[3] Some scholars have claimed that the poem De ave phoenice may present the mythological phoenix motif as a symbol of Christ's resurrection.

In the fragment, the wise centaur Chiron tells a young hero Achilles the following,[clarification needed][8] describing the phoenix's lifetime as 972 times the length of a long-lived human's: A chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men, but a stag's life is four time a crow's, and a raven's life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder, outlive ten phoenixes.

Indeed it is a great rarity, even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix dies.

Such is the story they tell of the doings of this bird.In the 19th century, scholastic suspicions appeared to be confirmed by the discovery that Egyptians in Heliopolis had venerated the Bennu, a solar bird similar in some respects to the Greek phoenix.

[16] Pliny the Elder[17] also describes the bird as having a crest of feathers on its head,[15] and Ezekiel the Dramatist compared it to a rooster.

[19] Some said that the bird had peacock-like coloring, and Herodotus's claim of the Phoenix being red and yellow is popular in many versions of the story on record.

[24] According to Pliny's Natural History,[25] aquilae narratur magnitudine, auri fulgore circa colla, cetero purpureus, caeruleam roseis caudam pinnis distinguentibus, cristis fauces, caputque plumeo apice honestante.

Tyrio pinguntur crura veneno.antevolant Zephyros pinnae, quas caerulus ambitflore color sparsoque super ditescit in auro.

[25] Another of Pliny's sources, Cornelius Valerianus, is cited for an appearance of the phoenix in 36 AD "in the consulship of Quintus Plautius and Sextus Papinius".

For example, the classical motif of the phoenix continues into the Gnostic manuscript On the Origin of the World from the Nag Hammadi Library collection in Egypt generally dated to the 4th century:[30] Thus when Sophia Zoe saw that the rulers of darkness had laid a curse upon her counterparts, she was indignant.

Þisses fugles gecynd   fela gelices bi þam gecornum   Cristes þegnum; beacnað in burgum   hu hi beorhtne gefean þurh fæder fultum   on þas frecnan tid healdaþ under heofonum   ond him heanna blæd in þam uplican   eðle gestrynaþ.

This bird's nature   is much like to the chosen   servants of Christ; pointeth out to men   how they bright joy through the Father's aid   in this perilous time may under heaven possess,   and exalted happiness in the celestial   country may gain.

In the 14th century, Italian poet Dante Alighieri refers to the phoenix in Canto XXIV of the Divine Comedy's Inferno:

Così per li gran savi si confessa che la fenice more e poi rinasce, quando al cinquecentesimo anno appressa;

erba né biado in sua vita non pasce, ma sol d'incenso lagrime e d'amomo, e nardo e mirra son l'ultime fasce.

The law of Perseverance is among the deepest in man: by nature he hates change; seldom will he quit his old house till it has actually fallen about his ears.

Thus have I seen Solemnities linger as Ceremonies, sacred Symbols as idle Pageants, to the extent of three hundred years and more after all life and sacredness had evaporated out of them.

These analogues include the Hindu garuda (गरुड) and bherunda (भेरुण्ड), the Russian firebird (жар-птица), the Persian simorgh (سیمرغ), the Georgian paskunji (ფასკუნჯი), the Arabian anqa (عنقاء), the Turkish Konrul, also called Zümrüdü Anka ("emerald anqa"), the Tibetan Me byi karmo, the Chinese Fenghuang (鳳凰) and Zhuque (朱雀).