DEER. — The biblical image of Ps. 41, sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum, was rendered in ancient Christian art by the representation of deer drinking at the spring, as a symbol of souls hastening to the source of life.
It is a subject chosen chiefly for baptisteries (Salona, Sens), but it is also found in cemetery paintings (Wilpert, Pitture, pls. CL, 3; CCLXIX), in Christian sarcophagi (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, V. index); in the African silver capsella discovered at 'Ajn Bejdá' and now in the Museo Sacro of the Vatican Library, and even on a medallion. Deer were also placed in baptisteries, and water flowed from their muzzles into the basin; mentioned in the Lib. Pont. are the seven silver deer of the Lateran Baptistery and the silver deer in the baptistery of the titulus of Vestina. At Carthage, the deer is found on Christian terracotta lamps and on a lead seal.