In Early Christian art, the Phoenix bird was considered to be an appropriate symbol for Christian resurrection, as the Phoenix dies and then rises again from its ashes. The early Christian writer Lactantius (ca. 250-325 CE) wrote a poem hinting at the metaphor between Christian resurrection and the mythical bird. But in the later Middle Ages, the pagan origins of the Phoenix myth made some Christian theologians a bit hesitant, and the Phoenix bird disappeared from Christian iconography. One place that you can still see Phoenix birds, however, is in some of the early mosaics in Rome, such as here in the apse mosaics of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian, which date from the 6th or 7th century CE. Here, we see Christ gesturing towards the bird, perched in a palm tree, indicating the promise of an afterlife.