File:Adana Archaeological Museum Üççam Mevkii Mosaic 0793 edit.jpg

English: he mosaics of the right side aisle. They depict bird, wolf and bear figures within plants. I integrated three pictures into one. My thanks to Raffaele D'Amato, who identified these earlier unidentified pictures. The Birds, in the early Christian iconography, appear either as simple decorative elements transmitted from antique paintings, or used symbolically as in Noah's dove, symbolical of the Christian soul released by death; the peacock, with its ancient meaning of immortality, and the phoenix, the symbol of apotheosis. The wolf is a symbol of the Evil One and of his wild power. Our Lords words: I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, would be sufficient to give the animal an evil character (Matt. x. 16), though it does not appear that Matt. vii. 15 has made the wolf the symbol of hypocrisy. The bear assumes the same symbolism. Such, for example, is the interpretation which S. Augustine gives in his sermons, when he explains the significance of David's combat with the lion and the bear.