny, VIII, 122: ipse eelsus hianti semper ore solus animalium nee eibo
nee potu alitur nee alio quam aeris alimento; Ovid, Metam., XV, 41I: id
quoque, quod ventis animal nutritur et aura. For Classical views on the
chameleon, see O. Keller, Die Antike Tierwelt, Il, Leipzig, 1913 281-284.
I Plutarch, Vita Artax., 19, 4 (ed. Lindeskog-Ziegler, Vitae, Ill, I, 388):
Y(VE..IXL 3e ILLKPOV ~ IIepO'ow; bpv(lhov, <T> 1tEpL....WILIX..Oc,; oUBev iO'''LV, liAA' IIAov
a
3LIXltAeWV ltLILEA'ijc,; .. EV..6c,;, fl KlXl VOIL(~OUO'LV livelLCJ) KlXl 3p60'CJ) ..pe<pEO'&IXL ..0 ~Ci>OV'
bVOILOC~E"IXL 3e {lUV..OCKTjc,;. See also p. 351, n. I.
8 Eusebius, Commentaria in Psalmos, ad cxlvi.9 (PG 24, 68C): .. pe<pEO'&IXL
3e IDCJ) 1tlXplX36~CJ) ..oU &EOU 3uVOCILEL ... ou.. w 3e <pepEO'&IXL lXo..oLc,;· "LVIX i~ liepoc,;
"po<p1jv KIX..a "OU 0'..61L1X..0c,; U1tO ..LVOc,; IXUPIXc,; O'UVw&OUIL£vTJV; Euthymius Zigabenus,
Comm. inPsalmos, ad cxlvi.9 (PG 128, 1304 D): ol)c,; 6&EOc,; li1topp-lj..wc,; ..pe<pEL ...
IXUPIXc,; "oLc,; 0'..61L1X0'LV IXO.. WV iIL1tLlt..OUO'TJc,;, (3PWO'LV i~ liepoc,; ..LVIX i1tL0'1tWlLevoLc,;. For
the young raven, see also p. 352-354.
'Lucian, Verae narrat., Il, 14: 3LIXKOVOUV..IXL 3e KlXl 1tlXplX<pepouO'Lv iKIXO'''1X
ot I!vElLoL 1tA-IjV yE "OU o!VO)(OELv.
i Ephraem, Hymni de paradiso, IX, 8 (trans. E. Beck, CS CO 175, Scr.
Syri 79, Louvain, 1957, 35): "Winde sind es, die im Paradies zu den Gereehten
eilen; / der eine haueht Siittigung, der andre spendet Trank. / Der Hauch des
einen ist appig, das Wehen des andern saltvoll. / Wer sah (je) Winde, die mit
sich lahrten / Lalte zu essen und andre zu trinken". In both Lucian and
Ephraem the blessed lie on a bed of flowers under fruit-bearing trees; both
also mention the bathing in dew. Cl. also the description of the blessed in
Paradise in Prudentius, Hamartigenia, 856-858: Illic, purpureo latus expor-
recta cubili, / Iloribus aeternis spirantes libat odores, / ambrosiumque bibit roseo
de stramine rorem.
• See texts cited on p. 356, in nn. 2 and 3.
22
THE FOOD
That Claudian drew on an existing tradition in having the phoenix

fed by vapours rising from the sea and carried by the wind is made
probable by the report of the Physiologus 01 Vienna that the new-
born phoenix, still only a feathered worm, flies to the edge of the
sea, lives there, and is maintained by "the water and the dry".1
We have already seen that Claudian's picture of the perfect abode
of the phoenix is in agreement with the traditional descriptions of
the Isles of the Blessed: it lives on an island washed by the ocean and
swept by the sea-winds, free of all the sorrows that make life so
difficult in our world. 2 A quite different concept of the Isles of the
Blessed or the Elysian Fields was taught by the Pythagoreans: these
exquisite abodes were located on the sun and moon. s These ideas
seem to have become known to the Stoics and Eclectics, especially
via Posidonius, albeit modified in the sense that the Elysian Fields
were no longer placed on the moon but around it." According to
Stoic doctrine, the souls rising from the earth or descending from
the sun are arrested when they reach the sphere of the moon because
the lightness of its ether accords completely with their own weight.
There, according to Cicero, they lack for nothing and are fed and
sustained with the same food that the stars are sustained and fed
with.5 According to Plutarch, this is the vapour present there,6 and
1 Physiologus of Vienna, 26-28: KlXl Ell}' O{)Tc.Jt; T'ii 1tpovoLqt TOU '&EOU 7tETlXa'&IXL
TOV aKwAllKIX iKELVOV, ••• Katl 1tAllatov yLvEa'&IXL Tijt; 1S)(~t; TOU WKEIXVOU, KlXl ~'ijv
IXUTOV KlXl O!KovofLELa'&IXL iK TOU {)8otTOt; KlXl Tijt; ~llpiit;.
8 See p. 332-333, and the references given there; also O. Waser, Elysion, in
RE,S, 2, 1905, 2470-2476.
3 Jamblichus, Vita Pythag., XVIII, 82 (FVS, I, 464, 6): Tt EaTLV IX!
fLIXKllpc.JV v'ijaoL; ~ALOt; KlXl aEA1)Vll. For this, see Detienne, La notion de DAIMON,
105.
, See Cumont, Lux perpetua, 146, 175-182, 399-400, most of which is also
found in his earlier books: After life, 96-100, also 29 and 161, and in Symbol-
isme funeraire, 167, 183ff, 188, 192ff. See also Nilsson, Gesch. der gr. Religion,
11, 471-477. For the influence of Posidonius and the later effect of these
conceptions on Christian authors, see E. Norden, P. Vergilius Maro. Aeneis
Buch VI, Leipzig, 1903, 23-29.
6 Cicero, Tusc. disput., I, 43: in quo nulla re egens aletur (sc. animus) et
sustentabitur isdem rebus, quibus astra sustentantur et aluntur. For the eclectic
character of Cicero's views: K. Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie. Neue
Untersuchungen uber Poseidonius, Munich, 1926, 363.
e Plutarch, De facie in orbe lunae, 28 (ed. Pohlenz, Moralia, V, 3, 84): KlXl
yLVETIXL aTIX'&EpoV Kotl 8LIXUYEt;, i!>a.&' imo Tijt; 'ru)(OU«Jllt; cXVot'&UfLLllaEc.Jt; TpECjlEa'&otL.
THE FOOD 339
Sextus Empiricus completes the picture when he says that this is

the vapour that rises from the earth and is used by the souls as a
suitable food, "just like the other stars".1 Lucian, who could not
resist ridiculing these ideas in his Verae narrationes, tells how the
inhabitants of the moon use as food the ascending smoke from burnt
frogs and take their beverages from the air, which is pressed in a cup
and releases a fluid like dew. 2 It is quite clear from these texts of
Cicero and Sextus Empiricus that the pure souls in the sphere of the
moon are equated with the stars, even as far as their food is con-
cerned. The idea that the stars, the moon, and the sun are fed by a
vapour that rises from the earth and the ocean was a well-known
doctrine of the Stoics, who seem to have borrowed it from Hera-
clitus. 3 On the other hand, the blaze of the sun, which warms the
entire cosmos, was considered to be the procreator and maintainer
of life. 4 Particularly in the region of the moon, a mixing of the
moist vapour of the earth and the rays of the sun was supposed to
take place. 5
We cannot help receiving the impression that in his description
of the fortunate circumstances and the food of the phoenix, Claudian
had in mind this popular-philosophical concept of the Elysian Fields:
the bird leads the same life as the gods and the stars, 6 like the blessed
Full discussion of Plutarch's ideas in Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie,

313-353, especially 337ff.
1 Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Mathemat., IX, 73 (ed. Mutschmann, Il, 231):
Tpoqrij 3& )(p6iVTotL OtKEl~ T'ii cbco yijc,; «Vot&UfLLcXO"EL wc,; TcX AOL'ltcX &O"TPot. This text
concerns the souls that descend to earth from the sun via the moon; see
Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie, 308-3I1.
9 Lucian, Verae narrat., I, 23: 7tOTOV 3& ot\hoi:c,; ~o"TLV &ljp «7to&AL~6fLEVOc,; de,;
KUALKCX Kcxl ilypov «VLEle,; &lO"7tEP 3p60"0v.
3 See texts in J. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta, Il, Leipzig, 1903,
nos. 650,652, 655, 656, 658 (p. 196), nos. 659-663 (p. 197). no. 677 (p. 199);
for Herac1itus see no. 690 (p. 201): 'HpcXKAELTOc,; Kcxl ot LT6tKOL TP£CPEo"&CX~
TOUe,; «O"T£PCXe,; ~K T'ije,; ~myElou «Vot&UfLLcXO"ECJle,; (Aetius, Plac. Phil. Il, 17, 4). Cl.
Reinhardt's study mentioned above, and also M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa. Ge-
schichte einer geistigen Bewegung, Gottingen, I, 1948, 81-82, 219 and Il, 1949,
48 .
, Pohlenz, Die Stoa, I, 83 (Cleanthes), 219, 223-224, 229 (Posidonius),
Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie, 351.
6 Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie, 338-353, 403-410 and Pohlenz, Die
Stoa, I, 81-82, 217 and Il, Ill.
S Claudian, Phoenix, 11, see p. 333, n. 2.
340 THE FOOD
pure souls it is fed by the salubrious vapour from the air and the
blaze of the sun, which is "purer" than in our world. If this as-
sumption is correct, Claudian must here, with truly poetic power,
have combined the mythological and the philosophical ideas of the
abode of the Blessed, on the basis of an existing tradition concerning
the feeding of the young phoenix with moisture and the warmth of
the sun.
The idea that the phoenix feeds itself with food from the air also
occurs in the Hellenistic-Jewish and Christian literature. The nour-
ishing substances there are dew and manna. We have just seen that
Lucian assumed that the inhabitants of the moon drank dew that
was pressed from the air.1 In his Icaromenippus, the supreme food
on the moon is dew. 2 In the texts to be discussed below, however,
not only manna but also dew can be explained entirely from the
J udaeo-Christian world of ideas. According to the Greek Apocalypse
01 Baruch, the phoenix eats "the manna of heaven and the dew of
earth",3 and the Coptic Sermon on Mary reports that the bird feeds
itself on "the dew of heaven and the flowers of the trees of Leba-
non".4 Because the dew and the manna require the most thorough
discussion, we shall begin with the flowers of the trees of Lebanon.
The passage on the food of the phoenix in the Coptic sermon reads
as follows: "Just as the bee eats from the flowers of the field which are
wax to it, and from the dew of heaven which is honey to it, so too the
phoenix lives on the dew of heaven and the flowers of the trees of
Lebanon". It was indeed believed that the bee took its wax from
flowers and its honey from dew. 5 Like John of Gaza, this Coptic
preacher too assumes that the phoenix feeds on flowers, but here we
must think of the flowers of the cedar tree. 6 We have already dem-
1 See p. 339, n. 2.
I Lucian, Icaromenippus, 13: Kocl vuv tv T'ii aEA~Vll KOCTOLKW &EpO~OCTWV Tde
1to),.),.&: Kocl ououILOCL 8p6aov.
3 Cr. Apocalypse of Baruch, 6, 11: Kocl e!7tov· Kcxl"rl ta·IHEL; Kocl e!7tev ILOL· TO
ILcXVVOC ·rau oupocvou Kocl T7)V 8p6aov '"it; y1jt;.
4 Coptic Sermon on Mary, 28-32.
5 For the honey, see F. 01ck, Biene, in RE, 3, 1899, 438-439; for the wax,
idem,44 0 .
B See p. 336.
THE FOOD 34 I
onstrated that the mention of Lebanon must have been taken

from the Physiologus. 1
In the preceding chapter we saw that Lebanon and the cedar
were favourite images in Biblical eschatological thinking,2 and that
this had its effect on Christianity. According to the Old Testament
directions for the ritual purification of someone who had been a
leper or had touched a dead body, cedarwood had to be used during
the ritual: the imperishable wood rendered powerless and harmless
the death with which the individual had been in contact. 3 Cyril of
Alexandria saw this cedarwood as a foretoken of the flesh of Christ,
which did not know decay, and an intimation of the ultimate im-
mortality in store for the Christian. 4 The phoenix, feeding on the
flowers of the trees of Lebanaon, evokes the picture of an eternal
life such as mankind shall know in the eschatological glory of the
Kingdom of God.
This is expressed even more clearly in the second kind of food
assigned to the phoenix by the Coptic Sermon on Mary, and the
Greek Apocalypse of Baruch too, the dew. The Jews, and via them the
early Christians, saw dew as a special gift of God, dispelling death
and nourishing life. This idea is ultimately determined by the geo-
graphical and climatological conditions under which the ancient Is-
raelites lived; in the dry Palestinian region life would be impossible
without dew. This is why the dew is mentioned in several Old
Testament benedictions as one of God's special gifts of grace,5 and
conversely that the absence of dew was taken as one of God's forms
of punishment. 6 In Rosea, for instance, dew is an image of God's
1 See p. 30 7.
I See p. 308-309.
s Lev. xiv.4, 49ff.; Num. xix.6. On the cedar and its symbolism: D. Forstner,
Die Welt det' Symbole, 246-249.
, Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyt'ot'um in Lev. libet', (PG 69, 560 C): -rU7to,. 3'
&v dlj Kcd T63E -r'ijt; ciy!cxt; CXUTOU acxpK6,., OUK cXVE)(0fl-£Vljt; 7tcx3-ELV 't"I)v KCXTCXq>&OpaV.
"ACJlj7t"'rOV yap TO ~UAOV; idem, Glaph. in Num., (PG 69,631 C): TOU fl-EV KE3p!vou,
-r'ijv cXq>&cxpa!cxv cXaTE!OOt; 7Jfl-LV U7tEfl-IPCX!VOVTOt;· crljljlEoot; yap cXfl-E!VOOV 7J d3pot;. ct·
for these texts Forstner, Welt det' Symbole, 249.
6 E.g. Gen. xxvii.28 (Isaac to jacob) and Deut. xxxiii.13 (Moses on the
tribe of joseph).
• E.g. I Kings xvii.l; Haggai, i. 10; ct. also Gen. xxvii.39 (Isaac to Esau)
with xxvii. 28.
342 THE FOOD
approval of his people: "I will be as dew to Israel" (Hosea xiv.S).

From this it required only a small step to assume that the dead
would be revived by the dew. This idea was later found clearly ex-
pressed in Isaiah (xxvi.I9), although in this text revival by dew
may only be an image of the lifting of the people from their abase-
ment: 1 "They that sleep in the earth will awake and shout for joy;
for thy dew is a dew of sparkling light, 2 and the earth will bring
those long dead to birth again".
These ideas persisted in later J udaism and Early Christianity. The
dew was considered on the one hand as the means by which God
protected his chosen from death or revived them after death and on
the other as an eschatological gift, the food of immortality, more
emphasis being put in the latter case on the fact that honey is con-
tained in the dew. But these two ideas are very closely related,
because when someone is temporarily saved from death by the divine
dew, an eschatological event has actually taken place. 3 It is not
difficult to demonstrate these ideas concerning dew on the basis of
several examples. 4
According to the Septuagintal additions to the Book 01 Daniel, the
three men were delivered from the fiery furnace because the Angel
of the Lord accompanied them into the fire and raised a dew-laden
wind in the oven.o In 3 Macc. 6, 6, the priest Eleazar makes a prayer
for deliverance in which he includes these three among his examples
of divine intervention 6 and explicitly states that they were saved
1 See M. A. Beek, Inleiding tot de joodse apocalyptiek van het oud- en nieuw-
testamentisch tijdvak, (Theologia VI), Haarlem, 1950, 129, n. 8; Y. Kaufmann,
The religion of Israel, Chicago, 1960, 384-385, and D. B. Eerdmans, De gods-
dienst van Israel, n, Huis ter Heide, 1930, 47-48.
2 Vulg.: Quia ros lucis ros tuus. The LXX (Tj yap 3p6aoc; Tj 7tCtpa aou tCt(lCt
CtUTOLC; ~O"TLV) seem to have read tr~~"~ (healing), cf. K. Marti, Das Buch
jesaja, Tiibingen, 1900, 195 and W. Gesenius-F. Buhl, Hand.w6rterbuch uber
das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Tiibingen, 1949, 19, s.v. I. l"I1'K.
3 See e.g. subsequent remarks on Asenath and Mary.
, For the Jewish conceptions a great many examples are found in Ginzberg,
Legends 01 the jews, V, 11, n. 22, 119, n. 113 and passim; see also his register
s.v. Dew.
6 Dan. iii.50: KCtl ~7tot7jae Tb (leaOV rijc; KCt(lLvou wael 7tVeU(lCt 3p6aou.
I Mention is made of the crossing of the Red Sea, the liberation from
Sennacherib, the three boys, Daniel in the lion's den, and Jonah in the whale.
Here, the Jewish background of the great themes of Early Christian art is
very evident.
THE FOOD 343
because dew had wet the fiery oven. l The same kind of divine inter-
vention occurred at the martyrdom of Montanus, Lucius, and several
others: "The flame was put out by the dew of the Lord", they said
later, and themselves pointed out the parallelism with the story in
DanieI.2 The partiality for the theme of the dew that extinguishes
the consuming flames was so great that it was carried over from
martyrology to hagiography.3
The idea that the dead could be revived by dew was primarily a
rabbinical doctrine. Rabbi Joshua ben Levi taught, for instance,
that when God handed down the law on Mt Sinai the Israelites died
at each word, since it is written that: " ... my soul went forth when
he spake ... " (Song 01 S. v.6). Upon the question how they could hear
the second word if they had died at the sound of the first, he replied:
"He brought down the dew with which He will resurrect the dead
and revived them, as it is said: "Thou, 0 God, didst send a plentiful
rain, Thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary"
(Ps. Ixviii.IO)".4 And again, according to the rabbis, the dry bones
Ezekiel saw in the valley came together and took on flesh after the
dew of the Lord fell on them. li
The dew that according to Isaiah (xxvi.Ig) revives the dead, was
taken by some commentators of the Early Church as referring to
Christ, by others as to the Holy Ghost. 6 When they read in the Old
1 3 Macc. 6, 6: ... 3Lchmpov 3poO"lO"Ot\; KcX(.LLVOV. Something similar is found
in the rabbinical literature. see Ginzberg. Legends of the Jews. IV. 329. VI.
417-4IB; Bin Gorion. Sagen der Juden. 73B.
2 Mart. Montani et Lucii. 3. 3-4 (ed. R. Knopf-G. Kriiger. Ausgewiihlte
Miirtyrerakten. 3rd ed .• Tiibingen. 1929.74): et flamma caminorum ardentium
dominico rore sopita est; ... qui gloriam istam operatus est in tribus pueris.
vincebat et in nobis. In the Coptic martyrdom of St. Victor. the flames into
which the saint was thrown are turned into dew by Michael. See A. E. W.
Budge. Coptic martyrdoms. London. 1914. 24 (text). 276 (trans.); see also
J. Zandee. Het patroon der martyria. in Ned. Theol. Tijdschr .• 14. 1959/60.
20-21. and Acta PhiliPPi. 104: crU e! I> apoO"[~wv 7tiiO"OtV mJpciv.
3 E.g. Sulpicius Severus. EPist .• I. 15. and Dialogus. I. lB.
, Shabbat. BBb (trans. I. Epstein. Shabbat. n. London. 193B. 421). Also
in W. G. Braude. The midrash on Psalms. I. New Haven. 1959. 540 (ad
Ps. Ixviii.IO).
I Ginzberg. Legends of the Jews. IV. 333. Bin Gorion. Sagen der Juden.
74 0 •
• To Christ: Eusebius of Caesarea. Comm. in Isaiam. (PG 24. 277 B).
Theodoret of Cyrus. In Isaiam. (PG BI. 369 A). To the Holy Ghost:
344 THE FOOD
Testament about a dew or rain descending from the heavens, they

preferentially applied this to the coming of the divine Logos.! The
mysterious dew of light about which Isaiah had spoken, took on
great importance among the Gnostic sect of the Ophites, who ac-
cording to Irenaeus were of the opinion that the divine spark of
light caught in matter at the fall of Sophia had consisted of light-
dew. s Noah and his family were saved from the Flood because they
possessed it.s When Christ descended through the seven heavens,
all the light-dew contained in them flowed out into him.4 United
with Sophia, Christ revealed himself on earth in the righteous man
Jesus and thus brought about redemption: the completion would
occur when all the light-dew was again collected together. 5 In this
view all the elements of the J udaeo-Christian concept occur in a
Gnostic distortion: the dew comes from God, it protects against
death, Christ is the revelation of this life-giving dew.
The foregoing elucidates clearly how dew, as the food of the phoe-
nix, could be taken by both Jew and Christian as a death-repelling
Procopius of Gaza, Comm. in Isaiam, (PG 87, 2228 B) and Cyril of Alexan-
dria, Comm. in Isaiam, (PG 70, 588 C-589 A). Jerome saw the dew as the
misericordia of God: Comm. in I saiam, lib. VIII, (PL 24, 303 C). Prudentius,
Cathemer., VI, 127, calls baptism rorem sanctum.
1 As in the rabbinical exegesis (see above), little distinction was made in
the Christian exegesis between dew and rain: the Fathers explained the
rain said in Ps. Ixxi.6 (LXX) to fall on a fleece as an image of the incon-
spicuousness of the incarnation of the Logos of God (e.g. Eusebius, (PG 23,
800 B-D), Athanasius, (PG 27, 324 D), Theodoret of Cyrus, (PG 80, 1433 A).
This text had already been related by Origen, In lib. Jud. homiliae, VIII,
8 to Gideon's dew miracle (judges vi.36-40), in which he saw the
coming of Christ first to the Jews and then to the pagans; similarly in
Augustine, Enarratio in Ps. xlv, ad vs. 7 (PL 36, 520-521). Under the
influence of Mariology, attention shifted from the dew to the fleece mentioned
in both texts, until in the Middel Ages Vellus Gedeonis became an accepted
indication for Mary (occurring as early as in Proclus of Constantinople,
Orat., I and VI, (PG 65, 681 B, 756 C-D).
I Irenaeus, Adv. Haereses, I, 30. Extensively reproduced in H. Leisegang,
Die Gnosis, 4th ed., Stuttgart, 1955, 174-183; see also E. Preuschen, Die
Apokryphen gnostischen Adamschri/ten aus dem armenischen ubersetzt und,
untersucht, Giessen, 1900, 62-73. For the possible background of these
conceptions in Jewish gnosticism, see G. Quispel, Der gnostische Anthropos
und die judische Tradition, in Eranos Jahrbuch, 22, 1953, 202.
8 Irenaeus, I, 30, 10.
, Ibid., I, 30, 12.
6 Ibid., I, 30, 14: quando tota humectatio spiritus luminis colligatur.
THE FOOD 345
and life-giving power of God. But we can go even further. In the

Coptic Sermon on M ary the phoenix is compared with the bee on
this point too: the phoenix feeds on the dew, like the bee which
takes its honey from it. We may conclude from this that the dew on
which the phoenix fed also meant the honey contained in iU This
also holds for several apocryphal texts in which the dew is spoken
of as the gift of the eschaton, which is expressed most clearly in a
prediction of the Jewish Sibyl that when that time comes "a de-
licious draught of sweet honey" will fall from heaven. 2 So the
phoenix eats the food of the eschaton! This also holds, however, for
manna, which the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch also mentions as food
of the phoenix and which was considered to be closely related to
dew.
This relationship is indicated in the very first mention of manna
in the Old Testament: manna fell together with the dew. 3 Another
point of agreement is that both are closely related to honey: dew
was generally considered to contain honey, and according to Exodus
xvi. 3r, the taste of manna was "like a wafer made with honey".'
In the Jewish Oracula Sibyllina, manna is called "sweet bread from
the starry sky", and Philo, who interprets it as divine wisdom,
states that it is sweeter than honey.6 In one of his poems Asaf
1See p. 340, n.5. Honey could be called dew, cf., Liddell-Scott, 450, s.v.
8p6ao~. The same identification but reserved occurs in the Copt Shenoute of
Atripe, Ad philosophum gentilem, (ed. Leipoldt-Crum, CSCO 42, Scr. Copt.,
Ser. 11, 4, 46): "The bee is correctly loved by man, because it collects sweet
honey that the Lord has caused to come down from heaven".
I Oracula Sibyllina, Ill, 746: a:u"t"IlP cbt' oupa:v6.&ev IL£AL"t"O~ YAUKe:pOU 7to"t"ov
~8u.
8 Exod. xvi.13-14; Num. xi.g. For a discussion of most of the texts cited
in this connection see P. Borgen, Bread from heaven, (Suppl. to Novum
Testamentum, X), Leiden, Ig65, and B. J. Malina, The Palestinian manna
tradition, (Arb. zur Gesch. des spat. Judent. und des Urchrist., VII), Leiden,
Ig68.
, Philo, De vita Mosis, 11, 258: Ka:p7toV a:£'&£PLOV &V 8p6a£t>. Philo assumes the
same relationship between dew and manna in his elucidation of manna as
the Logos of God: Leg. Allegor., Ill, 16g: op~~ "t""ij~ IjIU)('ij~ "t"pocp1jv ota: &a"t"L'
A6yo~ .&e:oU auve:)(~~, &OLKW~ 8p6a£t>, KUKA£t> 7tOiaa:v 7te:PLe:LA"ljCPW~ Ka:l 1L"lj8e:v IL£PO~
ci!J.E"t"o)(ov a:u"t"ou &wv.
6 For Sibyl, see p. 347, n. 5. Philo, De fuga et inventione, 138: IL£AL"t"O~
YAuKunpov; idem, Quis rer. div. heres, Igl: -rljv OUPcXVLOV "t"pocp1jv-aocpla:
8£ &a"t"Lv-nj~ IjIU)('ij~, ~v Ka:Ae:L ILcXVVa:. In Quod deter. pot. insidiari soleat,
THE FOOD
called manna "bread of the angels", which marked the formulation

of a concept that was to have a rich history.1 The idea that manna
is the food of the angels returns in the later Jewish and Christian
literature, although it was often contested by both Jewish and
Christian theologians on the grounds that by nature angels did not
require food. 2 In Christian exegesis the bread of the angels became
the spiritual Christ that believers may taste,S and thus panis ange-
lorum became a common indication for the bread of the Eucharist. 4
The variability of the borderline between the honey made from
heavenly dew and manna, is shown by the remarkable passage on
the angels' food in the story of Joseph and Asenath, Ch. 16: Asenath
receives from an angel a honeycomb made by the bees of the heaven-
ly Paradise. The honey of such combs is the food of the angels: he
who eats ofit will never die. s It is evident that the writer ofthis sym-
bolic story would not have seen much difference between this food
and manna, which is sweet as honey.
The food of immortality is tasted by earthly mortals only as a
great exception and by God's special grace; then, it is in fact a
realization of the eschaton. This holds in Asenath's case and is also
clearly expressed in the Early Christian tradition that during Mary's
117-118, he compares wisdom with sweet honey and combines manna with
honey, see W. Michaelis, art. (J.&AL, in ThWNT, IV, 1942, 557-558. Cf. also
Sirach, 24, 3, where Wisdom says of herself: Ked 001; O(J.(XA"Ij KIXTeKtXAulji1X yijv.
1 Ps. Ixxvii.25: KlXl dCPTOV OUPIXVOU !8c.>Kev IXUTO!I;' &pTOV tXyy&Ac.>V !<plXye:v
&v-&Pc.>7tOI;. In Hebrew the text reads literally "bread of the mighty".
a On the food of the angels: G. F. Moore, judaism in the first centuries
of the Tannaim, I, 7th impr., Cambridge, 1954,405; Bousset and Gressmann,
321; Ginzberg, Legends of the jews, V, 236, VI, 17, and especially J. Michl,
Engel, in RAC, V, 68, 85, 123-124.
3 E.g. Origen, Selecta in Psalmos, ad Ixxvii.25 (PG 12, 1541 C), Eusebius,
Comm. in Psalmos, ad Ixxvii.25 (PG 23, 917 D-920 A).
, The Biblical starting-point for this lies in john, vi.3Iff, see also I Cor.
x.3 and 4. Many Early Christian texts are cited by J Solano, Textos eucharis-
ticos primitivos, I, II (Biblioteca de autores cristianos, 88 and 118), Madrid,
1952-1954, see II, 988: Indice escrituristico, ad Ps. Ixxvii.24s and 25.
5 joseph et Aseneth, 16, 8 (ed. M. Philonenko, Leiden, 1968, 187): 8(OTL TO
(J.&AL TOUTO 7te7tOLTJKlXaLV IXt (J.&ALaaIXL TOU 7tlXpIX8e(aou T'ijl; TPU<P'ijI;, KlXl ot &yyeAoL
TOU .&eou tK IXUTOU ta'&(ouaL, KlXl 7tlXI; &1; <ptXyeTIXL t~ IXUTOU OUK tX7to.&lXve!TIXL etl;
TOV IXtii>VIX. In the longer text in P. Batiffol, Studia patristica, I and 2, Paris,
1889-1890, 64 it is said that the heavenly bees make the honeycomb from
the dew of heavenly roses and other flowers of Paradise; this food is called
the "bread of Life".
THE FOOD 347
presumed stay in the temple she was fed by the angels. 1 In the Cop-
tic Sermon on M ary it is said that "She never has eaten anything
which was soiled and of this world, but she ate the food of the an-
gels". 2 A related, also Coptic, apocryphal text says that the food was
brought to her from heaven by the angels of God, and that they also
brought her the fruit of the Tree of Life to eat with joy.3 Here
Mary enjoys in advance the gifts of the eschaton; this was a pre-
ferred apocalytic theme: in eschatological times the righteous will
again have access to the Tree of Life, the gates of Paradise will be
opened anew, and the perfect life of the beginning of history will
have returned. 4 The fruit of the Tree of Life and the food of the
angels are identical eschatological ideas. The Jewish Sibylline text
mentioned above also says that in the eschaton the believers in the
true and eternal God will inherit Life, throughout the aeonian time
dwelling in the flourishing garden of Paradise and feasting on the
sweet bread from the starry sky.s We have already discussed dew
as an eschatological blessing. 6 In the description of the Messianic
time given in the Syriac Apocalypse 01 Baruch, dew and manna are
mentioned together in Ch. 29, 7-8: "They shall behold marvels every
day. For winds shall go forth from before me to bring every morning
the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the close of the day clouds
distilling the dew of health. And it shall come to pass at that self-
same time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on
1 Cl. Protevangelium Jacobi, 8, I: Kcd ~Aci.IL~CX\lEV TpOCP~\I ~K XELPO; tXY'YtAOU.
Evang. Pseudo-Matth., 6, 3: Quotidie esca quam de manu angeli accipiebat
ipsa tantum reliciebatur " escam vero quam a pontificibus consequebatur paupe-
ribus dividebat.
BEd. by C. Wessely, in Studien zur Palaeographie und Papyruskunde, 18,
1917, 33, col. a, n. 9-13.
8 F. Robinson, Coptic apocryphal Gospels, (TS, IV, 2), Cambridge, 1896,
14-15.
, See Bousset and Gressmann, 283-284 and here p. 126. According to
Jewish and Christian tradition, Adam too received his food in Paradise
from the hands of angels; see texts mentioned in M. Testuz, Papyrus Bodmer
V, Nativite de Marie, Cologne-Geneva, 1958, 63, n.2 (erroneously there
Vita Adae et Evae, VI, 2, must be IV, 2).
6 Oracula Sibyllina, frg. 3, 46-49 (= Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, Il, 36,
84-87) : ot 3e -9-EO\l TLILcii\lTE; tXA7j-9-L\l6\1 tXt\lCXO\l TE / ~W~\I KA7jPO\lOILou<JL, TO\l cxtcii\lo;
XPO\lO\l CXUTOL / OtKOU\lTE; 7tcxpcx3El<Jou OILcii; ~pt-9-7jA£CX K'ij7tO\l / 3CXL\lUILEVOL YAUKU\I
c!!PTO\l tX7t' OUpCX\lOU tX<JTEpOE\lTO;.
8 See p. 342-344.
THE FOOD
high, and they will eat of it in those years, because these are they
who have come to the consummation of time".l
These apocalyptic texts elucidate what both Jew and Christian
understood as the meaning of manna and dew as food of the phoenix:
they were eschatological gifts, the eating of which allowed the phoe-
nix to participate in advance in the perfection of the eschatological
glory. In the following chapter we shall discuss the consequences
this has for the interpretation a large part of the Early Christian
symbolism of the phoenix, but the main point is already illuminat-
ed: although the bird appears at fixed times in our world, it in fact
already belongs to the better world awaiting us, it anticipates the
eschaton.
Lactantius too has the phoenix feed on dewdrops falling from the
nocturnal sky. It seems certain, however, that in this instance we
cannot explain the dew as an eschatological boon as could be done
for the texts just discussed. In the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch and
the Coptic Sermon on M ary what is concerned is the food taken by
the adult phoenix in its blessed state, whereas according to Lactan-
tius this mature phoenix does not require food. 2 He says that the
bird is only nourished by the heavenly dew in its earliest youth:
from the moment it emerges from its egg-shaped cocoon until it has
developed into the true phoenix. This restriction of the food to the
young phoenix cannot be an imaginative invention of Lactantius
because we have already seen that there is a report in the Physiologus
01 Vienna concerning the nourishment of the immature phoenix. s
The relevant passage in Lactantius reads as follows: "It is not per-
mitted any food in our world, no one is responsible for the feeding
of the callow fledgling. It tastes the ambrosial drops of heavenly
nectar, a delicate drink fallen from the starry sky. These it collects,
with them the bird feeds itself amid the delicious fragrances until
his body is fully grown. 4
1 Trans. R. H. Charles, in Charles, 11, 498: see also ch. 73, 2 (518): "healing
shall descend in dew". The "healing" dew implies the reading of the LXX in
Isaiah, xxvi.lg, see p. 342, n. 2.
I Lactantius, 168: nutrix ipsa sui, semper alumna sibi; see also Zeno of
Verona in note 4.
3 See p. 338, n. I.
, Lactantius, vss. 109-1I4: Non Uti cibus est nostro concessus in orbe / nec
THE FOOD 349
Here too, Lactantius confronts us with the problem of whether

his information is to be explained on the basis of Classical or J udaeo-
Christian ideas, or a combination of the two. An expression like
"ambrosial drops of heavenly nectar" sounds rather Classical. Nec-
tar and ambrosia were the food of the gods and of those beings re-
lated to them. 1 As a parallel to the feeding of the newborn phoenix
as given by Lactantius, we may point to a report of the poetess
Myro that the young Zeus in his Cretan cave was fed by doves, which
brought him ambrosia from the waves of the sea, and by a gigantic
eagle, which fetched nectar for him from a rock. 2 In other traditions
honey is mentioned as the food of the young Zeus. 3 According to
Classical ideas, honey formed the most important component of both
nectar and ambrosia, so that honey from heavenly dew could con-
versely be called nectar.4 It therefore remains possible that Lactan-
tius had honey in mind. But it is not very likely that for the food of
the young phoenix Lactantius was inspired by traditions concern-
ing the food of the young Zeus. The idea that the food of the gods
comes down like dew was quite unknown in the Classical world, so
that in using the word nectar Lactantius must have intended a
cuiquam inplumem pasceye cuya subest. / Ambyosios libat caelesti nectaye yoyes,
/ stellileyo tenues qui cecideye polo. / Hos legit, his alituy mediis in odoyibus
ales, / donec matuyam pyoleyat el/igiem. Apparently dependent on VS.1I0, is
Zeno of Verona, I, 16, 9 (PL 11, 3B1A): nec ol/icio alieno nutyituy; see
C. Weyman, Zum Phoenix des Lactantius, in RhMPh, N.F. 47, IB92, 640;
cl. also Gregory of Tours on p. 350 in n. I.
1 See Wernicke, art. Ambyosia und Nektay, in RE, I, 1B94, IB09-IBI2 and
F. Schwemm, Nektay, in RE, 16, 2, 1935, 2240.
I Cited by Athenaeus, Deipnos., XI, 491b, and Eustathius, Comm. ad
Iliad., XXIV, vs.292. Reference is made to this text in another connection
by Hubaux and Leroy, 20B-209, with a reference to A. B. Cook, Zeus, I,
Cambridge, 1913, IB2, n.B.
8 Bees were supposed to have brought it to him in his cave on Crete; for
this and other foods of Zeus, see R. F. Willets, Cyetan cults and lestivals,
London, 1962, 216. '
, See Liddell-Scott, 1166, s.v. veKTcxp, 11 and Wernicke, o.c., IBIO. Thus,
on this point there is agreement with the Jewish-ChIistian tradition concern-
ing manna and dew; see also the late gloss in Hesychius s.v. &(.L~poalcx (ed
K. Latte Hauniae, 1953, 123): &e:'Lcx &cxU(.LCXaTOt TPOcpiJ, ~ (.L!Xvvcx. The ambrosia-
eating horses of the sun god (e.g. Ovid, Metam., IV, 215: amlwosiam PYO
gYamine habent equi Solis; see also ibidem, 11, 120) may be compared with
the manna- and dew-eating phoenix of the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, which
also escorts the sun on his daily journey across the skies.
350 THE FOOD
poetic description of dew rather than the food of the gods. Gregory
of Tours, who made a prose summary of the often rather laboured
poetry of Lactantius, simply says that the only food of the phoenix
was the dew of heaven. 1 Furthermore, it seems probable that in
Lactantius the Jewish and Christian concept of dew as a special
boon from God was assumed, because in both the Hellenistic-Jewish
and the Christian literature this heavenly food is indicated as am-
brosia. 2 This is made even more probable by the only real parallel
that can be put forward for what Lactantius has to say about the
food of the young phoenix.
The idea that dew can serve as food was known in Classical
times, since it was generally accepted that the cicada lived on dew
alone. 3 This erroneous conclusion was drawn from the observation of
the clear droplets excreted by the cicada on the trees they inhabit,
which were taken for dew. Although it was also believed that this
insect had no mouth and therefore could not take normal food,
these" dewdrops" were never considered to be a special, divine food.
We have already seen that according to Lucian the happy dwellers
on the moon fed themselves with dew. 4 But Lactantius is speaking
not of the food of the adult phoenix in Paradise but of the temporary
food of th~ newborn phoenix in our world. He also cannot have been
1 Gregory of Tours, De cursu stell. ratio, 12: nee cuiquam homini, dum
inplumis est, pascere cura est. Tantum caelesti rore nutrita, ad pristinam
speciem revocatur.
2 Sapienta Salomonis, 19, 21 called manna tXlL~pocrlot TpOql1j; cl. Philo,
De somn., I1, 249: TO Xotpci.;, TO £1'IqlpocrUV7j'; IiIL~p6crLOV; both places mentioned
by A. F. J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, (Suppl. to Novum Testamentum, V),
Leiden, 1962, 176. In the Acta Thomae the divine food is called ambrosia
several times; ch. 6: 0 ~otcrLAeu.;, TpeqlWV T1i EotUTOU tXlL~pocrlqt TOU'; E7t' otUTOV
t8pulLevou.;; ch. 7: ... TOU 8ecr7t6TOU otUTWV, ou TljV tXlL~pocrlotv ~PWcrLV E8e~otVTO
1L7j8ev 111.00'; tX7toucrlotv ~xoucrotV (for this remarkable feature, see p. 351 here);
ch. 36: tXAM; AeyolLev ... 7tepl 'Lij.; tXlL~PWcrLW8ou.; TPOqlij.;, the Syriac text speaks
here of "the incorruptible lood 01 the tree 01 lile" , (Klijn, 84), see also p. 346,
n. 5. For ambrosia and nectar in the Christian sense, reference can be made
in the Latin literature to e.g. Prudentius, Cathemer., III (ante cibum), 21-25:
Hie mihi nulla rosae spolia, / nullus aromate Iragrat odor, / sed liquor inlluit
ambrosius / nectareamque lidem redolet, / lusus ab usque Patris gremio; see
also p. 337, n. 5.
3 See Keller, (p. 337, n. I), Il, 401-406 and Steier, Tettix, 3, in RE, 2.
Reihe, 5, I, 1934, 1113-1119, esp. 1117·
4 See p. 339, n. 2 and p. 340, n. 2.
THE FOOD 35 1
inspired by Ctesias' report about the bird rhyntaces, which was said
to live on wind and dew,! and in any case this bird leads us outside
the Classical world: Ctesias, the Greek physician at the court of
Artaxerxes n, here gives the Persian view of a fabulous animal. It
is not impossible that the same kind of ideas about dew developed
in Persia as in Jewish religious thinking. The rhyntaces had no form
of excrement but was filled with fat, from which the Persians con-
cluded that it fed only on wind and dew. It is remarkable that the
rabbis ascribed the same characteristics to manna as the Persians
to wind and dew: manna too is completely incorporated into the
body, it contains nothing that cannot be used and would have to be
expelled by the body. 2 Whatever the relationship between these
Persian and Jewish ideas about dew may be, it may in any case be
said that the conclusion drawn in the fragment from Ctesias about
the food of the rhyntaces would have been anything but obvious to
the Classical reader, since this nourishing quality was never assigned
to dew in the Graeco-Roman world.
These "parallels"3 fail to elucidate for us Lactantius' statement
1 For the text, see p. 337, n. 2. Other mentions of the rhyntaces, with the
spelling rhyndace: Hesychius, Lexicon, s.v. ~uv8ciK7j (ed. Schmidt, 1861, 436.):
bpvUhov ij).lKOV, m:p~aTEpci and Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 72, 44b (ed. Henry,
Paris, 1959, I, 131): bpvUhov (L~Kp6v, (Leye:&oc; laov wou (~uv8eiKK'ljv IIepacx~ TO
bpvl&~ov Kcx).oua~). There may be a connection between the rhyntaces and the
bird of paradise: in the Middle Ages it was believed that the bird of paradise
lived solely on the dew of heaven and the fragrance of flowers, and that it
had no legs, see F. E. Hulme, Natural history, lore and legend, London, 1895,
209 and D. W. Thompson, A glossary 01 Greek birds, 2nd ed. Oxford, 1936,
257, 309.
2 See Ginzberg, Legends 01 the Jews, Ill, 44, 246, VI, 98.
8 Fitzpatrick mentions as most interesting parallel Nonnus, Dionysiaca,
XXVI, 183-214, which mentions the honey trees in the plain of Arizantia:
these trees are watered by the morning dew and as a result the leaves yield
honey. Large flocks of birds are attracted by the honey and remain hovering
over the trees. Snakes too sip the liquid and a delicious honey drips from
their mouths, so that they spew more of the sweet sap than of their own
bitter poison. Nonnus here describes a Paradise-like region; in the time of
the Golden Age the trees dripped honey too; cf. Virgil, Eclogae, IV, 30: et
durae quercus sudabunt roscida mella; Ovid, Metam., I, 112; A etna, 13-14;
Horatius, Epod., XVI, 46. The honey-spewing snakes may be compared to
the snakes under the balsam tree mentioned by Pausanias, see p. 335, n. 3.
On the honey-dripping trees Nonnus places the catreus and the orion, which
on some points are comparable to the phoenix (see p. 251-260). but he then
35 2 THE FOOD
that in its earliest youth the phoenix lives on heavenly dew. The
only true parallel is to be found in an Early Christian tradition
according to which the already-mentioned young ravens are fed by
God with dew if their parent desert them. The agreement is so strik-
ing that it cannot be a matter of chance, and requires further dis-
cussion.
The idea that the young raven is fed in a special way by God is of
Jewish origin. It is not mentioned in the Classical literature. Aris-
totle reported that the raven casts its young out of the nest, and
this was taken over by Pliny.l This conclusion was probably drawn
from the young birds' awkward attempts at flight. Their cries were
interpreted as a demand for food, Ps. cxlvii (LXX: cxlvi).g and Job
xxxviii-4I giving the earliest examples. The rabbis gave a quite dif-
ferent explanation of the helplessness of the young raven than was
offered by Aristotle and Pliny: the old ravens did not drive the
young from the nest but themselves fled in fear as soon as their
eggs had hatched. What terrified them was their white children,
which they took for snakes. The parents only fed their young after
the nestlings' plumage became black and they were recognizable as
ravens; until that moment they were fed by God in a special way.2
This idea became known in the Early Church; Gregory the Great and
Isidore of Seville say that the raven only feeds its young after their
feathers have became black, leaving them hungry until it can see
their resemblance to itself.3 There was disagreement among the
clearly shifts to another subject: the trees no longer play a role. The passage
from Nonnus does not supply any parallel to Lactantius' report that the
young phoenix feeds on dew.
1 Aristotle. Hist. Anim .• VI. 6 (563b). Pliny. X. 31. See Keller, (p. 337.
n. I). II. 92-109. esp. 93-94; Gossen. Rabe. in RE. 2. Reihe I. I. 1914. 19-23;
Forstner. Welt der Symbole. 337-339.
Z See Ginzberg. Legends 01 the Jews. I. 39. 113. V. 56; Bin Gorion. Sagen
der Juden. 101-102.
3 Gregory the Great. Moralia. XXX. 33 (PL 76. 542B): Editis namque
pullis. ut lertur. escam plene praebere dissimulat. priusquam plumescendo
nigrescant. eosque inedia al/ici patitur. quoadusque in illis per pennarum
nigredinem sua similitudo videatur. Isidore of Seville. Etymol.. XII. 43;
Fertur haec avis. quod editis pullis escam plene non praebeat. priusquam in
eis per pinnarum nigredinem similitudinem proprii coloris agnoscat. Postquam
vero eos tetros plumis aspexerit in toto agnitos abundantius pascit. Cl. also
Pseudo-Hugo of St. Victor. De bestiis et aliis rebus. IV. 3 (PL 177. 143A):
letus nisi nigrescant non nutrit.
THE FOOD 353
rabbis and also among the Christians concerning the food that
God provided for the bald raven chicks. Certain Jewish scholars
held the opinion that the young ravens fed on the maggots ap-
pearing from their excrement.! The same is found in the com-
mentary on Job by the Alexandrian deacon Olympiodorus (early
sixth century) : the young ravens are wholly nourished on small ani-
mals reared in the nest. 2 It is remarkable to encounter the same
idea in Servius, who therefore-albeit probably indirectly-must
have drawn on a Jewish or Christian source, since it was unknown in
the Classical world. 3 Other rabbis thought that God sent huge swarms
of flies to the young ravens, the flies that landed in their gaping
beaks providing them with food until they developed far enough to
resemble their parents. 4 The same assumption was made by the Greek
commentator Blemmydes Nicephorus (thirteenth century): by the
providence of God, they are fed on small animals deriving from the
air.5 The Syriac Historia naturalis offers the same information, ex-
cept that a natural explanation is given for the phenomenon: the
flies and mosquitoes are attracted by the looseness of their flesh
and the stench in their nest. 6 We have already mentioned what
Eusebius thought: the young ravens are fed by "a certain food from
the air driven into their mouth by a gentle breeze". 7 It is of course
possible that he too had insects in mind, but if so, one is led to
wonder why he left this point so vague. It seems more probable that
1 Ginzberg, Legends 01 the Jews, I, 39; variant in Midrash, see J. Israel-

stam- J. Slotki, Midrash Rabbah, Leviticus, London, 1939, 235.
I Olympiodorus, In Jobum, ad xxxviii, 41 (PG 93, 412A): KCXt u'/to ILLKPWV
TLVCIlV ~CIlUtp£CIlV YLVOILEVCIlV l:v TCXr~ ve:oa(l"LCXr~ l:KTpEtpe:a'&CXL.
8 Servius on Virgil, Georgica, I, 414 (ed. Thilo-Hagen, Ill, 209): sed
quadam ratione naturae haec ad suos congerunt nidos, quae vermes possint
creare, ex quibus relicti eorum pulli aluntur interdum.
, Bin Gorion, Sagen der Juden, 102.
6 Blemmydes Nicephorus, Expositio in Psalmos, ad cxlvi.9 (PG 142,
1617D): KCXt 8LeX: TOU cXEPO~ auVe:tp£AKOVTCX~ TOr~ aT6ILcxaLV CXUTWV ~CIl6tpLcX TLVCX '/tpo~
TPOtpijV.
• Syr. Hist. Nat., 39 (ed. K. Ahrens, Das "Buch der Naturgegenstiinde",
Kiel, 1892, 51): "wegen der Lockerheit ihres Fleisches und wegen ihres stinken-
des Geruches versammeln sich bei ihnen Mucken und Schnaken; dann offnen
die jungen Raben ihren Mund und die Mucken gehen hinein und werden ver-
schlungen, und so linden sie Nahrung fur sich'.
7 See p. 337, n. 3.
23
354 THE FOOD
he had in mind the Greek idea of the nourishing substances in the

air formed by the effluvia arising from the ocean and the earth. 1
Only in the western exegetical literature do we find the tradition
most interesting to us in this connection, i.e. that the young ravens
are fed by God on the dew of heaven. This idea is given most ex-
plicitly by Jerome and Cassiodorus,2 but it must have been known
earlier, since the former, in his commentaries on the Psalms and
Job, mentions as his sources the philosophi and the philologi, respec-
tively, and Cassiodorus says that he gives an opinion of the physio-
logi.
Just which authors are meant by these indications can no longer
be determined. But since Servius seems to have known one of the
original Jewish ideas about the food of the young ravens it is proba-
ble that the various views on this point were discussed in the schools
of rhetoric of the fourth century; we may think, for instance, of
Donatus, who was Jerome's teacher and whose work had great in-
fluence on that of Servius. 3 The idea of the young ravens fed on
dew does not occur in the rabbinical literature, but one wonders
whether it too might not have been Jewish in origin, because it is
quite consistent with the Jewish view of dew as a form of divine
grace.
1 See p. 338-339.
I Jerome, Commentaria in jobum, ad xxxviii.41 (PL 26, 766C): Nam
et ad hunc intellectum spiritualem pertinet, quod corvi rore pasci dicuntur, sicut
philologi se referunt indagasse; and Breviarium in Psalmos, ad cxlvi.9, (PL
26, 1256A-B): Nos vero qui de corvis nati sumus, non cadavera expectamus,
sed rorem. Pulli enim corvorum dicuntur de rore vivere. Sic enim philosophi
dicunt, quod de rore vivant pulli corvorum. Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalterium,
ad cxlvi.9 (PL 70, 1037B): pulli vero corvorum (ut physiologi volunt) coelesti
rore vescuntur, et adhuc paternas escas, id est cadaverum fetores, beneficio
aetatis ignorant. Before J erome, Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus in CX LVI
Psalmum, 11-12, (PL 9, 874) went into detail concerning the spiritual
explanation of the food of the young raven, although without mentioning
the nature of this food; it is not impossible, however, that he too had dew
in mind, since he says that the faithful are fed each day by God, like the
young raven, quibus quotidie a Deo producente in prophetis doctrinae praedica-
tionem, tamquam in montibus foenum, cibi coelestis praebetur alimonia. Cf.
also Prosper of Aquitania, Psalm. C-CL expositio, ad cxlvi.9 (PL 51, 419B),
who makes the same comparison: et sancti Spiritus pascuntur alimonia.
8 G. Brugnoli, Donato et Girolamo, in Vetera Christianorum, 2, 1965, 139-
149. \Vessner, Servius, 8, in RE, 2. Reihe 2, 2, 1923, 1841.
THE FOOD 355
The strong resemblance between the reports of J erome and Cassi-
odorns on the young raven's food and that of Lactantius on the food
of the young phoenix is unmistakable. Both concern a newborn bird
left uncared for and therefore fed by God on heavenly dew. In both
cases this unusual food is given only to the still callow bird, it is no
longer required when the young raven has taken on the dark ap-
pearance of its kind or the initially unrecognizable phoenix has ac-
quired its adult form.l This striking agreement can only be explained
if we assume that Lactantius drew a parallel between the nourish-
ment of the still callow parentless phoenix and that of the equally
bald young raven deserted by its parents.
According to these texts, both the young and the adult phoenix
were assumed to live on a moist nourishing substance from the air.
For the adult phoenix this idea seems completely determined by the
eschatological symbolism attached to the myth of the phoenix. In
Claudian the background is formed by the Classical, popular-phi-
losophical ideas about the abode of the pure soul in heavenly regions;
in the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch and the Coptic Sermon on M ary by
the Judaeo-Christian conceptions concerning the happy state that
would begin for the elect in the eschaton. In the Physiologus of
Vienna, which is somewhat obscure on this point, the food of the
callow young phoenix seems to be taken in the Classical sense: the
bird is fed by "the water and the dry". Lactantius, to the contrary,
seems to assume the Jewish and Christian conception of dew as a
divine boon, suggesting a striking and certainly not coincidental
parallellism with the nourishment of the young raven.
It is quite possible that the idea that the phoenix was nourished
with a divine food only when it was young, was determined by theo-
logical considerations. It has already been pointed out that accord-
ing to a well-known Jewish and Christian idea, the angels-of whom
the devout are to be the equals in the eschaton-neither ate nor
drank: they were nourished by the splendour and the wisdom of
1 The parallelism goes even further: according to the Jewish tradition.

it took three days before the feathers of the young raven became black, and
according to the Christian tradition of the Physiologus, it took three days
before the phoenix took on the appearance of its predecessor; see the ref-
erence given on p. 353 in n. I, and for the phoenix, p. 214-215.
35 6 THE FOOD
God or by the contemplation of God. 1 Ephraem the Syrian says that

the righteous, who are nourished in Paradise by the winds, are sati-
ated without food and joyous without drink. 2 Their food is formed
mainly by the exquisite fragrance that fills Paradise and is elsewhere
interpreted by Ephraem as the Holy Ghost. 3 We have already seen
that manna and dew were explained as the divine Wisdom, the
Logos, or the Holy Ghost. 4 The Byzantine Physiologus has discarded
all symbolism on this point and without qualification applies this
aspect of life in the presence of God to the phoenix: the phoenix
never eats or drinks but is nourished by the Holy Ghost. 5
These ideas concerning the food in the eschatological Paradise
offer a satisfactory explanation of Lactantius' assumption that the
adult phoenix did not require food. The symbolism of the divine
food also explains why, according to him, the young phoenix, which
has not yet reached the state of perfection and still lives in our world,
is fed on the dew of heaven: dew and manna, or in a Classical image
nectar and ambrosia, represent the sacraments6 by which believers
are supported in their earthly struggle and which, for them, realize
the eschaton in advance.
1 For this, see the places in Michl's article cited on p. 346, in n. 2.
B Ephraem, Hymni de paradiso, IX, 9 {trans. Beck, (see p. 337, n. 5),
35): "Wer lag (je) zu Tisck und erlabte sick okne Make, / sick siittigend okne
SPeise und sick erkeiternd okne Trank? / Ein Windkauck triinkt ikn, ein
andrer siittigt ikn".
3 Ephraem, Hymni de paradiso, IX, 17 (trans. Beck, 37): "Der Dult des
Paradieses erniikrt statt des Brotes, / und jener leben ( spendende) H auck dient
statt des Trankes'. Idem, XI, 14, (trans. Beck, 45, cl. there n. 7 ad. XI, 10):
at the feast of Pentecost the apostles were filled with the breath, the scent of
Paradise.
, See p. 343, 344, 345, 355, n. 2.
6 Byzantine Pkysiologus, 10: ILlJ81XILro;; 'n ~a·IH6)v, <illc1 TPEtp6ILEVOC; UTtO TOU
TIvEuILIXTOC; TOU liylou. Sbordone, La lenice, 4, juxtaposes the texts of Claudian
and of the Pkysiologus: "nel Pkysiologus e in Caudiano si pasce di aria'.
Hubaux and Leroy, who devoted only a few pages to the food of the phoenix
(79-81 and 50, n.l) think that Sbordone did so "avec raison" (po 80). The
double meaning of TtVeUILIX must have had its effect in the described complex
of conceptions but did not constitute its origin.
S For manna, see p. 346; for the dew, see e.g. Prudentius on p. 343, in n. 6.
CHAPTER TEN
THE SEX
The discussion of the various traditions concerning the death and

resurrection of the phoenix has brought out the fact that in Classical
times the bird was unanimously considered to reproduce itself a-
sexually. This characteristic is stressed in many texts. 1 It was im-
possible for the phoenix to arise from the sexual union of a male and
a female bird of the same species, since there was always only one in
existence. 2 Words expressing the singularity and the unique occur-
rence of the phoenix appear repeatedly in the texts, often as fixed
epithets: it is &t~-unus, 3 (J.6vo~-solus, 4 singularis, 5 unicus, 6 and
1 Cl. Ovid, Metam., XV, 392: Una est, quae reparet seque ipsa reseminet,
ales; Diogenes Laertius, IX, 79: -rwv yelp l:cflwv -rel ILEV xwplc; ILt~e:WC; ytve:a&cxL
WC; -rel 7tUpt~Lcx Kcxl 0 'Apa.~LOC; tpOrVL~ Kcxl e:UACXt Pomp. Mela, Ill, 83: non enim
coitu concipitur partuve generatur; Ambrose, Expos. Ps. cxviii, 19, 13: phoenix
coitus corporeos ignorat, libidinis nescit inlecebras; Zeno of Verona, Tract., I,
16, 9 (PL 11, 38IA): Phoenix avis illa ... , quae nobilitatem generis sui non a
parentibus accepit, non liberis tradit ... non ex coitu nascitur; Dionysius,
De aucupio, I, 32: yov£wv &-r:e:p Kcxl (.Lt~e:wv xwplc; utpLa-ra.ILe:voC; ... i'ua-r:e: UltO -r:ijc;
~ALCXK'iiC; IL6vljC; cxur'iic;, ltcx-rp6c; -re: Kcxl (.Llj-rpoc; xwplc;, -rov ISPVLV ytyve:a&cxL -rou-rov.
B Const. Apost., V, 7, 15: ISpve:ov ... a A£youaLV &l:uyov Ulta.PXe:LV Kcxl IL6vov tv
8ljILLOUpyl~; Rufinus, Expositio Symboli, 9: Orientis avem quam phoenicem
vocant, in tantum sine coniuge nasci vel renasci constet, ut semper una sit, et
semper sibi ipsa nascendo vel renascendo succedat? Gregory of Tours, De cursu
stell., 12: ... quae aiterius avis non est iuncta consortio nec iuncta coniugio;
Pseudo-Eustathius, Comm. in Hexaem. (PG 18, 729 D-732A); IL~ auvLa-ra.-
ILE:VOV 8Lcx8ox'ii, &U' Ulta.PXe:LV cxu-ro ILOV61-rCX-rov; Michael Glycas, Annales, I (PG
158, I08C): tpOrVL~ ... &l:uyoC; £V -r:'jj 8ljILLOUpyt~.
8 Pliny, Nat. Hist., X, 3; Philostratus, Via Apoll., Ill, 49; Rufinus, see
n. 2; Carmen in laudem Solis, 35; Boethius, In Isagog. Porphyrii commenta,
ed. sec., Ill, 6; Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 387; Schol. on Aristides, 45, 107; Schol.
on Lucan, VI, 680, no. 2.
, Didascalia, 40; Const. Apost., V, 7,15; Claudian, Phoenix, 8; Dracontius,
Romulea, X, 104.
6 Tertullian, De resurr. mort., 13 (de singularitate lamosum), similarly, in
dependence on him, Pseudo-Ambrose, De Trinitate, 34 (PL 17, 545A);
Isidore of Seville, Etymol., XII, 7, 22 (followed by many medieval authors);
Pseudo-Titus, Epistula, 338 (cl. below, p. 386, n. I).
I Ovid, Amores, Il, 6, 54; Pomp. Mela, Ill, 83; Didascalia, 40; Claudian,
358 THE SEX
fLovoye:V~C;.l The last of these terms is found only in the writings of

Christian authors. This need not, however, be taken to imply that the
choice of this word was influenced by the circumstance that the
phoenix could be a symbol of Christ, the "only-begotten" of God. 2
The primary meaning of the word is "only", "single", "unique of
its kind", 3 and when it is applied to the phoenix this is indeed what is
primarily intended. But we shall see below that it is not impossible
that with respect to the phoenix a deeper sense must be assigned to
this term.'
In only one text is it explicitly stated that two of these birds
occur at the same time: 6 according to Horapollo, the young and the
old phoenix fly together to Heliopolis, where the elder dies at sunrise.
This has to do with Horapollo's version of the genesis of the new
phoenix, which deviates from all the Classical traditions: it arises
from the fluid issuing from a wound that the old phoenix deliberately
inflicts on itself.8 It is nevertheless clear, however, that Horapollo
too was unable to imagine that the phoenix could arise in any way
except an asexual one.
For the author of the Didascalia, the fact that there is always
only one phoenix at a time made this bird a still more convincing
proof of the possiblity of the resurrection of the dead. The exact
reading of the relevant passage in the original Greek text can no
De consul. Stilichonis, 11, 417; Ambrose, Hexaemeron, V, 23, 79; Isidore of
Seville, see n. 5 above; Eugenius, Carmina, XLIV.
1 I Clement, 25, 2; Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 98; Eusebius, Vita
Constantini, IV, 72; Const. Apost., V, 7, 15; Cyril of jeruzalem, Catech.,
XVIII, 8 (PG 33, 1025B); Pseudo-Eustathius, Comment. in Hexaem., (PG
18, 729D); Michael Glycas, Annales, I, (PG 158, 108C); Ish6'dadh, Comm.
in Job., ad x1.20 (see below, p. 359, n. 3).
I Cl e.g. John i.18; iii.16.
8 See Liddell-Scott, 1144 s.v., W. Bauer, WOrterbuch zum N.T., 5th ed.,
Berlin, 1958, 1042-1043, and F. Biichsel, Movoyevljt;, in ThWNT, IV, 745-
74 6 .
, See below, p. 381.
6 According to the Slavonic Enoch, 8 (ed. Vaillant, p. 21) there are seven
phoenixes in the sixth heaven: they have only their name in common with
the original bird, since they have become angels (see p. 290). Antiphanes,
Irg. 175 in Athenaeus, XIV, 655b, Dionysius of Alexandria, De natura, Irg. 3,
in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., XIV, 25, 4, and Aelian, VI, 58 speak of rpotvLKet;;
they mean however the separate specimens of the one phoenix.
• Horapollo, Hieroglyphica, 11, 57, See also p. 197.
THE SEX 359
longer be determined, l but its meaning is unmistakable: if two or

more phoenixes could occur at the same time, this could be taken
to imply that their procreation might have followed the usual sexual
pattern; therefore, the singular occurrence makes it much more
clear that by dying the phoenix acquires a new life.
In the seventh century the ancient tradition concerning the a-
sexual genesis of the phoenix and it solitary existence was challenged
on logical and scriptural grounds by Maximus Confessor, 2 who was
forced to take this step because the Monophysites had demonstrated
the one nature in the person of Christ on the basis of that of the
phoenix. 3 After apologizing for giving so much attention to the
Monophysite "proof", he puts forward the following line of reason-
ing. If the phoenix is a bird, then it is also an animal in all respects;
but if it is an animal, it also has an animate and perceptive body. But
if the phoenix has such a body, it is also subject to the law of
generation and decay.4 It is impossible, however, that bodies subject
to this law can in essence be of one nature; to the contrary, the
descent from each other according to their kind is a very evident
1 Didascalia, 40; see R. H. Connoly, Didascalia Apostoloyum, Oxford,
1929, 173 for the differences between the Syriac and the Latin texts. The
latter reads: Nam si esset par aut multi, ipsi multi velut lantasma videri
poterant hominibus: nunc autem videtur, cum ingrediatur, quia solum est.
• Maximus Confessor, Epistulae, XIII, (PG 91, 517D-519E).
8 Cl. IsM'dadh, Comm. in jobum, ad xl.20 (ed. Schliebitz, 78): "Und
dagegen, dass die Orthodoxen sagen: Kein Lebewesen ware in der SchOPtung
einzeln vorhanden, luh'Yen jene (sc. the Monophysites) an die Sonne und den
Mond und den Himmel und die vier Elemente, die je einzeln geschal/en sind, und
den Vogel PhOnix, der einzig in (seiner) Art ist". Cf. the reasoning of Boethius
In Isagogen Porphyrii commenta, ed. sec. III,6: Sunt enim quaedam quae de
numero dil/erentibus minime dicuntur, ut phoenix, sol, luna, mundus (a related
argumentation in Bonaventura, Sententiae, I, 4, 3). Probably, the Mono-
physites were not the first to make use of the phoenix in a similar way.
Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat., 31, 10 (PG 36, 144C) says, demonstrating
lK nj~ m;pi ~6>6)V !aToploc~ the one divine nature, the (){LOOUaLOC, of the Father
and the Son: et ae TCjl maTo~ () A6yo~, Koci mo~ laTi Tp6~o~ y£vv~ae6)~, ocuT6 TL
ucp' &OCUTOU aOC~OCVOO{L£VOV KOCt TLKT6{Levov. He does not mention the phoenix
explicitly, and, therefore, it remains possible that he had other animals in
mind. According to Elias of Crete (PG 36, 829) Gregory thought of the phoe-
nix.
, Maximus Confessor, Epistulae, XIII, (PG 91, 519A): et~ep ~wov, Koci
aW{Loc !{LljiuJ(ov octa.thjTLK6v. Et at aW{Loc !{LljiuJ(ov octa.thjTLK6v laTL () CPOiVL~, KOCt
u~o yevealv laTL aljAov6TL Koci cp&opciv. In the Untitled Gnostic treatise, 170, 2
(ed. BOhlig-Labib, 95) too, the phoenix is called an !{LljiuJ(ov ~wov.
THE SEX
characteristic of their being and the definition of it. 1 This is con-

firmed by the Holy Scripture in Gen. Vii.I-3(LXX), where Noah
is commanded to take into the ark seven pairs of the clean animals
and two pairs of the unclean ones, with the explicit inclusion of
birds. If the phoenix, as a living bird, must be included among these,
then according to the divine words it cannot be in essence of one
nature but rather it, too, must occur as male and female.
By this argumentation, Maximus implicitly rejects the entire
phoenix myth. In Classical times there was no one else who went
that far,S but when in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
scholars began to dismiss the Classical phoenix tradition as un-
acceptable, they took over his arguments eagerly.3
In view of the general acceptance of the bird's asexual propaga-
tion, it is hardly surprising that almost no attention is given in the
Classical sources to the question of the sex of the phoenix. It was
usually referred to as a male animal, although there are a few cases
in which it was considered as female. 4 But the phoenix argumenta-
tion of the Monophysites implies that they assigned to it a unique
sexual status. This could mean that they saw it as neither male nor
female, in other words as sexless; but it is also possible that they
took it to be both male and female, the two sexes being merged to
become a higher, perfect unity.
It is evident from the texts that both these conceptions of the
sex of the phoenix were known. As a quite sexless creature it occurs
in speculations on the sex of the soul; as bisexual we encounter it in
1 Maximus Confessor, Epistulae, XIII, (PG 91, 519A): WV 7j E~ a.ll~A(J)V
KCXT' E!3ot; 3LCX30X~ a.pL3ljAOt; XCXpCXKrljp TOU e:!VCXL Kcxl /5pOt; EO'TL.
8 Nevertheless, various writers have expressed doubt concerning the
phoenix tradition, cl. e.g. Herodotus, 11, 73: EfLOl fLEV ou 7nO'TIX AtyoVnt;; Pliny,
Hist. nat., X, 3: haud scio an labulose (cl. also XXIX, 29); Tacitus, Ann.,
VI, 28: Haec incerta et labulosis aucta: ceterum aspici aliquando in Aegypto
eam volucrem non ambigitur.. Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 98: E<XV'It'e:p ti
IiAlj.&tt;; Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat., XXXI, 10 (PG 36; 144C), see p. 359, n. 3.
Photius, Bibliotheca, 126, objected to Clement of Rome's use of the phoenix
myth; see p. 4, n. 2.
8 See e.g. W. Franzius, Historia animalium sacra ... , ed. 3, Wittebergae,
162 4, 347-353·
, Female in Laevius, Pterygion phoenicis, in Charisius, Ars grammatica,
IV, 6 (see p. 269), Carmen in laudem solis, 31, 33, 35 and Dracontius, Romulea,
X, 104·
THE SEX
profound considerations on the true self of man, which is charac-

terized by a merging of the sexes to form a unity beyond all earthly
sexuality. To understand certain statements about the phoenix pro-
perly, we must go into both these concepts in some detail.
The development of Greek thinking about the soul has been the
subject of numerous scholarly studies. 1 It will suffice here to men-
tion the most important phases in this development. In Homer the
word ljiux.~ denotes both the abstract notion "life" and the spirit of
a dead person, which is a clearly recognizable image (e:(8WAOV) of the
individual. The link between these two highly divergent meanings
is formed by the meaning of ljiux.~ as "breath". 2 In as early an author
as Anaximenes the word ljiux.~ has already absorbed the notion
&u/L6~, which is still independent in Homer: the soul is that which
holds together and governs the individual. 3 This view of the soul as
a union of life and consciousness is presupposed in the Pythagorean
doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. It is the Pythagorean
conceptions of the soul which interest us in relation to the phoenix.
It was of great importance that the Pythagoreans, perhaps on
archaic grounds, incorporated the equally abstract notion 8otL/LWV
into their conception of the soul and that this demon of an individual
was identified with his e:(8WAOV. A man has in himself and opposite
himself, as his true self, his demon, which in all external respects is
exactly like him. 4 It was of equally great importance for the devel-
opment of the notion soul that the Pythagoreans assigned a divine
origin to this self-aware soul as the essence of a man. As early an
author as Pindar stated this explicitly in a poem in which he says
that the human body cannot escape death but that a living counter-
part of life survives, for this counterpart is of divine origin: it sleeps
as long as the body is active, although it often shows the sleeper in
a dream what the future is to bring. s The Pythagoreans could even
1 We refer here only to the summaries given by Jaeger, Theologie, 88-106;
Nilsson, Geschichte, I, 192-197, and Detienne, DAIMON, 67-68.
I Cf. J aeger, Theologie, 88-95; Nilsson, Geschichte, I, 194.
8 Anaximenes, Irg. B. 2 (FV S, I, 95 = Aetius, De plac. philos., I, 3, 4):
'1J ljiuxij ••• auYKpor:rei: 7)(Lii/O, cl· jaeger, Theologie, 95-99·
, For 8IXt(Lc.lV, see Nilsson, Geschichte, I, 216-222 and for the Pythagorean
view, especially Detienne, DAIMON, passim, particularly 90-91 and 174-175
(frgs. 25-28).
& Pindar,lrg. 131 (Schroeder = Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll., 35 (120E)), 2-3:
THE SEX
say whether a demon appearing in a dream belonged to the soul of

a living or a dead man, because in the latter case the demon had no
shadow and did not blink its eyes. l This view of the soul as a replica
of the individual that is at the same time his divine counterpart and
his true self, had a strong influence in several directions. It will
suffice here to mention the conception of the guardian angel as
counterpart of a man in the rabbinical literature, in the New Testa-
ment, and in Early Christianity, as well as related ideas found in
Valentinian Gnosticism and in Manicheism. 2
What is of special interest to us in connection with the phoenix is
the idea that the human soul has a form identical to that of the in-
dividual's body. This concept is found in various Early Christian
writings. In his De anima, Tertullian calls the soul the homo interior
and the body the homo exterior, and says that both have the same
appearance. 3 He also expresses the opinion that the soul and the
body acquire their sex simultaneously during the embryonic devel-
opment of the individual. In this connection he mentions that
Apelles the heretic supported the idea that the sex of the body is
determined by the already determined sex of the incarnated soul."
Generally, however, the Early Church accepted that the soul was
neither male nor female. 5
The conception of the bodily form of the soul sometimes took on
~c.>O\l3' ~TL ).d1tETotL ottW\lO~ d3c.>).O\l· TO yelp ~a·t"L (L6\1o\l / ~" '&EW\I.
1 Plutarch, Aetia Graeca, 39 (300C) cl Detienne, DAIMON. 91.
I Cl. G. Quispel. Das ewige Ebenbild des Menschen. Zur Begegnung mit dem
Selbst in der Gnosis. in Eranos jahrbuch. 36. 1967. 10-30.
8 Tertullian. De anima, 9. 8: Hic erit homo interior. alius homo exterior, dupli-
citer unus (cl J. H. Waszink. Q. S. F. Tertulliani De anima, Amsterdam, 1947.
178); 9. 7: sic et elligiem de sensu iam tuo concipe non aliam animae huma-
nae deputandam praeter humanam. et quidem eius corporis quod unaquaeque
circumtulit. Origen. Comm. in Cant. Cantic., prol., (ed. Baehrens. GCS 33.
Werke VIII. 65. ISff.) speaks metaphorically about the animae membra. to
which the membrorum nomina corporalium are transferred; cl. also ibid .• 66.
4ff.
, Tertullian. De Anima. 36. 2: anima in utero seminata pariter cum carne
pariter cum ipsa sortitur et sexum, ita pariter. ut in causa sexus neutra substantia
teneatur ... 3. quoniam et ApeUes. non pictor. sed haereticus. ante corpora
constituens animas viriles et muliebres. sicut a Philumena didicit. utique
carnem ut postericwem ab anima lacit accipere sexum.
6 See the texts mentioned in Waszink. De anima, 420.
THE SEX
rather extensive proportions. This occurred among those groups in

which the pious imagination, which gave rise to apocryphal stories,
was appreciated much more than speculations of any kind. We may
refer here to the Assumptio M osis, in which it is told that when Mo-
ses died, Joshua and Caleb had a vision in which they saw both his
soul and his body with exactly the same appearance, the one being
taken up to heaven and the other remaining on earth. 1 In the so-
called Prayer 01 Athanasius the deacon Timothy tells that at the
death of the Patriarch he saw his soul being taken to heaven by
Michael in exactly the same shape as Athanasius' body.2 Even more
interesting is the conception in one of the oldest versions of the
apocryphal Transitus M ariae: the apostles report in this work that
they saw Mary's soul being placed in the hands of Michael, this
soul having the human shape in all details except the sexual charac-
teristics. 3 Here, the concept of the bodily shape of the soul is linked
to that of its asexual state. The same combination is found earlier in
a certain Vincentius Victor, whose views were attacked by Augustine
in his De anima et eius origine.
Vincentius Victor had challenged Augustine by arguing that the
soul consists of matter and has the same shape as the body, for
which he may have based himself on Tertullian.' He was also of
the opinion that the soul had neither sex, and it was in discussing
this point that he referred to the phoenix, which was also considered
to have neither sex. Furthermore, he could also have thought of this
1 Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Strom., VI, 132, 2, and the texts of Origenes
and Euodius in A. Resch, Agrapha, 2nd ed., (TU, N.F., XV, 3/4), Leipzig,
1906 (Reprint: Darmstadt, 1967), 302-303, no. 13.
2 The prayer of Saint Athanasius, ed. E. A. W. Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic
texts in the dialect of Upper Egypt, London, 1915, 510-5II (text) and 1019-
1020 (trans.).
3 Apocryphum de Dormitione B. V.M., 35 (ed. A. Wenger, L'Assomption
de la T. S. Vierge dans la tradition byzantine du VIe au Xe siecle, Thesis
Lyon, Paris, 1955, 232): 'HfLe:Le; 8£ 01 1X7t60"TOAOL ~.&e:IXO"<ifLE.&1X -rlJv ljiuXT)v MlXptlXe;
7tlXpIX8e:80fLevllv de; xe:LplXe; MLXIXT)A 7te:7tAllpwfLevllV ~ n;<i<Tfl fLoP<P'ii IXV'&PW7tOU xwple;
fL6vou TOU ax7)fLIXTOe; riie; .&1JAe:tIXe; KlXl &ppe:voe;, fL1l8e:VOe; IXUT'{j I5vToe; &Uou d fLT)
6fLOL6T1lTOe; 7tIXVTOe; TOU O"WfLIXTOe; KlXl Ae:ux6T1lToe; E7t"t"IX7tAIXO"twe;. Wenger also cites
an unpublished Latin text (Paris, Lat. 3550), in which only the human
form of the soul is concerned, p. 253, app. crit. under nix: animam beate
marie ... habentem similem formam hominis et candidam super nivem.
4 Thus Waszink, De anima, 176-177.
THE SEX
argument because the phoenix was considered to be a symbol of the

soul.
Augustine replied that this example was quite irrelevant: the
bird indicates the resurrection of the body but supplies no arguments
for the sexlessness of the soul. He suggest rather sarcastically that
Vincentius Victor must have expected a better reception for his
reasoning if he included miscellaneous details about the phoenix in
a puerile way. For himself, however, there can be no doubt that the
phoenix is either male or female, and he mockingly asks; "Does it
have genitalia masculina on its body without being masculine or
genitalia lemina without being female ?"l This makes it evident that
Augustine did not consider the phoenix to be an asexual or a bisexual
creature. He agrees with Vincentius Victor that the soul has neither
sex, but in his opinion this conception can only be maintained if it is
also assumed that the soul has no substance and therefore no bodily
form. 2
As indicated by the foregoing, the phoenix was seen not only as an
asexual creature but also as bisexual. The latter occurs in discussions
of the true self of man. In this context asexuality and bisexuality
are closely related concepts, because both cases concern the attempt
to define the ideal absence or abolition of the fundamental split in
man, which is expressed in sexuality. When only the asexuality of
the soul is referred to, this is related to the idea that the soul is the
only essential part of the individual. We have already encountered
this view among the Pythagoreans, and we shall soon see that it also
influenced certain Christian ideas concerning the resurrection of the
dead.
Before going into this subject more deeply it will be useful to
mention the texts referring to the androgynous character of the
phoenix. Achilles Tatius is the only Classical author to indicate that
the sex of the phoenix might have some remarkable aspects. He
1 Augustine, De anima et eius origine, IV, 20, 33: Quod enim de phoenice
loqueris, ad rem de qua agitur omnino non pertinet. Resurrectionem quippe illa
significat corporum, non sexum destruit animarum ... Numquid enim sunt in
eius corpore genitalia masculina et non est masculus, vel feminina et non est
femina?
B Ibid.: Falsa sunt haec, fili, si non vis ut sit in anima sexus, non sit et
corpus!
THE SEX
says that when the bird is examined by the priest in Heliopolis to

see whether it is the true one, it shows its genitalia as proof of its
identity.1 Achilles Tatius does not tell what is characteristic of the
pudenda of the phoenix, but it seems possible that he wished to
suggest that it was hermaphroditic.
More important in this connection are the concluding verses of
De ave phoenice. Lactantius emphasizes the fact that God had made
it possible for the phoenix to be reborn out of itself. He considers
the bird fortunate because it has no ties with Venus: for it, death is
its Venus, and in this lies its only passion: it longs to die so that it
can be reborn. It is its own offspring and its own parent and heir, its
own nurse and its own nursling. Lactantius also presupposes that
it is not known whether the bird is male or female or neither.2 The
various manuscripts give the line in which this uncertainty about the
sex of the phoenix is expressed in different readings. 3 Hubaux and
Leroy accepted as the correct reading a conjecture according to
which the phoenix is also assumed to be both male and female. 4 For
1 Achilles Tatius, Ill, 25, 7: /) Be o!BEV ama't"ouILEVol; KCx/. 't"eX a1t6pP71't"cx tpCX(VE:L
't"ou aooILcx't"ol;.
I Lactantius, 161-170: At lortunatae sortis linisque volucrem, I cui de se
nasci praestitit ipse deus! I Femina (seu sexu) seu mas est sive ne utrum, I
lelix, quae Veneris loedera nulla colit. I Mors illi Venus est, sola est in morte
voluptas: I ut possit nasci, appetit ante mori. I Ipsa sibi proles, suus est
pater et suus heres, I nutrix ipsa sui, semper alumna sibi. I Ipsa quidem,
sed non (eadem est), eademque nec ipsa est, I aeternam vitam mortis adepta
bono.
8 For the various readings, see M. Caldi, Ad versum 163 "De ave phoenice"
carminis quod Lactantii lertur, in Bollettino di lilologia classica, 33, 1926-1927,
203-205 and Walla, 180; cl. also P. de Winterfeld, Coniectanea, in Bermes, 33,
1898, 172. The readings of the most important manuscripts are:
B: lemina seu masculus est seu neutrum lelix
C: lemina seu masculus est seu neutrum
D: lemina sit seu masculus aut si lorte neutrum
E: lemina sit aut masculus aut seu lorte neutrum
The reading of Brandt, cited in note 2, is based on the rendition of Lactantius
by Gregory of Tours, De cursu stell. ratio, 12: Nam et nescire homines mani-
lestum est cuius sit generis, masculus an lemina sive neutrum. Von Winterfeld,
172, proposes the reading: lemina seu (/elix, seu) masculus est, seu neutrum;
Caldi, 204, considers the most probable reading: seu neutrum seu masculus est
seu lemina phoenix. Fitzpatrick, 56 and Walla, 180 prefer Brandt's reading.
, They read, p. XV: Femina seu mas sit seu neutrum seu sit utrumque. But
the translation they give (p. XX) assumes Brandt's reading (see above). The
reading they prefer derives from a conjecture made by N. Heinsius: lemina
THE SEX
our purposes it is not very important which version is the correct

one, because although Lactantius leaves some doubts, Zeno of Ve-
rona clearly states that the phoenix has both sexes at the same
time. 1
Festugiere in particular attempted to demonstrate that there was
speculation in the Classical world concerning the hermaphroditic
character of the phoenix, this being related to the concepts con-
cerning the androgyny of the highest being and Primeval Man in
Hermetism. 2 Although the phoenix does not occur in the Hermetic
literature, Festugiere thought it highly probable that some doctrines
from these sources had enriched the phoenix myth, basing himself
on the reading of the passage from Lactantius just cited. s The back-
ground of this passage is supposed to include conceptions such as
those found in the Poimandres: the deity, the highest Nouc;, is simul-
vel mas haec seu neutrum seu sit utrumque. This conjecture was inspired by
Ovid's description of Hermaphroditus, Metam., IV, 378-379: Nec duo sunt
et lorma duplex, nec lemina dici I nec puer ut possU, neutrumque et utrumque
videntur. In the more recent literature this passage is referred to by Fitz-
patrick, 90 and C. Brakman, Opstellen en vertalingen betrellende de Latijnse
letterkunde, IV, Leiden, 1934, 247. In view of this parallel it is indeed possible
that Lactantius also mentioned the utrumque, but the available information
does not permit certainty on this point. Hubaux and Leroy, 6, compared
vs.163 with a citation of Laevius in Macrobius, Saturnalia, Ill, 8, 3: Venerem
igitur almum adorans, sive lemina sive mas est, ita uti alma Noctiluca est. They
assume this to be a quote from the poem Pterygion phoenicis by Laevius and
to concern a speculation about the sex of the phoenix. In this poem the
phoenix is indeed related to Venus; see p. 269 (ct. also Caldi, 163 and Walla,
181-182). It remains possible, although not demonstrable, that the fragment
in Macrobius indeed comes from the Pterygion phoenicis and that Lactantius
was influenced by this.
1 Zeno of Verona, Tract., I, 16, 9 (PL 11, 38IA): ... ipsa est sibi uterque
sexus (cl. also below, p. 374, n. 4). C. Weymann, Zum Phoenix des Lactantius,
in RhMPh, 47, 1892,640, pointed out that Zeno is depending on Lactantius,
comparing e.g. the uterque sexus of Zeno with the dubious reading utrumque
in Lactantius.
I A.-J. Festugiere, Le symbol du phenix et le mysticisme hermetique, in
MMAI, 38, 1941, 147-151, followed by M. Delcourt, Hermaphrodite, Paris,
1958, 121-123. Festugiere's article is included in his Hermetisme et mystique
paienne, Paris, 1967, 256-260.
3 Festugiere, Le symbol de phenix, 147, n. 4. The other texts he mentions
(p. 148: Claudian, Phoenix, 69-70, 101; Martial, V, 7, and Ovid, Metam., XV
392) do not in themselves prove that the phoenix was seen as an adrogynous
being there too.
THE SEX
taneously male and female; from himself he brings forth Primeval

Man, who is also hermaphroditic. 1 We shall see that this passage in
Lactantius may indeed be related to the conceptions just mentioned,
but that the link is much more distant than was assumed by Festu-
giere.
That a connection was indeed drawn between the myth of the
Primeval Man and that of the phoenix is shown by the Coptic
Untitled Gnostic treatise, which fonned part of the manuscripts found
at Nag Hammadi. In this text there are three phoenixes correspond-
ing to the pneumatic, the psychic, and the choic man. The first of
these phoenixes lives forever, the second lives a thousand years, and
the third is "consumed".2 The second phoenix corresponds to the
Adam of Paradise, the Primeval Man, to whom this text assigns a
hennaphroditic character.3
This conception is found in both the Hellenistic-Jewish and the
rabbinical literature. Its origins are probably to be sought in Greece,
for it is in Plato that we find the first mention of androgyny as
characterizing the first people. We shall return to this point, but
whatever the origin of this idea may have been, it is drawn on in the
Jewish literature for the exegesis of the Biblical reports concerning
the creation of man (Gen. i.26 and 27; ii.7 and 21; and V.2).
In Bereshit Rabbah, the following statement is attributed to Rab-
bi Jeremiah ben Leazar (= Eleazar): "When the Holy One, blessed
be He, created Adam, he created him an hennaphrodite, for it is
said, "male and female created He them and called their name A-
dam" " (Gen. v.2ff, i.27}.4 According to the Midrash on Leviticus,
1 Corpus Hermeticum, I, 9 (ed. Nock-Festugiere, I, 9): 0 8E Nout; 0 .&..6t;,
app..v6.&-tjAUt; &lv, t:Cil~ KlXl cpc;)t; u1tapxCilV (cl. the commentary in Nock-Festugiere,
20, n. 24); and I, 15 (Nock-Fest., 12): app..v6'&7jAUt; 8E &lv, ~~ appe:vo.&ijAe:Ot; &v
1ta:rp6t; (commentary in Nock-Fest., 22, n. 43). See also Asclepius, 20 (Nock-
Fest., 11, 321) and the detailed commentary on it by W. Scott, Hermetica,
Ill, Oxford, 1926, 135-142. In the opinion of Festugiere, Le symbol du pMnix,
148, the phoenix is also called male-female in the Cyranides, but this text
discusses the heliodromus, a sun animal with some points of agreement with
the phoenix (see p. 286) and of which it is said that it "e:KVOYOVe:, appe:vo'&EA7j;
this was emended to appe:v6.&-tjAUt; by Festugiere.
B Untitled Gnostic treatise, 170, 1-13 (ed. Bohlig-Labib, 94).
3 Ibid., 161, 30-32 (Bohlig-Labib, 72).
, Bereshit Rabbah, VIII, I (trans. H. Freedman, Midrash Rabbah, Genesis,
I, London, 1951, 54).
THE SEX
this was also taught by Rabbi Samuel ben Nal;tman. 1 Both rabbis
held the opinion that the hermaphroditic first human being was
created with two faces. 2 This implied, according to Rabbi Levi in
the Midrash on Leviticus, that then human beings actually had no
back but two body-fronts, the meaning being a male one and a
female one. 3 At the creation of Eve, God sawed or split the first
human in two, so that two backs resulted, and thus two humans, a
man and a woman. 4 The rabbis found confirmation of this inter-
pretation in the text of Gen. ii. 21 itself, because they read the
word zela< not as "rib" but as "side", which is actually possible. 5 All
the rabbis who mention the hermaphroditic Adam lived in the third
century A.D., but it remains possible that on this point they were
transmitting an earlier tradition. 6
In Hellenistic Judaism we find this myth concerning the Primeval
Man, albeit in spiritualized form, in Philo of Alexandria. Philo made
a sharp distinction between the creation of man according to Gen.
i.26-27 and that according to Gen. ii.7, i.e. the creation in God's ima-
ge and the formation from the dust of the earth, respectively. Ac-
cording to De oPificio mundi, the former concerns man as idea, as
genus, as type, spiritual, incorporeal, neither male nor female, im-
perishable by nature. But the latter concerns the visible individual,
1 Midrash on Leviticus, XIV, I (trans. J. Israelstam, Midrash Rabbah,
Leviticus, London, 1951, 177).
B 'Erubin, 18a (trans. 1. Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Seder Mo'ed,
Il, London, 1938, 123) and Bereshit Rabbah, VIII, I (trans. Freedman, 54).
8 Midrash on Leviticus, XIV, I (trans. Israelstam, 177). According to
some rabbis, it was originally God's intention to create two humans, but in the
end only one was created. Cf. 'Erubin, 18a (trans. Epstein, 124), Berakoth,
6Ia (trans. M. Simon, The Babylonian Talmud. Seder Zera'im, London,
1948, 382) and Kethuboth, 8a (trans. S. Daicher, The Babylonian Talmud.
Seder Nashim, II, London, 1936,34).
, Midrash on Leviticus, XIV, I (trans. Israelstam, 177): "R. Levi said:
When man was created, he was created with two body-fronts, and He sawed him
in two, so that two backs resulted, one back for the male and another back for the
female". Cf. also Rabbi Samuel ben NaJ:.lman in Bereshit Rabbah, VIII, I.
5 Cf. Koehler-Baumgartner, Lexicon, 80S, s.v. 1. 37,?~.
I For the dating of the rabbis mentioned: H. Strack and P. Billerbeck,

Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, Vol. V/VI, ed.
by J. Jeremias and K. Adolph, 2nd ed., Munich, 1963, 230 (Samuel ben
NaJ:.lman: ca. 260, Palestine), 184 (Jeremiah ben Eleazar: ca. 270, Palestine),
202 (Levi, ca. 300, Palestine).
THE SEX
possessing certain qualities, composed of body and soul, male or

female, and by nature mortal. 1 Whereas in this text the spiritual
man is said to be asexual, in De legum aUegoriis it is stated that this
man possesses both the male and the female sex. 2 Here, in this
context, it is evident that by asexuality and bisexuality essentially
the same thing is meant: both concepts express the original unity
and inner harmony of man. The distinction between the sexes accen-
tuates a split in the empirical individual expressed in his sexual
desires and leading to his mortality.
Reference must also be made in this connection to a rather self-
contained passage in De oPificio mundi, in which it is said of love
that it reunites the separate halves of, as it were, a single living being,
into one whole-which is distinctly reminiscent of the Platonic myth
of the Primeval Man to be discussed. 3
Philo does not explicitly mention the sawing or splitting of the
first individual by God, but this aspect of the myth is dearly in the
background for him too. For the following discussion of the Christian
application of the myth of the androgynous Primeval Man, it will
be useful to cite what Philo had to say about the psychic processes
1 Philo, De oPilicio mundi, 134: 0 IL£V yelp 8LIX7tAlXa&e:1e; IXta&ljToe; iJ811 ILET£Xc.>V
7tOLOTljTOe;, iK aWILIXTOe; KlXl q,ux'ije; cruve:aTWe;, <ivljp 1) yuv~, tpuae:L &vllTOe;· 0 8£ KIXTel
Tljv e:tKOVIX t8EIX TLe; 1) YEvOC;; 1) atpplXy(e;, VOllTOe;, <iawILIXToe;, OnT', &ppE:V OnTE: &'ijAU, &-
tp&lXpTOe; tpuaeL, cl. also 76. For the views of the rabbis and Philo: Ginzberg, V,
88-89, Bousset and Gressmann, Religion, 363, E. Brehier, Les idees philoso-
phiques et religieuses de Philon d'Alexandrie, 3rd ed., Paris, 1950, 121-126,
C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks, sec. impr., London, 1954, 145-160, and
Ch. Kannengiesser, Philon et les Peres sur la double creation de l'homme, in
Philon d'Alexandrie, Colloque de Lyon, 11-15 Sept. 1966, Paris, 1967, 277-
296. But above all R. A. Baer, Jr., Philo's use 01 the catagories 01 male and
lemale. (Arb. zur Lit. und Gesch. des hellenist. Judentums, Ill), Leiden,
1970.
I Philo, De legum allegoriis, Il, 13: 7tpOTU7tWalXe; yelp TOV YE:VLKOV &v&pc.>7tOV,
iv eT> TO &ppe:v KlXl TO &'ijAU YEvOe; tpllalv ehlXL, !)aTepov TO eI80e; <i7tepyli~ETIXL TOV
'A81i1L. Baer, 32-33, attempted to demonstrate that the ye:VLKOe; &v&pc.>7tOe;
mentioned in this text is not the same as the &v&pc.>7tOe; KIXTel Tljv e:tKOVIX &eou
of op. Mund., 134, but is probably to be identified with the "generic earthly
man" in that text. But in that case what is meant by TO eI80e; TOV 'A8cXIL
remains obscure. The current view seems the most likely.
3 Philo, De oPilicio mundi, 152: !pc.>e; 8' imyevOILE:VOe; KIX&cX7tep EVOe; ~<i>ou
8LTTel TIL~ILIXTIX 8Le:aTljKOTIX cruvlXYlXywv e:te; TIXOTOV ciPILOTTE:TIXL, 7to&ov iVL8puacXILE:VOe;
EKIXT£P~ T'iie; 7tpOe; &cXTEpOV KOLVc.>V(IXe; de; Tljv TOU 0ILO(OU yEve:aLv. cl. Baer, 36-38,
87-88.
24
THE SEX
occurring in the individual who reaches piousness and sanctity. Here

it must be kept in mind that in another connection and in contrast
to the views just mentioned Philo also considered that before the
creation of woman Adam was the true, complete, and therefore
perfect human being. 1 This latter conception shows many points of
agreement with those of the rabbis. In his Quaestiones in Exodum
he says that "progress [se. toward piety and worthy holiness] is in-
deed nothing else than the giving up of the female gender by chang-
ing into the male, since the female gender is material, passive, cor-
poreal, and sense-perceptible, while the male is active, rational, in-
corporeal, and more akin to mind and thought".2 The same contrast
between the spirit as the male and the senses as the female element
and the desirability of their reunion is found in the Quaestiones in
Genesim: "But when just the right time has come for the cleansing
and there is a drying up of all ignorance and of all that which is able
to do harm, then it is fitting and proper for it [se. the soul] to bring
together those (elements) which have been divided and separated, not
that the masculine thought may be made womanish and relaxed by
softness, but that the female element, the senses, may be made
manly by following masculine thoughts and by receiving from them
seed for procreation, that it may perceive (things) with wisdom,
prudence, justice and courage, in sum, with virtue".3
Despite the psychological categories within which Philo describes
the process of sanctification, it is clear that here too there is an
echo of the myth of the male-female Adam and the splitting of his
being into man and woman as the cause of sinfulness and death. His
view that the female element must be made masculine arises from
the depreciation of woman that we find in his work. 4 But what he is
actually trying to demonstrate is that the liberation of the human
being from the world of the senses is marked by the return of the male
1 See Brehier, Les idees PhilosoPhiques, 124.

S Philo, Quaest. in Exod., I, 8 (trans. from the Armenian by R. Marcus,
Philo. Supplement, 11, London-Cambridge (Loeb) , 1953, 15-16).
8 Philo, Quaest. in Gen., 11, 49 (trans. Marcus, Philo. Supplement, I, 1953,
13 0 - 1 3 1 ).
4 Philo. Quaest. in Exod., I, 7 (Marcus, 11, 14): "the male is more perfect
than the female. Wherefore it is said by the naturalists that the female is nothing
else than an imperfect male'. Cf. Baer, 40-44.
THE SEX 37 1
and female elements to their original unity, as the text just cited
clearly shows.
The conceptions in the Poimandres concerning the heaven-de-
scended bisexual Primeval Man, the "Fall", and the origin of the
earthly male and female beings, show the influence of the Hellenistic-
Jewish interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis. 1 In the present
connection a detailed discussion of the Hermetic ideas is hardly re-
quired, but it is important that the fall of the Heavenly Man was
brought about by the kindling of sexual desire for Nature, which
tempted him, just as, according to a Jewish interpretation, Adam
was seduced by the woman, whom he called "Life".2 In both cases
sexuality is the main feature and the essence of the fall of the Prime-
val Man, mortality being its consequence. A striking divergence
from the Jewish conception is that, according to the Poimandres, the
progeny resulting from the union of the Primeval Man and Nature
were, like the animals, androgynous throughout an entire world
period. At the end of this period, God split the people and the ani-
mals, so that there were male and female. Then, as in Genesis, came
the divine command to multiply, albeit with an important addition
which, after the foregoing, is hardly surprising: "Increase strongly
in numbers and multiply greatly, all that is created, and let man
being gifted with reason understand that he is immortal and that
the cause 01 death is sexual desire". 3
The explanation of the Jewish influences on the ideas occurring
in the Poimandres must be sought in the syncretistic climate pre-
vailing in Alexandria at the beginning of the present era. The groups
responsible for the Hermetic literature were susceptible to many in-
fluences. The "Hermetics" did not create strictly isolated communi-
ties, and had no distinct forms of organization. They held regular
meetings attended by like-minded people, and this led to the for-
1 See C. H. Dodd. The Bible and the Greeks. 145-169; also Brehier. Les idees
philosophiques. 125.
2 Gen. iii.20 (LXX): Kct! eKIXAeaev •A8iXfL 'ro /SVOfLct -r'ijt; YUVctLKOt; cto'rou Zc.l~.
Cl. Ginzberg. V. 124. 133-134.
3 Corpus Hermeticum. I. 18 (Nock-Fest .• I, 13): AO~IXvea.&E ev ctO~~aEL Kct!
7tA7j'&uvEa'&E ev 7tA~.&eL 7tIXV'rct 'riX K'rtafLct'rct Kct! 87jfLLOUP~fLct'rct, Kct! cXVctYVc.lpLaIXTc.l
< 6) ~VVOUt; e:ctu'rov QVTct cX'&IXVctTOV, Kct! 'rov cthLOV TOU '&ctVIXTOU ~pc.l'rct, Kct! mxv'rct ",IX
/SVTct.
37 2 THE SEX
mation of what might be called "free communities".1 Hellenized

Jews must have played a role in these communities, and in a city
like Alexandria it would have been highly remarkable if this had not
been the case.
Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to attribute the conception of
the bisexual Primeval Man entirely to Jewish influences, since we
encounter it as early as Plato. In the well-known passage in the
Symposium in which Aristophanes gives his views on the essence of
Eros, 2 he says that there were originally three sexes: the male, the
female, and the androgynous. These first people had a round shape
and possessed four hands, four feet, and a head with two faces. They
were strong and mighty, and rose in rebellion against the gods. The
latter did not wish to destroy mankind, however, because they could
not do without their sacrifices and worship. Consequently, Zeus
decided to humiliate man deeply and thus break his will to rebel:
he split man into two halves and commanded Apollo to heal the
wounds and form the body as we know it. The navel is the place at
which the skin was fastened in a knot. 3 According to this myth,
therefore, each human being is only half of his real self, and this is
why he has a deep-rooted longing for the re-unification of the origi-
nal parts of his nature. In love and sexuality this urge to make the
two parts into one, the longing to become the undivided, perfect
being, reaches its most profound expression.' The original existence
of three sexes also explains the sexual disposition of the single half-
individual: according to his or her original nature, this person has
homosexual, lesbian, or heterosexual inclinations. 5
1 Cf. G. van Moorsel, The mysteries of Hermes Trismegistus, Thesis Utrecht,
Utrecht, 1955, 128-134, who speaks of "Hermetic conventicles" (129).
However, this term leaves too little room for the openness characterizing
Alexandrian syncretism.
8 Plato, Symposium, 189a-193e; cf. S. Rosen, Plato's Symposion, New
Haven-London, 1968, 120-158, especially 138-149, and H. Gauss, Philo-
sophischer Handkommentar zu den Dialogen Platos, Il, 2 Bern, 1958, 89-93.
3 Symposium, 190e; cf. Rosen, 146: "Apollo's needle stitches together man's
perpetual incompleteness in accord with the pattern of utility to the gods'.
6 Symposium, 19Ia-192e, cf. 19Ic-d: !cr·n 3~ 015\1 tK T6crol) 6 !pwc; ~ILIPI)TOC;
tXAA~AW\I TaLC; tX\I'&PWltOLC; KIXL rijc; tXPJ(IXLIXC; IPucr£WC; cr\J\lIXYwy£UC; KIXL tmJ(£LpW\I
7tOL'ijcrIXL i:\I tK 31)0L\I KIXL t&'crlXcr'&IXL TlJ\I IPUcrL\I TlJ\I tX\I.&PWltL\ll)\I. 192e: TaU /SAOI) 015\1
't"'i1 tltL.&I)ILL~ KIXL 3LW~£L ~pwc; /S\l01L1X.
5 Symposium, 19Id-192h.
THE SEX 373
It is not clear to what extent the concept of the male-female Pri-

meval Man originated with Plato himself. He uses it to explain
heterosexual love, just as the undivided male and female primeval
people serve to clarify homosexual and lesbian relations. It is quite
possible that Plato had become acquainted with the idea of the
bisexual Primeval Man from some source or other and, for the sake
of his own argumentation, added the male and female Primeval
creature. It is in any case striking that we encounter the original
occurrence of three sexes only in Plato; for the Rabbis, Philo, and
the author of the Poimandres, the first human being was exclusively
androgynous. We need not consider this question any further here;
it will be sufficient in this context to state that it is probable but not
certain that the idea of the bisexual Primeval Man may have origi-
nated with Plato. 1 But there is no question that his formulation of
the idea that love and sexuality are expressions of the split character
of man for which man himself is solely responsible, had a far-reaching
influence. His myth of the Primeval Man, which he has Aristophanes
recount, implies that the original, undivided, and perfect individual
did not know sexuality. But Plato does not go as far as the author of
the Poimandres, who states that sexual desire is responsible for
man's mortality.
These conceptions of the Primeval Man do much to clarify the
texts on the bisexuality of the phoenix. The foregoing clearly shows
that it would be at the very least one-sided to interpret the texts
solely as a reflection of Hermetic speculations. When the U ntitled
Gnostic treatise calls the phoenix that lives a thousand years a sym-
bol of the androgynous Adam in Paradise, the influence of Jewish
ideas is clearly discernible. 2 The explanation of what Lactantius and
Zeno have to say about the sex of the phoenix must be sought in a
1 It is remarkable that in his De vita contemplativa, 63, Philo speaks rather

critically of the myth in Plato, even though he seems to have made use of
it in De oPificio mundi, I52. A direct influence of Plato on Philo is denied
by Ginzberg, V, 88, Bousset and Gressmann, Religion, 353, Brehier, Les
idees philosophiuqes, I25, and Baer, 87-88.
a For the Jewish influence on this work, see the commentary in the edition
of Bohlig-Labib, and A. Bohlig, Mysterion und Wahrheit. Gesammelte Beitriige
zur spiitantiken Religionsgeschichte, (Arbeite zur Geschichte des spiiteren
Judentums und des Urchristentums, VI), Leiden, I968, II9-I22.
374 THE SEX
remarkable Early Christian development of the conceptions discuss-

ed above.
It must be kept in mind here that according to J udaeo-Christian
thinking, primeval time will be repeated at the end of the world; the
conditions prevailing before the Fall and exclusion from Paradise
will recur in the City of God of the eschaton. That the phoenix was
the symbolic expression of this conception was shown in our eluci-
dation of its abode and its food. l It is within this context that the
remarks of Lactantius and Zeno of Verona on the sex of the phoenix
must be placed.
The factors discussed above led to the obvious conclusion that,
like Adam before the Fall, the redeemed in the eschatological glory
would be elevated above sexuality. Grounds for this idea were
present in words spoken by Jesus himself: "At the resurrection men
and women do not marry; they are like angels in heaven" (Matt.
xxii.30).2 The angels were sexless;3 but it is of minor importance
whether the resurrected body is considered to have both sexes or to
be sexless. The main point is that in the life after resurrection, sexual-
ity will no longer play any role whatsoever.
This is clear from the comments on the phoenix in Zeno of Ve-
rona's treatise De resurrectione. In his opinion, this bird instructs us
clearly about the precious privileges of the resurrection: it does not
derive the nobility of its kind from its parents and does not pass it
on to his children; for itself it is both sexes, it is itself every affection,
it is itself its own offspring, its own end and beginning, it is not
born of a sexual union. 4 The bisexual phoenix is here a symbol of
eschatological man arisen from the dead, for whom male and female
coincide, and who has had returned to him his original, perfect unity.
Zeno is concerned here with the question of the reality of the bodily
1 See p. 319-332 and 348-356.

B Also in Mark xii.25; for the deviant version in Luke, xx.34-36, see p. 376
and p. 377, n. 2.
8 See J. Michl, Engel, in RAC, V, 1962, 85 (rabbis) and 122 (Christians).
, Zeno of Verona, Tract., 1,16,9, (PL 11, 38IA): Similiter phoenix avis illa
pretiosa resurrectionis evidenter nos edocet jura, quae nobilitatem generis sui
non a parentibus accepit, non liberis tradit: ipsa est sibi uterque sexus, ipsa
omnis aUectus, ipsa genus, ipsa finis, ipsa principium: non ex coitu nascitur,
nec officio alieno nutritur.
THE SEX 375
resurrection, and says emphatically that the resurrected phoenix is
not a shade but reality, not an image but the phoenix itself, not
another but, although a better one, the former phoenix itself.! This
is unmistakably meant as a refutation of a view which, out of re-
pugnance for the corporeal, attempted to spiritualize the resurrec-
tion. It seems likely that Zeno had in mind here the eschatology of
Origen and the Origenists.:I
In this polemic against the spiritualization of the resurrection of
the flesh it was also possible to reach an entirely different inter-
pretation of the word of Jesus: it was strenuously argued that the
resurrected retained their earthly sex unchanged. This was re-
peatedly stated by Jerome in his anti-Origenist writings. For him,
the retention of the sexual characteristics at the resurrection of the
dead was one ofthe keystones of orthodoxy on this point. 3 The prom-
ise that we shall be as the angels implied, in his opinion, that in
our flesh and our sex we shall be endowed with the bliss enjoyed by
the angels lacking flesh and sex. 4 Yet he was certain that at the re-
surrection the redeemed would be above sexuality. This, after all,
is something the true believer already strives for in his earthly life.
In this context Jerome argues, against John of Jerusalem, that
there need be no fear of a marriage between those who before death
lived in their sex without the works of sex. The resurrection of
parts of the body that will no longer fulfill their function must not
be considered superfluous, since even in this life we make every
1 Ibid.; non umbra, sed veritas, non imago, sed phoenix, non alia, sed
quamvis melior alia, tamen prior ipsa!
I Cl. for the eschatology of Origen, the Origenists, and the anti-Origenists:
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian doctrines, 3rd ed., London, 1965, 469-479;
for the first phase of the Origenistic controversy: B. J. Kidd, A history 01 the
Church to A.D. 46r, n, Oxford, 1922, 429-439.
3 Cl. J. P. O'Connell, The eschatology 01 Saint Jerome, (Dissertationes ad
Lauream, 16), Mundelein, 1948, 48-52. Tertullian already mentioned this
view as defence for the reality of the resurrection, cl. Adversus Valentinianos,
32,5: Et tamen homo sum Demiurgi; illuc habeo devertere postexcessum, ubi
omnino non nubitur, ubi superindui potius quam despolari <habeo ,> ubi, etsi
despolior, sexui mea deputor, angelis non angelus, non angela. Nemo mihi
quicquam laciet. quem et tunc masculum invenient.
4 Jerome Contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum, 31 (PL 23, 383B): Angelorum
nobis similitudo promittitur, id est, beatitudo illa, in qua sine carne et sexu
sunt Angeli, nobis in carne et sexu nostro donabitur.
THE SEX
effort to prevent those parts of the body from fulfilling their func-
tion. 1
With this argumentation J erome draws attention to the fact that
in Christian virginity an important aspect of the eschatological
state is realized. This view must be examined more closely, because
in our opinion Lactantius' statements about the sex of the phoenix
must be primarily interpreted in this sense.
For this purpose, we can best start with the concept of virginity
held by the so-called Encratites, by which we refer in particular not
to the sect in Asia Minor that used this name in the fourth century
but rather to the representatives of a broad movement in the Early
Church whose roots are to be traced to the time of the New Testa-
ment. 2 The Encratites held that sexual continence was not only
useful or desirable but necessary.
For the Encratites too, Jesus' words about reaching the state of
the angels had great importance, especially in the formulation in
Luke: "The men and women of this world marry; but those who
have been judged worthy of a place in the other world and of the
resurrection from the dead, do not marry, for they are not subject
to death any longer. They are like angels; they are sons of God,
because they share in the resurrection" (Luke xx.34-36). Marriage
is intended for the propagation of the human race; when death has
been defeated, therefore, marriage will no longer have any function.
According to Clement of Alexandria, the Encratites were of the
opinion that the resurrection of the dead had become a fact with
Christ's resurrection and that the new world had already arrived;
since they already belonged to this world, they rejected marriage. 3
1 Ibid. (383AB): Noli timere eorum nuptias, qui etiam ante mortem in sexu
suo sine sexus opere vixerunt ... N ec statim superllua videbitur membrorum
resurrectio, quae caritura sint ol/icio suo, cum adhuc in hac vita positi, nitamur
opera non implere membrorum. Cl. also his Comm. in EPist. ad Ephes., Ill,
5,29 (PL 26, 534A), where, however, the retention of the distinction between
the sexes after the resurrection is not discussed.
I Cf. H. Chadwick, Enkrateia, in RAC, V, 1962, 343-365; G. Quispel,
L'Evangile selon Thomas et les origines de l'ascese chretienne, in Aspects du
Judeo-christianisme, Colloque de Strasbourg, 23-25 avril 1964, Paris, 1965,
35-52, and idem, Makarius, das Thomasevangelium und das Lied von der
Perle, (Suppl. to Novum Testamentum, XV), Leiden, 1967, 82-106.
3 Clement of Alexandria, Strom., Ill, 48, I: El yoiiv T7jv civcX<rrotO"Lv ci~ELA~
cpotaLV, Wt; ot6'fol MYOUO"L, Kotl BLOC 'foii'fo ci&E'foiiaL 'fQV ycX{Lov.
THE SEX 377
One of their most important spokesmen, Julius Cassianus, said,

with an allusion to Luke xX.34ff.: "Those who are governed by
wordly forces beget children and are born, but we are citizens of a
Kingdom in heaven, whence we await the Redeemer" (comp. Phil
.•. ) 1
1ll.20 •
One of the sources on which Cassianus based himself was the
Gospel according to the Egyptians, which shows strong Encratite in-
fluence. In this Gospel, when Salome asked, "How long will man
continue to die ?", Jesus answered, "As long as women bring forth
children".2
In the conceptions of the Encratites a marked role was played by
the above-discussed ideas about the original unity of mankind, sex-
uality as the primeval sin and as the reason for death, and redemp-
tion from the world of the senses through re-unification of the male
and female elements. In Alexandria this would have been almost
unavoidable.
This development is already indicated by the rest of the conver-
sation between Jesus and Salome in the Gospel according to the Egyp-
tians as reported by Cassianus. Salome asks what sign will show
that death has lost its power, and Jesus replies, "When you trample
on the garment of shame, and when the two become one and the
male with the female is neither male nor female". 3
1 Clement of Alexandria, Strom., Ill, 95, 2.
8 Clement of Alexandria, Strom., Ill, 45, 3: fLe)(pL n;6TE '&civlX't"ot; ta)(UaEL; •.•
fLe)(pLt; lJ.v, E!n;EV, UfLELt; IXt YUVIXLKEt; 't"!K'"lTE and Ill, 64, I: fLt)(PL 't"(vot; ot lJ.v.&pwn;oL
lln;o'&lXvouv't"IXL; •.• fLe)(pLt; lJ.v 't"!K't"waLv IXt YUVIXLKEt;. Cf. Quispel, Makarius, 82-83,
who compares these texts with Luke xx.34-36, according to the Codex Bezae
and the Old Syriac translation, resp. YEVVWV't"IXL KlXl YEVVwaL and, translated
back into Greek, 't"!K't"ouaL KlXl YEVvwaLv. A. H. McNeile, The Gospel according
to St. Matthew, 3rd impr., London, 1938, 322, sees in Luke's version "an
explanatory paraphrase heard from the lips of a jewish-Christian preacher.
It introduces the new thought that when there is no death, marriage for the propa-
gation of the race will be unnecessary". For the Jewish and J udaeo-Christian
backgrounds to be assumed for the Early Christian asceticism, see, in
addition to the studies by Quispel mentioned above, the contribution of
M. Black, The tradition of Hasidaean-Essene asceticism: its origins and in-
fluence, in Aspects du judeo-christianisme, 19-33, and Peterson, Fruhkirche,
judentum und Gnosis, Fribourg i. Br., 1959, 209-235.
8 Clement of Alexandria, Strom., Ill, 92, 2: lI't"IXV 't"0 -riit; IXto")(UV7lt; l!v3ufLlX
n;1X-rilO"ll't"E KlXl 1I't"lXv yeV71't"IXL 't"cl Mo lv KlXl 't"0 lJ.PPEV fLE't"cl -riit; .&71AE!IXt; O~TE lJ.PPEV
O~TE &ijAU.
THE SEX
The "garment of shame" refers to the animal skins with which

Gen. iii. 22 says God covered the first people. Philo had explained
this as an indication of the body, and was followed in this by Cassia-
nus and also by Origen. 1 This interpretation involves the assump-
tion that before the Fall man was a purely spiritual being, which in
turn is related to the Platonic view that the body is the clothing of
the souP It is highly probable that the Gospel according to the Egyp-
tians too is based on this view. But even when the bodily resurrection
was not relinquished, it could in any case be read in this Gospel
that entrance into the eschatological Paradise consists of conquering
sexuality, of a return to the childlike innocence belonging to the
time before the Fall. This is the sense in which the statement attrib-
uted to Jesus is taken in the Gospel according to Thomas: "His
disciples said: "When wilt Thou be revealed to us and when will
we see Thee ?". Jesus said: "When you take off your clothing with-
out being ashamed, and take your clothes and put them under your
feet, as the little children, and tread on them, then shall you behold
the Son of the Living One and you shall not fear" (log. 37}.3
This interpretation of the word about the "garment of shame" is
linked in "Thomas" with the statement concerning the abolition of
the distinction between the sexes. This indicates that for him, too,
the two statements belonged together. "They said to him: "Shall
we then, being children, enter the Kingdom?" Jesus said to them:
"When you make the two one ... and when you make the male and
the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and
the female not be female ... then shall you enter the Kingdom" "
(log. 22).
Various Encratite texts carry the suggestion that in these groups
the woman was considered a reprehensible creature because she was
1 Philo, De posteritate Caini, 137, and De legum allegoriis, Ill, 69; for Julius
Cassianus see Clement of Alexandria, Strom., IIl, 95, 2 (these texts mentioned
by Quispel, Makarius, 53), Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 40 (Cf. Ginzberg, V,
103 and M. Simonetti, Alcune osservazioni sull'interpretazione origeniana di
Genesi, 2, 7 e 3, 2I in Aevum, 36, 1962, 370-381).
I See Quispel, Makarius, 53.
8 Cited from the edition of A. Guillaumont, H.-Ch. Puech, G. Quispel,
W. Till and Yassah 'Abd al MasiQ, The Gospel according to Thomas, Leiden-
London, 1959.
THE SEX 379
responsible for the entry of sin and death into the world. This is re-
lated to the conception of the female as the sensorial and sensual
element, which is also found in Philo. In the Gospel according to the
Egyptians, thus, Jesus says, "I came to destroy the works of the
female".1 But it is clear from the Gospel according to Thomas that
this does not necessarily mean that women as such were considered
unsuitable for the Kingdom of God, although it is also evident that
some held this opinion. At Simon Peter's request that Mary be sent
away because women are not worthy of the Life, Jesus replies: "See,
I shall lead her, so that I shall make her male, so that she too may
become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who
makes herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (log. 114).2
We must not allow ourselves to be misled by this historically ex-
plicable choice of words. The Encratites rejected marriage, but they
did not reject womankind. For them, Christianity was not a re-
ligion for men; quite to the contrary, they taught the elevation of
woman. They did not consider the woman to be a lower order of
being whose main function was to satisfy the appetites of the man
and to serve his comfort. They gave an ascetic twist to Paul's state-
ment that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. iii.28).
This explains why in the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles it is the wo-
men who are moved by the essentially Encratite preaching. In the
life of the resurrection there is no longer any distinction between
man and woman, the two have become one, Paradise is regained.
The theme of the original unity of man could in itself lead to a
positive evaluation of marriage. s In Encratism, it became an as-
1 Clement of Alexandria, Strom., Ill, 63, 2: ~A'&OV KrxTrxAuarxL TOC l!pyrx "C"ij~
.&1)AEta~.
I See H.-Ch. Puech in Hennecke-Schneemelcher, I, 216, 219. Cl. also
Tertullian, De cultu lemin., I, 2,5: the female is granted idem sexus qui et
viris (other opinion on p. 375, in n. 3); Acta Perpetuae et Felicitatis, 10, 3:
et lacta sum masculus (Perpetua, in a vision of her last battle with and
victory over the Evil One): Pseudo-Athanasius, De virginitate, 10 (ed.
H. Koch, Quellen zur Geschichte der Askese und des Monchtums in der alten
Kirche, Tiibingen, 1933, 52): a7;6.&ou TO yuvaLKELOV cpp6V1)!Lrx Kal Aci~E .&cipao~
Kal av8pdrxv (cl. Philo above, p. 370)' tv yocp "Tji ~aaLAEtqr: TWV ouprxvwv OUK
l!a"C'LV dCpaev Krxl '&'ijAU", aAAOC 7;iiarxL rxt EuapEaTijarxarxL YUVrxLKE~ av8pwv Tci~LV
Arx!L~civouaLV.
a Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, I, 10, gives an impressive descrip-
tion of the unity of man and woman as product of the one Logos: they are
THE SEX
cetic motif. The Gospel according to Thomas has Jesus say this re-
peatedly: "Blessed are the solitary (ILovrxX6C;) and the elect, for"-
and now the word suddenly becomes personal-"you shall find the
Kingdom; because you come from it and you shall go there again"
(Log. 49), and "Many are standing at the door, but the solitary
(ILovrxX6c;) are the ones who will enter the bridal chamber" (log. 75).1
Here the word ILovrxX6c; cannot be translated as "monk". The
Gospel according to Thomas was written, probably around A.D. 140,
in Edessa in Syria. 2 Extensive research has made it highly probable
that the word ILovrxX6c; is the Greek equivalent of the Syriac il;tidaya,
which corresponds to the Hebrew yal;tid, "only", "single", "solitary",
"living alone". 3 In Syria this word became a terminus technicus for
the virgo, the single one dedicated to God who has forsworn marriage
and sexuality because they belong to the world of death from which
he has been redeemed. Virginity was highly esteemed in Syria: over
a very long period baptism was only permissible for virgins. 4
We need not go into this subject any further, except to mention
that the Hebrew yalJid could also be translated as ILovoye:vYjc; and
identical in all respects, WV 3e KOLVOC; ILEV 6 ~LOC;, KOLV~ 3E 7j XiXPLC;, KOLV~ 3e Kor1
ij O"CIlT7)pLot. That he meant here the unity attained by marriage is evident
from his remark concerning the abolition of sexuality in the resurrection
(with reference to Luke xX.34-36): lv'&ot TOU KOLVCIlVLKOU Kotl a:YLOU TOUTOU ~LOU
TOU ~K au~UYLotC; TeX l7tot'&)"ot OUK &pP&vL Kotl./hj)"ELqt, a.v'&p<:mlfl 3E a.7t6KELTotL ~m.&uILLotC;
3LXot~OUO"1lC; otUTOV KEXCIlPLO"ILEVIfl. Waszink, De anima, (see p. 362, n. 3), 420,
cites this text unjustifiably as evidence respecting the concept of the a-
sexuality of the soul. Cl. also Strom., Ill, 68, Ion the two or three gathered
in Christ's name (Matth., xviii.20): does not Christ mean by this man,
woman and child, IhL a.v3pl yuv~ 3LeX '&EOU a:PIL6~ETotL. On the basis of bisexual
unity of the primeval principle the Valentinians too arrived at the accept-
ance of marriage, cl. Clement, Strom., Ill, I, I, and M. Malinine, H. Ch.
Puech, G. Quispel and W. Till, De resurrectione (Epistula ad Rheginum),
Zurich-Stuttgart, 1963, XI.
1 Cl. also Log. 4, 16, 23.
a Cl. Quispel, Makarius, 106-111.
3 M. Harl, A propos des Logia de Jisus: le sens du mot MovotX6C;, in REG, 73,
1960, 464-474; A. F. J. Klijn, The" Single One" in the Gospel 01 Thomas, in
] ourn. 01 Bibl. Literature, 81, 1962, 271-278; Quispel, L' Evangile selon Thomas,
(see p. 376, n. 2), 37-41; A. Guillaumont, Le nom des "Agapetes", in VC
23, 1969, 34-36.
, A. Voohus, History 01 asceticism in the Syrian Orient ,I, Louvain, 1958,
3-10. In all probability, the above-cited log. 75 of the Gospel according to
Thomas also concerns the admission to baptism.
THE SEX
&YCXmJTOt;, as a result of which these words take on a meaning rough-

ly the same as that of !J.oVCX)(Ot;.l It is conceivable that when the
phoenix is called !J.ovoye:v~t;, this was also meant to convey its ele-
vation above sexuality.2 Another word which is interesting in this
connection is &YCXmJTOt;, meaning "beloved". This word was used in
the Early Church to indicate those women, called virgines subintro-
ductae, who were taken by pious ascetics into their homes to be
united with them in a spiritual marriage. 3 In the Early Church and
long afterward, this practice was sharply criticized. 4 There can be
no doubt, however, that in its pure form it was a meaningful ascetic
expression of the idea that man and woman belong together, that
it is not good for them to be alone (Gen. ii.I8}.5 This custom meant
that man and woman lived together like Adam and Eve in Paradise
before the Fall and thus realized the eschaton in their earthly exist-
ence. In this spiritual marriage the essential identity of man and
woman and the awareness of their mutual dependence have attained
the highest form possible under ascetic conditions.
I t was necessary here to discuss the ascetic motif of the true, male-
female individual because of its great importance for the inter-
pretation of De ave phoenice. In our opinion, in this work the phoe-
nix is primarily a symbol of the Early Christian virgo. It has been
assumed by some authors that in Lactantius the bird is a symbol
of Christ, but this is hardly likely because essential elements of the
phoenix-Christ symbolism do not occur in his poem. 6 There is more
1 Cf. Guillaumont, Le nom des Agapetes, 33-34.

I See p. 358.
8 H. Achelis, Virgines subintroductae. Ein Beitrag zu I Kor. VII, Leipzig,
1902; for the explanation of the name ciyCX1tlj...-lj, see Guillaumont, o.c., 30-37.
, In the Irish Church the subintroductae still occurred in the 12th century,
cf. R. E. Reynolds, Virgines subintroductae in Celtic Christianity, in Harvard
theol. rev., 61, 1968, 547-566.
6 Cf. Reynolds, o.c., 564-565.
8 Cf. F. J. Dolger, Sol Salutis, (Liturgiegesch. Forsch., 4/5), Munster,
1925, 168: "Mir ist es klar, dass die geheimnisvolle Symbolik aUf Christus
abzielt, del' vom Osten, vom Paradies kommt, in dem Lande, wo del' Tod herrscht,
hier Syrien, den Tod findet, dann nach Aegypten, hier wohl das Reich des Hades,
hinabsteigt und dann in das Paradies zuruckkehrt" (similarly Quasten,
Patrology, Il, 404). But it must be remarked here that we find the phoenix
related to Christ only in texts clearly bearing the influence of the Physiologus.
THE SEX
justification for the assumption that here the phoenix is the symbol
of eschatological man who via death has won life in the heavenly
Paradise. This was indeed the most common symbolism of the phoe-
nix is the Early Church. l The fact that Zeno of Verona used the
phoenix in this sense and that his choice of words in speaking of the
bird's sex clearly show the influence of De ave phoenice,2 need not
mean that it was also Lactantius' intention to create primarily or
exclusively a picture of life after the resurrection. It is certainly
possible to interpret Lactantius' poem in this sense, but we must
not forget that the idea of the realized eschatology implies that the
conditions of the final period are already manifest in the present, and
that it is therefore not always clear in just which sense the images
and symbols must be understood. It seems probable that in De ave
phoenice the conceptions of the eschatological future and the escha-
tological present both occur, so that it is not always clear which is
meant. Nevertheless, we are prepared to defend the thesis that Lac-
tantius was concerned in the first place with the eschatological
Paradise that the virgo brought to realization in his earthly life.
Several arguments can be put forward to support this view.
In both Zeno of Verona and Lactantius the phoenix is above sex-
And in these cases it is always explicitly stated that the phoenix does not
live again until three days after its death, which is not found in Lactantius.
Dolger's argumentation could equally well be applied to many other Early
Christian texts on the phoenix where, however, the same facts are related
to the resurrection of the flesh.
1 Thus I Clem., 25-26; Tertullian, De resurr. mort., 13; Didascalia, 40;
Const. Apost., V, 7, 15-17; Commodianus, Carmen apolog., 139-142; Ambrose,
Exameron, V, 23, 79-80; idem, De excessu frat., II, 59; Zeno of Verona,
Tract., I, 16, 9 (PL 11, 38IA); Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., XVIII, 8 (PG 33,
I028A); Gregory of Nazianzus, Orat., XXXI, 10, (PG 36, 144C) idem,
Carmina, I, 2: Praecepta ad virgines, 526-530 (PG 37, 620A); Epiphanius,
Ancoratus, 84; Augustine, De anima et eius origine, IV, 20, 33; Venantius
Fortunatus, Carmina, I, 15; Dracontius, De laudibus Dei, I, 653-655;
Pseudo-Cyprianus, Ad Flav. Felic., 130-134; Pseudo-Ambrose, De Trinitate,
34, (PL 17, 545AB); Passio S. Caeciliae, ed. Mombritius, 339; Ennodius,
Carmina, I, 9, 151; Symphosius, Aenigmata, 31 (cf. ClL, XIV, 113, no. 914);
Gregory of Tours, De cursu stell. ratio, 12; Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus,
(PG 85, 980A-B); Pseudo-Bede, Expos. in Job., II, 12; Rabanus Maurus,
De universo, 8, 6 (PL Ill, 246B).
Z Cj. texts mentioned in n. 2 on p. 365, in n. 4 on p. 374, and in n. I on p.
375, and Weymann's article mentioned on p. 366, in n. I.
THE SEX
uality, but there are distinct differences in emphasis between these

two authors. Zeno stresses the fact that the bird is totally one and
single, sufficient to itself and dependent on no one: for itself it is
both sexes simultaneously, it is itself its own beginning and end, and
for the continuation of its existence it does not have to rely on a
sexual union. 1 In its life, as in that of the resurrected, sexuality no
longer plays a role, having lost its meaning because death has been
defeated. Lactantius, however, portrays this state not as an un-
assailable fact but as a desirable and praiseworthy condition. He
says that the bird is fortunate because it has no ties of any kind
with Venus; death is its Venus, and in this lies its only passion, it
longs to die so that it can be reborn. 2 In this text the objectionable
aspect of sexuality is put into words on the one hand and on the
other the idea that new life can only be acquired by undergoing
death. Here, Lactantius must have had in mind the earthly in-
dividual for whom sexuality forms a threat that only disappears
after death. If he had thought only of the life starting with the escha-
tological resurrection of the dead, he would certainly have chosen
his words differently.
Lactantius does not go into the question of whether the phoenix
was male or female, neither, or both at the same time. s In his words
we hear a reverberation of the above-discussed ideas about the
asexuality or bisexuality of the perfect individual who has either
known or has overcome the split in himself. This idea could have
been very familiar to Lactantius. He could have encountered it in
the Hermetic literature, which he knew well and which even had a
profound influence on his thinking, 4 but it is more probable that
he became acquainted with this conception in its Christian, Encra-
tite form as it is to be found in the Gospel according to the Egyptians
and the Gospel according to Thomas. This conclusion is forced on us by
his discussion of marriage and virginity in the Divinae Institutiones.
1 See p. 374, n. 4.
8 See p. 365. n. 2.
3 vs.163. see p. 365, n. 3 and 4.
, See A. Wlosok, Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis. Untersuchungen
zu Geschichte und Terminologie der gnostischen Erlosungsvorstellung (Abh.
Heidelb. Akad. d. Wiss., Philos.-hist. Klasse, Jrg. 1960, 2), Heidelberg,
1960.
THE SEX
It must be stated first of all that Lactantius himself was certainly

not an Encratite. He saw marriage as a sacred institution whose
purpose was to guarantee the continuation of the human race. He
assumes that sexual desire is more intense in man than in other
living creatures either because God wished for more people or be-
cause He had bestowed the quality of virtue only on mankind so
that praise and glory could be earned by controlling of the passions
and by continence. 1 It must not be thought, Lactantius says, that
it is difficult to keep sensuality under control: the prospect of over-
coming it has been given to mankind, and very many have preserved
the blessed and uncorrupted integrity of the body and have fully
enjoyed this heavenly form of living. 2 It is evident from this passage
that for Lactantius, too, virginity was an aspect of the eschatological
return to Paradise. He remarks with emphasis that God does not
compel mankind to maintain this state but rather leaves them the
freedom to do so, because He knowns just how strong a compulsion
he has attached to these feelings.3 Continence is, however, the most
ideal state, and Lactantius confirms this by quoting a statement by
God or Jesus not found in the Bible: "He says, "If a man has been
able to do this, he shall receive an excellent and incomparable
reward" ". Such a man shall conquer the earth, he shall be the equal
of God, because he has acquired the virtue of God." The virgo be-
comes like Adam in Paradise, who was created in the image of
God.
In view of these conceptions, no objection can be made to the
interpretation that in Lactantius the phoenix is not primarily a
symbol of the resurrected in the eschatological Paradise but rather
of the Early Christian virgo, who realizes the eschaton in his earthly
existence. We have seen at various other places in De ave phoenice
1 Lactantius, Div. Inst., VI, 23, 3.

I Ibid., VI, 23, 37= Nee vero aliquis existimet ditlicile esse trenos imponere
voluptati ... cum propositum sit hominibus eam vincere ac plurimi beatam
atque incorruptam corporis integritatem retinuerint multique sint qui hoc
caelesti genere vitae telicissime pertruantur.
3 Ibid., VI, 23, 38.
, Ibid., VI, 23, 38: Sic quis hoc inquit tacere potuerit, habebit eximiam
incomparabilemque mercedem ... 39. Hie terram triumphabit, hie erit consimilis
deo qui virtutem dei cepit.
THE SEX
as well that only an interpretation related to the life before death

is possible. We recall the threefold or fourfold submergence of the
phoenix, which can be an indication of baptism; its daily prayers;
and the heavenly food taken by the young bird, which can be re-
lated to the sacraments. 1 The virgo already practices in this life the
vita angelica: in baptism he has received a new life, death can no longer
touch him, and therefore the sexual distinction has lost its meaning
for him. He has entered Paradise; for him the future has become
the present. But for the virgo this vita angelica is not yet assured; to
the contrary, it must be striven for daily in mortification and under
continual prayer. 2 The greatest threat to this paradisial state lays in
sexuality, the exclusion of which was the constant preoccupation of
the Early Christian ascetics. This is the sense in which Lactantius'
statements about the sex of the phoenix and the absence of any
connection with Venus must be interpreted.
That the phoenix was seen in Encratite groups as a symbol of the
virgo is clearly shown by the Epistle 0/ Pseudo-Titus, which is devot-
ed solely to a defence of virginity and an attack on the spiritual
marriage. 3 The writer of this letter shows himself to be a convinced
advocate of the ideas of Encratism; for him, the primeval sin is
sexuality, Adam fell when a woman smiled at him.4 With a reference
to the apocryphal Acts 0/ John, marriage is characterized as "in-
struction in division", "desire for a delusion", "beginning of dis-
obedience, end of life, and death".6 This also holds for the spiritual
marriage: the ascetic who takes a woman into his house finds death
in love.' The writer points out that the heavenly Jerusalem is built
by the devote solitaries. In this city, in accordance with the word
of Christ, they will not marry or be taken in marriage but be as the
1 See p. 282-284, 324, n. 4, 356.
I See texts mentioned by U. Ranke-Heinemann, Zum Ideal der vita
angelica im 'ruhen Monchtum in Geist und Leben, 29, 1956, 347-357, and also
G. M. Colombas Paradis et vie angelique, Paris, 1961, passim.
a Text published by D. de Bruyne in Revue Benedictine 37, 1925, 47-72,
and translated by A. de Santos Otero, in Hennecke and Schneemelcher, 11,
90-109 (with introduction and bibliography). The Latin in this work can
only be called barbarian.
, Hennecke and Schneemelcher, 11, 97.
5 Ibid., 11, 104.
• Ibid., 11, 95.
25
THE SEX
angles in heaven. He then exclaims: "0 man, who understands

nothing of the fruits of righteousness, why did the Lord create the
divine phoenix and not join to it a female companion but command-
ed it to remain solitary? This has become openly known especially
to demonstrate the virgin condition to the young, namely, that the
saints must remain without any alliance with a woman".l
It seems probable that for the comparison of the virgo with the
phoenix both Lactantius and Pseudo-Titus drew on an ascetic
tradition. In a slightly different form we find the same comparison
in Greek in the Praecepta ad V irgines by Gregory of Nazianzus.
Speaking of examples of virginity and chastity in the animal world,
this author names the phoenix first of all: just as the dying phoenix
renews itself by bringing forth a self-begotten offspring in fire, so
too are the dying always-living when they are consumed by the
fiery longing for Christ. 2 Here, Gregory gives an ascetic turn to the
familiar resurrection symbolism of the phoenix. The phoenix attains
a new life in an asexual manner by burning itself up, it is CXUTO-
yeve:,&Aoc;. In the same way the Christian who is consumed by a burn-
ing desire for Christ acquires eternal life, and thus for him too sexual-
ity loses its importance. Gregory does not say the latter in so many
words, but it is clear that this is what he means from the rhetorical
question with which he concludes the passage on the phoenix: "Who
understanding this could fail to join the unmarried with joy, since
a better passion will set him on fire?" 8
Ambrose too mentioned the phoenix in a discussion of chastity
1 Ibid., n, 100; ed. De Bruyne, 56 (1. 336-341): Homo qui non intellegis
iustieiae l1'uetus, ut quid divinum autem disposuit dominus phoenicem, nee
alte1'am sibi loeminam eonpa1'em iunxit sed singula1'em pe1'mane1'e iussit?
Utique palam innotuit ut ostendat spadonis statum iuventutis sine lemine
eoniuneeione pe1'ma<ne)1'e sanctos. Denique P1'O hunc autem anastasem vita
deela1'atu1' (iuventutis should probably be read as iuventuti). In the last sen-
tence a connection is drawn, as in Gregory of Nazianzus (see below), between
virginity and resurrection, cl. De Santos Otero's translation: "Und seine
Aule1'stehung weist schliesslieh aul das Leben hin".
I Gregory of Nazianzus, Ca1'mina, I, 2: P1'aeeepta ad vi1'gines, 526-530
(PG 37, 620A): "n~ Ir 15p\lL\I CPOl\lLKot CPcX'rL~ &v~o"KO\l'rot \lecX~eL\l / t\l7rupl 'rLK'r6/Levo\l,
7t0A)..&\I Encll\l /Le'ra KUKAot, / Y"'lpotAE71~ KO\llot~ ~er\lo\l y6\1o\l otU'r0YEve-&AO\l, / &~ or
ye .&\I~o"KO\ln~ ael~woL 'reAE'&01JO"L, / 8otL6/LevOL 7rup6e\l'rL 7t6'&<Jl XPLO"TOU l3oto"LA'ijo~.
3 Gregory of Nazianzus, Ca1'mina, I, 2, 532-533: Totu'rot 'rl~ e!0"0p6w\I, ou
0"7tEv8e'rotL ijt'&EOLO"L / Y"'l.&60"1J\l0~ O"otpKeO"O"L\I, E7td ~EO"e\l orO"'rpo~ apelw\I;
THE SEX
and virginity: the bird knows neither sexual intercourse nor the
temptations of sexual desire; it rises again from its own pyre, it
survives itself, and is itself both the heir of its body and the fruit
of its ashes. l It is possible that Ambrose's choice of words in this
passage betrays the influence of Lactantius, 2 but there is a distinct
agreement with Gregory of Nazianzus. Both include among the ex-
amples offered by nature not only the phoenix, which serves as a
model for the virgo, but also the turtle dove, which remains celibate
if it loses its mate. 3 This bird serves as an example of the complete
chastity that should be maintained by a widow or a widower. It is
improbable that Ambrose drew on Gregory, so it must be assumed
that both used an existing ascetic tradition.' However this may have
been, it is by now clear that the phoenix played a role, as symbol of
the virgo, in ascetic thinking. It is highly improbable that Lactan-
tius, who refers to this symbolism only in veiled terms, could have
been its originator. In this respect too he must have been dependent
on older sources.
Lastly, attention must be given in this connection to a possible
explanation of the name "phoenix" put forward by Isidore of Seville:
the bird could have been given this name because in the entire
world it is unica et singularis. "For", he says, "the Arabs call some-
one who is singularis "phoenix" ". 6 This recalls the familiar Classical
comparison of the rare, exceptional individual with the phoenix. 6 It
is in itself possible that Isidore assumed that a similar comparison
was also common in the native land of the phoenix. But it is equally
possible that the virginity symbolism of the phoenix is involved
1 Ambrose. Expos. Psalmi cxviii. 19. 13: Phoenix coitus corporeos ignorat.
libidinis nescit inlecebras. sed de suo resurgit rogo. sibi avis superstes. ipsa et
sui heres corporis et cineris sui fetus.
a Cf. Lactantius. 167-168 (p. 365. n. 2). but also Claudian. Phoenix. 101:
o felix heresque tui.
a Gregory of Nazianzus. Carmina. I. 2. 535-539 (PG 37. 620A). and
Ambrose. Expos. Psalmi cxviii. 19. 13.
, Ambrose wrote his Expositio Psalmi cxviii between 386 and 388. cf. the
edition of Petschenig. VI. Gregory wrote his poems in his last years. between
384 and 389; see Quasten. Patrology. Ill. 238. 244.
6 Isidore. Etymol .• XII. 7. 22: Phoenix Arabiae avis. dicta quod colorem
phoeniceum habeat. vel quod sit in toto orbe singularis et unica. Nam Arabes
singularem "phoenicem" vocant.
6 See p. 67. n. I. 71. n. I and 2.
THE SEX
here. The virgo, who raised himself above sexuality, could be called
pre-eminently singularis. 1 This word was also used by Pseudo-Titus,
who says that God commanded the bird to remain singularis. Since
it is as good as certain that this work of Pseudo-Titus originated in
Spanish ascetic circles, 2 it cannot be excluded that Isidore knew the
comparison of the virgo with the phoenix. It is conceivable that he
thought that this comparison, which probably originated in the
East, was also current in the country of the phoenix.
The phoenix also occurs as a symbol of virginity in Early Christian
art. In the apse of S. Agnese fuori le Mura in Rome, the bird occurs
in a medallion on the robe of St. Agnes. 3 This saint died the death
of a martyr at the age of twelve, during the reign of Diocletian, and
has become the model of the Roman virgins, as shown, for instance,
by several liturgical texts.' Here, the phoenix could be a symbol of
life in the heavenly Paradise that became her share, but in that
case we would expect to see it on the palm tree, as is the case, for
instance, in SS. Cosma e Damiano. This makes it more likely that
in S. Agnese it serves as the symbol of virginity. This is also indicated
by the unusual place in which it occurs: on the robe of the "pure"
Agnes. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that similar
birds also occur on the garment of the archangels shown on the
triumphal arch of S. Apollinare in Classe. 5 The holy Agnes, who
never knew sexuality, was "as the angels in heaven" even before her
death.
The few references to the sex of the phoenix to be found in the
Classical and Early Christian sources have led to a lengthy discus-
sion. We have found that the actual asexuality with which the bird
was endowed from ancient times on the basis of its unusual genesis,
was elevated to an essential characteristic within the framework of
1 Ct. A. Blaise, Dictionnaire Latin-Franfais des auteurs chretiens, Turnhout,

1954,762, s.v. singularis, 2; singularitas, 4; and singulariter, 3.
2 See De Santos Otero, in Hennecke and Schneeme1cher, II, 90-91 and
Quasten, Patrology, I, 156-157.
3 See pI. XXXIV, I.
, P. Allard, Agnes, in DACL, I, 1907, 905-918; L. Kennedy, The Saints
ot the Canon ot the Mass, (Studi di Antichita, 14). Citta del Vaticano, 1938,
173-177.
5 See pI. XXXIV, 2.
THE SEX
various conceptions. It proved to make little difference whether it

was described as asexual or bisexual, because in either case the
point was to indicate that it was above sexuality. The bisexuality of
the phoenix is referred to primarily in connection with the idea of the
true, perfect human being in whom the male and the female elements
have recovered their original unity. The statements on the sex of
the phoenix are all determined by the symbolism of the bird, and
thus we see again that its myth cannot be studied apart from the
interpretations it has been given.
PART THREE
RESULTS
CHAPTER XI
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX

SOME CONCLUSIONS
Several scholars have attempted to arrange the multifarious phoe-

nix traditions found in Classical and Early Christian literature in
such a way as to reveal a distinct line of development.! On the
basis of our analysis of the phoenix myth we have made a similar
attempt, drawing a sharp distinction between probabilities and de-
monstrable facts. But before giving our results, some remarks must
be made on the dating of our sources and the way in which the
phoenix is spoken of in them. These points would seem to be self-
evident, but one often finds that they are not taken into account.
In the first century A.D. the phoenix is mentioned twenty-one
times by ten authors.2 From the preceding eight centuries we have
1 In the notes to this chapter attention is given mainly to the views of

Fitzpatrick, 18-27, Sbordone, La fenice, 1-31, Rusch, 416-421, and Walla,
51-52, 62-81. Hubaux and Leroy did not consider the development of the
myth to any extent, but see below, p. 407, n. 2; following Sbordone, they
overstress the derivation from Egyptian conceptions concerning the benu,
see p. 30.
I Ovid, Metam., XV, 392-407, Amor., 11 6, 54; Cornelius Valerianus in
Pliny, X, 5; Lucan, VI, 680; Martial, Epigr., V, 7, 1-4; V, 37, 13; VI, 55,
2; Pomp. Mela, Ill, 83-84; Seneca, EPist., XLII, I; Statius, Silvae, 11, 4,
34-35; 11, 6, 87-88; Ill, 2, 114; Chaeremon, frg. 3 in Tzetzes, Chiliad., V,
395-398; Pliny, VII, 153; X, 3-5; XI, 121; XII, 85; XIII, 42; XXIX, 29;
XXIX, 56; I Clement, 25. Fitzpatrick, 21, thinks that the "increased interest
in the legend" in the first century A.D. is to be attributed to the Egyptian
obelisk in the Circus Maximus on which reference is made to the benu called
phoenix in the translation of Hermapion (in Ammianus Marcellinus, XVII,
4, 20). She also suggests that "Perhaps, too, it was from this very source that
Ovid obtained the inspiration for his version of the legend". This seems very un-
likely, however, quite aside from the misconception that Ammianus refers to
"a Greek inscription from the hand of one Hermapion " , which anyone could
read; the reference to the phoenix on the obelisk is so brief that it is impossible
that the authors in question could have depended on them; see p. 24 here.
394 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX
only nine mentions of the bird, eight of them known only from
quotations by later authors. Of the writers who refer to the phoe-
nix, the only one whose complete work has been preserved is Hero-
dotus, but according to Eusebius it was jreported by Porphyry
that Herodotus took his information about the phoenix literally but
in abbreviated form from the Periegesis by Hecataeus of Miletus. 1
There is no reason to doubt the reliability of this report. 2 If we then
recall that the lost work of Alexander Polyhistor contained only a
long quotation from Ezekiel the Dramatist,3 there remain only
seven writers who are known to have written independently on the
phoenix before the beginning of our era. These writers are Hesiod,
Hecataeus (in Herodotus), Antiphanes, Ezekiel the Dramatist (in
Alexander Polyhistor), Aenesidemus, Manilius, and Laevius. A short
summarization of the data provided by these authors illustrates
how useful it is to remain aware of the nature of our pre-Christian
sources.
Hesiod says only that the phoenix lives nine times longer than the
raven and that the Nymphs live ten times longer than the phoenix."
The fragment in which this is said was an insoluble riddle even in
Classical times. We have gone into this riddle in great detail and
attempted to give a coherent explanation of it. 5 The only infor-
mation about the phoenix this text seems to offer at first sight is
the fact that the bird lives for a very long time and that it was
already so well known in Hesiod's time that he could include it
without qualification in a series of familiar animals.
Hecataeus, in Herodotus, gives a description of the phoenix on
1 Porphyry in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., X, 3, 16: Kcd -r( UlLLV AE-yOO ... <
'Hp63o-roC; iv -rti 3£1)-r~pq: 7toAAci 'EKOt-rOt(OU MLAlja(ou KOt't'Ci: ~I;LV lLETijVtyKEV iK
'"it; 7tEPLljrllaEOOC; ~pOtJ(~Ot 7tOtpOt7tOL~aOtt;, -rei; -rou fl!O(VLKOC; 6pv~ou KOtL -rei; 7tEpL -rou
7tO-rOtlLtou (7t7tOU KOtL '"ic; &~pOtC; -r6lV KPOK03EtAOOV;
I For the dependence of Herodotus on Hecataeus, see F. ]acoby, Hekataios,
3, in RE, 7, 1912, 2675-2676, cf· also E. Liiddeckens, Herodot und Agypten,
in ZDMG, 104 (NF 29), 1954, 331-332 (also in W. Marg, Herodot. Ein
Auswahl aus der neueren Forschung, Munich, 1962, 436-437; see also here p.
4°1-4°3·
8 Alexander Polyhistor in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., IX, 29, 16.
, Hesiod, frg. 304, in Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, 11 (415c), see p. 80,
n.2.
I See p. 76-97.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX 395
the basis of a picture he had seen in Egypt. He also recounts, on the

authority of the priests of Heliopolis, that every five hundred years
the bird comes to Egypt from Arabia to bury its dead father, en-
cased in an egg of myrrh, in the temple of the sun at Heliopolis. 1
This report, by virtue of its great age and relative abundance of
detail, has been taken as the point of departure for all the discussions
of the development of the phoenix myth.
The comic poet Antiphanes (fourth century B.C.) also, according
to a fragment of his Half-Brothers preserved in Athenaeus, connect-
ed the phoenix with Heliopolis. In an enumeration of birds charac-
teristic for certain cities, he says: 'In Heliopolis, it is said, there are
phoenixes".2 There is no reason to doubt that here, as in Herodotus,
Heliopolis in Egypt is meant. 3
A highly detailed description of the phoenix is found in Exodus,
a play by the Hellenistic Jew Ezekiel the Dramatist (second century
B.C.).4 In addition to the description of the bird's external ap-
pearance, Ezekiel also remarks on its beautiful song and the fact
that it is unmistakably the king of the birds. 6
Of the authors mentioned so far, only Hecataeus-Herodotus refer
to the death of the phoenix, but they too make no mention of its
unusual genesis. The first report of the latter dates from the first
century B.c. According to Diogenes Laertius, the sceptic Aeneside-
mus, in his Pyrrhonea, mentioned the phoenix, together with "fire
animals" (salamanders?) and maggots, as an example of animals
which reproduce themselves asexually.6 He does not say how this
occurs, but it is striking that he mentions the phoenix between two
species of which one was said to arise from fire and the other from
decomposing flesh. It is perhaps possible to deduce from this that
1 Herodotus, Il, 73; see p. 190-193.
I Antiphanes in Athenaeus, XIV, 655b.
8 Rusch, 416, interprets Heliopolis as an oriental city of the sun that cannot
be further localized. He also infers from this text that "ruhig von einer
Mehrheit von P. gesprochen wird", but see p. 358, n. 5.
6 Ezekiel the Dramatist, Exodus, 254-269, in Alexander Polyhistor-
Eusebius (see p. 394, n. 3) and in Pseudo-Eustathius, Comm. in Hexaem.,
(PG 18, 729C-d).
6 See p. 283, n. I, 193, n. 4.
• Aenesidemus in Diogenes Laertius, IX, 79: -rwv YIXP l:c/l(o)v -rIX (L&v X(o)p~
(Lt~£(o)~ ytv£a'&cxL, w~ -rIX mJpt~LCX KcxllJ 'APIX~LO~ cpOrVL~ Kcxl WACXt.
he knew one or both of the main versions of the phoenix myth.

The first coherent report on the genesis of the phoenix is given by
the Roman senator Manilius, as handed down by Pliny. According
to this account, after having lived 540 years in Arabia the phoenix
dies on a fragrant nest, after which a small worm emerges from its
bones and marrow and developes into a new phoenix, which then
brings the remains of the old phoenix to the city of the sun near
Panchaia. Manilius equates the lifespan of the phoenix with the
Great Year, which was supposed to have begun in 312 B.C.l
But an entirely different tradition was incorporated by Laevius
into his poem Pterygion phoenicis, a fragment of which is preserved
in Charisius. 2 There, the phoenix is a votary of Venus. We have
attempted to demonstrate that in this work Laevius adopted the
rather unfamiliar conception of the phoenix as the daily escort of
the sun. 3
The fragmentary character of the pre-Christian sources means
that great caution must be exercised before concluding that a new
development is involved each time an element of the phoenix myth
is mentioned for the first time. 4 Furthermore, we must not forget
that some authors mention only those aspects of the myth that they
considered useful for their argumentation. For Hesiod, Antiphanes,
and Aenesidemus, these were the long lifespan, the occurrence in
Heliopolis, and the asexual reproduction, respectively. There was no
reason for these authors to interrupt their discussion to discourse on
the phoenix myth, but it is also highly improbable that they did not
know more about the bird. It is exactly the allusive character of
their references to the phoenix that suggests that they felt they
could rely upon their readers' familiarity with the subject. The
amount of detail given by Ezekiel the Dramatist in his description
of the phoenix makes it likely, however, that he drew on a tradition
conveying much more information than he included.
With these considerations in mind, we shall now attempt to out-
1 Manilius in Pliny, X, 4-5; see p. 187, 189, and 103.

a Laevius in Charisius, AI's gf'amm., IV, 6.
8 See p. 268- 2 72 .
, This is repeatedly assumed by FitzpatIick, see below p. 405, n. I. and
p. 40 9, n. 4.
line the probable development of the phoenix myth. In doing so it

will of course be necessary to make frequent reference to conclusions
drawn from the foregoing analysis of the myth.
The Classical phoenix myth seems to have developed on the basis
of the widespread oriental conception of the bird of the sun. There
are several indications that this sun bird entered the Mycenaean
culture from the Semitic world, via Phoenicia, that it flourished
there, and that from there it spread throughout the Greek world,
where it took form in the Greek folk mythology as the phoenix. In
the Mycenaean world the pre-eminent sun bird was the griffin, which
we can be virtually certain was indicated by the name po-ni-ke,
CPOr:VL~, and whose iconography (bird type) is clearly dependent on
the Phoenician way of representing it. The name po-ni-ke can best
be explained as "the Phoenician bird", although the word itself is
probably to be traced to a Semitic word for purple. 1 There is no
reason to assume that a Phoenician or general Semitic name for the
bird of the sun underlies the Mycenaean-Greek denomination.
After the decline ofthe Mycenaean culture, the griffin disappeared
from the Greek world. Not until the middle of the eighth century
B.C., at the end of the geometric period in Greek art, does it appear
again on vases. 2 According to a scholiast on Aeschylus, Hesiod was
the first who was able to tell all kinds of wondrous things about the
griffins. 3 But it was only in the sixth century that more of the pecu-
liarities of this creature were reported, by Aristeas. 4 It is difficult
to escape the impression that the griffin made a fresh entry into the
Greek world during the century in which Hesiod lived, but at this
time under the name ypuljJ. If it is correct that in the Mycenaean
world the word po-ni-ke was used to denote the griffin, we can only
conclude that the conceptions belonging to this creature became
1See p. 64-65.
ICf. K. Ziegler, Greif, in Der kleine Pauly, n, 1967, 876, and A. Furt-
wangler, Gryps, in Roscher, Lexikon, I, 2, 1886-1890, 1758.
3 G. Dindorf, Aeschylus, Tragoediae superstites, Ill. Scholia Graeca,
Oxford, 1851 (reprint Hildesheim, 1962),29 (ad Prom., 8°3): 7tPWTOI; 'Halo8ol;
~TepcxT£uacxTo TOU~ ypli7tcx~.
, Aristeas, frg. 5 (= Herodotus, IV, 13) and frg. 7 (= Pausanias, I, 24,6),
cf, G. Kinkel, Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta, I, Lipsiae, 1877, 243-247.
modified to such an extent during the obscure Middle Ages of

Greece that the later Greeks took the term CPOLV~~ to indicate a quite
different animal. Even if we give due weight to the fact that we
know nothing at all about the Mycenaean ideas about the griffin,
we may still accept that between the po-ni-ke of the Mycenaeans and
the CPOLV~~ of Hesiod a development of appreciably greater pro-
portions took place than simply the linguistic development of a
word.
On these grounds, therefore, it must be considered probable that
the Classical phoenix myth is a purely Greek product, i.e. the Greek
variant of the mythical conception of the bird of the sun found in
various cultures of the Near, Middle and Far East,! This does not
mean, of course, that all the points of agreement between the de-
scriptions and myths of the individual sun birds should be consider-
ed the result of autonomous developments from a common basis.
There was no lack of awareness in Classical times of the relationship
between the phoenix and other birds of the sun such as the eagle,
griffin, benu, ziz, parodars, and still others. This indeed made it all
the easier to transfer characteristics of one of these birds to another.
But in the case of the phoenix this was rarely carried so far that the
result was no longer reconcilable with the existing Classical ideas.
The best example of these exceptional cases is found in the Greek
Apocalypse of Baruch, where the phoenix is described as the daily
escort of the sun and as protector of the human world, as well as
undergoing a daily renewal. In this description use is made of ideas
1 This also explains certain points of agreement between the phoenix, the
Chinese jeng-huang, and the Japanese hO-o, see p. 228 and p. 415. The
problem of these possible relationships is discussed by M. U. Hachisuka,
The identification of the Chinese Phoenix, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1924, 585-589, who says, p. 589: "In
conclusion I suggest that the name phoenix is misleading when applied to the
Chinese fabulous bird, which has associated with it no legend about self-burning".
This opinion is stated by M. P. J abouille, Le phoenix fabuleux de la Chine et
le faisan ocelle d'Aunam, in Bulletin des Amis de Vieux Hue, 16, 1929, 171-186.
See also J. C. Ferguson, Chinese Mythology, (The Mythology of all Races,
VIII), Boston, 1928, 98-100; W. H. Edmunds, Pointers and clues to the
subjects of Chinese and Japanese art, London, (1934). 133, 391-392; S. C.
Nott, Chinese culture in the arts, New York, 1947, 74 and pI. 55. A. Priest,
Phoenix in fact and fancy, in Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum 01 Art,
NS I, 1942-1943, 97-101.
concerning the Jewish sun bird ziz and the Persian cosmic cock
partJdars. 1 According to other texts, however, the tradition in
Pseudo-Baruch is related to the griffin or the eagle. 2
But the awareness of the mutual relationship between the various
birds of the sun normally led to borrowing that did not affect the
core of the Classical myth. Here, for instance, we may cite the de-
scription of the external appearance of the phoenix given by various
authors originating from or having lived for a long time in the
eastern part of the Mediterranean region. 3 In this connection we
have also traced a certain influence of the ancient Egyptian icono-
graphy of the benu. 4 The latter sun bird had already been identified
with the Greek phoenix by Hecataeus-Herodotus, and this culmina-
ted in Hellenistic and Roman times in complete fusion. We shall
discuss below the question of the extent to which this identification
had a direct influence on the development of the Classical phoenix
myth.
Although the earliest development of the phoenix myth remains
obscure, it nevertheless remains possible to demonstrate that certain
elements of the later conceptions were already assumed by Hesiod
or at least were known before Hecataeus-Herodotus.
Our discussion of Hesiod, frg. 304, has shown that this text can be
satisfactorily explained as a calculation of the last of four successive
world periods, together forming a Great Year of 360 Babylonian
sars each comprising 3,600 years, parallel cases of which are found
in Babylonia and India. 5 We concluded that this distinctly oriental
conception reached Greece, and thus became known to Hesiod, via
the same canals as the Hurrian-Hittite genealogy of the gods, i.e.
via Phoenicia and the Greek islands. 6 It does not seem impossible
that Mycenae played an intermediary role in this chain of trans-
mission.
We also reached the conclusion that the lifespan of the phoenix
in Hesiod, frg. 304, coincides with the duration of one month of the
1 See p. 261-268.
I See p. 272-28 1.
8 See p. 259-260.
, See p. 254.
6 See p. 90-95.
• See p. 110-112.
world period indicated in this text,! It seems strange at first that

here the bird of the sun is related to the duration of a month, be-
cause in this context a symbol of the moon would have seemed more
appropriate. In fact, it remains a problem just why Hesiod selected
the animals he names: the crow, the deer, the raven, and the phoe-
nix. As far as the phoenix is concerned, it may be assumed that no
special relationship between the bird and the month is involved here
but rather the idea that of all the animals this bird of the sun had
the longest lifespan. The only longer lifespan, according to Hesiod,
is that of the Nymphs, for whom the duration coincides with that of
life on earth in general, or ten world months. 2
In Hesiod the phoenix is the symbol of a cyclical event. There was
no difficulty in understanding the phoenix in this sense, because it
was considered to be closely related to the sun, whose unending
circular course determines the cycles of days, years, centuries, and
Great Years. The totallifespan of twelve phoenixes covers the du-
ration of the present world period. From this it follows that in
Hesiod a fixed lifespan and-in parallelism with the sun-a periodic
renewal, are already assumed. It is also possible that even in Hesiod's
time it was accepted that only one phoenix existed at a time; just
as the rising sun is the same sun that set the day before, it is the
same phoenix that dies in decrepitude and is reborn in youthful
vigour.
Therefore, there is good reason to surmise that the conception of
a single phoenix as the periodically self-renewing bird of the sun,
was known even before Hesiod. The symbolism of the phoenix ex-
pressed in Hesiod, frg. 304, persisted in several forms in the later
Greek world. We shall return to this point, but here, before going
into the development of the different versions of the death and re-
surrection of the bird, we wish to point to a final aspect of the myth
that may be assumed to have been known in Greece even before
Herodotus.
In Hesiod the lifespan of the phoenix is given as 972 generations
of 331 years each, which amounts to 32,400 years. We have seen
that still another version of the riddle of Hesiod was current, ac-
1 See p. 95. 97.
B See p. 94. 97.
cording to which the duration of a generation was 60 years and which

has therefore been called here the sexagesimal version. l Since this
period did not affect the final result of the calculation, the lifespan
of the crow, for instance, had to be put at five and that of the phoe-
nix at 540 generations of 60 years each. Under the influence of a
later view that in Hesiod's riddle the word generation actually
meant one year, 2 it could be said that the phoenix lived 972 or 540
years, according to the version followed. The former is implied by
Plutarch in the opinion that the Nymphs live 9,720 years; the latter
is found in Manilius. 3 This makes it highly likely that the 500 years
assigned to the phoenix in Herodotus represents a rounding off of
the 540 years in Manilius and thus ultimately goes back to the
sexagesimal version of Hesiod's riddle. In the same way it may be
surmised that the 1,000 years assigned by several authors to the
phoenix 4 represent a rounding off of the 972 one-year generations
of Hesiod's version. But here there may also have been an influence
of certain ideas concerning the periodization of metempsychosis. 5
These remarks take us directly to the consideration of the report
given by Herodotus on the phoenix, since this tells us that the 500-
year period of the sun bird goes back to information supplied by
Egyptian priests. It also brings us to the problem of the develop-
ment of the two main version of the Classical phoenix myth.
In the evaluation of Herodotus' remarks on the phoenix, no more
than superficial attention has been given to Porphyry's statement
that Herodotus took his description of this bird, like those of the
hippopotamus and the crocodile hunt, from the Periegesis by Heca-
taeus of Miletus. 6 The descriptions of the hippopotamus and the
phoenix clearly show that Herodotus included a number of data
whose accuracy he had not confirmed. Comparison of the two re-
ports reveals a common characteristic: the external appearance
proves to be determined to a high degree by the name of the animal
in question. Of the hippopotamus it is said, for instance, that it has
1 See p. 86-87.
I See p. 80.
a See p. 80 and p. 88.
, See p. 69, n. 6.
6 See p. 138 and below p. 418.
• See p. 394, n. I.
26
the nose, mane, and tail of the horse and makes the same sound. 1
These remarks cannot have been based on his own observations,
and seem obviously to have been suggested by the animal's name.
The same holds for the description of the phoenix. Herodotus says
that he has seen only a picture of this bird. If this representation
was correct-a condition he specifies explicitly-the phoenix has
gold and red feathers and resembles the eagle most closely in appear-
ance and size. 2 This description does not correspond in any respect
to that of the Egyptian benu, which was worshipped in Heliopolis,
for the latter was without exception represented as a bluish-grey
heron. 3 Despite the assurance to the contrary, it must be assumed
that the description of the phoenix in Herodotus was not after all
based on a representation of the benu but was derived from the name
and the character of the sun bird. The comparison with the eagle
was obvious, because from ancient times this bird, too, had been
considered a sun bird, a conception which persisted throughout
Classical times.' The indication of gold and red feathers for a bird
called CPO;:VL~ is hardly surprising; these are also the colours of the
rising sun.
The descriptions of the hippopotamus and the phoenix make it
very likely that Herodotus was not writing here on the basis of his
own observations but depended entirely on some source. No ob-
jection can be found to Porphyry's statement that on this point
Herodotus obtained his information from Hecataeus of Miletus. The
report of Hecataeus-Herodotus gives an impression of reliability
by the reference to a personally observed representation and the
citation of Egyptian priests, but for both the bird's external ap-
pearance and its soo-year lifespan no evidence or suggestions what-
ever are to be found in Egypt, whereas both are available in Greece
itself. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Herodotus is a very
dubious source for the Egyptian ideas about the phoenix. To take
his information as a basis for concluding that the Classical phoenix
1 Herodotus. II. 71: TE't"PCX,tOUV ~a't"l. 3lJ(1jAOV. 07tACXL (306~. aL!L6v. AOtpLljV
!J(ov 17t7tou, J(CXUAL63ov't"cx~ tpCXLVOV, oupljv f7t7tou KCXL tpCJ)v~v, !LEyCX.&O~ c'laov 't"E (3ou~
o !LEYLa't"o~.
a See p. 251. 253.
a See p. 15. and pI. I.
, See Th. Schneider, Adler, in RAC, I, 1950, 89-90.
myth had an Egyptian origin, is to choose very shaky grounds in-

deed.
But it is nevertheless undeniable that Hecataeus recognized the
Classical phoenix in the benu of Heliopolis. Research done by Egypt-
ologists has made it quite clear that this identification must have
depended mainly on the agreement between the names. The word
bnw or bjn-w was pronounced *boin( e), which makes it understand-
able that Hecataeus thought that it was the Greek CPO~VL~ that was
worshipped in Heliopolis. 1 There may, however, have been another
reason for Hecataeus to equate the benu with the phoenix. We have
seen in connection with the discussion of the Egyptian ideas con-
cerning the benu that the conception of the dying and reviving sun
bird was not unknown in Egypt, although the sources on this point
are rather scarce. The texts refer to the embalmed body of the benu
kept in Heliopolis and worshipped there. 2 If Hecataeus knew the
conception that the phoenix arises from its dead father and pays
his remains the last honours in the temple of the sun, he could have
concluded from reports about the embalmed body of the benu that
the temple of the sun to which the phoenix travelled must have been
the temple at the Egyptian Heliopolis. If this is correct, it must have
been due to Hecataeus-Herodotus that the flight to Heliopolis
came to be incorporated into the phoenix myth. 3
In the discussion of the two main versions of the phoenix myth
we have seen that in one form of the version in which the phoenix
is consumed by fire, the journey to Heliopolis and the resulting
1 See p. 21-22.
2 See p. 18-20.
3 Rusch, 416-418, too thinks that the Egyptian Heliopolis first entered
the phoenix myth via Hecataeus. It should be pointed out here that Rusch's
references to the most important phoenix passages are often unreliable and
must always be checked. He says, for instance, that Lactantius and Claudian
(see p. 225, n. 2 and n. 4) and Epiphanius, Ancoratus, 84, 3, do not assume
any connection with Egypt whatever, although these are just among the
authors who did so explicitly. Statius, Silvae, Ill, 2, 114 too (see below,
p. 410) assumes a connection with Egypt, but Rusch says the contrary.
Antiphanes (see p. 395, n. 2) and Ovid, Metam., XV, 406 (Hyperionis urbe)
may very well also have had Heliopolis in mind. Walla, 52 considers the
connection with Heliopolis as one of the oldest elements of the myth, taken
from Egyptian ideas about the benu; she thinks that Heliopolis .. Ursprung
und Ausgangspunkt del" Legende vom Vogel PhOnix darsteUt".
connection between the phoenix and Egypt does not occur at all. 1
That this connection was not considered indispensable is also evident
from the oldest report concerning the genesis from the dead pre-
decessor, which is given by Manilius. According to this author, the
phoenix dies on a fragrant nest after having lived S40-years, and
from its bones and marrow a worm arises which rapidly becomes a
young and then an adult bird. The first act of the new phoenix is
to carry the entire nest with its contents to the city of the sun near
Panchaia, where it places its burden on the altar.2 There is no in-
dication in Manilius of a special connection between the phoenix and
Heliopolis in Egypt. We have already pointed out that the S40-year
lifespan of the phoenix given by Manilius reflects a purer tradition
than the soo-year version of Herodotus, and it seems very likely
that Manilius' entire report is much closer to the original version
than that of Hecataeus-Herodotus.
Herodotus does not mention the death and resurrection of the
phoenix, but goes into detail about the flight of the young bird with
its dead father to the city of the sun. He says that he has serious
doubts about the information supplied by the Egyptians,3 but there
is no indication that he questioned the flight of the phoenix in itself.
This story, however, implies the prior death of the old phoenix and
the resurrection of the new one. It is conceivable that Hecataeus
knew a tradition concerning the phoenix that agreed closely in
many ways with the report given by Manilius. According to this
latter tradition, the young bird carried its dead father in the nest
made of fragrant materials to the city of the sun, and this would
explain why Hecataeus-Herodotus rejected the story of the trans-
portation of the old phoenix in an egg of myrrh and the trial flights
leading up to it. It is possible that this was only a less well known
version than that given by Manilius, but it is also conceivable that
here Hecataeus drew on Egyptian traditions about the benu which
he did not entirely understand and which we can no longer recon-
struct.
1 See p. 147.
2 See p. 189.
a Herodotus, 11, 73: "01)"011 8E AeyOUaL ILll)(cxlliia&cxL "ti8e:, ~ILol ILEII ou l'tLa,,«
A€yollnc;.
Because Herodotus does not mention the death and resurrection

of the phoenix it has often been assumed that nothing was known
about them in his time. 1 This assumption seems to be confirmed by
Achilles Tatius, Artemidorus, Celsus, and Aelian, who say nothing
about an unusual genesis of the phoenix although they mention the
journey of the young bird with its dead father. Achilles Tatius and
Celsus, like Herodotus, say that the remains were transported in a
ball of myrrh, whereas Artemidorus and Aelian say nothing about
how this occurred. 2 Here, however, we must keep in mind the point
made at the beginning of this chapter, i.e. that it is essential to
weigh the context in which a writer refers to the phoenix.
Artemidorus recounts that a manl painted a picture of the phoe-
nix in a dream, and then goes into what this might have meant.
An Egyptian had told him that the man who had this dream was
later compelled to carry his dead father to the graveyard on his own
shoulders; this could have been the meaning of the dream, because
"the phoenix too buries his own father".3 Since this is the only point
required for comparison, the rest of the phoenix myth is in this
context irrelevant. The fact that Artemidorus gives no further de-
tails on this point certainly need not be taken to imply that he did
not know the story of the genesis of the phoenix from its dead father.
Indeed, he immediately goes on to recount the version of the burn-
ing.
Celsus, according to Origen, drew attention to the piety of
brute animals-which man could take as an example-and cited the
1 C/. Fitzpatrick, 22: "Pliny makes some 0/ the most drastic changes in the
legend ... Here again we have a new step in the development 0/ the story, /or
never be/ore has any author narrated a miraculous birth 0/ the ol/spring 0/ the
phoenix /rom the remains 0/ the parent" Sbordone, La /enice, 5-6, saw the
oldest version of the myth in a tradition according to which the bird goes
to Heliopolis periodically, without any recognition of an unusual genesis.
This oldest version is supposed to be indicated by Herodotus, Achilles
Tatius, Origen, and Aelian, but see below. According to this view, it was
on this basis that the version of the genesis from the dead predecessor
(6-11) and ofthe burning (12-20) originated. Walla, 62-65, adopted Sbordone's
view with slight modifications. Rusch, 420-421, also thought that borth
principal versions began their development after the connection with
Heliopolis was established.
2 See p. 190 - 193.
8 Artemidorus, Onirocritica, IV, 47; see p. 15I.
phoenix which buries its dead father in a ball of myrrh in the temple
of the sun. l The moralist Aelian expresses surprise that the phoe-
nix knows exactly when the 500 years of its life have been completed
and where it must find the distant city of Helipolis to bury its father.
He considered this wisdom to be more astonishing than the political
activites and martial exploits of man. 2 As for Artemidorus, it is en-
tirely logical that these writers mention only the flight to Egypt. In
the context of their discussions that is the only relevant point, but
this in no sense implies that they knew nothing about the unusual
way in which the phoenix came to life.
For Achilles Tatius, too, the omission of the death and resurrec-
tion of the phoenix can be explained. In referring to an appearance
of the phoenix in Heliopolis, he says that the bird comes from
Ethiopia with its dead father, describes how it looks, and then goes
into great detail about what occurs during its short stay in Helio-
polis. 3 All this he puts in the mouth of an Egyptian, and the story
is told entirely from the Egyptian point of view: there is a consistent
omission of the events in the bird's life taking place outside Egypt
and thus escaping the observation of the Egyptians. Since Achilles
Tatius deliberately limited his report to what could be observed in
Egypt itself, there is no reason to assume that he knew nothing
about how the young phoenix came into being.
It is striking that in Herodotus, too, all the information about the
phoenix is told from the Egyptian point of view: the bird is described
on the basis of a picture to be seen in Heliopolis, and for the other
details reference is made to reports by priests of Heliopolis. The
latter are supposed to have claimed that the young phoenix makes
trial flights with an egg made of myrrh, after which it hollows out
the egg, places its father in the cavity, seals up the opening, and
departs with its burden for Heliopolis. 4 Herodotus found this story
difficult to believe. But there is no reason whatever to assume that
neither Hecataeus nor Herodotus knew nothing more than this about
the phoenix. Herodotus rather gives the impression of conveying
1 Celsus, in Origen, Cont'Ya Celsum, IV, 98; see p. 191, n. 3.

B Aelian, VI, 58; see p. 194.
8 Achilles Tatius, Ill, 24-25; see p. 235 and p. 195.
, Herodotus, 11, 73; see p. 190.
only the "Egyptian" tradition about the flight of the phoenix just
because it diverged so strikingly at this point from the version
current in his time. It is also possible that Hecataeus said something
about the resurrection of the phoenix but that this was omitted by
Herodotus because it was so well known generally. Porphyry in-
deed says that Herodotus gave an abbreviated version of Heca-
teus. 1
On the basis of the foregoing we may conclude that it is highly
probable that in the tradition transmitted by Herodotus, too, the
genesis of the young phoenix from the decomposing body of its pre-
decessor is implied. This form of genesis, which is found first in
Manilius, in any case forms an organic whole with the subsequent
flight of the young bird with the remains of its father to the city
of the sun. 2 The discrepancies between Herodotus and Manilius are
explained best by assuming that the version of Manilius is the origi-
nal one. On the basis of the similarity between the names of the benu
and the phoenix and because of the stories of the embalmed body of
the benu in Heliopolis, Hecataeus must have concluded that the
temple of the sun mentioned in the tradition known to him was
located in that city. The transportation of the dead phoenix in its
fragrant nest recounted by Manilius also seems more coherent than
the story Herodotus reported but considered rather dubious, that
the young bird carries its dead father to Heliopolis enclosed in an
egg made myrrh. If the latter tradition indeed arose under Egyptian
1 See p. 394, n. I.
a Although Hubaux and Leroy (160-161) show that they had noticed the
divergence between the two principal versions, they gave too little weight
to the nature of the differences; because they assumed (145) that the
Heliopolitan priests would certainly have told Hecataeus that at sunrise
each morning the benu "ressuscitait entour6 des /lammes et d'aromates" they
considered it "une aporie des plus graves" that Herodotus omitted or forgot
the episode of the burning. They failed to realize that in the fire version
there is no logical reason for the transportation of the dead phoenix to
Heliopolis. They put forward (144-145) the "h'Ypoth~se inverifiable" that Soli-
nus borrowed his version, which deviates from Pliny (see p. 156 here), from
Manilius, to whose work he was referred by Pliny himself, "a/in de pouvoir
combler les lacunes qu'il constatait chez le Naturaliste". But Pliny's version
(= Manilius) shows no lacunae; it relates the genesis of the young phoenix
from the decaying remains of the old phoenix in detail, and there is no
possible way to reconcile this with the version of the burning.
influences, it is probable that it implied the assumption that the

embalmed body of the old phoenix was preserved in this state.
Herodotus does not mention the altar on which the young phoenix
placed its burden or say anything about the cremation of the re-
mains of the old phoenix. The later writers who followed his version
with the ball of myrrh, do, however, mention the burning of the
remains. 1 It is possible that this is a secondary element, borrowed
from the version in which the remains are carried in the fragrant
nest to the altar in the city of the sun, of which the cremation is the
logical consequence.
The oldest report of the genesis of the young phoenix from the
old one, in Manilius, already mentions a worm from which the young
phoenix develops. It is no longer possible to determine whether this
element was present from the beginning in this version or was added
later. Whatever the case may be, the intermediate stage of the worm
may have been considered obvious because the genesis of maggots
in decomposing meat was thought to be a form of self-creation. 2 It
is conceivable, too, that the worm represents a rationalizing element
introduced to make the re-appearance of the phoenix more reason-
able. 3 It seems likely that Aenesidemus also knew the tradition with
the worm, since he mentions the phoenix together with the "fire
animals" and the maggots, as animals that reproduce asexually. 4
Thus, he associated the phoenix with a spontaneous revival from
fire or decaying flesh, and perhaps even with both. This brings us to
the problem of the origin and the development of the cremation
version, which was and still is the best known of the traditions.
1 Pomp. Mela. Ill. 84; Tacitus. Ann .• VI. 28; see p. 196. Rusch. 419.
tells us that this also happens in i.a. Artemidorus and Claudian. Arte-
midorus. however. only mentions in this connection the burial of the old
phoenix (KCXTCXlM7t't£L); he mentions the burning of the phoenix solely in
connection with the other principal version. see p. 15I. Claudian is a badly
chosen example. since he follows the version of the cremation and only in the
end adds. under influence of the other version. the flight to Egypt and the
(second) burning of the remains of the old phoenix. (see p. 226). Claudian's
combination of both versions is rightly mentioned separately by Rusch. 421.
while he. less correctly. refers to Pomp. Mela (but not Tacitus) as another
example of such a connection.
S See p. 187.
8 Thus Rusch. 42 I.
, See p. 395. n. 6.
It is usually assumed that the burning of the phoenix and its

resurrection from its own ashes is a rather late development of the
myth. This view is based on the argument that the first indications
of this version are found in a number of authors who wrote in Latin
in the first century A.D.l But here too, the general remarks on the
dating and nature of our sources given at the beginning of this
chapter, will hold. To elucidate this point we must re-examine the
first mentions of this version.
For some authors it is not clear just which version they had in
mind, because they refer only to the ashes of the phoenix. Lucan
lists a number of magical things used by the Thessalian sorceress
Eryctho to bring a dead person back to life: dragon's eyes, stones
which rattle being warmed under a brooding bird, the flying
serpent of Arabia, the viper born near the Red Sea that guards the
precious pearl-shell, the skin shed by the horned serpent of Lybia,
and the ashes of the phoenix lying on an Eastern altar. 2 It is im-
possible to determine whether Lucan had in mind here the ashes
of the phoenix which settles on the altar and is consumed by fire or
the ashes of the old one brought to the altar for burning by the young
phoenix. The same difficulty is raised by Pliny's report of medicines
made from the ashes and the nest of the phoenix. 3
The resurrection brought about by fire is unmistakably meant by
Martial and Statius. In an epigram the former compares the glorious
rebuilding of Rome after a fire with the renewal of the phoenix: just
as fire renews the Assyrian nests each time one bird has lived ten
centuries, so in the same way has the new Rome put aside its old
age and itself taken on the likeness of its ruler." Statius expresses
1 Cf. e.g. Fitzpatrick, 24 and 26; see also n. 4 here; Sbordone, La /enice,
12-15, Walla, 65.
t Lucan, VI, 680: aut cinis eoa positi phoenicis in ara.
8 Pliny, XXIX, 29: ex cinere phoenicis nidoque medicinis. Turk, 3459,
considers it possible that Lucan and Pliny did not have in mind the
self-burning of the phoenix but the burning of the remains of the old phoenix.
, Martial, Epigram., V, 7, 1-4: Qualiter Assyrios renovant incendia nidos, /
una decem quotiens saecula vixit avis, / taliter exuta est veterem nova Roma
senectam / et sumpsit vultus praesidis ipsa sui. Fitzpatrick, 24, says "But in
the brief notices of Martial we find the most violent changes in the legend";
on p. 25 she calls the rising of the phoenix from its ashes, as told in the
Greek Physiologus, 7, "a feature probably borrowed from Martial". The
the wish that Isis will solve many riddles of Egypt for Maecius
Celer, including why ordinary animals can equal powerful gods and
what kind of altars the long-lived phoenix prepares for itself.l The
altar prepared by the phoenix is found only in the cremation version
of the myth, so that Statius must have had this version in mind. In
another place he compares the burning of the parrot of Atedius
Melior with that of the phoenix: Atedius' beloved bird is not sent
without honours to the world of shades but rather with Assyrian
amomum, Arabian herbs, and Sicilian saffron, and therefore mounts
the fragrant pyre like a happier phoenix, not suffering the ills of old
age. 2 Despite the comparison drawn by Statius between the cre-
mation of the dead parrot with that of the phoenix, his choice of
words clearly shows that he had in mind the burning of the still
living phoenix tormented by senile weakness; the point of com-
parison is the costly fragrant pyre they both "mount" rather than
that both birds are consumed by fire after death.
The cremation and subsequent resurrection are not described in
detail by either Martial or Statius. Only Martial unmistakably im-
plies that the phoenix is rejuvenated by the fire. But this of course
does not mean that they did not know anything else about the bird.
They made only a passing reference to a particular element of the
myth because that element was relevant to their subject. In the
case of Lucan and Pliny this was the magic and medicinal power
of the phoenix's ashes, for Martial it was the renewal by fire, and for
Statius the mysterious aspect of the burning and subsequent revival
and, in the second text to which we have referred, the fragrant pyre.
In all these passages the phoenix is not the main subject, and is only
mentioned in connection with that subject. Even if Lucan and
Pliny did not actually have the cremation version in mind, the evi-
dence provided by Martial and Statius proves that this version was
so generally known that an allusion to it could be considered suf-
view that Martial offered new material is also argued against by Hubaux
and Leroy, 190.
1 Statius, Silvae, Ill, 2, 114: quae sibi p,aeste,nat vivax alta,ia phoenix.
B Statius, Silvae, 11, 4, 33-37: at non inglo,ius umb,is / mittitu,: Assy,io
eine,es adolentu, amomo / et tenues A ,abum ,espi,ant g,amine plumae /
Sieaniisque Cl'oeis. Senio nee tessus ine,ti / seandet odo,atos Phoenix telieiOl'
ignes. For the burning of birds, see Hubaux and Leroy, 77, n. 2.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX 4II
fident. There is nothing suggesting that they were aware that they
were following a recent and entirely new development in the Classi-
cal conceptions concerning the phoenix. 1
From all this we may certainly draw the conclusion that the
version of the cremation must also have been known in pre-Christian
times. This also seems to be indicated by the mention of the phoenix
in Aenesidemus. 2 If, in addition, we give due weight to the character
of the pre-Christian sources on the phoenix, it becomes difficult to
defend the view that the cremation version is a rather late develop-
ment of the phoenix myth. Indeed, the other version too is first
encountered in reports dating from the first century B.C., but we
have considered it probable that this same version is implied by
Herodotus. We can only observe that we are confronted as early as
the first century A.D. with the entire complexity of the phoenix
myth. 3
1 That the cremation version was commonly known in the first century
A.D. is also shown by a variant of the legend of Caeneus, which is found
only in avid. According to Metam., XII, 524-531, Mopsus saw flying up from
Caeneus' funeral pyre a bird with yellow feathers he had never seen before
or ever saw again. He called out to it (530-531): "0 salve", dixit, "Lapitheae
glO1'ia gentis, / maxime vir quondam, sed nunc avis unica, Caeneu", The avis
unica is the phoenix, see p. 357. It seems certain that here avid had the
phoenix in mind; it is doubtful that he obtained his version from older
sources, and it was probably his own idea. M. Delcourt, La legende de Kaineus,
in RHR, 144, 1953, 129-150 concluded, on the basis of avid's version and
e.g. because according to Virgil, Aen., VI, 488, the original female sex was
restored to Caeneus in the underworld, that there was originally a very
close relationship between the myths of the phoenix and of Caeneus. If Del-
court is correct, the version of the burning of the phoenix must be very
old. Hubaux and Leroy, 239-250, have pointed out that the idea that at the
consecration of an emperor an eagle flies heavenward from the pyre, is
influenced by the phoenix. The reverse, i.e. that the version of the burning
originated from the apotheosis of an emperor (as suggested by M. P. Nilsson
in his review of Hubaux and Leroy's study in Gnomon, 19, 1941,215) cannot
be accepted in the light of the foregoing. Reference must also be made in
this connection to the birds which, according to avid, Metam, XIII, 599-608,
took their genesis from the aggregating ashes of Memnon's funeral pyre.
Here, the version of the burning of the phoenix may have played a role.
For the rest, the differences between the phoenix and the Memnon birds
are so great that a closer connection between the two myths may be consider-
ed as excluded.
I See p. 395, n. 6.
8 Cf. also TUrk, 3458: "Was alter ist, liisst sich aus der fruheren oder spateren
()berlieferung nicht entscheiden".
4I2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX
Which of the two versions is the oldest cannot be determined with

certainty from the sources presently available. On this point we can
only reach more or less well founded assumptions. With this proviso,
we wish to put forward the suggestion that the fire version must be
considered the earlier. The basic element of the whole myth is that
the phoenix is a bird of the sun. As early as Hesiod, its life was con-
sidered to coincide with a cyclical world period determined by the
sun. It seems quite possible that the connection between the phoenix
and self-renewing time gave rise to the idea of its periodic revival
from death. It is clear that the version of the burning is more con-
sistent with a sun bird than the version of the genesis from the
decaying body of a predecessor. In the version of the cremation the
relationship with the sun in the entire process of death and resur-
rection is implied throughout, whereas in the other version it reaches
expression only in the final phase, when the young phoenix brings
its dead father to the city of the sun. 1
The question arises at this point whether there could have been a
particular reason for the introduction of the genesis from the father's
remains, which in simple fact seems so much less consistent with the
bird of the sun. In view of the great symbolic significance attached
to the phoenix from ancient times, it seems obvious that this reason
must be sought in a particular symbolism. It was at an early date
that the phoenix became a symbol of life after death and of revivi-
fication. We have tried to show that among the Orphic-Pythagoreans
the symbolism of the periodic renewal of time was transformed into
the symbolism of the periodic renewal of life. We shall return to
some aspects of the latter symbolism. The point here is that it is
quite possible that it was under the influence of the conception of the
phoenix as a symbol of the soul and the renewal of life after death
that the version of the genesis of the bird from the remains of its
father arose. The Pythagoreans were opposed to cremation because
they did not wish something mortal to receive a share of the divine
1 Walla, 86, is of the opinion that the fire version evolved from the motif
of the burning of the nest with the remains of the old phoenix on the altar
of the sun in Heliopolis. She has correctly seen that this motif is the only
point on which a derivation of the fire version from the other principal
version could be argued, but the improbability seems evident.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX 4I3
(i.e. fire).l Since they held this view, they might well have pre-
ferred to fortify their particular symbolism of the phoenix by dis-
carding its cremation; but in the present state of our knowledge we
cannot reach certainty on this point.
Both the main versions contain the common element that before
its death the phoenix makes a fragrant nest or funeral pyre. The
relationship between this bird and aromatics is determined by sever-
al factors. The phoenix was thought to live in regions from which
scented materials originated (Arabia, Ethiopia, India).2 Further-
more, it was closely associated with the abode of the blessed, in
both its Classical and Judaeo-Christian forms, which was also charac-
terized by aromatic scents. 3 With respect to the death and resur-
rection of the phoenix, we have found that these aromatic materials
must be seen pre-eminently against the background of Classical
funeral customs, which often involved the use of large quantities of
fragrant herbs and other scented materials." This last element is
most clearly expressed by Lactantius: the bird strews itself with
aromatics so that it can die at its own funeral.5 In this context the
aromatic scents symbolize the life that triumphs over death.
The existence of two different traditions concerning the death and
resurrection of the phoenix had the inevitable consequence that
elements were shifted from one version to the other. For instance,
according to a number of texts the burning of the phoenix occurs in
Heliopolis in Egypt. 8 That the connection with Egypt in this version
was not considered as an indispensable element is shown by the
tradition that the phoenix lives in India and is renewed there by
cremation. 7 The most logical explanation is still that the flight to
1 Cf. Jamblichus. De Vita Pythag01'ica, 154: KCXTCXKIXELV 8& OUK dcx TcXO"OOfLCXTCX
TWV TEAEUTllO"IXVTWV. fLIXYOLC; a.KOAOU,&WC;. fL718e:voC; TWV .&Elwv TO '&V71TOV fLETCXACXfL-
~IXVELV £.&EAijO"CXC;. As J amblichus himself mentions. this was an opinion of the
Hellenized magi. cf. J. Bidez and F. Cumont. Les mages hellenises, Paris, 1938
74f£., and Sotion in Diogenes Laertius, I, 7: Kcxl a.V60"LOV ~YELO".&CXL Ttupl'&IXTt-
TELV. cf. Bidez-Cumont 11, 67).
I See p. 305-307.
8 See e.g. p. 172.
, See p. 169.
6 Lactantius, vss.91 -92; see p. 170-171.
8 See p. 150, n. 2 and 3.
7 See p. 147-150.
Egypt and the cremation in Heliopolis did not belong to this version
originally but were borrowed from the other version. 1 The same
holds for the worm, which according to some authors arose from the
ashes of the cremated phoenix and then in turn gave rise to the
new phoenix. As early an author as Epiphanius found this concep-
tion so illogical that he made the burning of the phoenix only partial,
which permitted the worm to arise from the remaining part of its
body.2 It is not necessary to recapitulate here all the similar cases of
borrowing already discussed for the two main versions of the myth. 3
The clearest example is found in Lactantius, who has the bird die a
natural death and the body burn on its nest, after which the new
phoenix develops like a butterfly via a larva (the worm!) and cocoon,
and then carries the ashes of its predecessor to Egypt. 4
As the bird of the sun, the phoenix must have been considered
from an early date to symbolize self-renewing time. We have assum-
ed that it was on this basis that the idea of its periodic renewal
developed. Whether or not this is correct, it is in any case certain
that almost all of the other elements of the phoenix myth were
determined to a high degree by symbolism. This holds in the very
first place for the reports of the appearances of the bird in the world
of man.
Even in Hesiod the bird was already a symbolic indication of a
cyclical world period equal, according to our interpretation, to one
month of the world year. We have attempted to demonstrate that
Berossus of Babylon still knew this conception of the Great Year
and that it was on this basis that he had the beginning of the Se-
leucid dynasty mark the beginning of a new world period. 5 Manilius
1 Sbordone, La feniee, 12-15, too, sees the burning in some other place
than Egypt as the oldest form of this version (although he incorrectly
calls Dionysius "il solo serittore ehe loealizzi deeisamente la feniee presso
gl'Indiani"; see p. 147, n. I). He sees the self-burning of the phoenix in
Heliopolis (15-20) as the "ultimafase delta nostra leggenda".
a Epiphanius, Aneoratus, 84; see p. 212. Epiphanius has the worm develop
to a mature phoenix in three days. This motif was first introduced into the
phoenix myth in the Greek Physiologus, 7, to make the bird more suitable
as a symbol of Christ, see p. 214-215.
3 See p. 194, 197, 225-226.
, See p. 210, 217-219.
5 See p. 91.
too unmistakably represents this tradition based on Hesiod's riddle:

he has the phoenix live 540 years (sexagesimal version) and puts its
most recent appearance in 312 B.C., when Seleucus I finally made
himself master of Babylonia. 1 Manilius also says that the lifespan of
the phoenix coincides with the duration of an entire Great Year,
although in Hesiod's riddle the bird lives only one world month.
This is a development that must be considered unavoidable. 2 In the
first place, it was an obvious step to relate the self-renewing bird
of the sun with the cycle of the Great Year whose beginning and end
mark the beginning and end of the world. In the second place, the
original mythical conception of the exceedingly long Great Year
underwent a development allowing the indication of much shorter,
precisely computable periods as Great Years too. 3 And in the third
place, from the earliest times the appearance of a new ruler and of a
new era were considered to mark the recurrence of the Golden Age,
a return to the fortunate circumstances prevailing at the beginning of
the Great Year. These ideas became closely associated with the sym-
bolism of the phoenix, as illustrated by the case of the appearance of
phoenix under Seleucus I. Almost all of the appearances of the phoe-
nix mentioned in the Classical and Early Christian literature are
determined by this complex of ideas. 4 The main accent consistently
falls on the symbolism of the phoenix as inaugurator of a new era;
the appearance at the beginning of the rule of a new king or em-
peror is a derivative aspect of this symbolism, even though it
sometimes seems to occur almost independently.
A good example of the linking of the phoenix with a computable,
astronomical Great Year is provided by the reported appearance of
1 Manilius in Pliny, X, 5; see p. 103. Rusch, 420, also appears not to have
read this text correctly; he understood from it that the phoenix had appeared
in 97 B.C., whereas Manilius actually says that that was the year in which
he wrote and that the phoenix had appeared 215 years before that.
2 See p. 105.
a See p. 75-76.
, It is remarkable that the same ideas were held in China with respect to
the bird jeng-huang, see p. 228, n. 5 and the work of Edmunds (cited on
p. 398, n. I), 391-392: this is a bird "whose appearance on earth is regarded
as an auspicious sign heralding the advent oj a great and glorious ruler, or
bringing benediction upon his reign".
4I6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX
the bird at the beginning of the Egyptian Sothic period. 1 There are
good grounds on which to conclude that this link was first establish-
ed under Ptolemy III Euergetes, in support of the calendar reform
introduced by the Decree of Canopus (238 B.C.). This makes it
possible to explain Tacitus' report that the phoenix appeared under
Ptolemy liP We have assumed that the appearance of the phoenix
under the Egyptian king Sesosis, which is also mentioned by Tacitus,
must be explained on the basis of the contemporary opposition to the
calendar of Canopus. 3 It is obvious that in these cases, as in its
iconography,4 the phoenix was identified with the Egyptian benu.
After Hecataeus-Herodotus this identification certainly persisted,
and it is understandable that the Greek rulers of Egypt attempted
to lend authority to the introduction of a new era by announcing
an appearance of the phoenix. But in ancient Egypt the benu was
never a symbol of the Sothic period. 6 The tradition transmitted by
Tzetzes that according to Chaeremon the phoenix lives 7,006 years,
must go back to a quite different but no longer traceable calculation
of the Great Year.6
The appearance of the phoenix always indicates an important
turn in world history. We have concluded that the appearance, re-
ported by Tacitus, at the time of Amasis, the last great Egyptian
King, was meant to emphasize the end of Egyptian independence
and the beginning of the Persian rule.' It may be supposed that this
appearance of the phoenix was first introduced in later times, when
the historical distance had become great enough to permit the con-
clusion that the rule of Amasis had indeed marked the end of a great
period in the history of Egypt. The same conception is found in the
tradition that the death of Tiberius, and with it the beginning of a
new era, was announced by an appearance of the phoenix in Egypt. 8
1 See p. 70 -7 2 .
I Tacitus, Ann., VI, 28; see p. 106.
3 See p. 107-108.
, See p. 242-243, and 254.
6 See p. 22, 29, and p. 29-32, for the views of Sbordone, Rusch, Hubaux
and Leroy, Walla, and others.
• Chaeremon, in Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 395-398; see p. 109.
7 See p. 108-109.
S See texts on p. II3-II5.
When Emperor Claudius exhibited a so-called phoenix at the Forum

during the celebration of the 800th anniversary of Rome, this was
not done on the basis of a tradition that the bird appeared every
hundred years. This exhibition, which was not taken very seriously
by Claudius' contemporaries, was meant to support the idea that
the beginning of the new century introduced an entirely new era
that would be characterized, under the salutary leadership of the
emperor, by the joy of the Golden Age. 1 The same notion led various
emperors to issue coins with such legends as Saeculum A ureum,
Atcdv, Aeternitas, and Felicium Temporum Reparatio. 2 For the Atcdv
coins of Antoninus Pius, furthermore, it was also important that
the beginning of the new emperor's rule roughly coincided with the
renewal of the Sothic period in A.D. 139.3
In this connection mention must also be made of the conception
that at its appearance the phoenix is accompanied by a reverential
escort of many kinds of other birds. " It was of course very important
here that the phoenix was considered to be the king of the birds. 6
On the other hand, however, the agreement on this point with the
panegyrics on new rulers is so striking that it must be assumed that
this aspect of the phoenix myth too was influenced by the symbolism
of the bird. 6
The above-mentioned conceptions concerning the beginning of a
new era were also related to the founding of Constantinople. John
of Salisbury reports that this important event was supposed to have
been marked by an appearance of the phoenix. 7
The Classical symbolism of the phoenix discussed so far also found
application among Jews and Christians. The Egyptian Jews whose
spiritual centre was located in the temple at Leontopolis considered
the founding of this temple to be not an unlawful break with the
Jerusalem-oriented cultic tradition of the Jewish people but rather
the fulfilment of God's will. Consequently, they held that at the con-
1 See p. 115-116.
2 See pI. VI. 3. 8, 9; VII, 9; VIII, 1-9.
8 See p. 105.
, See p. 179. 193, 227-228.
5 See p. 193.
• See p. 228-229.
7 John of Salisbury. PoliCf'aticus, I, 13; see p. 117.
secration of their temple the phoenix had appeared as an indication

that a completely new phase of the Jewish religion had begun.! In
the Coptic Sermon on Mal'y appearances of the phoenix play an
important role in a Christian conception of the history of salvation.
The bird acts as the inaugurator of the three eras ante legem, sub
lege, and post legem or sub gratia, starting with Abel, Moses, and
Christ, respectively. 2
Not only the reports concerning the appearances of the phoenix
but also the various traditions pertaining to its abode, its food, and
its sex are to a great extent determined by its symbolism. One of the
main factors lnvolved here is the conception of the phoenix as
symbol of the soul and of the life after death. We have attempted to
demonstrate that even before the time of Plato, Hesiod's riddle was
applied by Orphic-Pythagoreans for the periodization of metem-
psychosis and that this resulted in the phoenix becoming a symbol
of the souP According to Plato, the soul usually had to pass through
ten periods of 1,000 years each before it could escape the wheel of
birth.' This could easily have resulted from the assumption for the
soul of the same number of periods as had to be accepted for life in
general on the basis of Hesiod's riddle. But in the former case the
periods of the soul were expressed not in generations but in years. 6
The phoenix would thus indicate one period of the soul: 972 years
according to Hesiod or 1,080 years according to the computation
of the riddle in Heraclitean generations of 30 years each. In the for-
mer case the bird indicates the duration of the peregrination of the
soul between two earthly existences, in the latter not only this pere-
grination but also the preceding earthly life of ro8 years. 8 We have
supposed that both these figures (972 and 1,080) were rounded off to
1,000 years. This would explain Plato's uncertainty with respect to
the question of whether the earthly life must be included in the 1,000
1See p. 117-11 9.
I See p. 119- 1 30 .
8 See p. 132- 145.
, Plato, Phaedrus 248e-249b; see p. 134.
6 See p. 136.
• See p. 136-137.
years of the souP The lifespan of 1,000 years assigned by a number

of writers to the phoenix derives, in our opinion, from these con-
siderations concerning the fate of the soul. 2 As a result, this tradition,
like that of the soo-year lifespan of the phoenix found in Herodotus
and many other authors, must go back ultimately to Hesiod's riddle.
Even when regarded quite apart from the assumed relationship
between Hesiod, frg. 304, and the periodization of metempsychosis,
it may be considered reasonable that the phoenix was related to the
death of man and the life thereafter. It is in this sense that the bird
believed to find new life by its death, was assigned a role in Classical
funerary symbolism 3 and was used symbolically on coins issued at
the consecration of Roman Emperors.' For the Christians the phoe-
nix constituted a form of natural evidence of the resurrection of
Christ as well as of the resurrection of the flesh in general.
The Classical and Early Christian conceptions concerning life
after death had an unmistakable influence on the descriptions of the
abode of the phoenix. According to Classical thinking, the dead go,
either directly or after a long cycle of incarnations, to the Isles of
the Blessed or the Elysian Fields; according to Christian thinking,
they go to Paradise. The abode of the phoenix, which was originally
localized without further qualification in one of the mysterious and
fabulous countries of the East, began with ever-increasing clarity
to be painted in the likeness of the Classical and Christian abodes of
the soul. 6 This tendency was fortified by the association of the phoe-
nix with the Golden Age, as revealed by reports of its appearances
at the commencement of a new era or at the start of the reign of
a new ruler. On the Isles of the Blessed and similar places the con-
ditions of the Golden Age persist; the two conceptions are similar
in most respects. We refer here, for example, to the idea that Cronus,
the banished king of the Golden Age, rules over the heroes on the
Isles of the Blessed. 6 Pindar says that a soul released from the cycle
of metempsychosis goes to Cronus' citadel, the Isle of the Blessed,
1 See p. 135.
• See p. 138.
B See pt XIII and XIV and p. 230-231.
& See pt VI, I, 2; cf. also pt VI, 10, VII, 1-3, 5-7.
I See p. 310-334.
• Hesiod, Erga, 167-174.
and that the "redeemed" are subsequently honoured as heroes. 1 We

recall here too the notion of Cronus as Chronos and his identification
with Aion, for whom in turn the phoenix could be a symbol too. 2
There can be no question that the more detailed descriptions of the
abode of the phoenix were strongly influenced by the ideas about
life after death and the association of the bird with the Golden Age.
Lactantius in particular described the abode of the phoenix in great
detail, and we have seen that in doing so he based himself on the
Judaeo-Christian conception about Paradise while at the same time
making use of similar Classical ideas. 3
In the same way that the abode of the Blessed served as a model
for the abode of the phoenix, the food of the Blessed formed a model
for its food. The only exceptions to this are found in Ovid and John
of Gaza, who believed that the phoenix lived on the same (aromatic)
materials as it used for its renewal. 4o Claudian equates the food of the
phoenix with what, according to popular philosophical ideas, was
consumed by the pure souls: the moisture from the air and the
warmth of the sun. 6 In the Greek Apocalypse 01 Baruch and the
Coptic Sermon on M ary the reports on the food of the phoenix are
determined entirely by Jewish and Christian eschatological ideas.
The dew and manna mentioned in these texts form the food the
redeemed will enjoy in God's Paradise. 6
Lactantius too gives the food of the phoenix as dew, the "am-
brosial drops of heavenly nectar",7 but in his case this view has a
slightly different derivation than in the texts just mentioned. This
is shown by the fact that Lactantius refers only to the food of the
newborn phoenix. Despite the many Classical reminiscences, he
clearly accepts the Judaeo-Christian conception of dew as an extra-
ordinary, life-saving gift of God. 8 This gift is indispensable, because
1 Pindar, Olymp., II, 124-130 and/rg. 133 (Schroeder = Plato, Meno, 8Ic);
see p. 135, 138-14°.
B See p. 300, and e.g. p. 105.
3 See p. 319-332.
• See p. 335-336.
& Claudian, Phoenix, 13-16; see p. 336, 338-34°.
8 See p. 341-348.
7 Lactantius, III -112; see p. 348.
8 See p. 349-351.
there is no parent to care for the helpless young bird. We have seen
that Lactantius drew a parallel between the feeding of the still
callow new phoenix and the feeding of the young raven referred to,
among other places, in Ps. cxlvii (LXX cxlvi).9. 1 The phoenix needs
this divine food in our world to reach the state of perfection that
characterizes its life in Paradise. We have pointed out that this food
must be seen in relation to the sacraments that give the believer
strength to continue his struggle to hold to the path leading to
Paradise. 2 This interpretation is supported by another aspect of the
phoenix myth to which Lactantius assigns great importance: the
bird's sexlessness.
In Classical times little attention was given in general to the sex of
the phoenix, which is natural because its genesis was considered to
be asexual. 3 The authors who do comment on the sex of the phoenix
did so in terms of a particular interpretation. There are some in-
dications that the phoenix was seen as hermaphroditic, possibly
because it was taken among the Hermetics and Gnostics as a symbol
of the highest being or of the Primeval Man, both considered to be
bisexual.'
The intentions of certain Christian authors who discuss the sex of
the phoenix are easier to grasp. The inferred asexuality of the phoe-
nix was elevated by some to an essential characteristic to make the
bird more suitable as support for their theses. The Monophysites,
for instance, used the phoenix as a demonstration of the one nature
of Christ. 6 The same holds for Vincentius Victor in his discussion of
the asexuality of the corporeal form of the sou1. 6 In Lactantius, who
emphasizes the uncertainty concerning the sex of the phoenix, and
in Zeno of Verona, who says that the phoenix is for itself both sexes,
the background is again formed by the inferred asexuality of the
phoenix. 7 What they wish to stress is that the phoenix is elevated
1 See p. 352-355.
2 See p. 35 6 .
a See p. 360.
, See p. 364-367.
6 See p. 359.
• Augustinus, De anima et eius ot'igine, IV, 20, 33; see p. 363-364.
7 Lactantius, 163-170; Zeno of Verona, Tract., I, 16, 9 (PL 11, 384A);
see p. 365-366.
above sexuality, simply because for them the bird is a symbol of the
state of the redeemed in the eschatological glory. This state will be
characterized by a complete abolition of sexuality: "they are like
angels in heaven" (M attk. xxii.30). Zeno of Verona had in mind only
life in the heavenly Paradise starting after death, but Lactantius
thought of the realization of this eschatological state before death,
in other words in this earthly life. For him the phoenix is the symbol
of the virgo who has vanquished sexuality and in this life already
lives the vita angelica. 1
Although it has repeatedly become clear in the course of this
study how often a symbolic meaning was assigned to the phoenix
in Classical and Early Christian times, it was not our intention to give
a systematic description of this symbolism. What we have attempt-
ed to show is that the symbolic interpretation of the phoenix had a
strong influence on the development of the myth. The strongest im-
pulses in this direction prove to have originated from the two main
themes around which the highly varied symbolism of the phoenix
is centred: the renewal of time and the renewal of life after death.
THE PHOENIX IN CLASSICAL AND
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART
Documentation and Plates I-XL

FRONTISPIECE
Fragment of apsidal mosaic, from Old St. Peter's, Museo di Roma,

Rome; fourth century A.D.
Phoenix with radiate nimbus, striding to r., within a tondo serving

as second nimbus. Original position in the fourth-century mosaic un-
certain. In the mosaic of Innocent III (late twelfth century), which
replaced the original one and was itself destroyed in 1592, the phoe-
nix was situated in the palm tree beside Innocent III and another
phoenix (certainly medieval) occurred in the palm tree beside the
figure of Ecclesia Romana (see references below). Since the earlier
phoenix is ambulant, it is not likely that it was shown in a palm tree,
even if the original composition was a representation of the
Traditio legis as argued by Schumacher. The radiate nimbus proves
that this phoenix was not medieval but Early Christian (see p. 251,
n. 2). The most comparable example is the phoenix of Aquileia (see
pI. XXI), which is also placed in a tondo.
Photo: Oscar Savio, Rome.

Wilpert, MM, I, 361-367, fig. 114 (mosaic in Old St. Peter's); A. Muiioz,
Musaici della vecchia Basilica Vaticana nel Museo di Roma, in Bollettino
dei Musei Communali di Roma, 6, 1959, 8-13; W. N. Schumacher,
Altchrististliche "Giebelkompositionen", in Mitt. des Deutsch. Archeol. Inst.
Roem. Abt., 67, 1960, 133-149; idem, Eine romische Apsiskomposition,
ROm. Quarlalschrift, 54, 1959, 137-202. W. Oakeshott, The mosaics of
Rome from the third to the the fourteenth centuries, London, 1967,67, is of
the opinion that the bird represents the dove that settled on the shoulder
of Innocent III when he was elected pope (a view which was commonly
held in the late Middle Ages). See also above p. 249, n. 2, and p. 251, n. I.
PLo I, I
Mural painting in tomb of Irenifer. Der el Medineh; 19th dynasty

(ca. 1345-1200 B.C.).
Deceased in boat standing in front of benu with sun disk on its
head.
426 THE PHOENIX IN CLASSICAL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN ART
Photo: Library of the University of Amsterdam.

B. Porter and R. L. B. Moss, Topographical bibliography of ancient
Egyptian hieroglYPhic texts, reliefs and paintings, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1960,
272-273, no. 290. Reproduction in J. Vandier, Egypt. Paintings from
tombs and temples, Paris, 1954, pI. IV; A. Lothe, Chefs-d'oeuvre de la
peinture Egyptienne, Paris, 1954, pI. 152, and Ch. Desroches-Noblecourt,
Graf- en tempelschilderingen in Egypte, (Unesco Kunstpockets, I),
Amsterdam, 1962, pI. 25. See also above p. 15, 239, 252, and 402.
PLo I, 2
Mural painting in the tomb of the royal scribe Harsiesi in Hiw
(Diospolis Parva); now destroyed. Ptolemaic, probably from the
second century B.C.
Benu in willow tree next to grave of Osiris.
Photo: reproduced from Gardner Wilkinson.
Porter and Moss, V, Oxford, 1937, 107-109; J. Gardner Wilkinson, The
manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians, new ed. revised and
corrected by S. Birch, Ill, London, 1878, 349, fig. 588; W. M. Flinders
Petrie, Diospolis Parva. The cemeteries of Abadiyeh and Hu (I898-I899),
London, 1901, 54-55; A. Erman-H. Ranke, Aegypten und aegyptisches
Leben im Altertum, Tiibingen, 1923, XVIII, and 308, fig. 139; Kees,
Gotterglaube, 88, fig. 7. See also above p. 16,239,252, and 402.
PL.II
Liturgical garment from Saqqara, Egyptian Museum, Cairo (J.E.
no. 59II7). First or second century A.D.
Back view of the garment.
Photo: reproduced from Perdrizet, pI. VII.
P. Perdrizet, La tunique liturgique historiee de Saqqara, in MMAI, 34,
1934,97-128, pI. VII, VIII. See also above p. 16, 238-243, 247 (n. 4), and
298.
PLo III
Liturgical garment from Saqqara (detail of pI. 11).
Benu-phoenix on hill of creation, with nimbus around and seven
rays emanating from its head.
THE PHOENIX IN CLASSICAL AND EARLY CHRISTIAN ART 427
Photo: Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
PLo IV
Mural painting from the temple of Isis in Pompei, National Museum,
Naples; first century A.D.
The adoration of Osiris. Against a background of mountains and
scattered buildings rises the sacred gate consisting of two sarco-
phagus-shaped columns on rather high pedestals: the columns sup-
port a simple architrave. In the gate stands an open sarcophagus on
a pedestal; around the mummy's waist a girdle with a large knot.
On top of the sarcophagus a large bird with extended wings, the
head carrying a ureus with a solar disk and a lunar crescent. The
bird is probably meant to represent the phoenix, but see p. 242,
n·4·
Photo: Tran Tarn Tinh, Quebec.
v. Tran Tam Tihn, Le culte d'Isis rlPompei, Paris, 1964, 142-143, pI. X, 2.
PLo V
The Adoration of Osiris (detail of pI. IV).
The phoenix (?) on the sarcophagus of Osiris.
Photo: Tran Tarn Tinh, Quebec.
PLo VI, I
Aureus of Hadrian; A.D. IIB.

Obv.: DIVI TRAIANO PARTH. PATRI. Bust, laureate, draped,
cuirassed, r.
Rev. : No legend. Phoenix with seven-rayed nimbus, standing, r.
Photo: British Museum.
RIC, I1, 343, no. 27; CEM, Ill, 245, no. 48; G. Camozzi, La Consecratio
di Traiano, in RIN, 14, 1901, 11-26; idem, La Consecratio mile monete
da Cesare ad Adriano, ibid., 51-53; see above p. 237, 245, and 419.
PLo VI, 2
Aureus of Hadrian; A.D. n8.

Obv.: DIVI TRAIANO PARTH. AUG. PATRI. Bust, laureate,
draped, cuirassed, r.
Rev.: No legend. Phoenix with radiate nimbus, standing on a branch
(of palm or laurel), r.
RIC, 11, 343, no. 28; CEM, Ill, 245, no. 49; Camozzi, O.C., see no.
I above; and also p. 237, 245, 246 (n. 4), and 419.
PLo VI, 3
Aureus of Hadrian; A.D. 121/122.
Obv.: IMP. CAESAR TRAIAN. HADRIANUS AUG. Bust, laure-

ate, draped, cuirassed, r.
Rev.: P. M. TR. P. COS. Ill. SAEC. AUR. Aion or Hadrian as the
ruler of the Golden Age, standing r. in the oval of the zodiac,
and holding phoenix on globe in 1. hand.
RIC, 11, 356, no. 136 (also denarius); CEM, Ill, 278, no. 312; D. Levi,
Aion, in Hesperia, 13, 1944,287-295; see also above p. 105, 117, 243 (n. 2),
and 417.
PLo VI, 4
Alexandrian coin of Hadrian; A.D. 137/138.
Obv.: AVTKAICTPA A~PIANOCCEB. Head, r., laureate.
Rev.: IIPONOIA. Pronoia standing 1., clad in chiton and peplos,
wears wreath, holds phoenix (I., radiate) in r. hand and long
sceptre transversely. In front KB.
L
R. Stuart Poole, Catalogue of the Coins of Alexandria and the Nomes,
London, 1892, p. 72, nrs. 598-600; J. Vogt, Die alexandrinischen Munzen,
Stuttgart, 1924, I, log-1I0, 11, 60; cj. I, 110: "Die Pronoia des 22. Jahrs
bezieht sich dahe1' wohl aul die im Februa1' I38 vollzogene Adoption des
Antoninus Pius dU1'ch Had1'ian, des Ma1'cus und des Ve1'us dU1'ch Pius.
Das Symbol des PhOnix ve1'kundet den dU1'ch die Adoptionen gesiche1'ten
Bestand del' 1'omischen Heffschalt"; J. G. Milne, Catalogue 01 Alexand1'ian
coins in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1933, 36, nrs. 1560-1568.
PLo VI, 5-7

Alexandrian bronze coin without name of Emperor (Hadrian?,
Antoninus Pius ?). Second century A.D.; but ascribed to Caligula by
several scholars.
Obv.: Phoenix-benu standing l., on branch, two feathers projecting
from the back of its head, no nimbus.
Rev.: Apis r., disk between horns; on side crescent. Above: LB.
Photo: British Museum (nrs. 2634,2635, 2637).
St. Poole, Catalogue, 337, nrs. 2632-2637; G. Dattari, Appunti di numis-
matica alessand1'ina, in RIN, 13, 1900, 381-382 (Caligula: con una ce1'ta
1'ese1'va); G. Macdonald, Catalogue 01 Greek coins in the Hunte1'ian
collection, Ill, Glasgow, 1905, 406, no. 28 (Caligula: "not ce1'tain");
Vogt, Munzen, I, 22, 11, 4 (Caligula: "nicht siche1' zu e1'weisen"); Milne,
Catalogue, 125, nrs. 5246-5248 (not from the time of Caligula, cl. p. XX
(21): "101' the most pa1't ollate1' style"). See also above p. 245-246.
PLo VI, 8
Alexandrian coin of Antoninus Pius; A.D. 138/139.
Obv.: AVTK. .. MP ANTCJNINOS EVCEB. Head of emperor, r.
Rev.: AICJN. Phoenix, r., with seven-rayed nimbus around head. In
field: LB.
Photo: Hunter Coin Cabinet, Glasgow.
Macdonald, Catalogue, Ill, 459, no. 404; Vogt, Munzen, I, 115, 11, 63;
Milne, Catalogue, 40, nrs. 1600-1604. See above p. 70, 105, 117, 244, and
4 1 7.
PLo VI, 9
Alexandrian coin of Antoninus Pius; A.D. 142/143.
Obv.: ANTCJNINOC CEB. EUCEB. Head of Antoninus, r., laure-
ate.
Rev.: AI(JN. Phoenix, r., with seven-rayed nimbus around head. In

field: L C;;.
Poole, Catalogue, 117, no. 1004; Vogt, Munzen, I, 115-116, 11, 68;
Milne, Catalogue, 42, nrs. 1734-1737. See above p. 70, 105, 117, 244, and
4 1 7.
PLo VI, 10
Denarius of Antoninus Pius; A.D. 141.
Obv.: DIVA FAUSTINA. Bust, draped, r., hair waved and coiled
on top of head.
Rev.: AETERNITAS. Aeternitas,draped,standing, 1., holding phoe-
nix with nimbus on extended r. hand, and raising fold of skirt
with 1.
Photo: British Museum (no. 354).
RIC, Ill, 69, no. 347; CBM, IV, 54, nrs. 354-357. See above p. 419.
PLo VII, I
Denarius of Antoninus Pius; A.D. 141 or later.

Obv.: DIVA FAUSTINA. Bust r., draped, hair waved and coiled on
top of head.
Rev.: AETERNITAS. Aeternitas standing, 1., holding phoenix on
globe on extended r. hand and raising fold of skirt with 1.
CBM, IV, 54, no. 358; see also 154, no. 1023; Similar reverse but with
legend AETERNITAS S. C. in CBM, IV, 239, nrs. 1490-1492, 240,
nrs. 1493, 1494, 247, nrs. 1544-1547; RIC, Ill, 162, no. 1105 (Sestertius)
166, no. 1157 (dupondius or as). See above p. 243 (n. 2), and 419
PLo VII, 2
Sestertius of Antoninus Pius; after A.D. 141.
Obv.: DIVA FAUSTINA. Bust, r., draped, hair waved and coiled
on top of head.
Rev.: AETERNITAS S.C. Aeternitas, draped, seated, 1., on throne,

holding phoenix (with nimbus, r.) on globe on r. hand and
tranverse sceptre in 1.
RIC, Ill, 161, no. II03A; CBM. IV. 238. no. 1482 (ibid .• 239. nrs.
1483-1489 with phoenix standing 1. (no. 1487 standing front). and 248,
nrs. 1549-1550). See above p. 243 (n. 2). and 419.
PLo VII, 3
Sestertius of Antoninus Pius; after A.D. 141.
Obv.: DIVA AUG. FAUSTINA. Bust, r., draped, hair waved and
coiled on top of head.
Rev.: AETERNITAS S.C. Aeternitas, draped, seated, 1., on low
seat, holding phoenix on globe on r. hand and transverse
sceptre in 1.
Photo: British Museum
RIC, Ill. 162. no. II03B (same reverse: no. II04); CBM. IV, 228,
no. 1415A. For a dupondius or as of this type see RIC, Ill. 166. no. 1156.
See above p. 243 (n. 2). and 419.
PLo VII, 4
As of Antoninus Pius; A.D. 159/160.
Obv.: ANTONINUS AUG. PlUS P.P. Head, laureate, r.
Rev.: TR. POT. XXIIII COS. 1111 S.C. Aeternitas, draped, stan-
ding front. head 1., holding caduceus in extended r. hand and
phoenix on globe in 1.
RIC. Ill. 154. no. 1051; CBM. IV. 363. nrs. 2II5. 2II6 (cl. RIC. Ill.
131. no. 833 for a similar as of A.D. 145/146). See above p. 243 (n. 2).
PLo VII, 5
Bronze medallion of Antoninus Pius; ca. A.D. 141.
Obv.: DIVA AUG FAUSTINA. Bust of Faustina I, r., draped, veil-
ed.
Rev.: AETERNITAS. Aeternitas, standing front, head 1., holding

nimbate phoenix on globe on r. hand, leaning with 1. on co-
lumn.
Photo: Royal Library, Brussels.
J. M. C. Toynbee. Roman medallions. New York. 1944. 102. n. 56.
pI. XLI. 4. Another medallion is mentioned in RIC. Ill. 165. note.
and in CBM. IV. 246. no. *: Obv. DIVA FAUSTINA. Bust. veiled. r.
Rev.: S. C. Aetemitas standing 1.. holding phoenix on r. hand. altar 1.
See above p. 243 (n. 2). and 419.
PLo VII, 6
Aureus of Marcus Aurelius; A.D. 176-180.
Obv.: DIVAE FAUSTINAE PIAE. Bust, r., veiled, diademed.
Rev.: MATRI CASTRORUM. Faustina (11), draped, seated, 1., on
low seat, holding phoenix with radiate nimbus on globe, r.,
in r. hand and sceptre, almost vertical, in 1., in front of her,
1., three standards set on base.
RIC. Ill. 274. no. 751 (no. 752 denarius of the same type); CBM. IV.
488. no. 704. See also RIC. III 274. no. 753 (rev. similar. but with two
standards). no. 754 (quinarius. sceptre beside throne). 350. no. 1711 and
no. 1712 (sestertii. three and two standards. respectively). 349. no. 1696
(rev. leg.: AETERNITAS S.C .• no standards). See above p. 243 (n. 2).
and 419.
PLo VII, 7
Denarius of Marcus Aurelius; A.D. 176-180.
Obv.: DIVA FAUSTINA PIA. Bust, r.
Rev.: AETERNITAS. Aeternitas, veiled, draped, standing front,
head 1., holding phoenix on globe on r. hand and resting 1.
arm on column.
RIC. Ill. 273. no. 740; CBM. IV. 489. nrs. 709-710; a sestertius of the
same type but with rev. leg. AETERNITAS S. C. in RIC. Ill. 349. no.
1693. See above p. 243 (n. 2). and 419.
PLo VII, 8
Denarius of Julia Domna; A.D. 196-2II.
Obv.: IULIA AUGUSTA. Bust, cuirassed, draped, r.
Rev.: MA[TRI CASTROR]UM. Julia Domna, veiled, draped, seat-
ed 1. on throne, holding phoenix (standing r.) on globe on r.
hand and sceptre, pointed slightly upward to r. in 1. In front
of her, I., two standards.
RIG. IV. I. 169. no. 568 (no. 569 similar. but three standards); GBM. V.
164. no. 58. See above p. 243 (n. 2).
PLo VII, 9
Aureus of Trebonius Gallus; A.D. 251-253.
Obv.: IMP. CAE. C. VIB. TREB. GALLUS AUG. Bust, laureate,
draped, cuirassed, r.
Rev.: AETERNITAS AUGG. Aeternitas, standing I., holding phoe-
nix (standing r.) on globe on 1. hand, raising skirt with r.
Photo: BibliotMque Nationale, Paris (Cabinet des Medailles, no.
1322).
RIG. IV. 3. 161. no. 17; see also ibid., 162, no. 30 for an A ntoninianus
with similar reverse and 171. no. 102 for a sestertius with a slightly
different reverse. Similar coins were issued by the emperors Volusianus
(A.D. 251-253) and Aemilianus (A.D. 253). cl. ibid., 176. no. 154 and
201. no. 55. See above p. II7. 243 (n. 2). and 417.
PLo VIII, I
Antoninianus of Aemilianus; A.D. 253.

Obv.: IMP. AEMILIANUS PlUS FEL. AUG. Bust, radiate, draped,
cuirassed.
Rev.: ROMAE AETERN. Roma, standing I., holding phoenix on
globe in r. hand and sceptre transversely in 1.; at her side,
r., shields.
RIG, IV. 3. 195. no. 9; see ibid .• 199. no. 38 for a similar sestertius. See also
above p. II7. 243 (n. 2). and 417.
PLo VIII, 2
Bronze medallion of Constantine the Great, A.D. 326.

Obv.: CONSTANTINUS MAX AUG. Head of Constantine, lau-
reate, r.
Rev.: GLORIA SAECULI VIRTUS CAESS. Emperor sitting on
couch, 1., holding sceptre in 1. hand, offering globe with phoe-
nix (r., seven-rayed nimbus) to Caesar standing in front of
him, symbol of victory on 1. shoulder; panther crouching at
feet of Emperor.
Photo: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris (Cabinet des Medailles, no.
663)·
RIC, VII, 328, no. 279; J. Maurice, Numismatique constantinienne, I,
Paris, 1908, (reprint: Brussels, 1965), 104; A. Alfoldi, On the foundation
of Constantinople: a few notes, in Journal of Roman Studies, 37, 1947, 15.
See also above p. 117, 243 (n. 2), and 417.
PLo VIII, 3
Bronze coin of Constans I; A.D. 346-350, from the mint of Aquileia.
Obv.: DN CONSTANS PF AUG. Bust of emperor, r., draped, pearl-
diademed.
Rev. : FEL TEMP REPARATIO. Emperor holding nimbed phoenix
on globe on r. hand and labarum in 1., standing 1. in galley
steered by Victoria, seated 1. at helm.
P. V. Hill, J. P. C. Kent and R. A. C. Carson, Late Roman bronze Coinage,
A .D. 324-498, London, 1960, 65, nrs. 889-895. Similar, but in details
slightly different coins came from the mints of Treves, Lyons, ArIes,
Rome. Siscia. Thessalonica. Heraclea Thracica. Constantinople, Nico-
media, Cyzicus. Antioch, and Alexandria; see ibid., 108,46 (nrs.40-46a,
cf. no. 4 here). 49 (nos. 183-195), 54 (nrs. 404-406a), 59 (nrs. 606-629),
6g (nrs. 1139-1147a. 1150-1158). 77 (nrs. 1637-1647),83 (nrs. 1890-1892),
86 (nrs. 2022-2027). 92 (nrs. 2295-2298). 96 (nrs. 2484-2485). 99 (nrs.
2620-2622), 103 (nrs. 2830-2835). For the coins with the legend FEL
(-icium) TEMP(orum) REPARATIO. see H. Mattingly. "FEL. TEMP.
REPARATIO", in Numismatic Chronicle. 5th Ser., 13. 1933. 182-202.
pI. XVIII, nrs. 1-11. See above p. 117. 243 (n. 2). and 417.
PLo VIII. 4
Bronze coin of Constantius 11; A.D. 346-350. from the mint of Treves.
Obv.: DN CONSTANTIUS PF AUG. Bust of emperor, r., draped,
pearl-diademed.
Rev.: FEL TEMP REPARATIO. Emperor holding nimbed phoenix
on globe on r. hand and labarum in 1., standing 1. in galley
steered by Victoria, seated 1. at helm.
Hill. Kent and Carson. 46 (nrs. 40-46a). for similar coins of Constantius
nand Constans I from other mints. see above on no. 3. The same
obverse and reverse on a medallion of Constantius n. ca. A.D. 357, cl.
L. M. Tocci. I medaglioni yomani e i contoynati del Medaglieye Vaticano,
Citta del Vaticano, 1965, 191, no. 146. pt LX. See also above p. 117,
243 (n. 2). and 417.
PLo VIII, 5
Bronze coin of Constans I; A.D. 346-350, from the mint of Treves.
Obv.: DN CONSTANS PF AUG. Bust of emperor, draped, pearl-
diademed.
Rev.: FEL TEMP REPARATIO. Phoenix with seven-rayed nim-
bus, standing to r. on globe.
Hill, Kent and Carson, 46, nrs. 32-39. Similar reverse on coins of
Constans I and Constantius n from the mints of Lyons, Constantinople
Nicomedia, Cyzicus, Antioch, and Alexandria, cl. ibid., 49 (no. 182), 54
(no. 403), 86 (2019-2021), 92 (no. 2294). 96 (nrs. 2482-2483), 99 (nrs.
2618-2619), 103 (nrs. 2827-2829). See also above p. 117, 243 (n. 2), and
4 1 7.
PLo VIII, 6
Bronze coin of Constantius 11; A.D. 346-350, from the mint of
Lyons.
Obv.: DN CONSTANTIUS PF AUG. Bust of emperor, draped,
pearl-diademed.

bus, standing to r. on globe.
Hill, Kent and Carson, 49, no. 182. For similar coins of Constantius II
and Constans ,see reference for no. 5 here. The gem in Gemmae selectae
antiquae e museD Jacobi de Wilde, Amsterdam, 1703, 66, no. 74, pI. 20,
is in all probability a modem forgery made after a coin of this type;
it shows the phoenix on a globe, with the legend AETERNITAS
C.S.F. See also above p. 117, 243 (n. 2), and 417.
PLo VIII, 7
Bronze coin of Constant ius 11; A.D. 346-350, from the mint ofSiscia.
Obv.: DN CONSTANTIUS PF AUG. Bust of emperor, r., draped,
pearl-diademed.
bus, standing to r. on pyramid-shaped pyle of rocks.
Hill, Kent and Carson, 69, nrs. 1123-1138. For coins of Constantius II
and Constans I, from the mints of Treves, ArIes, and Rome, et. ibid., 108,
and 46 (nrs. 32-39; see no. 8 here), 54, (nrs. 402-403), 59 (no. 605). See
also above p. 117, 180, and 417.
PLo VIII, 8
Bronze coin of Constans I; A.D. 346-350, from the mint of Treves.
Obv.: DN CONSTANS PF AUG. Bust of emperor, r., draped and
pearl-diademed.
bus, standing to r. on pyle of rocks.
Photo: Koninklijk Penningkabinet, The Hague.
F. Imhoof-Blumer and O. Keller, Tier- und Ptlanzenbilder aut Munzen
und Gemmen des klassischen Altertums, Leipzig, 1889, 72, pI. XII,
no. 25; Hill, Kent and Carson, 46, nrs. 32-39. For similar coins of
Constans I and Constantius II from other mints, cJ. reference for no. 7
here. See also above p. 117, 180, and 417.
PLo VIII, 9
Siliqua of Theodosius, A.D. 378-383.
Obv.: DN THEODOSIUS PF AUG. Bust, pearl-diademed, draped,
cuirassed, r.
Rev.: PERPETUETAS. Phoenix with rayed nimbus, standing I.,
on globe.
RIC, IX, 25, no. 56c; see also ibid., no. 56a and no. 56b for similar coins
of Gratianus and Valentinianus 11, respectively (from the same mint,
Treves, and the same period). See also above p. 117,243 (n. 2), and 417.
PLo VIII, 10
Bronze coin of Valentinanus 11; A.D. 383-388.

Obv.: DN VALENTINIANUS PF AUG. Bust, pearl-diademed,
draped and cuirassed.
Rev.: VIRTUS AUGGG. Emperor standing I., head r., on ship,
holding phoenix on globe in r. hand and standard in 1. His
right foot on captive; Victory on helm.
RIC, IX, 186, no. 6Ia; see also ibid., no. 61b and no. 61c: similar coins
of Theodosius and Arcadius, respectively. See for coins of the same
Emperors (ca. A.D. 388) with the same reverse but with a different
obverse (GLORIA ROMANORUM): Hill, Kent and Carson, 81, nrs.
1848-1855. See also p. 243 (n. 2).
PLo IX, I
Magical amulet. Collection Seyrig, no. 36; haematite. First or second

century A.D.( ?).
Obv.: Harpocrates to front, kneeling with 1. knee on lotus, r. leg
extended backward. R. hand raised, palm forward; disk over
head, star at 1. At r. phoenix with radiate head, behind and
below the bird uncertain cuttings perhaps intended for a tree,
on which the phoenix perches.
Rev.: The name Ororiouth.
Photo: The Kelsey Museum of Ancient and Mediaeval Archaeology,

Ann Arbor, Michigan.
c. Bonner, Studies in magical amulets, chiefly Graeco-Egyptian, (Universi-
ty of Michigan Studies, Humanistic Series, XLIX), Ann Arbor-London-
Oxford, 1950, 143, 286, no. 195, pI. IX; for Ororiouth, ibid., 84-85. See
above p. 243, 246, 250, and 301 (n. 3).
PLo IX, 2
Magical amulet. British Museum (Inv. no. 5610g = G. 109), Lon-

don; carnelian. Date unknown (probably first centuries A.D.).
Obv.: Phoenix within an oval, no nimbus or rays, but probably sun
disk on head. The area outside the oval is divided into four
compartments: above I., Harpocrates on the lotus flower;
abover., winged serpent; below 1. (damaged), crocodile; below
r., hawk.
Rev.: The so-called Chabrach formula: XAB/RAXcl>N/ECXHPcl>/
[I]XPOcl>NY /[p]ncl>nX/nBn/X; for this formula, see Bonner
Amulets, 141-142.
A. A. Barb, Abraxas-Studien, in Hommages a Waldemar Deonna, (ColI.
Latomus, XXVIII), Brussels, 1957, 81-86 pI. XVIII, I, 2, 3. See here
P·3 0 1.
PLo IX, 3
Magical amulet, Numismatic Museum, Athens; chalcedony. First
or second century A.D.( ?).
Obv.: Within ouroborus phoenix with seven-rayed nimbus and a
backward-projecting feather at its head, striding to r.; at side,
magical characters.
Rev.: Magical inscription in six lines: ot~otVotlC~ot/O"otAot!J.ot~ot ot!J./opotX!;}YJ
~ot!J.ot~ot/~ot ot~otYJA AUlCotYJ/A ~EA~ot!J.'t"O 't"p/w otp!J.ot cl>PYJ.
Photo: Ph. Derchain, Cologne.

Ph. Derchain, Intailles magiques du Musee de Numismatiques d'Athenes,
in Chronique d'1f.gypte, 39, (nrs. 77-78), 1964, 186, no. 14. See above p.
244·
PLo X, I
Magical amulet. Present location unknown; jaspis. Date unknown

(first centuries A.D.).
Obv. " Phoenix with nimbus and ten rays emanating from its head,
going to 1.
Rev.: Chnoubis on altar. On the edge of the gem: XPOYBIS.
Photo: Reproduced from Caylus.
Le Comte de Caylus, Recueil d'Antiquites egyptiennes, etrusques,grecques,
romaines et gauloises, V, Paris, 1762, 70, pI. XXIII, 5, 6. See above p.
246 (n. 4). and 258.
PLo X, 2
Graeco-Roman gem, State Museums, Berlin (Inv. no. 8559); red

jaspis.
Phoenix standing r., with six feathers on its head, of which the
fourth from the front has a bulbous tip, making it unlikely that an
aureole was intended.
Photo: made after a plaster cast provided by the State Museums,
Berlin.
F. Imhoof-Blumer and O. Keller, Tier- und Ptlanzenbilder aut Munzen
und Gemmen des klassischen Altertums, Leipzig, 1889, 157, pt XXVI, 22;
A. Furtwangler, Beschreibung der geschnittenen Steine im Antiquarium,
Berlin, 1896,313, no. 8559. See above p. 234.
PLo XI, I
Magical amulet. Collection Bonner, no. 29; haematite. First or

second century A.D.( ?).
Obv.,' Phoenix with seven rays around head, standing on rounded
object (egg?) which rests on altar made of a single column
supporting a broad top. Above, scarab; at each side, descend-
ing, a bird, a scorpion, a cobra; crocodile under altar. Two
curves like a reversed S between the scorpions and the phoe-
nix may be meant for small snakes or worms.
Rev.: 7tt7tTe, with Chnoubis symbol below.
Photo: Reproduced from Bonner, pI. V, no. 103.
Bonner, Amulets, 60, 270, no. 103, pI. V. See above p. 196, 243, 244.
PLo XI, 2
Magical amulet. Formerly in the Sarrafian Collection; haematite.

First or second century A.D.( ?).
Obv.: Similar to the preceding except in two points. The animals at
the sides, in descending order, are birds scorpions, crabs, and
cobras; and instead of the worm-like objects between the
scorpions and the phoenix, there are two signs consisting of a
broken line crossed diagonally by a shorter line.
Rev.: 7t£7t'te, below which are two attempts at the Chnoubis symbol,
the first one wrongly made.
Photo: Reproduced from Bonner, pI. V, no. 104.
Bonner, Amulets, 60-61, 270, no. 104, pI. V. See above p. 196, 243, 244.
PLo XI, 3
Magical amulet. Collection Seyrig (no number); haematite. First or
second century A.D.( ?).
Obv.: Phoenix standing to 1. on globe (egg of myrrh ?); seven-rayed
elliptical nimbus round head. Above, a scarab; at each side,
descending, a bird resembling a crow, a scorpion, and a cobra.
At bottom, a crocodile to r.
Rev.: 7t£7t'te.
Photo: Reproduced from Bonner, pI. XXI, no. 392.
Bonner, Amulets, 321, no. 392, pI. XXI. See above p. 196, 243, 244.
PLo XI, 4
Magical amulet. Collection Seyrig, no. 5; haematite. First or second
century A.D.( ?).
Obv.: Phoenix standing to 1. on crocodile, head encircled by nimbus
with seven rays. Above, scarab; at each side, descending, a
bird, a scorpion, and a snake( ?). Opposite the phoenix's feet

are broken lines that may be intended for the worm-like
objects of the gem on pI. XI, no. I.
Rev.: 7t£7t't'E, the letters arranged in a descending column.
Bonner, Amulets, 270, no. 105, pI. V. See above p. 243 and 244.
PLo XI, 5
Magical amulet. Bibliotheque Nationale, Cabinet des medailles et
antiquites (Fr. 2884), Paris; haematite. First or second century
A.D.(?).
Rev.: Phoenix standing to 1. on crocodile; six-rayed nimbus. Above,
scarab; at each side, descending, a bird, a scorpion, and, pro-
bably, a snake.
Obv.: G't'6/WJ.X/E 7t£/7t't'E.
Photo: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
A. Delatte and Ph. Derchain, Les intailles magiques greco-egyptiennes,
Paris, 1964, 149, no. 193 (with an erroneous interpretation). See above
p. 243, 246 (n. 4).
PLo XI, 6
Magical amulet. Collection Seyrig, no. 6; haematite. Date unknown.
Obv.: Long-necked bird, probably meant for a phoenix, as in the
preceding numbers. The bird stands on a scorpion the tail of
which is prolonged upward to an unnatural length. Numerous
short lines, unexplained, in field.
Rev.: 7t£7t't'E.
Bonner, Amulets, 270, no. 106, pI. V.
PLo XI, 7
Magical amulet, present location and date unknown; heliotrope.
Long-necked phoenix, as may be concluded from the seven rays
on its head; standing to r., at side magical characters.
Photo: reproduced from Chiflet.
J. Chifletius, joannis Macat'ii Canonici At'iensis Abt'axas seu Apisto-
pistus: quae est Antiquat'ia de gemmis Basilidianis disquisitio. Accedit
Abt'axas Pt'oteus, seu multitOt'mis gemmae Basilidianae pOt'tentosa vat'ietas,
Antverpiae, 1657, 68-70, pI. IV, no. 17; J. Gronovius, Abt'ahami GOt'laei
A ntvet'piani Dactyliothecae pat's secunda, Lugduni Batavorum, 1695,
no. 335. See above p. 250.
PLo XI, 8
Magical amulet, present location and date unknown; onyx.
Ibis-like bird, standing r. on crocodile, probably meant for a
phoenix, cl nrs. 4 and 5 above.
Photo: reproduced from Chiflet.
Chifletius, Abt'axas, 68, pI. IV, no. 18.
PLo XII
Wall painting in the Cappella Greca, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome.
First half of third century A.D.
Phoenix with eight- or nine-rayed nimbus, in flames.
Photo: Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, Rome.
A. Ferrua, Lavot'i nelle catacombe, in Rivista di At'cheologia Ct'istiana,
30, 1954, 158 and 157, fig. 2; idem, Tt'e note d'iconogt'atia paleoct'istiana,
in Miscellanea G. Belvedet'i, (ColI. "Amici delle Catacombe", XXIII),
Citta del Vaticano, 1954-1955, 273-277, fig. I; P. Testini, Le catacombe
e gli antichi cimitet'i ct'istiani in Roma, Bologna, 1966, 271, fig. II5.
See p. 230, 246 (n. 4), 250 (n. I).
PLo XIII
Phoenix mosaic, from the floor of a cave tomb at Urfa (Edessa),
Turkey; A.D. 235-236.
Phoenix without nimbus standing on a wreathed pillar (betyle) ,

symbolic of the soul; before it a conventional stone tomb. The in-
scription at the top of the picture reads: "Phoenix", the one below
the r. tree (trans. Segal): "In the year five hundred/and forty seven/
made by Bar ~eme!i, son of/BRQ' (is) this/tomb for myself and for
myself and for my children as a/tomb".
Photo: Reproduced from Vanished Civilizations by courtesy of Tha-
mes and Hudson, London.
J. B. Segal, New mosaics from Edessa, in Archaeology, 12, 1959, 150-157;
idem, New Syriac inscriptions from Edessa, in Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 22, 1959, 35-36 (in-
scription); idem, The Sabian mysteries. The planet cult of ancient Harran,
in Vanished Civilizations. Forgotten people of the ancient world, edited by
E. Bacon, London, 1963, 214 and 208 (beautiful colour plate); see also
idem, Edessa, "The blessed City", Oxford, 1970, pI. 43; J. Leroy N ouvelles
dicouvertes arcMologiques relatives a Edesse, in Syria, 38, 1961, 160,
and J. Starcky, Edesse et l'Orient chritien, in Bible et Te"e Sainte, 119,
March, 1970, 7. See also above p. 231, 234, 245, and 419.
PLo XIV
Urn of M. M arcius H ermas. Palazzo ducale, Urbino; from S. Agnese
fuori le Mura, Rome. Second half of the third century A.D.
Two phoenixes on their pyres.
Photo: Foto Modema, Urbino.
R. Fabretti, lnscriptionum antiquarum quae in aedibus paternis asser-
vantur explicatio, Romae, 1702, 378, no. XXXI; ClL, VI, 3, 1886,
2287, no. 22075; Ferrua, Tre note d'iconografia paleocristiana, 276-277,
fig. 3. See above p. 230-231, 250 (n. 3), and 419.
PLo XV
Drawing in the tomb of the Valerii in the Vatican necropolis, Rome;
ca. A.D. 300.
Head of Christ, the upper part of which makes a transition into
two birds joined to form one body; many inscriptions are added (for
these, see p. I59-I60).
Photo: Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, Rome (cf.

Guarducci, pI. 31, who indicates that this photo has been
retouched).
M. Guarducci, Cristo e San Pietro in un documento precostantiniano della
necropoli vaticana, Rome, 1953, passim, pIs. 3°-43; severely criticized
by Ferrua, Tre note d'iconografia paleocristiana, 276, n. 5. See p. 159-161,
250 (n. I), and 284.
PLo XVI
The same as pI. XV, but not retouched.
PLo XVII, I
Calendar of A.D. 354, Barb. Lat. 2154 (formerly XXXI, 39), fo1. 7
(Natales caesarum), Vatican Library, Rome.
Constantius 11, nimbed, phoenix with rayed nimbus on globe on
r. hand, 1. hand raised.
Photo: Vatican Library.
J. Strzygowski, Die Calenderbilder des Chronographen vom JaMe 354,
(Jahrb. des kais. Deutschen ArchaoI. Inst., Erstes Erganzungsheft),
Berlin, 1888,33-35, pI. IX; C. Nordenfalk, Det' Kalender vom JaMe 354
und die lateinische Buchmalerei des IV. Jahrhunderts, (Goteborgs KungI.
Vetensk.- och Vitterhets-samha1les, Handlingar, Femte Foljden, Ser.
A, Band 5, no. 2), Gothenburg, 1936; H. Stem, Le Calendrier de 354. Etude
sur son texte et sur ses illustrations, (Inst. fran~. d'Arch. de Beyrouth,
BibI. arch. et hist., LV), Paris, 1953, 145-152, pI. IV, 2. See above p. 243
(n. 2), 251 (n. I).
PLo XVII, 2
Graffito, Catacomb of Callixt, Rome; middle of the fourth century

A.D.
Phoenix with nimbus and four rays, striding to 1.
Wilpert, MM, I, 104, fig. 32; see also E. Josi, Fenice, in Enciclopedia
cattolica, V. Citts. del Vaticano, 1950, 1152. See above p. 246.
PLo XVIII, I
Floor mosaic in one of the apses of the Hall of the Great Hunting
Scene of the Roman Villa at Casale near Piazza Armerina, Sicily;
second half of the fourth century (?, see below).
Burning phoenix on egg-shaped nest, symbolizing Egypt or Arabia
in a representation of Africa or, more probably, the Earth.
Photo: Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, Rome.
G. V. Gentili, La villa romana del Casale di Piazza Armerina, in AlIi del
primo congresso nazionale di Archeologia Cristiana, Rome, 1952, 171-181,
pI. XXVII, fig. 2; idem, Die Villa Erculia in Piazza Armerina, Stutt-
gart, s.a., fig. 5, pI. XXXVI; B. Pace, I mosaici di Piazza Armerina,
Rome, 1955, 68. The dating of these mosaics is still debated: Gentili,
Villa Erculia, 33-76 (summary on 74-76}: period of the Tetrarchs; Pace,
105: fourth century or the beginning of the fifth; et. also Th. Kraus,
Das rOmische Weltreich, (Propyliien Kunstgeschichte, 2), Berlin, 1967,
129-131: second quarter of the fourth century. See p. 231, 247, and 250
(n. I).
PLo XVIII, 2
Detail of no. I: burning phoenix.

Photo: Giovanni Amalfi e Figlio, Piazza Armerina.
PLo XIX
Orpheus mosaic in the Roman Villa at Casale near Piazza Armerina,
Sicily; second half of the fourth century (? see ad pI. XVIII, I).
Standing phoenix with radiate head.
Photo: Giovanni Amalfi e Figlio, Piazza Armerina.
See the literature mentioned ad pI. XVIII, I; Gentili, La villa romana,
fig. I. See above p. 244 (n. 6), 247 (n. 2).
PLo XX, I
Apsidal mosaic, S. Giovanni in Laterano, Rome; date of the mosaic

in this form ca. I290, renewed in I884.
Cross on the mountain of Paradise where the four rivers have
their source; at either side a stag and three sheep. In the clouds
above the cross, a bust of Christ. Beside the cross: r.-John the
Baptist, St. Anthony, and the apostles John and Andrew, l.-Mary,
Pope Nicholas IV, Francis of Assisi, and the apostles Peter and Paul.
Under this scene the river Jordan. Between the Paradise rivers the
Heavenly Jerusalem in which the busts of St. Peter and St. Paul are
visible; in front of the Celestial City (= Paradise, see p. 319) stands
a cherub with six folded wings and a sword in his hands. From the
centre of the city rises a large palm tree (the Tree of Life) on which
the phoenix, standing to r. and bearing a multi-rayed nimbus. There
is considerable controversy about the extent to which the mosaic
made by Torriti (ca. 1290) resembled the mosaic dating from the time
of Constantine the Great. The representation of the Heavenly
Jerusalem between the rivers of Paradise can certainly be considered
Early Christian. Lactantius too placed the phoenix in Paradise (see
p. 319££.); the radiate nimbus of the phoenix does not occur in the
Middle Ages (see p. 251, n. 2) but was common in Early Christian art.
Photo: Kunsthistorisch Instituut, Utrecht.
G. B. de Rossi, Mosaici cristiani delle chiese di Roma, anteriori al secolo
XV, Rome, 1899, fasc. XXVI, pI. 37; Wilpect, MM, I, 189-201; idem,
La decorazione constantiniana della Basilica Lateranense, in Rivista
d'Archeologia Cristiana, 6, 1929, 53-126; G. J. Hoogewerff, Il mosaico
absidale di San Giovanni in Laterano ed altri mosaici romani, in Rendi-
conti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia, 27, 1952-1954,
297-326; W. Oakeshott, The mosaics of Rom, from the third to the four-
teenth centuries, London, 1967, fig. 67. See also above p. 183 and 326.
PLo XX, 2
Detail of no. I: The phoenix on its palm tree in the Heavenly J eru-
salem.
PLo XXI
Mosaic from the post-Theodorian Basilica of Aquileia, Museo Arche-
ologico, Aquileia; second half of the fourth century A.D.
Phoenix with seven-rayed nimbus, standing to r., in flames.
Photo: Museo Archeologico, Aquileia.
La Basilica di Aquileia, a cura del Comitato per le ceremonie celebrative

del IXo centenario della Basilica e del 1° centenario dei militi ignoti,
Bologna, 1933, pI. L; G. Brusin and P. L. Zovatto, Monumenti paleocristi-
ani di Aquileia e di Grado, Udine, 1957, 160, fig. 66; G. Menis, I mosaici
cristiani di Aquileia, Udine, 1965, 33-35, fig. 8 (cf. Leclercq, 688, fig.
10165). In Aquileia another, unfortunately very fragmentary, phoenix
was found during the excavations of 1930. This bird too has a radiate
nimbus and is standing on an unidentifiable object, cf. G. Brusin, Aqui-
leia, scoperta di mosaici pavimentali romani e cristiani, in Atti della Reale
Accademia dei Lincei, Ser. 6, Notizie degli scavi di Antichita, VII, 1931,
126, 127, fig. 2. See above p. 231.
PLo XXII
Fragment of Early Christian sarcophagus, Museo Pio Cristiano,
Citta del Vaticano; last quarter of the fourth century A.D.
Adoratio crucis. Phoenix standing, front, on T-cross.
Photo: Archivio fotografico dei Gallerie e Musei Vaticani.
Wilpert, se, I, Tav. XVIII, 3, Testo, 19,326; G. Bovini and H. Branden-
burg, Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophagen, I, Wiesbaden, 1967,
59, no. 62, pI. 20; C. M. Kaufmann, Handbuch der christlichenArchiiologie,
3rd ed., Paderbom, 1922, 286-288, § 114. A similar representation of the
phoenix was found on a now destroyed sarcophagus in Poitiers, cf.
Wilpert, se, I, Tav. CXLVIII, I, Testo, 117, and idem, Le due piu
antichi rappresentazioni della "adoratio crucis", in A tti della Pontificia
Accademia Romana di Archeologia, Ser. Ill. Memorie, 2, 1928, 135-155,
pI. XII and XIII.
PLo XXIII
Dome mosaic in Chapel of S. Giovanni in Fonte, Naples; ca. A.D.
400.
Phoenix, standing 1., probably on rock.

Wilpert, MM, I, 233ff, Ill, pI. 29. J.-L. Maier, Le Baptistere de Naples
et ses mosaiques. Etude historique et iconographique, (Paradosis, XIX),
Fribourg (Switzerland), 1964, passim; date: 69-77. See above p. 180,
250 (n. 2), 251 (n. I), 259 (n. 2).
PLATES XXIV-XXIX, I AND XXIX, 2-XXX, 2:

PREFATORY REMARKS
Plates XXIV-XXIX, I all concern the so-called Traditio legis. The

origin and meaning of this scene are still controversial. A good re-
view of the divergent views is given by M. Sotomayor, S. Pedro en
la iconogralia paleocristiana, (Bibl. Teol. Granadina, 5), Granada,
1962, 130-133, who has also provided a catalogue of all the Traditio
legis occurrences in Early Christian art (126-130); see also W. N.
Schumacher, Dominus legem dat, in Romische Quartalschrilt, 54,
1959, 1-39; C. Davis-Weyer, Das Traditio-Legis-Bild und seine
Nachlolge, in Munchener Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 12, 1961,
7-45, and Th. Klauser, Fruhchristliche Sarkophage in Bild und Wort,
(Drittes Beiheft zur Halbjahresschrift Antike Kunst), Olten, 1966,
74-76. Sotomayor's study makes it likely that this motif not only
first occurred on the "Passion sarcophagi" but also originated there.
It may now be taken as certain that the content of this scene is not
the transmission of the law to St. Peter as head of the Church but
rather the notion that Christ is triumphant over death, the Heavenly
King, the Lawgiver. The scroll in Christ's hand often carries the
words Dominus legem dat, which means "The Lord is (as Pantocrator)
the lawgiver" and not "The Lord gives the law" (i.e. to St. Peter).
The scene expresses the Maiestas Domini (cl. F. van der Meer,
Maiestas Domini. Theophanies de l'Apocalypse dans l'art chretien
(Studi di Antichita Cristiana, XIII), Citta del Vaticano, 1938, 44,
180-184). Thus, it is not an earthly but rather a heavenly scene.
Christ is the Glorified Lord, standing on the mountain of Paradise
or in the gateway to the Heavenly City (for the identity of both
places, see p. 318-319 and pI. XX, I). St. Peter and St. Paul are
present as the most important witnesses of the Risen Lord. Thephoe-
nix in the left palm tree beside St. Paul is not primarily a reference to
the proclamation of the resurrection by the great apostle of the Gen-
tiles (see e.g. as early an author as G. Garrucci, Storia dell' arte cris-
tiana, VI, Prato, 1880, 142, and also Sotomayor, 143-144), although
the phoenix of course always implies the resurrection motif, but in
this case first of all represents a symbol of the glorious life in the
Heavenly Paradise (see above, Chapter VIII).
Plates XXIX, 2- XXX, 2 show a scene which developed from the so-
called Traditio legis and is closely related to it (cJ. for instance Davis-
Weyer, op. cit., 17 if. and van der Meer, op. cit., 184-185). This com-
position is found in the apse of several churches in Rome: the Saints
to whom the church is dedicated being led before Christ in all His
glory by St. Peter and St. Paul together with the founder of the
church and several other Saints. This motif is sometimes called the
Adventus in Gloria, but its meaning is more complex. On the one
hand the scene is set in Paradise, as shown by the two palm trees
with the phoenix on the one on the left: here, the Saints are being
led forward to be presented to Christ. On the other hand, it is at the
same time an eschatological scene in the strict sense: Christ appear-
ing on the clouds of heaven for the Last Judgement. In its totality
the composition conveys the notion that the saints can submit with-
out fear to Christ's judgement and enter into Paradise, but it also
evokes the message of Rev. i.7: "Behold, He is coming with the
clouds! Every eye shall see Him, and among them those who pierced
Him".
PLo XXIV
Early Christian sarcophagus from the Vatican cemetery; S. Pietro in
Vaticano, Rome; end of the fourth century A.D.
Traditio legis. Phoenix in 1. palm tree.
Wilpert, se, I, Tav., CLlV, 4, Testa, 183-184; Bovini and Brandenburg,
Repel'tol'ium, I, 272-273, no. 675, pI. 103; R. Sansoni, I sal'ca/agi palea-
cl'istiani a POl'te di citta. (Studi di Antichita Cristiane, 4). Bologna, 1969,
40-44 (with full bibliography). For siInilar sarcophagi with almost
completely destroyed phoenixes, see Bovini and Brandenburg, Repel'-
t01'ium, I, 24-26, no. 28, pI. 9, and 123-124, no. 200, pI. 47. See above
p. 55, 183, 326.
PLo XXV, I
Early Christian sarcophagus, Musee lapidaire d'art chretien, ArIes;

ca. A.D. 400.
Traditio legis. Phoenix on 1. palm tree.
29
Photo: Musee lapidaire d'art chretien, Arles.

E. le Blant, Etude sur les sarcophages chretiens antiques de la Ville d'Arles,
Paris, 1878, 17, pI. IX; Wilpert, se, I, Tav., XII, 4, Testo, 180-181;
A. Saggiorato, I sarcotagi paleocristiani con scene di passione, (Studi di
Antichita. Cristiane, I), Bologna, 1968, 78-80, fig. 31 (with full biblio-
graphy); Th. Klauser, Fruhchristliche Sarkophage in Bild und Wort,
(Drittes Beiheft zur HaIbjahresschrift Antike Kunst) , OIten, 1966,
72-77, pI. 23. See above p. 55, 183, 326.
PLo XXV, 2
Early Christian sarcophagus, S. Giovanni in Valle, Verona; ca. 400

A.D.
Traditio legis. Phoenix on 1. palm tree.
Photo: Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Rome.
Wilpert, se, I, Tav. CL, 2, Testo, 177; Klauser, Fruhchristliche Sarko-
phage, 77-78, pI. 25. See above p. 55, 183, 326.
PLo XXVI, I
Detail of pI. XXV, I: Traditio legis.

Photo: Musee lapidaire d'art chretien, Arles.
PLo XXVI, 2
Detail of pI. XXV, 2: Traditio legis. See also above p. 234.

Photo: Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Rome.
PLo XXVII
Fresco. Catacomb ad Decimum, Grottaferrata; beginning of the
fifth century A.D.
Traditio legis. Phoenix with ten-rayed nimbus, on 1. palm tree.
Wilpert, MM, I, 269-270, pI. 132. See above p. 55, 183, 326.
PLo XXVIII
Graffito from the Roman catacomb of Priscilla, Anagni, Palazzo di
Bonifacio VIII; ca. A.D. 400.
Traditio legis. Small phoenix with seven-rayed nimbus on second
r. branch of l. palm tree.
Photo: U. Frattali, Anagni.
R. Garrucci, Storia dell' arte cristiana, VI, Prato, 1880, 142, pI. 484, 14;
Wilpert, MM, I, 104, fig. 31; F. van der Meer, Maiestas Domini. TMo-
phanies de l'Apocalypse dans l'art chretien, (Stud. di Ant. Crist., XIII),
Citta del Vaticano, 1938, 46-47. See above p. 55, 183, 326.
PLo XXIX, I
Gold-glass. Vatican Library, Museo Sacro, Rome; ca. A.D. 400.

Traditio legis. Phoenix with nimbus without rays in l. palm tree.
Photo: Vatican Library.
C. R. Morey, The gold-glass collection ot the Vatican Library, with addition-
al catalogues ot other gold-glass collections, ed. by G. Ferrari, Citta. del
Vaticano, 1959, 19, no. 78, pI. XIII. As late as the beginning of the
eleventh century the Traditio legis is found in the apse of S. Silvestro in
Tivoli (fresco, phoenix with eight rays in 1. palm tree), et. e.g. A. Rossi,
Tivoli, (Collezione di monografie illustrate, Serie la-Italia Artistica,
no. 43), Bergamo, 1909, 107-114. See above p. 55, 183, 250, 326.
PLo XXIX, 2
Apsidal mosaic of SS. Cosma e Damiano, Rome; A.D. 526-530.

Adventus in Gloria. Phoenix with seven-rayed nimbus on l. palm
tree.
Wilpert, MM, 11, 1070-1074, Ill, pI. 102; M. van Berchem and E.
Clouzot, Mosaiques chretiennes du IVme a~, Xme siecle, Geneva, 1924,
119-123, fig. 138; G. Matthiae, SS. Cosma e Damiano e S. Teodoro, Rome.
1948, 19-26; Oakeshott, Mosaics, 90-92, pI. XI; R. Budriesi, La basilica
dei SS. Cosma e Damiano aRoma, (Studi di Antichita. Cristiane, 3)
Bologna, 1968, 113-133. See above p. 55, 183, 247, 258, 259 (n. I, 2), 326.
PLo XXX, I
Apsidal mosaic of S. Prassede, Rome; A.D. 817-824.

Adventus in Gloria. Phoenix with nine-rayed nimbus on 1. palm
tree.
Van Berchem and Clouzot, Mosaiques, 227-230, fig. 290; B. M. Apollonj
Ghetti, Santa Pl'assede, Rome, 1961, 62, fig. 25; Oakeshott, Mosaics,
206, fig. 124. See above p. 55, 183, 259 (n. I), 326.
PLo XXX, 2
Apsidal mosaic of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome; A.D. 817-824.

Adventus in Gloria. Phoenix with seven-rayed nimbus on 1. palm
tree.
Van Berchem and Clouzot, Mosaiques, 245-249, fig. 311; Oakeshott,
Mosaics, 212-213, fig. 129. A similar scene is found in the apse of
S. Sebastiano al Palatino (or S. Maria in Pallara), Rome; late tenth
century: fresco, phoenix with long tail and nimbus, within which six
or seven rays, on 1. palm tree; cf. Wilpert, MM, Il, 1075-1081, IV,
pI. 224. See above p. 55, 183, 326.
PLo XXXI
Mosaic pavement from Daphne near Antioch on the Orontes; Musee
du Louvre, Paris; sixth century A.D.
Phoenix with nimbus and five rays emanating from its head,
standing r. on pyramid-shaped pyle of rocks; flower repeat in back-
ground. In border, pairs of ram's heads affronted, above pair of
spread wings.
Photo: M. Chuzeville, Vanves (France).
Antioch on-the-Ol'ontes, II. The excavations 01 I933-I936, ed. by R. Still-
well, Princeton, 1938, 187 (detailed description), pI. 43; J. Lassus, La
mosaique du pMnix pl'ovenant des louilles d'Antioche, in MMAI, 36,
1938, 81-122, fig. 9; C. R. Morey, The mosaics 01 Antioch, London-New
York-Toronto, 1938, 43-44, pI. XXIV; D. Levi, Antioch mosaic pave-

ments, Princeton-London-The Hague, 1947, I, 351-355, Il, pIs. 73, 134;
G. Downey, A hist01'Y 0/ Antioch in Syria, Princeton, 1961, 391, n. 72;
G. Ch. Picard, L'art de Rome et des Provinces dans les collections parisien-
nes, (catalogue), Paris, 1970,91-92. See above p. 180, 257, 258, 259 (n. 2).
PLo XXXII
Mosaic pavement in the Church of Umm Jerar (Horvat Gerarit)
near Gaza; sixth century A.D.
Right border panel: phoenix with rayed nimbus, sitting on a chalice-
shaped altar, thewoodit has collected projecting upward on both sides.
Photo: Ministry of Education and Culture, Dept. of Antiquities and
Museums, Jerusalem, Israel.
O. M. Dalton, in Proceedings 0/ the Society 0/ Antiquaries 0/ London, 32,
1919, 47-54; idem, The tessellated pavement 0/ Umm jerar, in The
Burlington Magazine, 34, 1919, 3-10, pIs. on p. 6 and 7; idem, East
Christian art, Oxford, 1925, p. 296; M. Avi-Yonah, Mosaic pavements
in Palestine, in Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Pales-
tine, 3, 1934, 33-34, no. 250; A. D. Trendall, The Shellal mosaic and
other Classical antiquities in the Australian War Mem01'ial Canberra,
3rd ed., Canberra, 1964, 24. In a letter of April 28, 1970 Professor Avi-
Yonah wrote me that "the mosaic at Umm Jerar (now named Horvat
Gerarit) has been left covered up since 1921. The last report of a visit
dates from November 1941; later information refers only to a danger of
erosion". The photo published here dates from 1921. See also above p.
23 1-232.
PLo XXXIII
Mosaic pavement from the Basilica of Justinian, Sabratha, Museum
of Sabratha; sixth century A.D.
Phoenix with rayed nimbus, standing to front, within the lowest
of four "mandorlas" formed by two intertwining vine-stems leading
down the axis of the nave.
Photo: Archeologisch Instituut, Utrecht.
R. Bartoccini, Guida di Sabratha, Rome, 1927, 63, fig. 26; H. Pierce
and R. Tyler, L'Art Byzantin, Il, Paris, 1934, pI. 115; S. Aurigemma,
Italy in A/rica. Archaeological discoveries (I9II-I943). Tripolitania, I,
I, Rome, 1960, 27-28, pIs. 19 and 20 (with other literature); D. E. L.
Haynes, An archaeological and hist01'ical guide to the pre-Islamic anti-
quities 0/ Tripolitania, Tripolis, 1965, 120-121, pI. 21.
PLo XXXIV, I
Apsidal mosaic of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, Rome; between A.D.

625 and 640.
Phoenix, blue in a roundel of gold, standing r., decorating the
lower part of the Saint's robe.
Photo: E. Richter, Rome.
Van Berchem and Clouzot, Mosaiques, 195-198, fig. 247; Oakeshott,
Mosaics, 148, pI. XVI. See above p. 388.
PLo XXXIV, 2
Mosaic of the triumphal arch in S. Apollinare in Classe, near Raven-

na; ca. A.D. 549.
Archangel Michael; on his purple chlamys, red-bordered golden
roundels with palms and birds of the same type as the phoenix on
the garment of S. Agnese (see no. I). Gabriel, on the other side of
the triumphal arch, has a similar chlamys with birds.
J. Kurth, Die M osaiken del' christlichen A ra, I: Die Wandmosaiken von
Ravenna, Leipzig-Berlin, 1902, 214-215; E. Dinkler, Das Apsismosaik
von S.Apollinare in Classe, (Wissensch. Abh. der Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur
Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 29), Koln-Opladen, 1964,
21, pI. XIV (Michael), pI. XV (Gabriel); G. Bovini, Ravenna Mosaics,
Greenwich, Conn., (1956), pI. 46 (Michael); F. van der Meer and Chr.
Mohrmann, Atlas van de oudchristelijke wereld, Amsterdam-Brussels,
1958, fig. 268 (Gabriel). In the well-known mosaic of Justinian in
S. Vitale, Ravenna, the emperor wears a garment showing the same
golden roundels with birds, cf. Kurth, 122, and Bovini, pI. 30. See above
P·3 88 .
PLo XXXV
Mural painting in the Chapel of St. Felicitas (now destroyed), Rome,
date uncertain: fifth to seventh century A.D.
The martyr St. Felicitas with her seven sons, all martyrs too,
between two palm trees in the heavenly Paradise. Phoenix with ten-
rayed closed nimbus on r. palm tree. Above, Christ with crown of
Victory.
Photo: reproduced from De Rossi (drawing by Ruspi).

H. Leclercq, Felicite (Passion et cimetiere de), in DACL, V, I, 1922,
1280-1289, figs. 4327, 4328; drawing by Piale reproduced in Turk,
3467, fig. 9; drawing by Ruspi in G. B. de Rossi, Scoperta d'una cripta
storica nel Cimeterio di Massimo "ad Sanctam Felicitatem" sulla Via
Salaria Nuova, in Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, Ser. IV, 3, 1884-
1885, 149-184, pI. XI-XII. For other reproductions of this fresco, see
Leclercq, o.c., 1281. See above p. 55, 183, 251, 326.
PLo XXXVI, 1
Lead seal of Siricius; present location unknown, sixth century A.D.?

Obv.: Monogram of Siricius (SIRICI).
Rev.: Phoenix standing r. on branch, many rays around head.
Photo: reproduced from De Ficoroni.
F. de Ficoroni, I piombi antichi, Rome, 1740, 23, pI. V, 13. See above
P·25 0 .
PLo XXXVI, 2
Lead seal of Siricius; present location unknown, sixth century A.D. ?

Obv.: ... DISNI DIACON ... (= .. .indigni diaconi...), monogram of
Siricius (SIRICI).
Rev.: FE ... (= Fenix), above F a cross. Phoenix, standing 1., nimbus
within which seven or eight rays.
Photo: reproduced from De Ficoroni.
De Ficoroni, Piombi, 34, pI. IX, 9, (cf. Leclercq, 689, fig. 10167). See above
P·251.
PLo XXXVI, 3
Graffito, above the entrance to S. Paolo fuori le Mura, Rome; de-
stroyed by fire in 1823. Date unknown.
Dove-like bird with a twig in its beak; above: FENIX.
G. B. de Rossi, La Roma sotteffanea cristiana, II, Rome, 1867, 314,
fig. 2; also Leclercq, 690, fig. 10168. See above p. 250.
PLo XXXVI, 4
Lead medallion, Vatican Library, Museo Sacro; fifth or sixth centu-
ryA.D.
Obv.,' Christ between two palms, phoenix ( ?) in r. palm, no nimbus.
Rev.,' Cross.
Photo: reproduced from De Rossi.
G. B. de Rossi, Roma e Modena - Medag/ie di devozione, in Bullettino
di Archeologia Cristiana, Ser. n, 2, 1871, 150-151, pI. IX, 2. See above
p. 55, 183, 250.
PLo XXXVI, 5
Stone stamp, Treasure of St. Columban, Bobbio. Date unknown.
Phoenix standing r., seven rays around head, wings spread, long
legs. Circumscription illegible.
Photo: Index of Christian Art.
C. Celi, Cimeli Bobbiesi, 2nd ed., Rome, 1923,58, fig. 20 C (unaccessible).
See above p. 250.
PLo XXXVII
Illustration in the Smyma Physiologus, fo1. 32vo. (destroyed by fire
in 1922); ca. lIOO.
Nimbed priest of Heliopolis greeting arriving phoenix (without
nimbus); the bird is also shown sitting to r. in flames on the large
column in the foreground. Behind priest, also on columns, two
statues of soldiers bearing sword, shield, and lance. Above, red solar
disk with eight triple rays; within disk woman with raised r. hand
and globe in 1.
Photo: reproduced from Strzygowski.
J. Strzygowski, Der Bilderkreis des griechischen Physiologus, des Kosmas
Indikopleustes und Oktateuch, (Byzantin. Archiv, 2) Leipzig, 1899,
19-20, pI. IV. See above p. 232 (n. I).
PLo XXXVIII, I
Sarcophagus of St. Maximus, Crypt of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome;

date uncertain, see below.
Phoenix with spread wings in burning nest which rests on column.
The bird resembles most the eagle, as in the Vatican sculpture (no.
2) and in medieval representations of the phoenix. The sarcophagus
is Classical in origin; the phoenix was added at a later date, proba-
bly in the beginning of the ninth century, when the remains of St.
Cecilia and the other martyrs Valerianus, Tiburtius, and Maximus,
were brought from the catacomb of Praetextatus to the crypt of S.
Cecilia in Trastevere. According to the apocryphal Acts of St. Cecilia
(after A.D. 486; ed. Boninus Mombritius, Sanctuarium, nova editio
I, Paris, 1910, 339) the addition of the phoenix was due to Cecilia
herself: Quem (se. Maximum) sancta Caecilia iuxta ubi Tyburtium et
Valerianum sepelierat in novo sarcophago sepelivit. Et iussit ut in
illius sculperetur phoenix ad indicium fidei eius qui se resurrectionem
inventurum phoenicis exemplo suscepit.
G. B. Giovenale, Ricerche architettoniche della Basilica, in Cosmos
Catholicus. Il mondo cattolico illustrato, 4, 1902, 648-669; Wilpert, SC,
11, Testo, 271, fig. 168; H. Lec1ercq, Cecile (Crypte et Basilique de
Sainte-), in DACL, 11, 2, 1910,2773.
PLo XXXVIII, 2
Sculpture in the Vatican Museums; date unknown (Classical? Me-

dieval ?).
Burning phoenix on nest.
Photo: The Vatican Museums.
W. Amelung, Die Skulpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, I, 4, Berlin,
1903, 617, no. 466, pI. 65. See above p. 232.
PLo XXXIX
Detail of the mosaic of the triumphal arch in S. Marla in Trastevere,
Rome; twelfth century.
The prophet Isaiah with on scroll the text of I sa. vii. 14; phoenix
without nimbus on branch of palm tree as a symbol of the virgin
birth of Christ, cl. Rufinus, Expositio symboU, 9.
Oakeshott, Mosaics, 255, fig. I7I. See above p. 183 (n. 4).
PLo XL
Ceiling painting from a burgomaster's residence in Arnhem, Munici-
pal Museum, Arnhem; seventeenth century.
Young sun god standing in his chariot drawn by four horses, under
which fire and clouds; in the fire a salamander. Burning phoenix on
the outstreched 1. hand of the sun god, above the horses a flying
dragon with two legs and a fire-breathing crocodile head.
Photo: Municipal Museum, Arnhem.
See above p. 232 (n. I), and 302.
APPENDIX: DUBIOUS PHOENIXES
I. BIRDS REPORTED AS PHOENIX

(photographs not obtainable)
1. According to O. Garana, Le catacombe siciliane e i loro martiri,

Palermo, 1961, 292, the phoenix occurs in the catacombs of
Sicily; see also l'Abbe Martigny, Dictionnaire des antiquites chre-
tiennes, 2nd ed., Paris, 1877, 641.
2. R. du Coudray la Blanchere and P. Gauckler, Catalogue du
Musee Alaoui, Paris, 1897, 200, no. 570: lamp with phoenix.
3. P. Gauckler, Catalogue du Musee Alaoui, Supp1., I, Paris, 1907,
10, no. 206: mosaic from Bir Ftouha, medallion with phoenix.
See also A. Merlin, I nventaire des mosaiques de la Gaule et de
l' Atrique, 11, Supp1. 1. Paris, 1915, no. 206.
4. M. Besnier and P. Blanchet, Collection Farges, Paris, 1900, 76,
no. 60: tessera with phoenix in circle.
11. BIRDS INTERPRETED AS PHOENIX ON INSUFFICIENT GROUNDS
Gems
I. L. Perret, Catacombes de Rome, IV, Paris, 1851, pI. XVI, no. 68,
published a gem with a bird on an olive branch. According to
Martigny, Dictionnaire des antiquites chretiennes, 2nd ed., Paris,
1877, 641, this bird represents the phoenix, but it has more re-
semblance to a peacock.
2. A. Delatte and Ph. Derchain, Les intailles magiques greco-egyp-
tiennes, Paris, 1964, 70, no. 86: a bird with a fish in its claws is
considered by the authors to represent the phoenix. However,
the bird on this amulet does not show the characteristic features
of the phoenix, and, furthermore, no indication of a special re-
lationship between the phoenix and a fish is to be found in
Classical or Early Christian literature or art.
3. According to D. Wortmann, Kosmogonie und Niltlut. Studien zu
einigen Typen magischer Gemmen griechisch-romischer Zeit aus

Agypten, in B J, 166, 1966, 103, the phoenix is shown on a gem in
the Metropolitankapitel of the Dome of Cologne, Inv. N. 22, but
a phoenix cannot be distinguished on this gem.
4. F. Imhoof-Blumer and O. Keller, Tier- und Pflanzenbilder auf
Miinzen und Gemmen des klassischen Altertums, Leipzig, 1889,
157, pI. XXVI, 21 published a gem with an eagle-like phoenix on
its burning nest; this gem is not a Classical but a modern speci-
men, see p. 232, n. I.
Epitaphs
5. J. B. de Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae Urbis Romae septimo
saeculo antiquiores, I, Rome, 1857-1861, 155, no. 354, shows a
sepulchral inscription with a nimbed bird generally held to be
the phoenix (cf. Leclercq, 691, fig. 10170); but see O. Marucchi,
I monumenti del Museo Cristiano Pio-Lateranense, Milan, 1910,
pI. 82, 4: probably, the "nimbus" is only the prolonged stem of
an olive-leaf.
3. De Rossi, Inscriptiones, 11, I, Rome, 1888, 444, no. 185: sepul-
chral inscription for Anastasia and Laurentia with two birds,
for unknown reasons assumed to be phoenixes.
7. E. Le Blant, Inscriptions chretiennes de la Gaule anterieures au
VIII" siecle, 11, Paris, 1865,43-44, no. 398, pI. 49, no. 287, cf. also
E. Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres, 11, Berlin,
1927, 214, no. 3474, and Leclercq, 687, fig. 10164: sepulchral
inscription for Eufrasius with below two birds supposed by Le
Blant to represent phoenixes and not peacocks, because they do
not have the latter's long tail. This may be the case, but it is im-
possible to identify the birds with certainty.
8. R. Kanzler, Relazione ufficiale degli scavi eseguiti dalla Commis-
sione di Archeologia Sacra nelle catacombe (I907-I909), in Nuovo
Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, 15, 1909, 129, no. 35 (from
Gallery G in Catacomb of Praetextatus, reproduced by Leclercq,
690, fig. 10169): sepulchral inscription for Constantia with, at
the side, a heron-like bird with two projecting feathers at the
back of its head, according to Kanzler representing the phoenix.
One could think of a representation of the phoenix in the form
of the Egyptian benu, which would be very exceptional, but

more probably a real heron was meant.
Sculptures
9. A. F. F. Mariette, Le Sbapeum de Memphis, ed. by G. Maspero,
Paris, 1882, 28, wrongly identified a now lost bird with a wo-
man's head at Memphis as the phoenix, but this unquestionably
was a Siren, cl. J. Ph. Lauer and Ch. Picard, Les statues ptolemai-
ques du Serapieion de Memphis, (PubI. de l'Inst. d'Art et d'Ar-
cheologie de l'Univ. de Paris, 3), Paris, 1955, 14,16, no. 13; 17,
186, 222, 223; pI. 21.
10. M. Michaelis, "Pharmakon athanasias". Ein neuer Beitrag zur
spiitantik-Iruhchristlichen Kultsymbolik, in Forschungen und
Fortschritte, Nachrichtenblatt der deutschen Wissenschaft und
Technik, 31, 1957, 346-350, figs. 1-3, published two stones from
the Basilica in Ossenowo (fifth or sixth century A.D.), now in the
Archaeological Museum at Varna (Bulgaria), each showing a
peacock standing before a chalice. The author was of the opinion
that probably peacocks were meant, but he also thought of the
phoenix. There is no reason to doubt the identity of the pea-
cock, as can be seen from the birds' typical tails.
Mosaics
II. F. Benoit, Le symbolisme dans les sanctuaires de la Gaule, Brus-
sels, 1970, 22, sees the phoenix in a mosaic pavement (second
half first century A.D.) at Ventimiglia, excavated in 1958 and
described by N. Lamboglia, Un mosaico romano e una stratigralia
preromana a Ventimiglia, in Rivista Ingauna e Intemelia, NS,
13, 1958, 58-62, figs. 3 and 4 (also issued separately (Bordighera,
1958) with a colour reproduction of the mosaic on the cover).
Lamboglia himself rightly did not mention the phoenix: of the
various birds in this mosaic only a peacock and a duck can be
identified with certainty.
12. G. Becatti, Scavi di Ostia, IV, Roma, 1961, 55-56, 362, pI.
CXCVIII, 73 (cJ. also S. Laeuchli (ed.), Mithraism in Ostia. Mys-
tery religion and Christianity in the ancient port oJ Rome, North
Western University Press, 1967, pI. 30): a bird with the charac-
ter R next to it is thought to represent the phoenix, the R in-

dicating Resurrectio. For this interpretation Becatti based him-
self on the much-discussed views of Margherita Guarducci, see
e.g. her La crittografia mistica e i graffiti vaticani (a proposito
di una recensione del p. Antonio Ferrua) , in Archeologia Classica,
13, Ig61, 217-218. The bird shows nothing of the usual icono-
graphy of the phoenix and for this reason Becatti's interpreta-
tion may be doubted.
13. R. F. Hoddinott, Early Byzantine churches in Macedonia and
Southern Serbia, London, Ig63, lIS, pIs. Ill, 14b and 16a, for
unknown reasons supposes the unidentifiable birds in the Dome
mosaic of St. George's at Thessalonica to be phoenixes.
14. Lassus, La mosaique du phenix, 1I0, n. 4, mentions a phoenix
occurring in mosaic fragments from the Church of St. Hilary in
Poitiers, now in the Municipal Museum, with reference to G.
Lafaye and A. Blanchet, I nventaire des mosaiques de la Gaule
et de l'Afrique, I, Paris, Ig0g, 127, no. 581, who wrote in their
description: "Deux mosaiques, avec oiseau et fleurons (phenix?)".
The supposed occurrence of the phoenix in these mosaics is
probably due to a careless reading of the ultimate source, i.e.
De Longuemar, Essai historique sur l'Eglise collegiale de Saint-
Hilaire-Le-Grand de Poitiers, in M emoires de la Societe des A nti-
quaires de l'Ouest, 1856,66-67, pI. Il, figs, I, 2, who mentioned a
"perdrix", i.e. a partridge (p. 67). The mosaics are very fragmen-
tary; a phoenix cannot be distinguished.
IS. L. Brehier, Les mosaiques merovingiennes de Thiers, in Melanges
litteraires publies par la Faculte des Lettres de Clermont-Ferrand
al'occasion du Centenaire de sa creation (I8IO-I9 IO) , Clermont-
Ferrand, Ig10, 75, fig. 1I, supposed the unmistakable peacock
in the mosaic of Thiers to be a phoenix because of its nimbus;
see above, p. 250, n. 1.
Mural paintings
16. J. P. Peters and H. Thiersch, Painted tombs in the Necropolis of
M arissa (M areshah) , London, Ig05, 88-go and frontispiece,
published a sepulchral painting with two spread-winged eagles
above a garland separating them from two fire-spouting vessels,
one beneath each of the eagles. The authors thought it possible

that not eagles but phoenixes were meant. The birds are, how-
ever, clearly eagles, and the separation by the garland implies
that no connection is to be assumed between the birds above
and the fires below; see also E. R. Goodenough, Jewish symbols
in the Greco-Roman period, (Bollingen Series, XXXVII), New
York, 1953, I, 69, Ill, fig. 12.
17. R. Garrucci, Storia dell' arte cristiana, VI, Prato, 1880, 175, pI.
495,3, recognized the phoenix in the bird depicted in the Cata-
comb of Praetextatus (arcosolium near Cubiculum of Vibia); in
front of the bird lies a rounded object which he identified as the
egg of myrrh. From a comparison with Garrucci's pI. 495, 5, it
may be assumed that the bird represents the peacock.
18. Leclercq, 690, thought it possible that the phoenix was shown
on one of the four ornamental squares on the wall of a crypt in
the cemetery of S. Nazaro at Milan, as published by Garrucci,
Storia, I1, pI. I05c. In these squares a cock, a peacock, and ducks
can be discerned (as also according to Leclercq in DA CL, I1, 2,
1907, 30Il, fig. I043). There is no reason to suppose that one
of these birds could be the phoenix.
19. A. Fakry, The Necropolis 01 EI-Bagawat in Kharga Oasis, Cairo,
1951, 80, 85 (pI. VII), 91-92 (fig. 77), 95-99 (fig. 84), saw the
great birds painted in chapels no. 25, no. 175, and no. 2IO of El-
Bagawat (after the fifth century A.D.) as phoenixes. More proba-
bly they represent eagles, cl. e.g. Maria Cramer, Archiiologische
und epigraphische Klassilikation koptischer Denkmiiler, Wies-
baden, 1957, figs. I, 5, 13, 14,30.
Lamps
20. A. L. Delattre, Lampes chretiennes de Carthage, in Revue de l' art
chretien, 4th Ser., 2, 1891, 48-49, nrs. 289-296; ibid., 3, 1892, 228,
no. 818 and ibid., 4, 1893, 35, nrs. 868, 869: Lamps with birds
held to be phoenixes (concerning Delattre's no. 290, see also his
Lampes chretiennes de Carthage, Lyons, 1880,33-35). According to
V. SchuItze, Archiiologie der altchristlichen Kunst, Munich, 1895,
295, the birds on Delattre's nrs. 289-293, 295, represent eagles.
There is no reason to assume that phoenixes are meant.
Leads seals
21. P. Monceaux, Enquete sur l' epigraphie chretienne d'Ajrique, in
Revue Archeologique, 4th Ser., Il, 1903, 251, no. 103, and 253,
no. 108, recognized the phoenix on two lead seals, published
previously by M. Besnier and P. Blanchet, Collection Farges,
Paris, 1900,79, no. 98, pI. XI, 20, and no. 97, pI. XI, 11-12. These
seals show a bird spreading its wings; there is no evidence to
support Monceaux's assumption.
PLATE I
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PLATE XXXIX
PLATE XL
INDICES
I. BIBLICAL AND JEWISH TEXTS
A. Biblical texts
Genesis Judges
i.26-27 3 68 vi. 36-40 344
ii·7 3 68 X.I 64
ii·9 3 20
ii.9-14 3II, 312 I Kings
ii. II-I4 3 19 xvii. I 34 1
ii.I7 12 3 xviii. 38 II9
ii. 18 3 81
iii.6 I Chronicles
59
iii.20 vii. I 64
37 1
iii.22 37 8 2 Chronicles
iV·4-5 119,120
vii. I II9
xiii. 10 3 13 XVi.I4 170
xxii·5-6 3 21 XXi.I9 170
xxii.I7 58
xxvii. 28 34 1 Job
xxvii. 39 34 1 iV.2 221
xli-49 58 XXix.I8 5, 58-60, 326
xlvi.I3 64 xxxviii. 36 26 5
xxxviii·41 35 2
Exodus XXXiX.26 265
xV.27 3 21 x1.25-xli.26(LXX) 296
XVi.I3 122 xl.25(LXX) 299
XVi.I3-14 345 x1.29(LXX) 30 4
XiX.I6-18 227 xli·7(LXX) 296
Leviticus Psalms
iX.24 II9 xix·7 26 3
xi.4,49 ff. 34 1 XliV.I7 34
xii 12 7 xlvi·4 3 13
xlviii. 2 3 13
Numbers lxviii·9 343
xi·9 345 lxxi.6(LXX) 344
xi.3 I 122 lxxvii.25(LXX) 34 6
xix.6 34 1 lxxviii. 27 58, 122
xxvi. 23 64 xC·4 123, 124
XCi.I3(LXX) 5,57,294
Deuteronomy xcvii. 7 47
xxxii.II 60 cii.5(LXX) 279
xxxiii. 13 34 1 ciV.I6 3 08
30
466 INDICES
cxxxix.IB 58 Zephaniah
cxlvii,9 337,35 2 ,4 21 i,7 221
Song of Songs Haggai
v.6 343 i,IO 34 1
Isaiah Zechariah
ii,2 314,3 17 ii, 13 221
ix.6-B 229 xiv.8 3 13
xiv.13 3 13
xxvi, 19 34 2, 343 Matthew
xlviii, 19 58 iV·5 126
xlix.lo 32B v.14 3 17
li·3 3 13 xviii, 20 3Bo
xX.I-16 12 5
Jeremiah xxi, 8 176
xv.B 58 xxii,30 374,4 22
xxxiv. 5 170 xxiii, 53 45
Ezekiel Mark
XVii.22-24 30B xi,B 176
XXVii.22-23 3 14 xii,25 374
xxviii, 13ff. 3 13
xxvill·14 3 17 Luke
xxxi,3,6,B,9,16 30B ii,21,22 12 7
xxxi,8f. 3 13 xi,5O-5 1 45
xxxvi, 35 3 13 xix·36 176
xl. 2 3 14 xX·34-36 374, 376 , 377.
xlvii.I-12 3 11 , 313, 31B 3Bo
xlvii, B-1 2 3 24 xxiii, 46 210
xlvii, 12 3 22
John
Daniel i,IB 35 B
ii,3 1-45 110 iii,5 45,126
iii,50 (LXX) 34 2 iii.16 35 B
vi,3 Iff. 346
Hosea xii, 13 176
xiv. 5 34 2 xix·39 170
xiv·5-B 30B
I Corin thians
Joel x·3-4 34 6
ii,3 3 13
ill.IB 3 13 2 Corinthians
xii. 2-4 3 15
Micah
iV.I 3 14. 3 17 Galatians
iii,28 379
Habakkuk
i,9 58 Philippians
ii,20 221 iii,20 377
INDICES 467
2 Peter xxi.9-xxii.5 3 17
iii.8 12 3 xxi.lo 3 14
xxi. 19 294
Revelation xxii.1 3 24
vii.16- 17 3 28 , 33 0 xxii. 1-2 3 11
xxi·4 33 0
B. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
Apocalypse of Ethiopic (I) Enoch

Abraham 24 3 22
21,6 3 15 24-25 3 15
29 124, 125 25, 6 33 0
32, 2ff. 3 15
*1) Greek Apocalypse 70 , 3 3 15
of Baruch 75,4-5 291
4,10 3 16 77.3 3 15
6-8 261-263
6, 2 252, 302 * Slavonic (11) Enoch
6,11 122, 340, 420 (Vaillant)
6, 12 216 L = long recension
only
* Slavonic Apocalypse 5 3 22
of Baruch 5L 315, 320
262 6 289-290
6L 25 2, 254, 291
Syriac Apocalypse of 6 (Third recension) 293
Baruch 8 290, 358
4,3-6 3 18 IlL 12 3
29, 5 3 18
29,7-8 347-34 8 4 Ezra
53-68 12 4- 12 5 2,18 3 19
73, 2 34 8 7, 26 3 18
7,39-44 3 28
Apocalypse of Moses 7,4 1 3 28
37.5 3 15 7,114 33 0
7, 12 3 3 22
Assumption of Moses 8, 52 3 18
I, 3 57 10, 54 3 18
(?) frg. 36 3 13, 36 3 18
Cave of Treasures Joseph and Aseneth

3,15 316, 320 16,8 34 6
7,5-11 33 1
19, 2-4 3 16
1) An asterisk indicates that the phoenix is mentioned or discussed.

468 INDICES
Jubilees Testament of
4, 24 3 16 Abraham
4,39-4 0 12 3 7 124, 125
Letter of Aristeas Testament of Dan
89 3 18 5,12 318
Testament of Levi
Life of Adam and Eve 3, I 26 3
4 347
42 126 Wisdom of Salomo
Ethiopic 126 19,21 35 0
Latin and Slavonic 173
English 174 Wisdom of Jesus
Sirach
3 Maccabees 24,3 346
6,6 34 2-343 43, 1-5 26 3
C. Rabbinical writings
Baba Bathra Yoma
25a 265 80a 26 7
73 b 265 • Midrash on Genesis
Bekoroth (Bereshit Rabbah)
57 b 265 VIII, I 367,368
Berakoth XV, I 308
61a 368 XIX, 4 265
'Erubin XIX, 5 59, 70 , 152,
18a 368 189, 205, 220
Gittin Midrash on Exodus
3 1b 265 XXIX, 9 221
Kethuboth Midrash on Leviticus
8a 368 XIV, I 368
Mena1}.oth XIX, I 353
66b 265 XXII,lo 265
Rash Hashana Midrash on Numbers
26a 265 XXI,18 26 7
Sanhedrin Midrash on Psalms
97 a 123, 128 LXVIII,5 343
Shabbat XC, 17 12 9
88b 343 Midrash on
Sukkah Lamentations
5a 26 7 Proems XXIV 264
D. Other Jewish texts

Qumran commentary xix. 18 58
on Habakkuk xxxviii. 36 265
XII,3-4 309 xxxix. 13 265
Targum on Job Targum on Psalm
iii.6 265 1.11 264, 267
INDICES 469
Zohar, Wayikra Quaestiones in
Ill, 22b, 23a 277 Genesim
II,49 370
• Ezekiel the Drama- Quaestiones in
tist, Exodus, Exodum
(Wieneke) I,7 370
243-253 3 21 I,8 370
254-269 395 Quis rer.div.heres
254- 255 121 191 345
256 252 Quod deter.pot.insid.
257-258 254 soleat
259 257 117-118 345-34 6
259-260 254 De somniis
261-263 257 II,249 350
264 28 3 De vita contem-
265-269 193 plativa
268-269 258 63 373
De vita M osis
Philo II,258 345
De fuga et inventione De vitibus
138 345 93 33 6
De legum allegoriis ]osephus
II,I3 369 De bello J udaico
III,69 37 8 I,673 170
III,I69 345 II,I55 3 28
De oPificio mundi VII, 420-432 118
76 369 A ntiquitates J udae-
134 369 orum
152 369, 373 II,3 11 131
De posteritate Caini XII,388 118
137 37 8 XIII,62-73 118
XVII,I99 170
II. GREEK AND LATIN TEXTS

• Achilles Tatius, Leucippe et Clitophon, Ill, 24-25: 71, 406; Ill, 25: 67, 149,
191, 193, 194, 195, 235, 248, 249, 25 2, 254, 296, 297, 306, 365, 382
• Acta S. Caeciliae (Mombritius, I, 339): 382, 457
Acta Johannis (in Pseudo-Titus, Epistula): 385
Acta Perpetuae et Felicitatis, 10, 3: 379; 13,3: 173
Acta Philippi, 104: 343
Acta Thomae, 6, 7, and 36: 350
• Aelian, De natura animalium, II, 34: 166; VI, 58: 68, 149, 192, 194, 196,
358, 406; XII, 7: 298; XVII, 21: 166; XVII, 22: 257, 258; XVII, 23:
253, 255, 256, 257, 258
• Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus (PG 85, 980): 68, 188, 382
• Aenesidemus, Pyrrhonea (in Diog. Laert., IX, 79): 305, 357, 395, 408, 411
Aeschylus, frg. 196: 323
Aetius, De plac. philosophorum, I, 3, 4: 361; II, 17, 4: 102, 339; II, 32, 2:
75,76,89, lOO, 136; II, 32, 5: 109
470 INDICES
A etna, 13-14: 351

• Alanus de Insulis, De planctu naturae (PL 210, 436A): 117
• Alanus, in Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, 11, 14: 117-
118; 150, 209, 215
• Albertus Magnus, De animalibus, XXIII, 110 (42): 161, 164, 185, 206, 215,
223, 234, 252
• Alexander Polyhistor (= Ezekiel the Dramatist), in Eusebius, Praep.
Evang., IX, 29, 16: 394, 401
• Alexander Romance, see Romance of Alexander
• Ambrose, Exameron, Ill, 16, 68: 162; V, 23, 79: 68, 149, 161, 164, 187, 189,
218, 305, 358, 382
De excessu fratris, 11, 59: 57, 149, 152, 161, 164, 187, 189, 190, 196, 204,
211, 305, 306, 382
Expositio Psalmi cxviii, 19, 13: 211, 223, 357, 387
De bono mortis, 12, 53: 328
De paenitentia, 11, 2, 8: 279
• Amedeus of Lausanne, Homiliae de Maria Virginea Matre, VI, 292-295:
165
• Ammianus Marcellinus, Historiae, XVII, 4, 20: 24, 393
Anaximander, frg. A 27 (FVS I, 88): 101
Anaximenes, frg. B 2 (FVS I, 95): 361
• Ansileubus, Glossarium: see Physiologus
Anthologia Graeca, XV, 24 (Simias): 269
• Antiphanes,/rg. 175 (in Athenaeus, XIV, 655b): 306, 358, 395, 403
Apocalypse of Paul, 2: 38; 4: 263; 5-6: 264; 19: 315; 19-22: 318; 22: 322;
23-3 0 : 319; 45: 3 15; 45-5 1 : 319, 320
Apocalypse of Peter, 14 (PO 18, 482): 329; 15 (Akhmim frg.): 322
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, V, I: 325
Apologia (De magia), 32, 4: 169
Aratus, Phaenomena, 108-110: 329
Aristeas,/rg. 5 (in Herodotus, IV, 13) and frg. 7 (in Pausanias, I, 24, 6): 397
• Aristides, Orationes, XVII, 2 (Keil): 147; XX, 19 (Keil): 147; XLV, 107
(Dindorf): 67, 71, 147, 305
Aristophanes, Aves, 606-609: 87
Aristotle, Historia animalium, I, I (487a); 294; I, 11 (492b): 296; V, 19
(55Ia): 216, 219; V, 19 (55Ib): 219; VI, 6 (563b): 352; IX, 13 (616a):
166; IX, 32 (619a): 280
frg. 267 (Rose): 54
• Artemidorus, Onirocritica, IV, 47: 150, 151, 165, 171, 192, 197, 211, 214,
223, 309, 405
AsclePius, 20: 367
Astrological text of Leningrad (Cat. cod. astr. Graec., XII, 107): 273
Athanasius, Expositiones in Psalmos, ad lxxi. 6 (PG 27, 324D ): 344
• Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 11, 47c and IX, 405d: 336; see also Anti-
phanes, Callixenus, Cratinus, and Myro
• Augustine, De anima, IV, 20, 33: 364, 382; see also Vincentius Victor
De civitate Dei, XIV, 26: 328
Enarratio in Ps. xlv, 7 (PL 36, 520-521); in Ps.cii, 9: 280
• Aurelius Victor, De Caesaribus, IV, 14: 68, 116, 150,305
INDICES 471
• Ausonius,Opuscula, XXVI: Gryphus ternarii numeri, 11, 11-17: 86; 16:
305; 17: 165, 236
Opuscula, XXXII: De aetatibus animantium, 1-9: 140
Epistulae, XX, 9: 69, 305; 9-12: 253
• Avienus, Descriptio orbis terrae, 1126-1127: 167, 169
• Avitus, De mundi initio, I, 213-214: 317, 325; 222-226: 328; 225-226: 321;
225-237: 323; 231-232 : 319; 238-239: 172; 239: 165; 240-241: 223; 240-
244: 211; 258-259: 315; 264-265: 321; 11, 152: 317
Babrius, Fabulae Aesopeae, pro!. 12: 323; 124, 15: 283

Barnabas (Letter of), 15, 4: 124
• Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, XII, 14: 117-118, 150,
209, 215, 253, 335; see also Alanus
Basil of Caesarea, In Hexaemeron, VIII, 8 (PG 29, 184D): 219
Bede, Hexaemeron, I (PL 91, 44A): 317
Berossus, Babyloniaca (Schnabel and FGrH, Ill, C, I, resp.), frg. I: 92; frg.
29(3): 93; frg. 29-30 (3): 91 ; frg. 34(4): 101; frg. 51 (Test. 2): 104
Blemmydes Nicephorus, Expositio in Psalmos, ad cxlvi. 9 (PG 142, 1617D):
353
• Boethius, In Isagogen Porphyrii commenta, ed. sec., Ill, 6: 357, 359
• Bonaventura, Sententiae, I, 4, 3: 359
• Carmen inlaudemSolis, 31-35: 211; 31, 33, 35: 360 ; 35: 222, 357; 36 : 179;
36-37: 203
Canones Apostolorum, 85: 155
Callixenus of Rhodes, in Athenaeus, V, 27 (198b): 56; ibid. XV, (677d): 248
Cassiodorus, Expositio in Psalterium, ad cxlvi. 9 (PL 70, 1037B): 354
• Celsus, in Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 98: 67, 149, 189, 191, 405-406
Censorinus, De die natali, 18, 10: 27, 72; 18, 11: 73-74, 89; 21, 10: 70; 21, 11: 72
• Chaeremon, Hieroglyphica, frg. 3 (in Tzetzes, Chiliad., V, 395-398): 72,
109, 150, 393, 416
• Charisius, Ars gramm., IV, 6: see Laevius
Cicero, De natura deorum, 11, 51-52: 73, 74; Ill, 65: 73
De divinatione, I, 19: 91; 11, 56: 283; 11, 57: 277-278
De Re Publica, VI, 14: 182
Tusculanae Disputationes, I, 43: 338
• Claudian, Phoenix, 1-6: 332-333; 1-10: 147; 7-12: 333; 7: 232; 8: 357; 11:
339; 13-16 : 336, 356, 420 ; 17: 257; 17-20: 163,236, 270; 19: 234; 20:
257; 21-22: 255; 27: 69; 30-42: 161-163; 42-43: 165; 45-54: 201, 205;
55-60: 202; 57: 169; 60-62: 220; 62-71: 221; 69-70: 366; 72-75: 225;
72-100: 158; 76-82: 228; 83-88: 228, 256; 89-100: 226; 94: 210; 101:
38 7
De Consulatu Stilichonis, 11, 414-420: 147, 225; 417: 358; 417-420:
227; 419: 233; 420: 165
Epithalamium, 49-85: 325, 327
.? Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, I, 136,4: 85; Ill, I, I: 380 ; 45, 3: 377;
4~ I: 376 ;63, 2: 379;6~ 1:377;6~ 1:380 ;92, 2:377;95,2:37~378;
V, 41, 2-3: 239, 297; 41, 3: 299; VI, 35,4: 56; 132,2: 363
Paedagogus, I, 10: 379-380
472 INDICES
* Clement of Rome, Epistula ad COYinthios, I (I Clement), 25: 4, 68, 149, 164,

171, 187, 190, 194, 195, 197, 230, 305, 306, 358, 393; 25-26: 382; 26, I:
130
Coptic I Clement, 25: 150, 152-156, 203, 214, 223
Codex justinianus, 1,17, I, 10: 117
* Commodianus, Carmen Apologeticum, 139-142: 382
* Constitutiones Apostolorum, V, 7, 15: 68, 150, 165, 169, 200, 202, 205, 214,
305, 309, 357, 358 ; 15- 17: 382
* Consularia Ravennatica (Frick, Chron. Min., I, 379): 116
* Corpus Glossar. Lat., IV, 75, 11; 518, 15; V, 199, 27: 51; V, 381 , 4: 252
Corpus Hermeticum: see Asclepius and Poimandres
* Corippus, In laudem Iustini, I, 349-350: 211; 349-352: 227; 351: 233; 356-
358: 229
Cratinus, in Athenaeus, IX, 374d: 283
Cyranides (de Mely, Lapidaires, 89): 286-287, 367
Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. in Isaiam, ad xxvi. 19 (PG 70, 588C-589A): 344
Glaphyrorum in Leviticum / liber (PG 69, 560C): 341
Glaphyrorum in Numeros liber (PG 69, 631C): 341
* Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, XVIII, 8 (PG 33, 1025A-I028A): 68, 149,
158, 164, 171, 187, 188, 194, 195, 358, 382
Democritus, in Cicero, De divinatione, 11, 57: 277-278

* Dexippus,frg. 11 (in Syncellus, Chronogr., 334C): 69, 116-117
Didache, 7, I: 324
* Didascalia, 40: 68, 150, 165, 199,200, 202, 205, 214, 223, 309, 357, 359, 382
* Dio Cassius, HistOYiae, LVIII, 27, I: 114
Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Hist., 11, 31: 91; 47, I: 323; V, 43, 2· and 44, 3:
325; XII, 36, 2: 76; XVII, 50, 4: 325
* Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum, IX, 79: see Aenesidemus
* Dionysius, De aucupio, I, 32: 147, 161, 178, 203, 211, 305, 334, 357
* Dionysius of Alexandria, De natura, frg. 3 (in Eusebius, Praep. Evang.,
XIV, 25, 4): 54, 76, 358
Dionysius Periegetes, Periegesis, 944-945: 167
* Dioscurides, De materia medica, Ill, 24 RV: 56-57
* Disputatio Panagiotae cum Azymita: 261, 274-277, 292 (Slav. trans.)
* Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Ventris and Chadwick), nos. 244, 246: 62-
63
De Dormitione B. V. Mariae, 35 (Wenger): 363
* Dracontius, De laudibus Dei, I, 180-189: 323; 185, 189-193, 199: 328; 653-
655: 208, 211, 382; 656-662: 222
Romulea, V, 115-116: 211; X, 104: 161, 357, 360; 105-106: 165; 106:
67; 107-109: 203, 211
* Elias of Crete, In Greg. Nazianz. Orat. XIX, ad 31, 10: 359

Empedocles, jrg. 115, 5-8 (FVS I, 357): 132, 135
* Ennodius, Carmina, I, 9, 151: 382
* Epiphanius, Ancoyatus, 84: 68, 150, 161, 165, 204, 212, 215, 223-224, 305,
3 82 , 40 3, 414
Panarion, 26, 5, I: 319; 51, 23, 3-11: 128
INDICES 473
Fragment of letter: 131

On weights and measures (Dean, 70): 320
* Ernaldus of Bonneval, Hexaemeron (PL 189, 1535B): 320; 1537D: 311
* Eugenius, Carmina, XLIV: 69, 358
Euripides, Bacchae, 1082-1083: 227; 1084-1085: 221
• Eusebius, Vita Constantini, IV, 72: 150, 165, 21 I, 222, 358
Praeparatio Evangelica: see Alexander Polyhistor, Dionysius of Alex-
andria, and Porphyry
Commentaria in Psalmos, ad lxxi. 6 (PG 23, 800B-D): 344; ad lxxvii.
25 (ibid. 917D-920A): 346; ad cxlvi. 9 (PG 24, 68C): 337, 353
Comment. in Isaiam, ad xxvi. 19 (PG 24, 277B): 343
Eustathius, Comm. ad Homeri Iliadem, XXIV, 292: 349
Euthymius Zigabenus, Comment. in Psalmos, ad cxlvi. 9 (PG 128, 1304D): 337
Evangelium Pseudo-Matthaei, 6, 2: 347; 21: 175
* Fasti Vindobonenses (MGH, a. a. IX, 282): 116
• Georgius Pisides, Hexaemeron, 11 17-1122 (PG 92, 1520A): 211
Germanus of Constantinople, In Dormitionem Beatae Mariae, III (PG 98,
364C): 175, 176
Gospel of Nicodemus, 11, 3 and 12: 126
Gregory the Great, Moralia, XXX, 33 (PL 76, 542B): 352
* Gregory of Nazianzus, Carmina, I, 2: Praecepta ad Virgines (PG 37, 620A),
526-530 : 382 ; 526-533: 211, 386; 527: 67; 535-539: 387
Orationes, 31, 10 (PG 36, 144C): 359, 360, 382
• Gregory of Tours, De cursu stellarum ratio, 12: 69,165, 184-185,201,203,
210, 219-220, 222, 350, 357, 365, 382
• Hecataeus of Miletus: see Herodotus, 11, 71 and 73
• Heliodorus, Aethiopica, I, 18: 277; VI, 3: 150, 307
Heraclitus,frg. All (FVS I, 146): 102, 339 ;frg. A 13 (FVS I, 147): 89, 136
Herodianus, Historiae, Ill, 15, 7: 169
• Herodotus, Historiae, 11, 68: 296; 71: 252, 402; 72: 14, 26, 62, 68, 149, 190,
191,197,251,253,305,360,395,404; 123: 135; 142: 85; Ill, I l l : 166;
IV, 13: 397; VII, 89: 53
• Hesiod, Erga, 100-201: 110; 112-117: 329; 117-118: 323; 125: 79; 167-174:
419; 171-173: 323; 175: 112; 255: 79
Theogonia, 793-804: 139
frg. 304 (Merkelbach-West): 80, 76-109 passim, 132-145 passim, 394,
399-401
Hesychius, Lexicon, s.v. alL()poa(ot: 349; s.v. puv3a.K"lj: 351
Hilary of Poitiers, Tract. in CXL VI Psalmum, 11-12 (PL 9, 874): 354
Comment. in Matth., XX, 6 (PL 9, 1030A): 125
• Historia Augusta, 23, 6: 55
Hippolytus, In Danielem, IV, 23, 3, and 24, 1-3: 124, 126
Homer, Ilias, VI, 181: 300; XX, 8-9: 81
Odyssea, IV, 566-568: 327; VI, 43-45: 327; VII, 112-126: 323; IX,
108-109: 323
* Honorius of Autun, Speculum Ecclesiae: de paschali die (PL 172, 963A): 51,
68, 165, 206
31
474 INDICES
Horatius, Epodae, XVI, 41: 323; 46: 351; 50: 333, 53-56: 328
Odae, Ill, 24, 12-13: 323
• Horapollo, HieroglYPhica, I, 3 (Sbordone): 56,142; 10: 240; 34: 71, 233;
35: 20-21, 68, 159, 198 ; 11, 57: 72, 159, 197, 223, 309, 358
• Inscriptions: CIL XIV, no. 914: 231, 382

Dittenberger, Sylloge, 11, no. 797: 228
Diehl, lnscr. Lat. Chr. Vet., I, no. 229a: 211
Vatican tomb of Valerii: 159-160, 284
See also p. 460
Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, I, 30: 344; see also Papias
• Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, XII, 7, 22: 51, 61, 68, 150, 161, 165, 205,
212, 305, 357, 358, 387; 43: 352 ; XIV, 3, 2-3: 328 ; 3, 3: 320 ; XVII, 7, I:
54; XIX, 4, 24: 295
Jamblichus, De vita Pythagorica, 82: 338; 154: 413

Jerome, Contra joannem Hierosol., 31 (PL 23, 383A-B): 375-376
Hebraicae quaest. in Genesim, ad iv. 4 (PL 23, 944B): 119
Comment. in jobum, ad xxxviii. 41 (PL 26, 766C): 354
Breviarium in Psalmos, ad cxlvi. 9 (PL 26, 1256A-B): 354
Comment. in lsaiam, ad xxvi. 9 (PL 24, 303C): 344
Comment. in Ezech., ad xxviii. 14 (PL 25, 272A): 317
Comment. in Epist. ad Ephes., Ill, 5, 29 (PL 26, 534A): 376
Epistulae, X, 2 (Lacourt): 86
• John of Gaza, Descriptio tabulae mundi, 11, 209: 69; 210: 233; 214-215:
336,420; 215-218: 206; 220-221: 212
• John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 1,13: 117,417
John of Thessalonica, Dormitio virginis Mariae, 3 (PO 19, 378): 175
Junior Philosophus, Expositio totius mundi et gentium, D.4: 331; E.6: 323
Julius Valerius, Res gestae Alexandri Macedonis, Ill, 24: 326
• Lactantius, De ave phoenice, 1-4: 327; 1-30: 157; 5-14: 311, 319; 15-20:
329; 15-24: 330 ; 21-24: 327; 23-24: 321; 25-30 : 311, 320-324; 26-27: 321 ;
31-58: 157; 33-34: 281; 35-38: 282; 35-54: 206; 37-38 : 324; 39-40: 282;
41-50 : 283; 44-50 : 200; 51-58: 284; 55-90: 285; 59: 69; 59-60: 161; 59-
76: 157; 61-64: 182; 65-66: 52; 65-70 : 183; 69-70 : 52; 71-78 : 184; 77-
98: 157-158; 79-82: 170; 79-88: 163-164, 170 ; 9 1-92: 171, 413; 9 1-94:
210; 95-98: 210-211; 99-100: 213, 217; 101-102: 218; 103-108: 218; 107:
222; 109-114: 348-349; 111-112: 420; 115-123: 225; 115-124: 157; 125-
128: 255; 125-150: 157; 129-130: 255; 13I: 258; 131-132 : 255; 133-134:
254; 135-136: 256; 137-138 : 256, 257; 139-140 : 236 ; 141-143: 258 ; 143-
144: 253; 147-149: 258; 151-152 : 157, 225; 153-154: 157, 227; 155-160 :
158, 228; 161-170: 158, 365; 163: 365; 163-170: 421; 164: 331; 167-168:
387; 168: 348; 169-170: 223
Divinae lnstitutiones, 1,18,11: 327; 11, 9, 5-6: 182; 9,15: 217; 10, 23:
320 ; VI, 23, 3 and 37-39: 384
Epitome, 22, 4: 182
• Lactantius Placidus, Narrationes fabularum Ovidianarum, XV, 37: 52, 68,
161, 165, 188, 190
INDICES 475
• Laevius, Pterygion phoenicis, frg, 22, in Charisius, Ars grammatica, IV, 6:
268-272, 360, 366, 396
frg. in Macrobius, Saturnalia, Ill, 8, 3: 366
• Letter of Archpriest John, 14: 306
• Libanius,Orationes, XVII, 10: 67
Liber de infantia Salvatoris, 72: 221
• Lucan, Bellum civile, V, 75-76: 319; VI, 680: 393, 409
• Lucian, Hermotimus, 53: 67
I caromenippus, 13: 340
De morte peregrini, 27: 147, 211, 305
Navigium, 44: 147, 305
Sat. epistulae, I, 20, 402: 323
Verae narrationes, I, 23: 339; 11, 5: 173; 12: 328; 13: 323; 14: 337
Lucretius, De rerum natura, I, 333 and 11, 331: 327; 11, 646-651: 330; Ill,
18-22: 327
• Lydus (John), De mensibus, IV, 11: 68, 147, 148, 164, 165, 179, 208, 214,
223, 224, 305
Lygdamus, in Corpus Tibullianum, Ill, 2, 23-25: 170
• Manilius the Senator: see Pliny, X, 4-5

Marius Victor, Alethia, I, 228: 328; 269: 315
• Martial, Epigrammata, 11,90, 8: 324; V, 7, 1-4: 211, 366, 393, 409; 1-2:
52; 2: 69; V, 37, 12-13: 67; 13: 393; 13-14: 253; VI, 55, 1-2: 168; 2:
393; X, 97, 2 and XI, 54, 1-3: 169
Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, 11, 183: 298
Martyrium Montani et Lucii, 3, 3-4: 343
• Maximus Confessor, Epistulae, XIII (PG 91, 517D-519E): 359-360
• Mela (Pomponius), De chorographia, Ill, 36: 323; 83-84: 393; 83: 68, 165,
357; 84: 149, 188, 191, 196, 217, 408
Meto of Athens, in Aetius, 11, 32, 2: 75-76
• Michael Glycas, Annales, I (PG 158, 108C): 150, 161, 200, 214, 357, 358
Myro, in Athenaeus, XI, 491b: 349
Narrative of joseph of Arimathea, 4: 175
Narrative of Pseudo-Melito, Ill, I: 175
Nicander, Theriaca, 359-371, 411-437, 414, 421: 294.
• Nonnus, Dionysiaca, XXVI, 183-214: 351; 209: 256; 213-214: 257; XL,
394: 165; 395: 69; 397-398: 211
Olympiodorus, In Arist. Meteor., 382a, 6: 133

Olympiodorus, In jobum, ad xxxviii. 41 (PG 93, 412A): 353
• Oracula Sibyllina, 11, 319-321: 323; 334-338: 329; Ill, 746: 345; VIII, 139-
141: 127
frg. 3, 46-49: 345, 347
• Origen, Contra Celsum, IV, 98: 67, 149, 189, 191, 305, 358, 360, 378, 405-406
Hexapla, ad Gen. iv. 4-5: 119; ad job xli. 7: 296
Comment. in Matth., XV, 32-33: 125
In lib. judicum Homiliae, VIII, 8: 344
Selecta in Psalmos, ad lxxvii. 25 (PG 12, 1541C): 346
Comment. in Cant. Cant., pro!.: 362
INDICES
• Ovid, Amores, I1, 6, 49-54: 310; 52: 333; 54: 357, 393; Ill, 8, 41-42 : 323
Ex Ponto, I, 9, 52: 169
Fasti, Ill, 561: 169
Tristia, Ill, 3, 69: 169
Metamorphoses, I, 89-91: 330; 107: 327; 108-110: 323; 112: 351; I1,
120: 349; IV, 215: 349; 378-379: 366; XII, 524-531: 411; XIII, 599-
608: 411; XV, 372-374: 218; 392-407: 393; 392 : 357, 366; 393: 51; 393-
394: 335, 420 ; 395: 68; 396-397: 52, 183; 398-400 : 164; 400-402: 188;
403-407: 190, 197; 405: 189,225; 406: 403; 411-412 : 337
Papias, in Irenaeus, Adv. Haer., V, 33, 3-4: 318

Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio, I, 24, 6: 397; IX, 28, 4: 335
• Papyri graecae magicae (Preisendanz), 11, 105-114: 301; 111-112: 298; V,
254: 28 7
Pap. Osloenses (Eitrem), I, 156-157: 56-57
Persius, Saturae, Ill, 104: 169
Petronius, Satiricon, 26 ff.: 55
• Petrus Damiani, Opuscula varia, LII, 11 (PL 145, 773B): 165, 199,215, 217,
30 5
Hymnus de gloria Paradisi, 3, 4 (PL 145, 862D): 322
• Petrus Diaconus, De locis sanctis (CSEL 39, 115): 232
Petrus Lombardus, Sententiae, 11, 17,4 (PL 192, 686): 317
• Petrus Venerabilis, Contra Petroiwusianos, 178: 165
Philolaus, frg. A 18 (FVS I, 404): 101
• Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica, Ill, 11: 306
• Philostratus, Vita Apollonii Tyanaei, I, 14: 306; Ill, 48: 304; 49: 68,147-
148, 165, 171, 201, 203, 251, 253, 305, 306, 357
Philumenus, De venenatis animalibus, 24, I: 295
• Photius, Bibliotheca, cod. 72: 35 I; 126: 5, 360
• Physiologus:
Greek Physiologus, 6 (Sbordone 22): 279; 7 (Sbordone 25): 68, 130, 131,
148,165,171,198,204,215,223,305, 307,355,409,414; 10 (Sbordone
33): 295
Byzantine Physiologus, 6 (Sbordone 182): 272; 8 (Sbordone 191): 280; 10
(Sbordone 199): 57, 172, 199, 204, 215, 222, 223, 236, 253, 256, 307,
356; 22 (Sbordone 240): 295
Physiologus of Pseudo-Basil, 8 (Sbordone 271): 295; 21 (Sbordone 289):
172, 199, 21 5, 223, 307
Appendix Physiologi, A4 (Sbordone 305): 199, 215, 223; B3 (Sbordone
314): 280; B25 (Sbordone 325): 79, 179, 206-207
Physiologus of Vienna (Sbordone, La fenice, 28), I: 61, 278; 3: 252 ; 4:
54; 5: 236, 273; 6-7: 296; 8-11: 278; 10-15: 278; 16-19: 178; 18-20:
200; 21-23: 204; 24-26: 215, 219; 26-28: 212, 338; 29-32: 279; 33-35:
61
Physiologus of Ansileubus (fragmenta in Glossario inserta), 12 (Pitra,
Spicil. Solesm., Ill, 419): 199, 204, 210, 217, 223
Arabic Physiologus, 6 (Land, Anecdota Syriaca, IV, 155): 148-149, 178,
199, 204, 21 5
Ethiopic Physiologus, 7 (Hommel, 52): 209, 215, 223
iNDICES 477
Syriac Physiologus, 29 (Land, Anecdota Syriaca, IV, 55): 165, 204, 223
Syriac Physiologus, 11 (Janssens, Le Museon, 47, 1934,64-65): 203, 223;
other text (Janssens, 68-69): 204, 213, 217
Syriac Historia Naturalis (= Physiologus, ed. Ahrens, see above p. 353),
39: 353; 42 : 150, 204, 21 5, 223; 73: 219
Pindar, Olympian Odes, 11, 71-73: 328; 124-13°: 135, 420
Pythian Odes, X, 41-44: 330
frg. 131 (Schroeder): 361; 133: 138, 140,420; 165: 80
Plato, Leges, 677a-c: 101
Meno, 8Ib-c: 138, 140, 420
Phaedrus, 248e-249b: 134,418; 257a: 134, 137
Politeia, 401c: 336; 544d-547c: 98; 615a-b: 134
Politicus, 274c: 323
Symposium, 189a-193e: 372
Timaeus, 22d: 101; 35b-36b: 81, 141; 39C-d: 72-73; 3ge-40b: 98;
4Ia-d: 98; 69c-d: 98
• Pliny, Historia Naturalis, IV, 89: 328, 330; V, 73: 321, 331; VII, 21: 306;
153: 393; VIII, 122: 337; X, 3-5: 393; 3: 233, 25 1, 254, 305, 357, 360;
4-5: 396, 404; 4: 69, 149, 151, 156, 164, 187, 189, 197, 233, 335, 407; 5:
75,103,113-114,115,393,415; 15: 280; 31: 352; 46: 283; 97: 166; XI,
121: 234, 393; XII, 83: 170; 85: 166-167, 169, 393; 89: 168; 90: 168,
169; 93: 169; 94: 171 ; XIII, 41: 54; 42 : 55, 393; XXIX; 29: 151,360,
393, 4°9; 56: 393
• Plutarch, Vitae, Artaxerxes, 19,4: 337; Sylla, 38: 170
M oralia, Aetia Graeca, 39 (300C) : 362; Consol. ad A poll., 35 (120e): 361 ;
De defectu oraculorum, 1-21 (40ge-42Ie): 78-84; 11 (415c): 76, 80, 84ff.,
399ff; 11 (415d): 8o; 38 (43Ib): 79: De facie in orbe lunae, 28: 338;
Quaest. conviv. VIII, 4, 2 (723e): 142; De sanitate tuenda praecepta, 20
(133C): 57
Poimandres, 9 and 15: 367; 18: 371
• Porphyry, De antro nympharum, 10: 133
frg. in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., Ill, 11,48: 297; X, 3, 16: 68, 394, 401,
40 7
Proclus, Comm. in Platonis Rempubl. (KroU, 11, 173): 143
De arte sacra (Bidez, Cat. man. alch. gr., VI, 150): 56, 276-277, 300
Proclus of Constantinople, Orationes, I (PG 65, 680ff.): 36; 681B: 344; VI
(756C-D ): 344
Procopius of Gaza, Catena in Octateuchem, ad Gen. iv. 4 (PG 87, 236B): 119;
Comm. in Isaiam, ad xxvi. 19 (PG 87, 2228B): 344
Propertius, Elegiae, IV, 7, 32: 169
Prosper of Aquitania, Ps. C-CL expositio, ad cxlvi. 9 (PL 51, 419B): 354
ProtevangeliumJacobi, 8, I: 347; 18,2: 220; 19, 2: 227; 22-24: 43
Prudentius, Hamartigenia, 856-858: 337
Cathemer. Hymni, 111,21-25: 350; 103: 328; VI, 127: 344; XI, 57-60:
130
• Pseudo-Ambrose, De Trinitate, 34 (PL 17, 545AB): 57, 211, 222, 357, 382
Pseudo-Athanasius, De virginitate, 10: 379
• Pseudo-Augustine, Adfratres in eremo sermones, XVIII (PL 40,1264): 179,
203, 214
INDICES
• Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, Epitome de Caesaribus, IV, 9: 150, 305

Pseudo-Basil of Caesarea, Orationes, Ill: De paradiso, 2 (PG 30, 64B): 316,328
• Pseudo-Bede, Expositio in Jobum, 11, 12, ad xxix. 18: 60, 67,205,211,382
• Pseudo-Cyprian, Carmina, VI: Ad Flavium Felicem de resurrectione, 130-
134: 382 ; 133-134: 211; 193-239: 323; 238-239: 315; 240-244: 328;
246- 249: 33 1
• Pseudo-Eustathius, Comment. in Hexaemeron (PG 18, 729C-732A): 68, 121,
161, 165, 179, 203, 21 4, 222, 235, 252, 357, 358, 395
• Pseudo-Hugo of St. Victor, De bestiis et aliis rebus, I, 49 (PL 177, 48C): 51,
68, 161, 165, 205, 212; IV, 3 (143A): 352
• Pseudo- J erome, Epistolae, XVIII: Ad Praesidium, de cerea paschali (PL
30, 187B): 164, 165, 169,205, 215, 223
Pseudo-Plato, Axiochus, 371d: 328
Pseudo-Tertullian, De ligna vitae, 26-27 (PL 2, 1113C): 315, 320
• Pseudo-Titus, Epistula de dispositione sanctimonii (De Bruyne, Rev. Bene-
dictine, 37, 1925): 357, 385-386
• Rabanus Maurus, De universo, 8, 6 (PL Ill, 246AB): 51, 68, 161, 165,205,
212, 382
Comment. in Genesim, I (PL 107, 476BC): 317
• Reinerus, De ineptis cuiusdam idiotae libellus (MGH, scr. XX, 597) : 68, 161,
165, 205, 21 5
• Romance of Alexander
Latin (Historia de preliis): 236, 305
English: 234
Syriac, German: 236
• Rufinus, Expositio Symboli, 9: 183, 188, 357, 458
• Scholia on:
Aeschylus, Prometheus, 803: 397
• Aristides, Orat., 45, 107 (Dindorf 111,429): 31, 71, 214, 222, 305, 357
Aristophanes, Aves, 609: 87
Homer, Ilias, IV, 101: 85
• Lucan, VI, 680 (no. I: Endt, 237; nos. 2-4: Weber, 490): nos. 1-4:
147; nos. I, 2: 211; nos. 1,4: 161; no. 2: 357; nos. 2, 3, 4: 165; no. 3:
215; nos. 3, 4: 212; no. 4: 203, 205
• Lucian, Hermotimus, 53 (Rabe, 242): 305
• Persius, I, 46 (Jahn, 258): 69, 147, 165, 209, 211, 279
• Philostratus, Vita Apoll., Ill, 49 (Bekker, 119): 201
Sedulius, Carmen paschale, Ill, 173-174: 315
• Seneca, Epist. moral., XLII, I: 67, 68, 393; XCII, 35: 210
Natur. quaest., Ill, 29, I: 74
Servius, Comment. in Virgo Aen., I, 296: 73,135; Ill, 289: 73
Comment. in Virgo Georgica, I, 414: 353
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos, IX, 73: 339
• Sidonius, Carmina, 11, 407-417: 327; 407: 305; 416-417: 333; 416: 161;
417: 166; 417-418: 172; VII, 353-354: 147, 166; 353-356: 179; 354: 233,
305; IX, 325-326: 166; 326: 305; 326-327: 147, 211; XI, 125: 166;
XXII, 50-51: 165, 166, 305
INDICES 479
Simeon Metaphrastes, Oratio de B. V. Maria, 38 (PG lIS, 557B): 175

Simias, see A nthologia Graeca
* Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, 33, I I: 234, 251, 254, 305; 12:
69, 150, 156, 165, 2II, 407; 13: 75; 14: II3-II4, lIS; 15: 166
Sophocles, Philoctetes, II58-II62: 336
Sotion, in Diogenes Laertius, I, 7: 413
* Statius, Silvae, II, I, 160-161: 170; II, 4, 33-37: 410; 34-35: 393; 36: 161;
II, 6, 87, 165,306; 87-88: 393; Ill, 2, II4: 393, 403, 410; 132: 169; V,
1,210-214: 170
Thebais, VI, 59-61: 169
Strabo, Geographia, XI, 4, 3: 323; XV, 1,69: 253, 256; XVI, 4, 19: 54
Strabo, Glossa ordinaria in lib. Gen., II, 8 (PL II3, 86C): 317
Suetonius, Caligula, 13: 229
* Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. 'Opcpe:uC;: 144; s.v. cpOrVL~: 69, 165
Sulpicius Severus, Dialogus, I, 18 and Epistulae, I, 15: 343
* Symphosius, Aenigmata, 31: 382
* Syncellus, see Dexippus, and 127
* Synesius, Dio, 9, 3: 67, 71
* Tacitus, A nnales, VI, 28: 26, 31, 67, 107, II3, II5-II6, 149, 188, 189, 191-
192, 193, 19~ 19~ 218, 233, 253, 305, 36~ 40~ 416
Historiae, V, 12: 318
Dialogus de oratoribus, 16, 7: 73
* Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos, 32, 5: 375
Apologeticum, 47, 13-14: 329
De anima, 9, 7-8 and 36, 2-3: 362
De cultu jeminarum, I, 2, 5: 379
De resurrectione mortuorum, 13: 57, 2II, 222, 305, 357, 382
* Themistius, Orationes, XXXIII (367c): 67, 71
Theodoret of Cyrus, In Psalmos, ad lxxi. 6 (PG 80, 1433A): 344
In Isaiam, ad xxvi. 19 (PG 81, 369A): 343
* Theodoric, De mirabilibus mundi, 756-775 (Manitius, Neues Arch. Ges. f.
altere deutsche Geschichtskunde, 39, 1914, 165): 762: 234; 767-768: 69;
768: 161; 769: 165; 770-771: 206; 772-773: 214; 773: 222; 774-775: 221
Theologoumena arithmetica, 40 (de Fa1co): 141
Theophilus, Ad Autolycum, II, 36: 345, 347
Theophrastus, Hist. plant., IX,S, 2: 168
* Theophylactus, Epistulae, 72 (PG 126, 479D): 2II, 233
* Thomas of Cantimpre, De natura rerum, in Vincentius of Beauvais, XVII,
74: 161, 16~ 185, 205, 214, 222, 234
Tibullus, Elegiae, I, 3, 43-44: 323; 47-48: 330
* Tzetzes, Chiliades, V, 387: 357; 388: 253; 389: 254; 390 : 165; 391-392:
18 7; 393: 149; 393-394: 306 ; 394, 395: 253; X, 534ff. and XII, 219ff.,
283ff.: 101
Scholia on Lycophron, Alexandra, 682: 144
* Valerianus (Cornelius), in Pliny, X,S: II3-II4, 393

* Valerius Abbas, Opuscula, 24 (PL 87, 436B): 285-286
• Venantius Fortunatus, Carmina, I, 15, 51-52: 2II, 382
INDICES
• Vincentius of Beauvais, Speculum naturale, XVII, 74: 217; see also Thomas
of Cantimpre
• Vincentius Victor, in Augustine, De anima et eius origine, IV, 20, 33: 363-
36 4,4 21
Virgil, Aeneis, VI, 273-281: 319; 488: 411
Eclogae, IV, 22: 230; 30: 351
Georgica, I, 125-127: 323; 11, 149-150 and 338-339: 327
• Zeno of Verona, Tractatus, I, 16,9 (PL 11, 38IAB): 201, 204, 211, 217, 223,
348, 357, 366, 374-375, 382, 421
• Zonaras, Epitome historiarum (Dindorf, Ill, 10): 114
NOTE
Texts mentioning the phoenix but not discussed in this book:
Claudian, Epistula ad Serenam, 15-16 (Koch, 247)
De raptu Proserpinae, 11, 83 (Koch, 274)
Papyri Graecae magicae, XII, 231 (Preisendanz, 11, 73)
Philostratus, Epistulae, VIII (Kayser, 11, 229)
Polemius Silvius, Laterculus III (Mommsen, MGH, a.a. IX, 543)
Ill. EGYPTIAN, COPTIC, SYRIAC AND OTHER ORIENTAL TEXTS
A. Egyptian texts
Pyramid text no. 1652: 15, 17
Book of the Dead, 17a: 18-19; 62: 298; 64: 19-20,30; 83: 16; 85: 19; 122: 18;
125: 17
Book of Gates: 19
Obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo, Rome: 25
Fayum Papyrus: 22
B. Coptic texts
Apocryphon of John, Ill, 15, 11 and 11,10,8-9: 300
Pistis Sophia, 136: 298, 300
• UntitledGnostictreatise, 161, 30-32: 367; 170, 1-13: 367; 170, I: 70; 170, 2:
359; 17~ 11-12:70; 170, 13: 150; 17~ 18: 296; 17°,28-29:57
• Coptic I Clement, 25: see Index 11: Clement of Rome
• Sermon on Mary (see p. 44-47): 6-7: 125; 11-16: 119; 17: 215; 19: 222; 19-
20: 68; 20-21: 199; 22-23: 172, 307; 24-25: 208; 25: 150; 26: 21 5; 27:
222; 27-28: 130; 28-32: 188,34°,420; 33-35: 121; 35-46: 122; 51: 130;
Manchester frg.: 156; Viennafrg·: 347
Gospel according to Thomas, log. 4 and 16: 380; 19: 322; 22: 378; 23: 380; 32:
3 17; 37: 378 ; 49 and 75: 380; 114: 379
Anonymous Christmas sermon: 286
Apocryphal text on Aaron: 172
Archelaos of Neapolis, On the archangel Gabriel: 38
Life of Apa Onnophrius: 143,319
INDICES
Martyrdom of St. Victor: 343

The prayer of Athanasius: 363
Shenoute of Atripe, De ira Dei: 47
Ad philosophum gentilem: 345
Synaxarium Alexandrinum: 39
Timothy of Alexandria, On the Angel of Death Abbaton: 38
Sermons on the Commemoration or the Assumption of the Virgin:
Anonymous writer: 347
Pseudo-Cyril of Jerusalem: 39
Pseudo-Epiphanius of Cyprus: 37
Pseudo-Euodius: 175
Severus of Antioch: 36
Theodosius of Alexandria: 38, 174-175
Theophilus of Alexandria: 33, 38
C. Syriac and other Oriental texts

AphIaates, Demonstrationes, XXII, 12: 322, 328, 330
Atticus of Constantinople, De Virgine Maria: 36
Cave of Treasures: see Index I
Ephraem Syrus, Hymni de Paradiso, I, 4: 316; VII, 11-13 and 22-23: 330;
IX, 8: 337; 9 and 17: 356; X: 173,323; X, 2-6: 328; XI, 2: 328; 10:
356 ; 14: 356 ; 39-46 : 173
• Ish6'dadh, Comment. in J obum, ad xl. 20 (Schliebitz, Beiheft ZA W, XI, 78-
80): 150, 165, 207-208, 358, 359
Mandaean "Johannesbuch" (Lidzbarski, 11, 183): 263
• Physiologus: see Index 11
Zend-Avesta, Aban Yast, VII, 25 (SBE 23): 314
Rashn Yast, X, 17 (SBE 23): 282
Zamyad Yast, VII, 32-33 (SBE 23): 330
Yasna, IX, 5 (SBE 31): 330 ; LXV: 314
Vendidad, 18, 15-16 (SBE 4): 266
• Farid Ud-Din Attar, Mantiq Ut-Tair (The conference of the birds), 26
(trans. Nott): 70, 201, 204, 228
Mahabharata,23-24 (Chandra Ray): 266; 29: 267
See also Index of Names and Subjects: Damirl, ~azwini, 'an~a'. kerkes.
simurgh
IV. NAMES AND SUBJECTS 1
Abel 119 if. admiring birds 179. 193. 227 f.

Adam (and Eve) 126. 173 f., 347.
367 if.
I admiring crowd 224 f .• 229
Adventus in Gloria 449,451 f.
1 An asterisk before names of places or museums indicates that representa-

tions of the phoenix have been found or are kept there. In these cases refer-
ence is made only to the documentation on pages 425-459. where other page
numbers are given.
INDICES
Aemilianus 433 Cassianus 377

Ages of Hesiod 110 if. catreus 251,253, 255 if., 259
Ages of the world see Great Year chaledris-chalkedri 274 f., 291 if.,
Agnes 388 294 if.
Aion 128,300 f., 429 f. chameleon 336
Akragas 270 charriot of the sun 261, 270 f., 289,
Albano (stele of) 248, 271 291,302,304,332,458
Alexander Neckham 317 chelydros 294 f.
Amasis 108, 114 chersydros 294 f.
• Anagni 451 Chnoubis 241, 244, 247, 439, 440
'An¥:a' 207, 213, 251, 254, 259, 267 Chnum 241
• Antioch see Daphne cinnamon 164 if.
Antoninus Pius 70, 105, 180, 244, cock 250, 273, 275 if., 283, 292 see
246,429 if. also cosmic cock
Apis 239, 429 Columbus 317
• Aquileia 446 f. Commemoration of Mary 35 if.
Arabia 149 f., 305 consecratio 245, 411, 427 f., 430 if.
Arcadius 437 Constans I 117, 180,434 if.
• Arles 449 f. Constantine 434
• Arnhem 458 Constantius II 117, 180,435 if.
aromatics 163 if., 185, 203, 335 f. Coptos 241
asexual generation 187 if., 356 if., Constantinople 117
395,3 08 cosmic cock 256, 259, 264 f., 276 f.
Assumptio Mariae see Transitus crocodile 239 if., 291, 293, 295 if.
Assyria 51 f., 307 Cronus 84, 135, 300, 419
• Athens 438
Damiri 280
Balderius 285 Dante 335
bar-yokni 265 if. • Daphne 452 f.
bee 187 f., 345 demon(s) 79 if., 132 f., 361 f.
benben 15 f. Der el Medineh 426 f.
benu 14 if., 181, 196, 238 f., 242 if., destruction of the world 73 if., 81,
25 1 f., 254, 398 f., 402 f.,404,407, 100 if.
416 - of Rome 127
• Berlin 439 Deucalion 311, 319
Bestiaries 186 Diospolis Parva 426
• BibliotMque Nationale, Paris dew 340 if., 348 if., 354
433,434,44 1 Domitius Primus 231
.? Bir Ftouha 459 doubt concerning phoenix 3 ff., 360
• Bobbio 456 dove 250, 455
• British Museum 427-438
• Brussels 432 eagle 161, 172, 212, 245, 250 if.,
butterfly 218 if. 270 f., 279 f., 382, 402, 411
• Edessa 442 f.
Caeneus 411 Elim 321
• Cairo 426 Elysium 310, 329
Caligula 246, 429 Encratites 376 if.
Canaanite Olympus 313 enhydris 294
Canopus (Decree of) 106 if~ Enoch (Slavonic) 287 if.
INDICES
Ethiopia 149, 305 ff. ~azwini 207, 213, 280

exodus 121 f. kerkes 205, 213
king of birds 193, 258; see also ad-
Faustina I and II 430 ff. miring birds
flight to Heliopolis 146 ff., 189 ff.,
198, 224 ff., 404 ff. Lebanon 53, 171 f., 307 ff., 341
flight to Paradise 172 ff. Leontopolis 118 f.
lifespan of the ph. 67 ff., 88 ff.,
garment of shame 378 137 f.
garuda 262, 266 ff., 273 lion 240, 291, 293, 295 ff.
generation 80 ff., 86 ff., 133 f., • London see British Museum
• Glasgow 429 lotus 248
Godfrey of Viterbo 317 Lycaonia 190, 306
Golden Age 23, 105, 229 f., 310,
322 f., 329 f. magic 56 f.
Gospel acc. to the Egyptians 377 ff. malf/am-maltam 326
Gospel acc. to the Hebrews 39 Mandeville 179, 207, 234
Gratianus 437 manna 345 ff.
Great Year 72 ff., 91 ff., 98 ff.,414 ff. Marcius Hermas 230, 443
griffin 272 ff., 304, 397 ff. Marcus Aurelius 432
• Grottaferrata 450 Mary 347; see also Transitus and
Commemoration
Hadrian 105, 180, 237, 245 f. Memnon 411
Harpocrates 240, 242, 301 , 437 metempsychosis 132, 134 ff., 418 ff.
Hathor 239 monachos 380 f.
Heavenly Jerusalem 314, 317 ff., Monophysites 40, 359
3 26,44 6 mummification 20, 198
Hecataeus-Herodotus 394, 401 ff. .? Musee Alaoui, Tunisia 459
heliodromus 286 f., 367 • Musee du Louvre, Paris 457
Heliopolis 14 ff., 403 ff., and pas- • Museo Nazionale, Naples 427
sim; see also flight to H. • Museo Pio Cristiano (Vatican) 447
Helios 237, 247, 3°4; see also Sol • Museo di Roma 425
Hill of Creation 15 f., 179 ff. • Museo Sacro (Vatican Lib.) 451,
hippopotamus 401 ff. 45 6
Hiw (Diospolis Parva) 426
f/ol 58 ff., 189, 205, 220, 326 • Naples 4 27, 447
Horus 241 f. nasr 280
• Horvat Gerarit 453 "nuptial number" 98 f.
hydra-hydros 294 obelisk 24, 232, 393
old age of ph. 161 ff.
identity of old and new ph. 222 f., Origenists 375
374 f. orion 251, 257, 259 f.
India 147 ff., 305 ff. Orphics 82, 140 ff.
Isle(s) of the blessed 135, 310, 323, ostrich 252
329 f., 338, 419 f.
J ulia Domna 433 palm 53 ff., 183
Panchaia 189, 325
kahrkatas 266, 294 Paradise 172, 185, 229, 273, 311 ff.,
kalpa system 92 f. 445 f.
INDICES
* Paris 433, 434, 441, 452 * Sabratha 453

par6dars 266 f, 398 f., salamander 207 f.
peace among birds 228 if. * Saqqara 426
peacock 234, 245, 251 if., 256 scarab 15 f., 240, 242, 243, 298,
phaesant 253 439 f.
Phaethon 238, 311, 319 sekwi 265
Phamenoth 131 Seleucid Era 103 f.
Pharmouthi 131 Seleucus I 103
Pherecydes of Syrus 300 Sesosis 107
Phoenicia 5 I if. Sesostris 107
Phoenicians 64 f. Sethos I 107 f.
"phoenix period" 26 if. Sextus Julius Africanus 124
Phosphoros 237 f., 271 Shu 17
* Piazza Armerina 445 *? Sicily 459
pine-tree 162 silence of nature 220 f.
plausus alarum 203 if. simurgh 254, 259, 267, 282
* Pompei 427 (*) Smyrna 456
po-ni-ke 62 if., 397 f. Sobk 297
priest(s) of Heliopolis 195, 199, 223, Sol 247
4 01 , 403 Song of phoenix 185, 195, 200 if.,
Primeval Man 367 if. 282 if.
Pronoia 428 f. Sothic period 26 if., 70 if., 105 if.,
Psalters (medieval) 186 416
Ptolemy III 106 soul 361 ff.; see also demon and
purple 51, 64 f. metempsychosis
Pythagoreans 140 if., 361, 413 sources (pre-Christian) 393 if.
sphinx 240, 299
rain 212 if., 217 spontaneous generation 187 f., 217
raven 337, 352 if. see also asexual generation
* Ravenna 454 su bmersion 282
renanim 265 symbolism of phoenix: 9
rhyntaces 3, 337, 351 Christ 122 if., 130 f., 214 if., 284
* Rome, Catacombs: Empire 105, 115 if., 428, 433 if.
Callixt 444 exceptional man 67,71,387
Priscilla 442, 451 history of salvation 117 if., 129 f.
Praetextatus 457 renewal of Rome 409
Chapel of Felicitas 454 resurrection 194, 374 f., 382
Churches: virgin birth 183, 458
S. Agnese 443, 454 virginity 61, 381 if.
S. Cecilia in Trast. 452, 457 see also consecratio, heavenly
SS. Cosma e Damiano 451 Jerusalem, Paradise, and soul
S. Giovanni in Lat. 445 f.
S. Maria in Trast. 457 f. technopaegnia 268 f.
S. Paolo f. le Mura 455 Te/net 17
S. Pietro in Vaticano 425, 449 tetractys (great) 81, 141
S. Prassede 452 * The Hague 436
S. Sebastiano al Palatino 452 Theodore of Mopsuestia 208
see also Vatican Theodosius (emperor) 437
* Tivoli 250 f., 451
INDICES
Traditio legis 448. 449 ff. • Verona 450

Trajan 237. 245. 427 f. vine-tendrils 177. 198 f.
Transitus Mariae 33. 37 f .• 174 f .• viper 295
227. 363 virgines subintroductae 381
Trebonius Gallus 433 virginity see Encratites and sym-
Tree of Life 174. 185. 282. 315.320. bolism
3 22 • 347 St. Vitus 227
Volusianus 433
u~ab 280 Vondel 336
• Umm Jerar 453 vulture 280
• Urbino 443
worm 187. 214 f .• 218. 408
Valentinianus II 437
• Vatican Library 435. 444. 45 1• Yggdrasil 283
45 6 Yima 314. 330
• Vatican Museums 457
• Vatican necropolis 443 f .• 449 ziz 264 f .• 398 f.
Venus 18. 30. 248. 269 f .• 365
CORRIGENDA ET ADDENDA
4,n.2,1.20 for 97 read 363 302 ,n·3 A. Henke and A.

1. 23 Boeclerus Schoene
61,1. 10 otUTOV 304,n.1 for XVIII read XVI
67,n.2,1.2 £'t'6)V 311 ,1.9 furthermore
1.4 e-rewv 324,1.15 it has an
68,1.11 Miletus 3 25,1.5 developed
1.18 for for read of 329,1. 13 characterizing
n.I,1.2 £'t'(;)v 1.17 Hyperboreans
92,1.20 kaliyuga 34 1,1.13 Lebanon
99,1.26 12,960,000 345,n.2,1. 2 Tj8u
110,1.9 known 350,n.2,1.1 Sapientia
115,n.I,1.4 p.228-229 359,1.7 for it read its
118,1.3 160 B.C. 364,1.5 suggests
125,1. 27 Paradise 1.11 feminina
134,n·3,1.3 TOOOUTOI) 366,nts.2,3 Le symbole du pMnix
I H,n. I ,1.3 Lycophron 382 ,1.4 for is read in
1.4 Lycophronis 384,1.16 knows
I 55,n.3,1. I griechische 386,n.2,1.3 e-rewv
1.5 Fribourg-Basel- n·3,1.2 OcXPKEOOLV
Vienna 401 ,1.22 versions
173,1.12 for Avae read Evae 406,1.6 activities
195,n.I,1.1 EhlY. ... 7tPOELP71!-lEvOt; 427,ad VI,I DIVO TRAIANO
••• oIot; 428,ad VI,2 DIVO TRAIANO
203,n·4,1.13 IXVcX7tTEO'&otL 437,ad VIII,lo Valentinianus 11
204,1.7 TotPOOt; 7tTEPUYWV 459,1, I ,1.4 641 (catacomb of
208,n.1 Ish6'dadh Syracuse).
25 1,n·3,1.1 eyw 46 4,1.1 lead
266,nts·3,4 Mahabharata, I, 466 for Isaiah ix read xi
285,n.I,1.3 for 206,n.6 read 200, 473 for Herodotus 11, 72
n.6 read 11,73
298,1.14 Mercurii 481 Mahabharata, I,
Add B. Stock, Cosmology and Rhetoric in The Phoenix of Lactantius,

in Classica et Mediaevalia, 26, 1965, 246-257. Stock's study is mainly
concerned with the motif of the locus amoenus in De ave phoenice;
it gives me no reason, however, to modify my views as expressed
in Chapter VIII.
The ancient Egyptian connection between the benu and Osiris (see
above p. 18) seems to have been still alive in Roman times. Refer-
ence must be made here to a fourth-century relief from Carthage,
now in the Louvre, showing, according to a new interpretation,
Isis with Osiris on her left hand and the benu-phoenix standing on
a low elevation on her right hand. Cj. M.-Th. Picard-Schmitter,
"L'Allegorie de l'Egypte" sur un relief provenant de Carthage, in
Revue ArcMologique, 1971, 29-58.
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THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX

R. VAN DEN BROEK

THE MYTH OF THE PHOENIX

WITH A FRONTISPIECE, 40 PLATES

Copyright 1972 by E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands

The phoenix in Classical and Early Christian art

Corrigenda et addenda . 487

The Dutch manuscript of this book was completed in the spring of

Breukelen, December 20th, 1971

Koestermann, E., Cornelius Tacitus. Annalen, I1, Heidelberg, 1965

JThSt The Journal of Theological Studies

Junius published the editio princeps of the so-called First Epistle 01

It was in this discussion that the problem of the function of a

Classical world. l Mention must also be made of the brilliant compi-

study by Hubaux and Leroy, various aspects of the phoenix myth

quired to explain the development of the myth or certain statements

1 This has already been pointed out by M. P. Nilsson in his review in

this phenomenon. Art constitutes an independent source of know-

interpretations, the representations of the phoenix are discussed

THE EGYPTIAN BENU AND THE CLASSICAL PHOENIX

identified with the Classical phoenix, is shown standing on a high

of life that reiterates itself from one generation to another. Al-

part of this statement has been interpreted in various ways. Ac-

1 Cl. A. Erman and H. Grapow, WiiYterbuch del' aegyptischen Sprache, IV,

the ancient Egyptian ideology of the ruler, and was celebrated at

In the present study an attempt will be made to demonstrate that

This review of the Egyptian ideas concerning the benu cannot be

great many studies were devoted to the exact determination of this

years later, Lauth published a detailed discussion of this period,

1 F. J. Lauth, Die PhOnixperiode, in Abh. d. kngl. bayer. Akad. der wiss.,

1 F. Sbordone, La fenice, 31-46.

A COPTIC TEXT ON THE PHOENIX

In January of 1956, the Utrecht University Library purchased a

During the first decades of the fifth century it was celebrated in

tinople it was celebrated on the 26th of December, l elsewhere on a

sermon in which the idea of the Transitus M ariae is completely

makes it possible to narrow the period in which this sermon must

This dating of the Coptic Sermon on M aria of course says nothing

*M p. 360 AnpA~YE. TA,eO iiTOIKOT~E.HH THpC: E.T&E. nE.~no ~nE.A~.

a) om. M b) U E.PE.A&E.~ c) U add. :inHOTTE. d) U !!JApE. nHOTTE.

1 Cl. Matth. xxiii. 35. Luke xi. 50-51.

25 ~rt TnE. rtqo~W-'\. ttrtE.R'2\AAOc.. tic..trtO~qE. -'\.rt nc..w.4\.A

E.&o'2\ ~tt RH.4\.E. ~tt TGI"A .i..4\."..l~c..Hc.. AnE.4?olrtl~b) O~Wrt~

a) VO~W~E. b) V AnEt1?0lrtH~ c) VnE.pnE. d) VTHnC e) V

CXUTOUC; tnl TO &uaLCXaTI)pLOV. If this is the case, it would constitute evidence

ANALYSIS OF THE MYTH

THE NAME PHOENIX

The name "phoenix" has not yet been completely explained. Of

1 See p. 149-150, 305-307.

1 Isidore, Etymol., XVII, 7, I: Hane (se. palmam) Graeei phoenieem dieunt,

in a given textual context. Clement of Alexandria tells of a religious

another plant. The meaning of the expression is not entirely clear,

Regarded superficially, something similar seems to have occurred

make the translation of /:tOl as sand inconsistent. It would then be

Lastly, mention must be made of some old explanations of the

1 Physiologus 01 Vienna, I: CPOLVL~ 6'n cpotV£P0Tl:OL£L 8LcX 'l:WV ci)..£K'l:pu6vc.tlv rljv

for the people known everywhere for their manufacture of red-dyed

Boisacq, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque, 2nd ed., Heidelberg-

But there is another word in Mycenaean, po-ni-ki-ja or po-ni-ke-a,