JONAH, rE
The Word of the Lord Heals Jonah
Introduction,
Part 1
Preface
Dear readers,
I cannot hope to
remember all the people to whom I am indebted for life itself, who thus helped
develop this meditation on Jonah. Even a
partial list would fill many pages.
Everything in this paper was freely received from others, so it is
freely given to you as well. Thanksgiving
is given to God our Magnificent Creator, from Whom all things good flow, and
Who is responsible for anything of value written here. My wife and children also deserve special
credit, as they patiently endured, while I did “my thing”. The host of other relatives, opponents,[1] pastors, public servants,
scout masters, teachers, writers and friends is legion. Last, but not least, credit is due to you the
reader, for every word is chosen with you in mind, with your desires and your needs;
it is you, dear reader, who will survive to pass this information on, to refute
its many errors, and to amplify whatever truth may be found in it. All deserve credit for their special
contribution to this paper; we only wish it were possible to give such credit
specifically: in most cases the path is simply lost in time.
This paper, originally
titled, “Report of a Rebellious and Resentful Ro’eh”[2], later renamed as, “Renewal of a Raging,
Raving Ro’eh,” [3] finally as it appears here, started out as a
test paper, but that test paper is treated as a draft, and no attempt is made
to identify as quotations, those parts which are often included without
alteration. If any other quotation was
overlooked, full apology is given here, there was no intent to plagiarize. Everything here was handed down from person
to person anyway.[4]
The author reserves no
credit for himself. In the end, nothing
is about self; it does not matter who is right or wrong; everything is about
the pursuit of evidence and Truth in love.[5] His only hope is that the faithful followers
of Jesus will be challenged to take up the burden of passing on the message of
Jonah as best they are able.
Thank you one and all,
living and departed, I am eternally in your debt.
Sincerely,
Augustine
Herb Swanson
Abbreviations
and Bibliography
Note: In
order to conserve space and simplify reading the following abbreviations are
used:
· Beckwith: for Beckwith,
Roger T., The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, and its
Background in Early Judaism, (Wipf and Stock, Eugene, Oregon, 2008
reprint; SPCK, London, © 1985: 528 pages)
· Calvin: Calvin’s
Commentaries, Volume XIV, Calvin, John, Twelve Minor Prophets,
“Commentaries on the Prophet Jonah”; translated by Owen, John, (Baker, Grand
Rapids, 1979 reprint: 145 pages), in loc. cit.
· Davidson: for Davidson,
Benjamin, The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, (Zondervan,
Grand Rapids, 1972: 784 pages)
· EH: for Englishman’s
Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the Old Testament, (Zondervan, Grand
Rapids, 1973: 1682 pages, plus appendices)
· H&R: for Hatch, Edwin
and Henry A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek
Versions of the Old Testament (Including the Apocryphal Books), (Akademische
Druck- U. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, Austria, 1954: three volumes, vol. 1 – 696
pages, vol. 2 – 1504 pages, vol. 3 is bound with vol. 2 – 272 more pages)
· Jellicoe: for Jellicoe,
Sidney, The Septuagint and Modern Study, (Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1968: 424 pages)
· K&D: for Keil, Carl
Friedrich (1807-1888), and F. Delitzsch (1813-1890), Biblical Commentary
on the Old Testament, Keil, The Twelve Minor Prophets, 2
Volumes, (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, seventh printing, 1969: volume 1 – 515
pages, volume 2 – 475 pages) “Jonah”, volume
1, pages 379-417
· Kitchen: for Kitchen, Kenneth A., On the Reliability of
the Old Testament (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2003, paperback 2006: 662
pages)
· Lisowsky: for Lisowsky, Gerhard,
Konkordanz Zum Hebräischen Alten Testament, (Württembergische
Bibelanstalt, Stuttgart, 1958: 1672 pages)
· LXX: for the Greek
Septuagint manuscript family of translations of the Old Testament as it existed
prior to 4 BC, more specifically as published in the Alfred Rahlfs edition, Septuaginta,
2 Volumes, (Württembergische Bibelanstalt, Stuttgart, © 1935, 1971: vol. 1 –
1184 pages, vol. 2 – 941 pages)
· Mandelkern: for
Mandelkern, Solomon, Veteris Testamenti Concordantiae Hebraicae Atque
Chaldaicae, (Akademische Druck- U. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, Austria, 1955:
two volumes, vol. 1 – 808 pages, vol. 2 – 1532 pages, plus appendices)
· MT: for the Hebrew
Masoretic Text manuscript family of the Old Testament, of which few surviving
manuscripts remain, especially as it is published in the Rudolf Kittel edition,
Biblia Hebraica, (Württembergische Bibelanstalt, Stuttgart, © 1937,
1968: 1433 pages)
· Orlinsky: Orlinsky, Harry
M., “Prolegomenon” (45 pages) to Ginsburg, Christian D., Introduction to
the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible, (KTAV, NY, 1966:
1028 pages)
· Taylor: for Taylor,
Bernard A., Lust, Eynikel, and Hauspie, Analytical Lexicon to the
Septuagint: Expanded Edition, (Hendrickson, Peabody, MA, and Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, © 2003, third printing 2014: 591 pages)
· Thiele: for Thiele, Edwin R., The Mysterious Numbers of
the Hebrew Kings, (Kregel, Grand Rapids, original circa 1951, Zondervan
©1983: 253 pages)
Alternatively, many
computer resources are available, which are much easier to use. If you paste the link into the browser
window, be sure to remove the bullet.
· http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/septuagint/chapter.asp?book=36
· http://newadvent.org/bible/jon001.htm
·
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jonah%201&version=NKJV;WLC;VULGATE
I.
The Problem
Jonah, as we shall see, is under attack from a
variety of angles and directions.
Authorship, dating, and content[6] are all assailed. The book is undermined either as allegory or
parable, and therefore not historically factual; or lampooned as trivial, a
children’s story,[7]
unworthy of adult attention. The
prophetic statements in Jonah, when stripped of their covering, boil down to
two brief sentences, neither overwhelming nor valuable to our focus. In short, Jonah, at first glance, is simply a
waste of serious adult time, according to the gainsaying critics.
Rating
as a Children’s Story
As far as any rating for childhood audiences is
concerned, Jonah is simply unfit.
Considered in its realistic environment, Jonah is suitable for mature
audiences only. Far from being peaceful,
Jonah’s childhood was fraught with danger, distress, and turmoil on every side:
most likely he had seen firsthand what invading enemy armies do to women and
children.[8] Typical news coming from Assyria would have
sounded like this.
“Ashurnasirpal II [883-859] succeeded his father,
Tukulti-Ninurta II, in 883 BC. During
his reign he embarked on a vast program of expansion, first conquering the
peoples to the north in Asia Minor as far as Nairi and exacting tribute from
Phrygia, then invading Aram (modern Syria) conquering the Aramaeans and neo
Hittites between the Khabur and the Euphrates Rivers. His harshness prompted a revolt that he
crushed decisively in a pitched, two-day battle. According to his monument inscription while
recalling this massacre he says ‘their men young and old I took prisoners. Of some I cut off their feet and hands; of
others I cut off the ears noses and lips; of the young men’s ears I made a
heap; of the old men’s heads I made a minaret.
I exposed their heads as a trophy in front of their city. The male children and the female children I
burned in flames; the city I destroyed, and consumed with fire.’ Following this
victory, he advanced without opposition as far as the Mediterranean and exacted
tribute from Phoenicia. On his return
home he moved his capital to the city of Kalhu (biblical Calah, Nimrud).”[9]
Jonah, as a young child or adolescent around
828-800, or earlier, may have been an eyewitness of such brutality, he may have
seen close relatives and friends slaughtered with such violence. At the very least he heard adults talking
about Assyrian behavior. Shalmaneser III (859-824), Ashurnasirpal’s
successor, was possibly less cruel,
yet was far more powerful. It is Shalmaneser who appears to exact tribute from Israel for the first time.[10]
Even though Ashurnasirpal claims a decisive defeat of Aram, his claim may
be somewhat exaggerated: a common practice in the day. One reason he did not come further south, may
be that Aram turned him back. Another
possibility may be that Israel, as well as others, bribed him into going
home. When Shalmaneser III returned, he
may have been repulsed at the Battle of Qarqar (853): for after the battle,
Hadadezer of Aram was still on his throne.
Ahab of Israel allied with Aram in that battle. It would take Shalmaneser III several more
campaigns to subdue the Levant. Israel
became an Assyrian vassal state in the days of Jehu (841-814). Jehu can be seen prostrate before Shalmaneser
III in the Black Obelisk. This Assyrian
juggernaut that other human armies cannot resist will be further delayed from
attacking Israel for a time by the voice of a seemingly lone preacher: one with
God is always a majority.
Nothing about the reality of Jonah’s world
suggests a children’s story.
Rating
as Allegory or Parable
It is Christ’s emphasis on the life of Jonah as
a literal reality that forces us to sit up and take notice of Jonah as
historical. Christ Himself takes great
interest in Jonah’s acts and writing, and Jonah is fundamental, even pivotal to
much of Christ’s debate. If Jonah fails,
Christ, to a considerable extent, also fails.
“ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς[11]: εἶπεν[12] αὐτοῖς[13], ‘Γενεὰ
πονηρὰ καὶ μοιχαλὶς σημεῖον[14] ἐπιζητεῖ[15]. Καὶ
σημεῖον οὐ δοθήσεται[16] αὐτῇ[17], εἰ
μὴ τὸ σημεῖον Ἰωνᾶ τοῦ προφήτου: ὥσπερ γὰρ ἦν[18] Ἰωνᾶς
ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ[19] τοῦ
κήτους[20] τρεῖς
ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας; οὕτως ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς τρεῖς
ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας. Ἄνδρες Νινευῖται ἀναστήσονται[21] ἐν τῇ
κρίσει μετὰ τῆς γενεᾶς ταύτης; καὶ κατακρινοῦσιν[22] αὐτήν:
ὅτι μετενόησαν[23] εἰς
τὸ κήρυγμα Ἰωνᾶ. Καὶ ἰδοὺ[24] πλεῖον[25] Ἰωνᾶ
ὧδε[26].’ ”
— Matthew 12:39-41, text re-punctuated with English marking
“Now the response [was given]: He [Jesus] said to them, ‘A
generation, evil and adulterous [idolatrous[27]],
demands a sign. A sign will not be given
to her, except for the sign of Jonah the prophet: for, even as Jonah remained
in the womb of the creation,[28] three days and three
nights; even so, the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth, three days
and three nights.[29] Men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment
with this generation; they will condemn her: because, they repented at the
preaching of Jonah. See, here [is] a
greater than Jonah!’ ” — Matthew 12:39-41, our translation
As there is no possible means to escape the
literal reality of Christ’s Crucifixion, there is no possible means to escape
the literal reality of Noah’s being swallowed by a great creature. Hence, the evidence leaves no opening for
interpretation as either allegory or parable.
Rating
as Reality
What remains, is Jonah as a serious adult
profound interaction concerning realities of the Assyrian threat in the days
leading up to the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel. Neither Israel nor all of its allies together
have the strength to resist Assyria. Damascus
has survived the Battle of Qarqar (853),[30] and will survive several
more Assyrian attacks, before finally falling to the Assyrian juggernaut. Jehu will be found groveling before the
throne of Shalmaneser
III. It is not a children’s story. It
is not allegory or parable. It is
closest to the idea of a modern ambassador singlehandedly staving off armed
conflict with a hated adversary, by going to that adversary to discuss terms of
peace. We shall discover, in tiny Jonah,
an atomic bomb in an attaché case; for Jonah explains a whole chapter in
Israel’s historical development, and prefigures Christ like no other. As it turns out, Jonah may just be the
greatest human preacher that has ever lived.
As foolish as his antics seem, he did get amazing results. Even so, we will find that the underlying
reasons for this smashing success are not at all what we expected.
We’ve quoted every reference from the Fathers
that we could find after thorough searching.
Christ is not the only one who views Jonah as historic reality:
virtually all of the Church Fathers also held Jonah to be historic reality.[31]
[1] Of
all contributors, opponents are among the most important, for in opposing us
they force us to sharpen our thoughts: abandoning false arguments, misleading
trails, and trivia. There is nothing in
this world quite so valuable as a worthy opponent.
[2]
The title change reflects a radical change in my view about the theme of the
book of Jonah. Whereas, it was
originally believed that Jonah was acting out of rebellion, I now believe that
he was acting out an extreme, yet unspecified, spiritual disease. Jonah’s irrationality is the picture of a
very broken man.
[3]
The older title is simply an attempt to be poetic. Ro’eh is the Hebrew word for Seer, one of
several Hebrew titles used for Prophets.
It indicates a person of exceptional perception, one who sees things
that most people miss, one who sees into the invisible mysteries of God: this
is the gift of the Holy Spirit, most commonly known as Inspiration. Inspiration is the gift, which maintains a
face-to-face conversation with God and the authority to write a record of that
same conversation. Ro’eh is employed
here simply because it begins with the letter R and preserves the alliteration.
[4] 2
Timothy 2:2: Apodosis is the passing of the relay baton from one runner to the
next.
[5] Ephesians
4:15
[6]
There are hints that Jonah even contradicts his contemporaries, Hosea and Amos: which is, of course,
impossible.
[7]
Jonah has all the elements of a great children’s story: brevity, lots of water
in which to play, and the necessary scariness found in a prototypical
“Jaws”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(film)
[8]
Psalm 137:9
[9] Cruel
and unusual punishment was an unknown and unused concept in that day. Executions were designed to maximize abject horror,
clear object lessons, dramatic effect, entertainment value, humiliation of the
defeated, shock value, and total intimidation.
Such attitudes about punishment have prevailed throughout the world until
relatively recent times: 1900 AD and beyond.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurnasirpal_II
[10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalmaneser_III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qarqar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Obelisk_of_Shalmaneser_III
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurkh_Monoliths
[11] ὁ
δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς: nominative singular masculine, aorist passive participle of ἀποκρίνομαι (ἀπό + κρίνω): literally, separated from judgment; reply, respond. We do not have the exact nuance of the
passive idiom; possibly something like, “responding to the previous
conversation, He said.” On the other
hand, the fact that ἀποκριθεὶς is articular (preceded by ὁ) may
emphasize the nominal, objective or subjective use, over and above the
adjectival force: “Now the response [was given]: He [Jesus] said….
[12] εἶπε(ν):
third person singular, aorist active indicative of εἶπον: He [Jesus] said.
[13] αὐτοῖς:
masculine or neuter dative plural, personal or reflexive pronoun, αὐτός, -ή, -ό: the indirect object; the
phrase, “He said to them”, is the Greek equivalent of an indication of direct
quotation, such quotation being the direct object of the sentence.
[14] σημεῖον:
neuter nominative singular: sign, official authentication mark, token, pledge,
assurance, proof, evidence, and the like.
Here a confirming miracle is being sought, which is more that an insult
in view of the numerous authenticating miracles that Jesus has already
performed. Sign, here, not symbol: yet,
note the similarity in meaning: it is hard to maintain the theological
distinction that signs are lifeless indicators, while symbols are living
representations: we conclude that we must use caution in drawing any such
theological distinction, unsupported, as it is, by the grammar and
lexicography.
[15] ἐπιζητεῖ:
third person singular, present passive indicative of ἐπιζητέω: seek, search, demand,
desire, require.
[16] δοθήσεται:
third person singular, future active indicative of δίδωμι:
give.
[17] αὐτῇ:
feminine dative singular, personal or reflexive pronoun, αὐτός, -ή, -ό: the indirect object.
[18] ἦν:
third person singular, imperfect active indicative of εἰμί:
to be, here in preference to the aorist, indicating that Jonah was in the sea
for an indefinite stay.
[19] κοιλίᾳ:
feminine dative singular of κοιλία:
a cavity or hollow; the lower abdominal cavity, belly, guts, stomach, womb; the
inner self. In this context, belly is
compared to heart, while creation is contrasted to earth.
[20] κήτους:
neuter genitive singular of κῆτος,
most likely a derivative or relative of κτίζω, not of ἰχθύς, nor of ζῶον: creation, or
creature. Early lexicographers have
adopted an anachronism, in bringing too much of the Pinocchio myth (1883) into
the meaning. Other superstitious myths
of giant sea monsters do not seem to relate to animals or fish either. Nor is any monster associated with
earth. The figure, “the heart of the
earth”, simply indicates burial, in this instance in a hewn cave, with possible
hints of the place of the dead, or Hades.
Similarly, the figure, “womb of the sea”, simply indicates burial at
sea, in this instance of a living human.
Doubtless, ancient mariners were caused to dream of such monsters in
their terrifying delusions, motivated by perfect storms. There is no more reason for us to read sea
monster into “the womb of the sea”, than to read beast of the dragon into “the
heart of the earth”.
[21] ἀναστήσονται:
third person plural, future active indicative of ἀνίστημι:
stand up.
[23] μετενόησαν: third person plural, aorist active
indicative of μετενόεω: to perform an about face, to
the rear march, to go in the opposite direction, to repent.
[24] ἰδοὺ:
second person singular, aorist middle imperative of εἶδον from ὁράω: behold (archaic), look, see; often
exclamatory.
[25] πλεῖον:
neuter nominative or accusative singular of πλείων from πολύς:
comparative: greater, more..
[26] ὧδε:
adverb from ὅδε:
here.
[27]
Jesus is not primarily condemning their sexual behavior, although that may be
included in the broader scope of things; He primarily condemns their worship
adultery or idolatry.
[28]
Or matrix of the monster. Matrix is
objectionable since one cannot enter the womb by drowning. Monster is objectionable because it conjures
up imaginations and visions of mythical creatures. Greatness is an inference from κήτους, it is not specified by Matthew. Nor does the text specify the nature of the
creature. Neither does it rule out the
possibility of an especially created being.
We ought not waste time speculating over what the Bible does not
say. Matthew specifies, “ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους,” (in the belly of the creation or creature). Jonah 2:1 [misnumbered 1:17 in most English
Bibles] has, “κήτει μεγάλῳ … τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους,” (great creature … in the belly of the creature). Note that the word, great, is found in Jonah,
not in Matthew. We have chosen womb as
the preferred translation in spite of these objections, because it expresses
more beautifully, more poetically, Jonah’s actual situation as he is cast on
the beach, as a form of rebirth: Jonah gets a complete second chance.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2012%3A39-41&version=KJV;SBLGNT;VULGATE
http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/septuagint/chapter.asp?book=36&page=2
[29]
The language is not suggestive of seventy-two hours to an audience that only
knows counting numbers. Concepts of zero
as more than a place holder will not be discovered for several centuries. As it turns out, three days and three nights
is unlikely to be more than thirty-six hours, since Jesus was tried from 9
until noon, and crucified and dead by 3: which in counting numbers amounts to
Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 1, 2, 3 respectively.
It is a serious anachronism and a grievous error to try to impose our
idiomatic use of numbers around the year 2000, with the idiomatic use of
numbers in 800 BC, or even 33 AD, when the history of mathematics shows us very
clearly that no such overlap of idiom is even close to being possible.
The language is suggestive of death, as is also similar
language in Jonah 2:3 [2:2], “ἐκ κοιλίας ᾅδου,” (out of the matrix of Hades or
Hell). Hades or Hell is the place of the
dead, not to be confused with the place of torment, which is properly called
the Lake of Fire.
[30] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Qarqar
New Advent References
Other references may be found at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/. The root sources of the vast majority of the
New Advent Fathers is:
Roberts, Alexander and James Donaldson, eds., Ante-Nicene
Fathers, (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1867-1873): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers
Schaff, Philip and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1886-1900): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers
Both of these sources are in turn translated from original languages.
Christian Classics Ethereal Library has a
similar set of documents available on line.
However, we found them more difficult to access.
http://www.ccel.org/
St. Alexander of Alexandria (d. 326, or 328), Epistles on
Arianism and the Deposition of Arius, paragraph 5.5: “In very deed did He
[Jesus] endure for our sakes sorrow, ignominy, torment, even death itself, and burial. For thus He says Himself by the prophet: I went
down into the deep. Jonah 2:4”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0622.htm
St. Ambrose (340-397), On Repentance, Book II, Chapter
5, paragraph 48: “So, too, did the people of Nineveh mourn, and escaped the destruction
of their city. Jonah 3:5 Such is the remedial power of repentance, that
God seems because of it to change His intention.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/34062.htm
St. Athanasius (296/98-373), Four Discourses Against the
Arians, Discourse 3, Chapter 25, paragraphs 23, and 25:
“Indeed we may learn also from the ‘Savior Himself, when He says, ‘For
as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son
of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth Matthew 12:40.’ For Jonah was not as the ‘Savior, nor did Jonah
go down to hades; nor was the whale hades; nor did Jonah, when swallowed up, bring
up those who had before been swallowed by the whale, but he alone came forth, when
the whale was bidden. Therefore, there is
no identity nor equality signified in the term ‘as,’ but one thing and another;
and it shows a certain kind of parallel in the case of Jonah, on account of the
three days. In like manner then we too, when
the Lord says ‘as,’ neither become as the Son in the Father, nor as the Father is
in the Son. For we become one as the Father
and the Son in mind and agreement of spirit, and the ‘Savior will be as Jonah in
the earth; but as the ‘Savior is not Jonah, nor, as he was swallowed up, so did
the ‘Savior descend into hades, but it is but a parallel, in like manner, if we
too become one, as the Son in the Father, we shall not be as the Son, nor equal
to Him; for He and we are but parallel.”
“The Savior, then, saying of us, ‘As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in
You, that they too may be one in Us,’ does not signify that we were to have identity
with Him; for this was shown from the instance of Jonah; but it is a request to
the Father, as John has written, that the Spirit should be vouchsafed through Him
to those who believe, through whom we are found to be in God, and in this respect
to be conjoined in Him.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/28163.htm
St. Athanasius (296/98-373), Letters, Letter 49,
paragraph 5: “Jeremiah … reverenced Him that had entrusted to him his office, and
fulfilled the prophetic call. Or are you
not aware, beloved, that Jonah also fled, but met with the fate that befell him,
after which he returned and prophesied?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806049.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Letters,
Second Division, Letter 71, From Augustine to Jerome, Chapter 3, paragraph 5:
“A certain bishop … introduced in the church … the reading of your
version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given
a very different rendering from that which had been of old familiar to the senses
and memory of all the worshippers, and had been chanted for so many generations
in the church. Jonah 4:6 Thereupon arose such a tumult in the congregation,
especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been read, and denouncing the translation
as false, that the bishop was compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents…. These … answered that the words in the Hebrew
manuscripts were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and in the Latin one taken
from it. (The dispute seems to be over
the Greek word, κολοκύνθῃ which was evidently rendered, hederam and hedera,
possibly ivy).
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102071.htm
Jerome’s defense of the translation, ivy, is given in Letter
75, Chapter 6, paragraph 21, Chapter 7, paragraph 22:
[Jerome, quoting Augustine] “… came upon a word in the book of
the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering….”
“You tell me that I have given a wrong translation of some word
in Jonah … brought against me the charge of giving in my translation the word
ivy instead of gourd. I have already given
a sufficient answer to this in my commentary on Jonah. At present, I deem it enough to say that in that
passage, where the Septuagint has gourd, and Aquila and the others have rendered
the word ivy (κίσσος), the Hebrew manuscript has ciceion, which is in the Syriac
tongue, as now spoken, ciceia. It is a kind
of shrub having large leaves like a vine, and when planted it quickly springs up
to the size of a small tree, standing upright by its own stem, without requiring
any support of canes or poles, as both gourds and ivy do. If, therefore, in translating word for word, I
had put the word ciceia, no one would know what it meant; if I had used the word
gourd, I would have said what is not found in the Hebrew. I therefore put down ivy, that I might not differ
from all other translators.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102075.htm
Jerome’s further closing comment is made in Letter 81: “If you
have read my commentary on Jonah, I think you will not recur to the ridiculous gourd-debate.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102081.htm
Augustine replies in Letter 82, Chapter 5, paragraph 35:
“I desire, moreover, your translation of the Septuagint, in order
that we may be delivered, so far as is possible, from the consequences of the notable
incompetency of those who, whether qualified or not, have attempted a Latin translation;
and in order that those who think that I look with jealousy on your useful labors,
may at length, if it be possible, perceive that my only reason for objecting to
the public reading of your translation from the Hebrew in our churches was, lest,
bringing forward anything which was, as it were, new and opposed to the authority
of the Septuagint version, we should trouble by serious cause of offense the flocks
of Christ, whose ears and hearts have become accustomed to listen to that version
to which the seal of approbation was given by the apostles themselves. Wherefore, as to that shrub in the book of Jonah,
if in the Hebrew it is neither gourd nor ivy, but something else which stands erect,
supported by its own stem without other props, I would prefer to call it gourd in
all our Latin versions; for I do not think that the Seventy would have rendered
it thus at random, had they not known that the plant was something like a gourd.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102082.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Letters,
Second Division, Letter 102, From Augustine to Deogratias, paragraph 30-38,
Question VI:
30. “Question VI. The last question proposed is concerning Jonah,
and it is put as if it were not from Porphyry, but as being a standing subject of
ridicule among the Pagans; for his words are: In the next place, what are we to
believe concerning Jonah, who is said to have been three days in a whale’s belly? The thing is utterly improbable and incredible,
that a man swallowed with his clothes on should have existed in the inside of a
fish. If, however, the story is figurative,
be pleased to explain it. Again, what is
meant by the story that a gourd sprang up above the head of Jonah after he was vomited
by the fish? What was the cause of this gourd’s
growth? Questions such as these I have seen
discussed by Pagans amidst loud laughter, and with great scorn.
31. “To this I reply, that
either all the miracles wrought by divine power may be treated as incredible, or
there is no reason why the story of this miracle should not be believed. The resurrection of Christ Himself upon the third
day would not be believed by us, if the Christian faith was afraid to encounter
Pagan ridicule. Since, however, our friend
did not on this ground ask whether it is to be believed that Lazarus was raised
on the fourth day, or that Christ rose on the third day, I am much surprised that
he reckoned what was done with Jonah to be incredible; unless, perchance, he thinks
it easier for a dead man to be raised in life from his sepulcher, than for a living
man to be kept in life in the spacious belly of a sea monster. For without mentioning the great size of sea monsters
which is reported to us by those who have knowledge of them, let me ask how many
men could be contained in the belly which was fenced round with those huge ribs
which are fixed in a public place in Carthage, and are well known to all men there? Who can be at a loss to conjecture how wide an
entrance must have been given by the opening of the mouth which was the gateway
of that vast cavern? Unless, perchance, as
our friend stated it, the clothing of Jonah stood in the way of his being swallowed
without injury, as if he had required to squeeze himself through a narrow passage,
instead of being, as was the case, thrown headlong through the air, and so caught
by the sea monster as to be received into its belly before he was wounded by its
teeth. At the same time, the Scripture does
not say whether he had his clothes on or not when he was cast down into that cavern,
so that it may without contradiction be understood that he made that swift descent
unclothed, if perchance it was necessary that his garment should be taken from him,
as the shell is taken from an egg, to make him more easily swallowed. For men are as much concerned about the raiment
of this prophet as would be reasonable if it were stated that he had crept through
a very small window, or had been going into a bath; and yet, even though it were
necessary in such circumstances to enter without parting with one’s clothes, this
would be only inconvenient, not miraculous.
32. “But perhaps our objectors
find it impossible to believe in regard to this divine miracle that the heated moist
air of the belly, whereby food is dissolved, could be so moderated in temperature
as to preserve the life of a man. If so,
with how much greater force might they pronounce it incredible that the three young
men cast into the furnace by the impious king walked unharmed in the midst of the
flames! If, therefore, these objectors refuse to believe any narrative of
a divine miracle, they must be refuted by another line of argument. For it is incumbent on them in that case not to
single out someone to be objected to, and called in question as incredible, but
to denounce as incredible all narratives in which miracles of the same kind or more
remarkable are recorded. And yet, if this
which is written concerning Jonah were said to have been done by Apuleius of Madaura
or Apollonius of Tyana, by whom they boast, though unsupported by reliable testimony,
that many wonders were performed (albeit even the devils do some works like those
done by the holy angels, not in truth, but in appearance, not by wisdom, but manifestly
by subtlety) — if, I say, any such event were narrated in connection with these
men to whom they give the flattering name of magicians or philosophers, we should
hear from their mouths sounds not of derision, but of triumph. Be it so, then; let them laugh at our Scriptures;
let them laugh as much as they can, when they see themselves daily becoming fewer
in number, while some are removed by death, and others by their embracing the Christian
faith, and when all those things are being fulfilled which were predicted by the
prophets who long ago laughed at them, and said that they would fight and bark against
the truth in vain, and would gradually come over to our side; and who not only transmitted
these statements to us, their descendants, for our learning, but promised that they
should be fulfilled in our experience.
33. “It is neither unreasonable
nor unprofitable to inquire what these miracles signify, so that, after their significance
has been explained, men may believe not only that they really occurred, but also
that they have been recorded, because of their possessing symbolic meaning. Let him, therefore, who proposes to inquire why
the prophet Jonah was three days in the capacious belly of a sea monster, begin
by dismissing doubts as to the fact itself; for this did actually occur, and did
not occur in vain. For if figures which are
expressed in words only, and not in actions, aid our faith, how much more should
our faith be helped by figures expressed not only in words, but also in actions! Now men are wont to speak by words; but divine
power speaks by actions as well as by words.
And as words which are new or somewhat unfamiliar lend brilliancy to a human
discourse when they are scattered through it in a moderate and judicious manner,
so the eloquence of divine revelation receives, so to speak, additional luster from
actions which are at once marvelous in themselves and skillfully designed to impart
spiritual instruction.
34. “As to the question,
What was prefigured by the sea monster restoring alive on the third day the prophet
whom it swallowed? Why is this asked of us,
when Christ Himself has given the answer, saying, ‘An evil and adulterous generation
seeks after a sign, and there shall no sign be given it but the sign of the prophet
Jonas: for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so must
the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth’ Matthew 12:39-40? In regard to the three days in which the Lord
Christ was under the power of death, it would take long to explain how they are
reckoned to be three whole days, that is, days along with their nights, because
of the whole of the first day and of the third day being understood as represented
on the part of each; moreover, this has been already stated very often in other
discourses. As, therefore, Jonah passed from
the ship to the belly of the whale, so Christ passed from the cross to the sepulcher,
or into the abyss of death. And as Jonah
suffered this for the sake of those who were endangered by the storm, so Christ
suffered for the sake of those who are tossed on the waves of this world. And as the command was given at first that the
word of God should be preached to the Ninevites by Jonah, but the preaching of Jonah
did not come to them until after the whale had vomited him forth, so prophetic teaching
was addressed early to the Gentiles, but did not actually come to the Gentiles until
after the resurrection of Christ from the grave.
35. “In the next place,
as to Jonah’s building for himself a booth, and sitting down over against Nineveh,
waiting to see what would befall the city, the prophet was here in his own person
the symbol of another fact. He prefigured
the carnal people of Israel. For he also
was grieved at the salvation of the Ninevites, that is, at the redemption and deliverance
of the Gentiles, from among whom Christ came to call, not righteous men, but sinners
to repentance. Luke 5:32 Wherefore the shadow of that gourd over his head
prefigured the promises of the Old Testament, or rather the privileges already enjoyed
in it, in which there was, as the apostle says, ‘a shadow of things to come,’ Colossians
2:17, furnishing, as it were, a refuge from the heat of temporal calamities in the
land of promise. Moreover, in that morning-worm,
which by its gnawing tooth made the gourd wither away, Christ Himself is again prefigured,
forasmuch as, by the publication of the gospel from His mouth, all those things
which flourished among the Israelites for a time, or with a shadowy symbolic meaning
in that earlier dispensation, are now deprived of their significance, and have withered
away. And now that nation, having lost the
kingdom, the priesthood, and the sacrifices formerly established in Jerusalem, all
which privileges were a shadow of things to come, is burned with grievous heat of
tribulation in its condition of dispersion and captivity, as Jonah was, according
to the history, scorched with the heat of the sun, and is overwhelmed with sorrow;
and notwithstanding, the salvation of the Gentiles and of the penitent is of more
importance in the sight of God than this sorrow of Israel and the shadow of which
the Jewish nation was so glad.
36. “Again, let the Pagans
laugh, and let them treat with proud and senseless ridicule Christ the Worm and
this interpretation of the prophetic symbol, provided that He gradually and surely,
nevertheless, consume them. For concerning
all such Isaiah prophesies, when by him God says to us, Hearken unto me, you that
know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach
of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings: for the moth shall eat them up
as a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall
be forever. Isaiah 51:7-8 Let us therefore
acknowledge Christ to be the morning-worm, because, moreover, in that psalm which
bears the title, Upon the hind of the morning, He has been pleased to call Himself
by this very name: I am, He says, a worm, and no man, a reproach of men, and despised
of the people. This reproach is one of those
reproaches which we are commanded not to fear in the words of Isaiah, Fear ye not
the reproach of men. By that Worm, as by
a moth, they are being consumed who under the tooth of His gospel are made to wonder
daily at the diminution of their numbers, which is caused by desertion from their
party. Let us therefore acknowledge this
symbol of Christ; and because of the salvation of God, let us bear patiently the
reproaches of men. He is a Worm because of
the lowliness of the flesh which He assumed — perhaps, also, because of His being
born of a virgin; for the worm is generally not begotten, but spontaneously originated
in flesh or any vegetable product [sine concubitu nascitur]. He is the morning-worm, because He rose
from the grave before the dawn of day. That
gourd might, of course, have withered without any worm at its root; and finally,
if God regarded the worm as necessary for this work, what need was there to add
the epithet morning-worm, if not to secure that He should be recognized as
the Worm who in the psalm, pro susceptione matutina, sings, I am a worm, and no
man?
37. “What, then, could be
more palpable than the fulfilment of this prophecy in the accomplishment of the
things foretold? That Worm was indeed despised
when He hung upon the cross, as is written in the same psalm: ‘They shoot out the
lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted in the Lord that he would deliver him;
let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him;’ and again, when this was fulfilled
which the psalm foretold, ‘They pierced my hands and my feet. They have told all my bones: they look and stare
upon me. They part my garments among them,
and cast lots upon my vesture,’ — circumstances
which are in that ancient book described when future by the prophet with as great
plainness as they are now recorded in the gospel history after their occurrence. But if in His humiliation that Worm was despised,
is He to be still despised when we behold the accomplishment of those things which
are predicted in the latter part of the same psalm: ‘All the ends of the world shall
remember, and turn unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship
in His presence. For the kingdom is the Lord’s;
and He shall govern among the nations’? Thus
the Ninevites ‘remembered, and turned unto the Lord.’ The salvation granted to the Gentiles on their
repentance, which was thus so long before prefigured, Israel then, as represented
by Jonah, regarded with grief, as now their nation grieves, bereft of their shadow,
and vexed with the heat of their tribulations.
Anyone is at liberty to open up with a different interpretation, if only
it be in harmony with the rule of faith, all the other particulars which are hidden
in the symbolic history of the prophet Jonah; but it is obvious that it is not lawful
to interpret the three days which he passed in the belly of the whale otherwise
than as it has been revealed by the heavenly Master Himself in the gospel, as quoted
above.
38. “I have answered to
the best of my power the questions proposed; but let him who proposed them become
now a Christian at once, lest, if he delay until he has finished the discussion
of all difficulties connected with the sacred books, he come to the end of this
life before he pass from death to life. For
it is reasonable that he inquire as to the resurrection of the dead before he is
admitted to the Christian sacraments. Perhaps
he ought also to be allowed to insist on preliminary discussion of the question
proposed concerning Christ — why He came so late in the world’s history, and of
a few great questions besides, to which all others are subordinate. But to think of finishing all such questions as
those concerning the words, ‘In what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto
you,’ and concerning Jonah, before he becomes a Christian, is to betray great unmindfulness
of man’s limited capacities, and of the shortness of the life which remains to him. For there are innumerable questions the solution
of which is not to be demanded before we believe, lest life be finished by us in
unbelief. When, however, the Christian faith
has been thoroughly received, these questions behoove to be studied with the utmost
diligence for the pious satisfaction of the minds of believers. Whatever is discovered by such study ought to
be imparted to others without vain self-complacency; if anything still remain hidden,
we must bear with patience an imperfection of knowledge which is not prejudicial
to salvation.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102102.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Letters, Third
Division, Letter 166, From Augustine to Jerome, on the origin of the soul, Chapter
3, paragraph 6, and Chapter 7, paragraph 21:
“Since, however, we hold on this subject the opinion consonant
with the immoveable Catholic faith, which you have yourself expressed when, refuting
the absurd sayings of Jovinian, you have quoted this sentence from the book of Job:
‘In your sight, no one is clean, not even the infant, whose time of life on
earth is a single day,’ adding, ‘for we are held guilty in the similitude of
Adam's transgression,’ — an opinion which
your book on Jonah's prophecy declares in a notable and lucid manner, where you
affirm that the little children of Nineveh were justly compelled to fast along with
the people, because merely of their original sin, — it is not unsuitable that I should address to
you the question — where has the soul contracted the guilt from which, even at that
age, it must be delivered by the sacrament of Christian grace?”
“Now he that is not made alive in Christ must necessarily remain
under the condemnation, of which the apostle says, that by the offense of one
judgment came upon all men to condemnation.
Romans 5:18 That infants are born
under the guilt of this offense is believed by the whole Church. It is also a doctrine which you have most faithfully
set forth, both in your treatise against Jovinian and your exposition of Jonah,
as I mentioned above….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102166.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Letters, Third
Division, Letter 185, From Augustine to Boniface, Chapter 5, paragraph 19: “… or
as the king of the Ninevites served Him [God], by compelling all the men of his
city to make satisfaction to the Lord; Jonah
3:6-9 …”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102185.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), City of God
(Book I), Chapter 14: “He [God] has not failed His own people [in Rome] in the power
of a nation [the Goths] which, though barbarous, is yet human — He who did not abandon the prophet in the belly
of a monster. Jonah 1”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120101.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), City of God
(Book XVIII), Chapters 27, 30, and 44:
“We find from their own writings that these men prophesied contemporaneously. To these are added Jonah in the reign of Uzziah,
and Joel in that of Jotham, who succeeded Uzziah.”
“The prophet Jonah, not so much by speech as by his own painful
experience, prophesied Christ’s death and resurrection much more clearly than if
he had proclaimed them with his voice. For
why was he taken into the whale’s belly and restored on the third day, but that
he might be a sign that Christ should return from the depths of hell on the third
day?”
“But some one may say, How shall I know whether the prophet
Jonah said to the Ninevites, ‘Yet three days and Nineveh shall be
overthrown,’ or forty days? Jonah
3:4 For who does not see that the prophet
could not say both, when he was sent to terrify the city by the threat of imminent
ruin? For if its destruction was to take
place on the third day, it certainly could not be on the fortieth; but if on the
fortieth, then certainly not on the third.
If, then, I am asked which of these Jonah may have said, I rather think what
is read in the Hebrew, ‘Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’ Yet the Seventy, interpreting long afterward,
could say what was different and yet pertinent to the matter, and agree in the self-same
meaning, although under a different signification. And this may admonish the reader not to despise
the authority of either, but to raise himself above the history, and search for
those things which the history itself was written to set forth. These things, indeed, took place in the city of
Nineveh, but they also signified something else too great to apply to that city;
just as, when it happened that the prophet himself was three days in the whale’s
belly, it signified besides, that He who is Lord of all the prophets should be three
days in the depths of hell. Wherefore, if
that city is rightly held as prophetically representing the Church of the Gentiles,
to wit, as brought down by penitence, so as no longer to be what it had been, since
this was done by Christ in the Church of the Gentiles, which Nineveh represented,
Christ Himself was signified both by the forty and by the three days: by the forty,
because He spent that number of days with His disciples after the resurrection,
and then ascended into heaven, but by the three days, because He rose on the third
day. So that, if the reader desires nothing
else than to adhere to the history of events, he may be aroused from his sleep by
the Septuagint interpreters, as well as the prophets, to search into the depth of
the prophecy, as if they had said, In the forty days seek Him in whom you may also
find the three days — the one you will find in His ascension, the other in His resurrection. Because that which could be most suitably signified
by both numbers, of which one is used by Jonah the prophet, the other by the prophecy
of the Septuagint version, the one and self-same Spirit has spoken. I dread prolixity [verbosity, volubility], so
that I must not demonstrate this by many instances in which the seventy interpreters
may be thought to differ from the Hebrew, and yet, when well understood, are found
to agree. For which reason I also, according
to my capacity, following the footsteps of the apostles, who themselves have quoted
prophetic testimonies from both, that is, from the Hebrew and the Septuagint, have
thought that both should be used as authoritative, since both are one, and divine. But let us now follow out as we can what remains.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120118.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Christian Doctrine
(Book II), Chapter 8, paragraph 13: “Now the whole canon of Scripture … twelve separate
books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and having never been
disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names of these prophets are as follows:
— Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai,
Zechariah, Malachi….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12022.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Merits and Remission
of Sin, and the Baptism of Infants (Book III), Chapter 12: “For instance,
in his [Jerome’s?] commentary on the prophet Jonah, when he comes to the passage
where the infants were mentioned as chastened by the fast, he says: ‘The
greatest age comes first, and then all the rest is pervaded down to the
least. Jonah 3:3 For there is no man without sin, whether the
span of his age be but that of a single day, or he reckon many years to his
life. For if the very stars are unclean in
the sight of God, Job 25:4 how much more is a worm and corruption, such as are they
who are held subject to the sin of the offending Adam?’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/15013.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), The Harmony of the
Gospels (Book II), Chapter 51, paragraph 106:
“Matthew continues … ‘A wicked and adulterous generation seeks
after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it but the sign of the prophet
Jonas.’ ”
“Mark … referred to Jonah, but mentions simply that He replied
in these terms: ‘There shall no sign be given unto it.’ For we are given to understand what kind of sign
they asked — namely, one from heaven. And he has simply omitted to specify the words
which Matthew has introduced regarding Jonas.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1602.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Exposition on Psalm 51,
paragraph 11:
“For this uncertainty the Ninevites repented, for they said, though
after the threatenings of the Prophet, though after that cry, ‘Three days and
Nineveh shall be overthrown:’ Jonah 3:4 they
said to themselves, Mercy must be implored; they said in this sort reasoning among
themselves, ‘Who knows whether God may turn for the better His sentence, and
have pity?’ Jonah 3:9 It was uncertain, when it is said, ‘Who knows?’
on an uncertainty they did repent, certain mercy they earned: they prostrated them
in tears, in fastings, in sackcloth and ashes they prostrated them, groaned, wept,
God spared. Nineveh stood: was Nineveh overthrown? One way indeed it seems to men,
and another way it seemed to God. But I think that it was fulfilled that the Prophet
had foretold. Regard what Nineveh was, and see how it was overthrown; overthrown
in evil, built in good….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801051.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Exposition on Psalm 66,
paragraph 5, and 6:
“ ‘In the multitude of your power Your enemies shall lie to
You.’
“… therefore when from Him a sign was demanded, of the peculiar
sign making mention which in Himself alone was to be, He says, ‘This generation
crooked and provoking seeks a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it, except
the sign of Jonas the Prophet: for as Jonas was in the belly of the whale three
days and three nights, so shall be also the Son of Man in the heart of the
earth three days and three nights.’ Matthew
12:39-40 In what way was Jonas in the belly
of the whale? Was it not so that afterwards
alive he was vomited out? Hell was to the
Lord what the whale was to Jonas. This sign
peculiar to Himself He mentioned, this is the most mighty sign. It is more mighty to live again after having been
dead, than not to have been dead. The greatness
of the power of the Lord as He was made Man, in the virtue of the Resurrection does
appear.”
“Observe also the very lie of the false witnesses in the Gospel,
and see how it is about Resurrection. For
when to the Lord had been said, ‘What sign will You, who does these things,
show us?’ John 2:18 besides that which He had spoken about Jonah Matthew 12:39
through another similitude of this same thing also He spoke, that you might
know this peculiar sign had been especially pointed out: ‘Destroy this Temple,’
He says, ‘and in three days I will raise it up.’ And they said, ‘In forty and six years was
built this temple, and will You in three days raise it up?’ John 2:19-20”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801066.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Exposition on Psalm 86,
paragraph 22:
“ ‘Show me a sign for good’
Psalm 85:17. What sign, but that of
the Resurrection? The Lord says: ‘This wicked
and provoking generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given
it, but the sign of the Prophet Jonah.’ Matthew
12:39”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801086.htm
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Exposition on Psalm 130,
paragraph 1: “ ‘Out of the deep have I called unto You, O Lord: Lord, hear my
voice’ Psalm 129:1. Jonas cried from the deep; from the whale's belly. Jonah 2:2”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1801130.htm
St. Basil the Great (329/30-379) (329/30-379), De
Spiritu Sancto, Chapter 14, paragraph 32:
“… if we were in each case to prejudice the dignity of our privileges
by comparing them with their types, not even one of these privileges could be reckoned
great … then [falsely] the descent into hell was not fearful, because Jonah had
previously typified the death in three days and three nights.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3203.htm
St. Basil the Great (329/30-379), Hexaemeron (Homily 7),
paragraph 6d:
“But let us come out of the depths of the sea and take refuge upon
the shore. For the marvels of creation, coming
one after the other in constant succession like the waves, have submerged my discourse. However, I should not be surprised if, after finding
greater wonders upon the earth, my spirit seeks like Jonah’s to flee to the sea.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/32017.htm
St. Clement of Alexandria (150-215), The Stromata
(Book V), Chapter 14:
“Thus also the prophetic utterances have the same force as the
apostolic word. For Isaiah says, ‘If you
say, We trust in the Lord our God: now make an alliance with my Lord the king
of the Assyrians.’ And he adds: ‘And
now, was it without the Lord that we came up to this land to make war against
it?’ And Jonah, himself a prophet, intimates
the same thing in what he says: ‘And the shipmaster came to him, and said to
him, Why do you snore? Rise, call on
your God, that He may save us, and that we may not perish.’ For the expression ‘your God’ he makes as if to
one who knew Him by way of knowledge; and the expression, ‘that God may save
us,’ revealed the consciousness in the minds of heathens who had applied their mind
to the Ruler of all, but had not yet believed.
And again the same: ‘And he said to them, I am the servant of the Lord;
and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven.’
And again the same: ‘And he said, Let us by no means perish for the life
of this man.’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02105.htm
St. Clement of Rome (35-99/101), First Epistle, Letter
to the Corinthians, Chapter 7:
“… the Lord has granted a place of repentance to all such as would
be converted unto Him. Noah preached repentance,
and as many as listened to him were saved.
Jonah proclaimed destruction to the Ninevites; Jonah iii
but they, repenting of their sins, propitiated God by prayer, and obtained
salvation, although they were aliens [to the covenant] of God.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1010.htm
St. Cyprian of Carthage (210-258), Treatises of Cyprian,
Treatise XII, Book 2, paragraph 25:
[Concerning the Resurrection on the third day] “ ‘A wicked and
adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto
it but the sign of the prophet Jonas: for as Jonas was in the whale's belly three
days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth.’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050712b.htm
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386), Catechetical Lectures,
Lecture 4, “Of the Resurrection”, paragraph 12:
“And if the Jews ever worry you, meet them at once by asking thus:
Did Jonah come forth from the whale on the third day, and has not Christ then risen
from the earth on the third day? Is a dead
man raised to life on touching the bones of Elisha, and is it not much easier for
the Maker of mankind to be raised by the power of the Father?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310104.htm
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386), Catechetical Lectures,
Lecture 6, “Of Heresies”, paragraph 26: Cyril, writing against [Concernin
Cubricus Manes (paragraph 24), suggests]
“Ought he [Manes] not to have followed the example of Jesus, and
said, If you seek Me, let these go their way John 18:8?
Ought he [Manes] not to have said, like Jonas, Take me, and cast me into
the sea: for this storm is because of me
Jonah 1:12?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310106.htm
St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386), Catechetical Lectures,
Lecture 14, “On the Words, And Rose Again from the Dead.…”, paragraph 17, 18,
and 20:
17. “But again they say,
A corpse then lately dead was raised by the living; but show us that one three
days dead can possibly arise, and that a man should be buried, and rise after
three days. If we seek for Scripture testimony
in proof of such facts, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself supplies it in the Gospels,
saying, For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s
belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth. Matthew 12:40 And when we examine the story of Jonas, great
is the force of the resemblance. Jesus was
sent to preach repentance; Jonas also was sent: but whereas the one fled, not knowing
what should come to pass; the other came willingly, to give repentance unto salvation. Jonas was asleep in the ship, and snoring amidst
the stormy sea; while Jesus also slept, the sea, according to God’s providence ,
began to rise, to show in the sequel the might of Him who slept. To the one they said, Why are you snoring?
Arise, call upon your God, that God may save us Jonah 1:6;
but in the other case they say unto the Master, Lord, save
us. Matthew 8:25-26 Then they said, Call upon your God;
here they say, save Thou. But the
one says, Take me, and cast me into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you Jonah 1:12; the other, Himself rebuked the winds and the
sea, and there was a great calm.
Matthew 8:25-26 The one was cast into
a whale’s belly: but the other of His own accord went down there, where the invisible
whale of death is. And He went down of His
own accord, that death might cast up those whom he had devoured, according to that
which is written, I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
and from the hand of death I will redeem them Hosea 13:14.”
18. “At this point of our
discourse, let us consider whether is harder, for a man after having been buried
to rise again from the earth, or for a man in the belly of a whale, having come
into the great heat of a living creature, to escape corruption. For what man knows not, that the heat of the belly
is so great, that even bones which have been swallowed molder away? How then did Jonas, who was three days and three
nights in the whale’s belly, escape corruption?
And, seeing that the nature of all men is such that we cannot live without
breathing, as we do, in air, how did he live without a breath of this air for three
days? But the Jews make answer and say, The
power of God descended with Jonas when he was tossed about in hell. Does then the Lord grant life to His own servant,
by sending His power with him, and can He not grant it to Himself as well? If that is credible, this is credible also; if
this is incredible, that also is incredible.
For to me both are alike worthy of credence. I believe that Jonas was preserved, for all
things are possible with God Matthew
19:26; I believe that Christ also was raised
from the dead; for I have many testimonies of this, both from the Divine Scriptures,
and from the operative power even at this day of Him who arose — who descended into hell alone, but ascended
thence with a great company; for He went down to death, and many bodies of the
saints which slept arose Matthew
27:52 through Him.”
20. “Of this our Savior
the Prophet Jonas formed the type, when he prayed out of the belly of the whale,
and said, I cried in my affliction, and so on; out of the belly of
hell Jonah 2:2, and yet he was in the whale; but though in the
whale, he says that he is in Hades; for he was a type of Christ, who was to descend
into Hades. And after a few words, he says,
in the person of Christ, prophesying most clearly, My head went down to the chasms
of the mountains; and yet he was in the belly of the whale. What mountains then encompass you? I know, he says, that I am a type of Him, who
is to be laid in the Sepulcher hewn out of the rock. And though he was in the sea, Jonas says, I
went down to the earth, since he was a type of Christ, who went down into the
heart of the earth. And foreseeing the deeds
of the Jews who persuaded the soldiers to lie, and told them, Say that they
stole Him away, he says, By regarding lying vanities
they forsook their own mercy. Jonah 2:8 For He who had mercy on them came, and was crucified,
and rose again, giving His own precious blood both for Jews and Gentiles; yet say
they, Say that they stole Him away, having regard to lying
vanities. But concerning His Resurrection,
Esaias also says, He who brought up from the earth the great Shepherd
of the sheep; he added the word, great, lest He should be thought
on a level with the shepherds who had gone before Him.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310114.htm
St. Ephraim the Syrian (306-373), Nisibene Hymns
(reference 5), Hymn 35, stanza 3, and Hymn 36, stanza 7:
3. “This is great, above
all evils (says the Evil One, concerning our Savior); for this suffices Him not
that He has spoiled us, but likewise on us He has begun retribution for Jonah son
of Amittai. On Legion therefore He was avenging
him when He seized and cast him into the sea.
Jonah emerged, after three days and came up; but Legion yea not after a long
season, for the depth of the sea closed upon him at the command.”
7. “Yet were there two men
(that I lie not) whose names have escaped me in Hell. For Enoch and Elijah came not to me. In all the world I have sought them; yea there
where Jonah descended, I descended and sought and they were not. And though I suppose that into Paradise, they
have entered and escaped, a mighty Cherub guards it. The ladder Jacob saw, what if haply by it they
have entered into Heaven!”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3702e.htm
St. Ephraim the Syrian (306-373), Nisibene Hymns
(reference 6), Hymn 55, stanza 3:
3. “S[atan to Death], Jonah
who conquered you, and returned back from Sheol, became my advocate in asking,
why sinners were spared?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3702f.htm
St. Ephraim the Syrian (306-373), Miscellaneous Hymns,
“On the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh”, Hymn 4, around stanza 25:
“Lo, the sea raged against Your mother as against Jonah. Lo, Herod, that raging wave, sought to drown the
Lord of the seas. Whither I shall flee You
shall teach me, O Lord of Your Mother.”
NB: This imagery may be taken from Revelation 12, especially verse 15.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3703.htm
St. Ephraim the Syrian (306-373), Miscellaneous Hymns,
“For the Feast of the Epiphany”, Hymn 3, stanza 20, and hymn 8, stanza 21:
20. “How like are you in
comparison, with the Prophet whom the fish yielded up! The Devourer has given you back for he was constrained,
by the Power Which constrained the fish.
Jonah was for you as a mirror, since not again did the fish swallow
him, let not again the Devourer swallow you: being yielded up be like Jonah!”
21. “They are no more, the
waters of that sea — which were tempestuous, and boiled against Jonah, — and plunged
into the depths the Son of Amittai. — Though he fled he was bound in the prison-house
— God cast him in and bound him — in dungeon within dungeon — for he bound
him in the sea. — and He bound him in the fish. — For him Grace stood surety — and
she opened the prison and brought forth the preacher.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3704.htm
St. Ephraim the Syrian (306-373), Miscellaneous Hymns,
“The Pearl”, Hymn 1, stanza 4b:
“For three days was Jonah a neighbor [of mine] in the sea: the
living things that were in the sea were affrighted, [saying,] ‘Who shall flee
from God? Jonah fled, and you are obstinate at your scrutiny of
Him!’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3705.htm
St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390), Biography: “He appeared
again before the council, intimated that he was ready to be another Jonas to pacify
the troubled waves, and that all he desired was rest from his labors, and leisure
to prepare for death.”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07010b.htm
St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390), Orations,
Oration 2, “In Defence of His Flight to Pontus….”, paragraphs 106-109: In
paragraph 106, Gregory seems to compare himself with Jonah in justifying flight
as an avoidance of every appearance of falsehood. In paragraph 107, Gregory rejects this as an
absurd impossibility in light of Jonah’s standing as a Prophet of God. In paragraph 108, Gregory shows, according to
his instructor, that Jonah knew better than anyone else, the purpose of the
message, and the folly of escape from it.
In paragraph 109, Gregory explains that Jonah could not bear the loss of
prophecy to rebellious Israel, being conferred on Gentiles: [this, however, is
as flawed as paragraph 106: for all the same reasons: for Jonah knew better
than anyone else].
106. “What then is the story,
and wherein lies its application? For, perhaps,
it would not be amiss to relate it, for the general security. Jonah also was fleeing from the face of God, Jonah 1:3
or rather, thought that he was fleeing: but he was overtaken by the sea,
and the storm, and the lot, and the whale’s belly, and the three days’ entombment,
the type of a greater mystery. He fled from
having to announce the dread and awful message to the Ninevites, and from being
subsequently, if the city was saved by repentance, convicted of falsehood: not that
he was displeased at the salvation of the wicked, but he was ashamed of being made
an instrument of falsehood, and exceedingly zealous for the credit of prophecy,
which was in danger of being destroyed in his person, since most men are unable
to penetrate the depth of the Divine dispensation in such cases.”
107. “But, as I have learned
from a man skilled in these subjects, and able to grasp the depth of the prophet,
by means of a reasonable explanation of what seems unreasonable in the history,
it was not this which caused Jonah to flee, and carried him to Joppa and again from
Joppa to Tarshish, when he entrusted his stolen self to the sea: Jonah 1:3
for it was not likely that such a prophet should be ignorant of the design
of God, viz., to bring about, by means of the threat, the escape of the Ninevites
from the threatened doom, according to His great wisdom, and unsearchable judgments,
and according to His ways which are beyond our tracing and finding out; Romans 11:33 nor that, if he knew this he would refuse to co-operate
with God in the use of the means which He designed for their salvation. Besides, to imagine that Jonah hoped to hide himself
at sea, and escape by his flight the great eye of God, is surely utterly absurd
and stupid, and unworthy of credit, not only in the case of a prophet, but even
in the case of any sensible man, who has only a slight perception of God, Whose
power is over all.”
108. “On the contrary, as
my instructor said, and as I am myself convinced, Jonah knew better than anyone
the purpose of his message to the Ninevites, and that, in planning his flight, although
he changed his place, he did not escape from God. Nor is this possible for anyone else, either by
concealing himself in the bosom of the earth, or in the depths of the sea, or by
soaring on wings, if there be any means of doing so, and rising into the air, or
by abiding in the lowest depths of hell, or by enveloping himself in a thick cloud,
or by any other of the many devices for ensuring escape. For God alone of all things cannot be escaped
from or contended with; if He wills to seize and bring them under His hand, He outstrips
the swift, He outwits the wise, He overthrows the strong, He abases the lofty, He
subdues rashness, He represses power.”
109. “Jonah then was not
ignorant of the mighty hand of God, with which he threatened other men, nor did
he imagine that he could utterly escape the Divine power; this we are not to believe:
but when he saw the falling away of Israel, and perceived the passing over of the
grace of prophecy to the Gentiles— this was the cause of his retirement from preaching
and of his delay in fulfilling the command; accordingly he left the watchtower of
joy, for this is the meaning of Joppa in Hebrew, I mean his former dignity and reputation,
and flung himself into the deep of sorrow: and hence he is tempest-tossed, and falls
asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses
his flight, and is cast into sea, and swallowed, but not destroyed, by the whale;
but there he calls upon God, and, marvelous as it is, on the third day he, like
Christ, is delivered: but my treatment of this topic must stand over, and shall
shortly, if God permit, be more deliberately worked out.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310202.htm
St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390), Orations,
Oration 16, “On His Father's Silence, Because of the Plague of Hail”, paragraph
14:
“Let us sow in tears, that we may reap in joy, let us show ourselves
men of Nineveh, not of Sodom. Let us amend
our wickedness, lest we be consumed with it; let us listen to the preaching of Jonah,
lest we be overwhelmed by fire and brimstone, and if we have departed from Sodom
let us escape to the mountain, let us flee to Zoar, let us enter it as the sun rises;
let us not stay in all the plain, let us not look around us, lest we be frozen into
a pillar of salt, a really immortal pillar, to accuse the soul which returns to
wickedness.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310216.htm
St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390), Orations,
Oration 39, “Oration on the Holy Lights”, paragraph XVII:
XVII. “Now, since our Festival
is of Baptism, and we must endure a little hardness with Him Who for our sake took
form, and was baptized, and was crucified; let us speak about the different kinds
of Baptism, that we may come out thence purified. Moses baptized Leviticus xi but
it was in water, and before that in the cloud and in the sea. 1 Corinthians 10:2 This was typical as Paul says; the Sea of the
water, and the Cloud of the Spirit; the Manna, of the Bread of Life; the Drink,
of the Divine Drink. John also baptized;
but this was not like the baptism of the Jews, for it was not only in water, but
also unto repentance. Still it was not wholly
spiritual, for he does not add And in the Spirit. Jesus also baptized, but in the
Spirit. This is the perfect Baptism. And how is He not God, if I may digress a little,
by whom you too are made God? I know also
a Fourth Baptism — that by Martyrdom and blood, which also Christ himself underwent:
— and this one is far more august than all the others, inasmuch as it cannot be
defiled by after-stains. Yes, and I know
of a Fifth also, which is that of tears, and is much more laborious, received by
him who washes his bed every night and his couch with tears; whose bruises stink
through his wickedness; and who goes mourning and of a sad countenance; who imitates
the repentance of Manasseh Ninevites Jonah
3:7-10 upon which God had mercy; who utters
the words of the Publican in the Temple, and is justified rather than the stiff-necked
Pharisee; Luke 18:13 who like the Canaanite woman bends down and asks
for mercy and crumbs, the food of a dog that is very hungry. Matthew 15:27”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310239.htm
St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390), Orations,
Oration 43, “Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil”, paragraphs 42, 74:
42. “For what could be more
distressing than this [Basil’s] calamity, or call more loudly on one whose eyes
were raised aloft for exertions on behalf of the common good? The good or ill success of an individual is of
no consequence to the community, but that of the community involves of necessity
the like condition of the individual. With
this idea and purpose, he who was the guardian and patron of the community (and,
as Solomon says with truth, a perceptive heart is a moth to the bones, unsensitiveness
is cheerily confident, while a sympathetic disposition is a source of pain, and
constant consideration wastes away the heart), he [Basil], I say, was consequently
in agony and distress from many wounds; like Jonah and David, he wished in himself
to die Jonah 4:8 and gave not sleep to his eyes, nor slumber to
his eyelids, he expended what was left of his flesh upon his reflections, until
he discovered a remedy for the evil: and sought for aid from God and man, to stay
the general conflagration, and dissipate the gloom which was lowering over us.” NB: Gregory may be the first to observe that
Jonah (as Basil) is in pain; Jonah is an apt illustration of Basil’s illness,
because Jonah is ill.
74. “Do you praise the courage
of Elijah 2 Kings 1:1 in the presence of tyrants, and his fiery translation? Or the fair inheritance of Elisha, the sheepskin
mantle, accompanied by the spirit of Elijah?
You must also praise the life of Basil, spent in the fire. I mean in the multitude of temptations, and his
escape through fire, which burnt, but did not consume, the mystery of the
bush, Exodus 3:1 and the fair cloak of skin from on high, his indifference
to the flesh. I pass by the rest, the three
young men bedewed in the fire, Daniel 3:5 the fugitive prophet praying in the whale’s belly, Jonah 2:1
and coming forth from the creature, as from a chamber; the just man in the
den, restraining the lions’ rage, Daniel 6:22 and the struggle of the seven Maccabees, 2 Maccabees 7:1 who were perfected with their father and mother
in blood, and in all kinds of tortures. Their
endurance he rivalled, and won their glory.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310243.htm
St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390), Letters
(Division III), Miscellaneous Letters, Section 4, “To Sophronius, Prefect of
Constantinople”, Epistle CXXXV [135]:
“You, however, I beg to give all diligence, now at any rate,
if you have not done so before, to bring together to one voice and mind the
sections of the world that are so unhappily divided; and above all if you
should perceive, as I have observed, that they are divided not on account of
the Faith, but by petty private interests. To succeed in doing this would earn you a
reward; and my retirement would have less to grieve over if I could see that I
did not grasp at it to no purpose, but was like a Jonas, willingly casting
myself into the sea, that the storm might cease and the sailors be saved. If, however, they are still as storm-tossed as
ever, I at all events have done what I could.”
Section 7, “To Theodore, Bishop of Tyana”, Epistle LXXVII
[77]:
“The people of Nineveh are threatened with an overthrow, but
by their tears they redeem their sin. Jonah
3:10”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3103c.htm
St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-395), Funeral Oration on
Meletius, paragraph 2:
“For when the news of our calamity shall have been spread abroad,
then will the ways be full of mourning crowds, and the sheep of his flock will pour
themselves forth, and like the Ninevites utter the voice of lamentation Jonah 3:5,
or, rather, will lament more bitterly than they. For in their case their mourning released them
from the cause of their fear, but with these no hope of release from their distress
removes their need of mourning.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2909.htm
St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (213-270), On All the Saints:
“For since the second Adam has brought up the first Adam out of
the deeps of Hades, as Jonah was delivered out of the whale, and has set forth him
who was deceived as a citizen of heaven to the shame of the deceiver, the gates
of Hades have been shut, and the gates of heaven have been opened, so as to offer
an unimpeded entrance to those who rise there in faith.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0610.htm
St. Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202), Against Heresies,
Book V, Chapter 5, introduction, and paragraph 2:
Introduction. “The prolonged
life of the ancients, the translation of Elijah and of Enoch in their own bodies,
as well as the preservation of Jonah, of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the
midst of extreme peril, are clear demonstrations that God can raise up our bodies
to life eternal.”
2. “If, however, any one
imagine it impossible that men should survive for such a length of time, and that
Elias was not caught up in the flesh, but that his flesh was consumed in the fiery
chariot, let him consider that Jonah, when he had been cast into the deep, and swallowed
down into the whale's belly, was by the command of God again thrown out safe upon
the land. Jonah 2:11 And then, again, when Ananias, Azarias, and Misaël
were cast into the furnace of fire sevenfold heated, they sustained no harm whatever,
neither was the smell of fire perceived upon them. As, therefore, the hand of God was present with
them, working out marvelous things in their case — [things] impossible [to be accomplished]
by man's nature — what wonder was it, if also in the case of those who were translated
it performed something wonderful, working in obedience to the will of God, even
the Father?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Biography, Chronology,
paragraph 4:
“St. Jerome … wrote … in 395, commentaries on Jonas and Abdias….”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08341a.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 3, “To
Rufinus the Monk”, paragraph 5:
“Thanks be to You, Lord Jesus, that in Your day I have one able
to pray to You for me. To You all hearts
are open, You search the secrets of the heart, You see the prophet shut up in the
fish's belly in the midst of the sea. Jonah
2:1-2 You know then how he and I grew up
together from tender infancy to vigorous manhood, how we were fostered in the bosoms
of the same nurses, and carried in the arms of the same bearers; and how after studying
together at Rome we lodged in the same house and shared the same food by the half
savage banks of the Rhine.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001003.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 16, “To
Pope Damasus”, paragraph 1:
“Nineveh was saved by its tears from the impending ruin caused
by its sin. Jonah 3:5, 10 To what end, you ask, these far-fetched references? To this end, I make answer; that you in your greatness
should look upon me in my littleness; that you, the rich shepherd, should not despise
me, the ailing sheep.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001016.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 39, “To Paula”,
paragraph 3:
“In the midst of your tears the call will come, and you, too, must
die; yet you flee from me as from a cruel judge, and fancy that you can avoid falling
into my hands. Jonah, that headstrong prophet,
once fled from me, yet in the depths of the sea he was still mine. Jonah 2:2-7
If you really believed your daughter to be alive, you would not grieve that
she had passed to a better world.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001039.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 53, “To Paulinus”,
paragraph 8:
“Jonah, fairest of doves, whose shipwreck shows in a figure the
passion of the Lord, recalls the world to penitence, and while he preaches to Nineveh,
announces salvation to all the heathen.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001053.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 60, “To Heliodorus”,
paragraph 2:
“O death that divides brothers knit together in love, how cruel,
how ruthless you are so to sunder them!
The Lord has fetched a burning wind that comes up from the wilderness:
which has dried your veins and has made your well spring desolate. You swallowed up our Jonah, but even in your belly
He still lived. You carried Him as one dead,
that the world's storm might be stilled and our Nineveh saved by His preaching. He, yes He, conquered you, He slew you, that fugitive
prophet who left His home, gave up His inheritance and surrendered his dear life
into the hands of those who sought it.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001060.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 77, “To Oceanus”,
paragraph 4:
“O happy penitence which has drawn down upon itself the eyes of
God, and which has by confessing its error changed the sentence of God's anger! The same conduct is in the Chronicles 2 Chronicles 33:12-13 attributed to Manasseh, and in the book of the
prophet Jonah Jonah 3:5-10 to Nineveh, and in the gospel to the publican. Luke 18:13”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001077.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 104, “From
Augustin”, Chapter 3, paragraph 5:
“A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having introduced in the
church over which he presides the reading of your version, came upon a word in the
book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering from
that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers,
and had been chanted for so many generations in the church…. Jonah 4:6”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102071.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 107, “To
Laeta”, paragraph 6:
“If then parents are responsible for their children when these
are of ripe age and independent; how much more must they be responsible for them
when, still unweaned and weak, they cannot, in the Lord's words, discern
between their right hand and their left:
Jonah 4:11 — when, that is to say,
they cannot yet distinguish good from evil?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001107.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 108, “To
Eustochium”, paragraph 8:
“Joppa too is hard by, the port of Jonah's flight; Jonah 1:3
which also — if I may introduce a poetic fable — saw Andromeda bound to the
rock.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001108.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 112, “To
Augustine”, Chapter 6, paragraph 21, and Chapter 7, paragraph 22:
“… came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which
you have given a very different rendering….”
You tell me that I have given a wrong translation of some word
in Jonah … brought against me the charge of giving in my translation the word
ivy instead of gourd. I have already given
a sufficient answer to this in my commentary on Jonah.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102075.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 116, “From
Augustine”, Chapter 5, paragraph 35:
“Wherefore, as to that shrub in the book of Jonah, if in the Hebrew
it is neither gourd nor ivy, but something else which stands erect, supported by
its own stem without other props, I would prefer to call it gourd in all our Latin
versions; for I do not think that the Seventy would have rendered it thus at random,
had they not known that the plant was something like a gourd.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102082.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 122, “To
Rusticus”, paragraphs 1, and 3:
“To the former of these it was said You are Simon, the son of
Jonah: you shall be called Cephas which is by interpretation a stone; John 1:42”
“Moreover the Lord tells us in the gospel, ‘the men of Nineveh
shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it: because they
repented at the preaching of Jonas;’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001122.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 131, “From
Augustine”, Chapter 3, paragraph 6b:
“For we are held guilty in the similitude of Adam's
transgression, — an opinion which your book on Jonah's prophecy declares in a notable
and lucid manner, where you affirm that the little children of Nineveh were justly
compelled to fast along with the people, because merely of their original sin, —
it is not unsuitable that I should address to you the question — where has the soul
contracted the guilt from which, even at that age, it must be delivered by the sacrament
of Christian grace?”
Chapter 7, paragraph 21:
“That infants are born under the guilt of this offense is believed
by the whole Church. It is also a doctrine
which you have most faithfully set forth, both in your treatise against Jovinian
and your exposition of Jonah, as I mentioned above, and, if I am not mistaken, in
other parts of your works which I have not read or have at present forgotten. I therefore ask, what is the ground of this condemnation
of unbaptized infants? For if new souls are
made for men, individually, at their birth, I do not see, on the one hand, that
they could have any sin while yet in infancy, nor do I believe, on the other hand,
that God condemns any soul which He sees to have no sin.” NB: Augustine here
defends the great Orthodox question.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102166.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Letters, Letter 133, “To Caetesiphon”,
paragraph 12:
“When you see brothers at strife you laugh; and are glad that some
are called by your name and others by that of Christ. Better would it be to imitate Jonah and say:
If it is for my sake that this great tempest is upon you, take me up and cast
me forth into the sea. Jonah 1:12 He in his humility was thrown into the deep that
he might rise again in glory to be a type of the Lord. Matthew 12:39-40 But you are lifted up in your pride to the stars,
only that of you too Jesus may say: I beheld Satan as lightning fall from
heaven. Luke 10:18”
St. Jerome (347-420), The Dialogue Against the
Luciferians, paragraph 15:
“ But, as it is, frequently in my prayers I am either walking in
the arcades, or calculating my interest, or am carried away by base thoughts, so
as to be occupied with things the mere mention of which makes me blush. Where is our faith? Are we to suppose that it was thus that Jonah
prayed? Or the three youths? Or Daniel in the lion's den? Or the robber on the cross?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3005.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Against the Pelagians
(Book II), paragraph 23:
“Jonah i. 14. The sailors
confess that God is just in raising the storm.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/30112.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Against the Pelagians
(Book III), paragraph 6e, and 17a:
6e. “For Adam did not sin
because God knew that he would do so; but God inasmuch as He is God, foreknew what
Adam would do of his own free choice. You
may as well accuse God of falsehood because He said by the mouth of Jonah: ‘Yet
three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’
But God will reply by the mouth of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 18:7-8 ‘At what instant I shall speak concerning a
nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to break down, and to
destroy it; if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil,
I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I
shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to
plant it; if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will
repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.’ Jonah, on a certain occasion, was indignant because,
at God’s command, he had spoken falsely; but his sorrow was proved to be ill founded,
since he would rather speak truth and have a countless multitude perish, than speak
falsely and have them saved. His position
was thus illustrated: Jonah 4:10-11 ‘You grieve over the ivy (or gourd), for the
which you have not labored, neither made it grow, which came up in a night, and
perished in a night; and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city,
wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between
their right hand and their left hand?’ If
there was so vast a number of children and simple folk, whom you will never be able
to prove sinners, what shall we say of those inhabitants of both sexes who were
at different periods of life?”
17a. “Tell me, pray, what
sin have little infants committed. Neither
the consciousness of wrong nor ignorance can be imputed to those who, according
to the prophet Jonah, know not their right hand from their left. They cannot sin, and they can perish; their knees
are too weak to walk, they utter inarticulate cries; we laugh at their attempts
to speak; and, all the while, poor unfortunates! The torments of eternal misery are prepared for
them.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/30113.htm
St. Jerome (347-420), Apology Against Rufinus
(Book III), “My departure from Rome for the East had nothing blamable in it as
you insinuate”, paragraph 22:
“The inhabitants of that spot told me many tales, and gave me the
advice that I should sail not for the columns of Proteus but for the port where
Jonah landed, because the former of those was the course suited for men who were
hurried and flying, but the latter was best for a man who was imprisoned….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27103.htm
St. John Cassian (360-435), Institutes (Book I),
Chapter 2:
“… or that the Ninevites, in order to mitigate the sentence of
God, which had been pronounced against them by the prophet, were clothed in rough
sackcloth. Jonah 3:8”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/350701.htm
St. John Cassian (360-435), On the Incarnation (Book
III), Chapter 16, “He brings forward the witness of God the Father to the
Divinity of the Son”:
“But if you ask this, we must give you the same answer which was
formerly given to them: ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. And no sign shall be given to it, but the
sign of the prophet Jonah.’ Matthew 16:4”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/35093.htm
St. John Cassian (360-435), On the Incarnation (Book
VI), Chapter 23, “That the figure Synecdoche, in which the part stands for the
whole, is very familiar to the Holy Scripture”:
“There is also a similar way of representing days and nights, where,
when in the case of either division of time one day is meant, either period is shown
by a portion of a single period. And indeed
in this way the difficulty about the time of our Lord's Passion is cleared up: for
whereas the Lord prophesied that after the model of the prophet Jonah, the Son of
man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, Matthew 12:40
and whereas after the sixth day of the week on which He was crucified, He
was only in hell for one day and two nights, how can we show the truth of the Divine
words? Surely by the trope of Synecdoche,
i.e., because to the day on which He was crucified the previous night belongs, and
to the night on which He rose again, the coming day; and so when there is added
the night which preceded the day belonging to it, and the day which followed the
night belonging to it, we see that there is nothing lacking to the whole period
of time, which is made up of its portions.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/35096.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, Homily 6, Matthew 2:1-2, paragraph 4:
“For what could they have to say, who did not receive Christ after
so many prophets, when they saw that wise men, at the sight of a single star, had
received this same, and had worshipped Him who was made manifest. Much in the same way then as He acted in the case
of the Ninevites, when He sent Jonas, and as in the case of the Samaritan and the
Canaanite women; so He did likewise in the instance of the magi. For this cause He also said, The men of
Nineveh shall rise up, and shall condemn: and, the Queen of the South shall
rise up, and shall condemn this generation:
Matthew 12:41-42 because these believed
the lesser things, but the Jews not even the greater.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200106.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, Homily 14, Matthew 4:12, paragraph 3:
“And John says, Jesus seeing Simon coming, says, ‘You are
Simon, the Son of Jonah, you shall be called Cephas, which is by
interpretation, a stone.’ John 1:42”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200114.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, Homily 53, Matthew 15:32, paragraph 3a, and 3l:
3a. “And the Pharisees and
Sadducees came and desired Him to show them a sign from Heaven. But He says, When it is evening, you say, Fair
weather, for the sky is red; and in the morning, Foul weather today, for the sky
is red and lowering. You can discern the
face of the sky, but can you not the signs of the times? A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after
a sign, and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And He left them, and departed.”
3l. “But see their hardened
heart, how on being told, that no sign should be given them but the sign of the
prophet Jonas, they do not ask. And yet,
knowing both the prophet, and all that befell him, and having been told this a second
time, they ought to have inquired and learned what the saying could mean; but, as
I said, there is no desire of information in these their doings. For this cause He also left them, and
departed.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200153.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, Homily 54, Matthew 14:13, paragraph 3:
“What then says Christ? ‘You are Simon, the son of Jonas; you
shall be called Cephas.’ ‘Thus since you
have proclaimed my Father, I too name him that begot you;’ all but saying, ‘As
you are son of Jonas, even so am I of my Father.’ Else it were superfluous to say, ‘You are Son
of Jonas;’ but since he had said, ‘Son of God,’ to point out that He is so Son of
God, as the other son of Jonas, of the same substance with Him that begot Him, therefore
He added this, ‘And I say unto you, You are Peter, and upon this rock will I
build my Church…. Matthew 16:18”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200154.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, Homily 65, Matthew 20:17-19, paragraph 4:
“What then? Was it not told
to the people? You may say. It was indeed
told to the people also, but not so plainly.
For, ‘Destroy,’ says He, ‘this Temple, and in three days I will raise it
up;’ John 2:19 and, ‘This generation seeks after a sign, and
there shall no sign be given it, but the sign of Jonas;’ Matthew 12:39
and again, ‘Yet a little while am I with you, and you shall seek me, and
shall not find me.’ John 7:33-34”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200165.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, Homily 79, Matthew 25:31-41, paragraph 2b:
“And this comparison is sometimes made in the case of an equal,
as here, and in the instance of the virgins, sometimes of him that has advantage,
as when he said, The men of Nineveh shall rise up and shall condemn this
generation, because they believed at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a
greater than Jonas is here….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200179.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
St. Matthew, Homily 88, Matthew 27:45-48, paragraph 2:
“This is the sign which before He had promised to give them when
they asked it, saying, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign,
and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet
Jonas;’ Matthew 12:39 meaning His cross, and His death, His burial,
and His resurrection.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200188.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Acts of
the Apostles, Homily 3, Acts 1:12, paragraph 12:
“And they gave them their lots. For they did not yet consider themselves to be
worthy to be informed by some sign. And besides,
if in a case where neither prayer was made, nor men of worth were the agents, the
casting of lots so much availed, because it was done of a right intention, I mean
in the case of Jonah Jonah 1:7; much more did it here.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210103.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Acts of
the Apostles, Homily 37, Acts 17:1-3, paragraph 4:
“On this account the assembly of the whole Church has more power:
and what each cannot do by himself singly, he is able to do when joined with the
rest. Therefore most necessary are the prayers
offered up, here, for the world, for the Church, from the one end of the earth to
the other, for peace, for those who are in adversities. And Paul shows this when he says, ‘That for
the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by
many on our behalf’ 2 Corinthians 1:11; that is, that He might confer the favor on many. And often he asks for their prayers. See also what God says with regard to the Ninevites:
‘And shall not I spare that city, wherein dwell more than six score thousand persons?’ Jonah 4:11
For if, ‘where two or three,’ He says, ‘are gathered together in My
Name’ Matthew 18:20, they prevail much, how much more, being many?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210137.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on Romans,
Homily 1, Romans 1:4, paragraph 2:
“For, ‘Destroy this Temple,’ He says, ‘and in three days I
will raise it up’ John 19; and, ‘When you have lifted Me up from the
earth, then shall you know that I am He’
John 8:28; and again, This ‘generation seeks after a sign; and there
shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of Jonas.’ Matthew 12:39
What then is the being ‘declared?’ being shown, being manifested, being judged,
being confessed, by the feeling and suffrage of all; by Prophets, by the marvelous
Birth after the Flesh, by the power which was in the miracles, by the Spirit, through
which He gave sanctification, by the Resurrection, whereby He put an end to the
tyranny of death.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210201.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on Romans,
Homily 25, Romans 14:13, paragraph 4:
“Taking all these things into consideration then, let those who
talk in this way leave off deceiving both themselves and others since even for these
words of theirs they will be punished for detracting (διασύροντες) from those awful
things, and relaxing the vigor of many who are minded to be in earnest, and do not
even do as much as those barbarians, for they, though they were ignorant of everything,
when they heard that the city was to be destroyed, were so far from disbelieving,
that they even groaned, and girded themselves with sackcloth, and were confounded,
and did not cease to use every means until they had allayed the wrath. Jonah 3:5
But do you, who hast had so great experience of facts and of teaching, make
light of what is told you? The contrary then
will be your fate.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/210225.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First
Corinthians, Homily 4, 1 Corinthians 1:18-20, paragraph 3:
“For as in the case of the Three Children, their not entering the
furnace would not have been so astonishing, as that having entered in they trampled
upon the fire — and in the case of Jonah, it was a greater thing by far, after he
had been swallowed by the fish, to suffer no harm from the monster, than if he had
not been swallowed at all — so also in regard of Christ; His not dying would not
have been so inconceivable, as that having died He should loose the bands of death.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220104.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First
Corinthians, Homily 7, 1 Corinthians 2:9-13, paragraph 8:
“When a thing is spiritual and of dubious meaning, we adduce testimonies
from the things which are spiritual. For
instance, I say, Christ rose again — was born of a Virgin; I adduce testimonies
and types and demonstrations; the abode of Jonah in the whale and his deliverance
afterwards….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220107.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First
Corinthians, Homily 15, 1 Corinthians 5:7-8, paragraph 9:
“And what favors he intended him after the repentance, he reveals
not, imitating his own Master. For as God
says, Jonah 3:4. Septuagint: rec. text,
‘forty days.’ ‘Yet three days, and
Nineveh shall be overthrown,’ and added not, ‘but if she repent she shall be
saved:’
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220115.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First
Corinthians, Homily 25, 1 Corinthians 11:1, paragraph 4b:
“Jonah again, not seeking the profit of many, but his own, was
in danger even of perishing: and while the city stood fast, he himself was tossed
about and overwhelmed in the sea. But when
he sought the profit of many, then he also found his own.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220125.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First
Corinthians, Homily 29, 1 Corinthians 12:1-2, paragraph 2g:
“Therefore, you see, they had power either to speak or to refrain
from speaking. For they were not bound by
necessity, but were honored with a privilege.
For this cause Jonah fled; Jonah 1:3 for this cause Ezekiel delayed; Ezekiel 3:15
for this cause Jeremiah excused himself.
Jeremiah 1:6 And God thrusts them
not on by compulsion, but advising, exhorting, threatening; not darkening their
mind; for to cause distraction and madness and great darkness, is the proper work
of a demon: but it is God's work to illuminate and with consideration to teach things
needful.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220129.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First
Corinthians, Homily 38, 1 Corinthians 15:4, paragraph 4c:
“But where have the Scriptures said that He was buried, and on
the third day shall rise again? By the type
of Jonah which also Himself alleges, saying, ‘As Jonah was three days and three
nights in the whale's belly, so shall also the Son of Man be three days and
three nights in the heart of the earth.’
Matthew 12:40”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220138.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First
Corinthians, Homily 41, 1 Corinthians 15:37, paragraph 3b:
“For wherefore shows He the very prints of the nails? Was it not to prove that it is that same body
which was crucified, and the same again that rose from the dead? And what means also His type of Jonah? For surely it was not one Jonah that was swallowed
up and another that was cast out upon dry land.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220141.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on Second
Corinthians, Homily 2, 2 Corinthians 1:10-11, paragraph 5:
“For ofttimes also God is abashed by a multitude praying with one
mind and mouth. Whence also He said to the
prophet, ‘And shall not I spare this city wherein dwell more than six score
thousand persons?’ Jonah 4:11 Then lest you think He respects the multitude
only, He says, ‘Though the number of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a
remnant shall be saved.’ Isaiah 10:22 How then saved He the Ninevites? Because in their case, there was not only a multitude,
but a multitude and virtue too. For each
one ‘turned from’ his ‘evil way.’ Jonah 3:10;
4:11 And besides, when He saved them, He
said that they discerned not ‘between their right hand and their left hand:’ whence
it is plain that even before, they sinned more out of simpleness than of wickedness:
it is plain too from their being converted, as they were, by hearing a few words. But if their being six score thousand were of
itself enough to save them, what hindered even before this that they should be saved? And why says He not to the Prophet, And shall
I not spare this city which so turns itself?
But brings forward the score thousands.
He produces this also as a reason over and above. For that they had turned was known to the prophet,
but he knew not either their numbers or their simpleness. So by every possible consideration he is desirous
to soften them. For even greatness of number
has power, when there is virtue withal.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220202.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on Second
Corinthians, Homily 4, 2 Corinthians 2:11, paragraph 6 b:
“What then is this? God,
says He, saw that they turned everyone from his evil way, and He repented of
the evil that He had said He would do unto them. Jonah 3:10
He said not, He saw [their] fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I say not this to overturn fasting, (God forbid!)
but to exhort you that with fasting ye do that which is better than fasting, the
abstaining from all evil.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220204.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on Ephesians,
Homily 10, Ephesians 4:5, paragraphs 9, and 10:
“For need is there indeed of His hand, that mighty, that marvelous
hand. Greater things are required of us than
of the Ninevites. ‘Yet three days,’ said
the prophet, ‘and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’
Jonah 3:4 A fearful message, and burdened
with tremendous threat. And how should it
be otherwise? To expect that within three
days, the city should become their tomb, and that all should perish in one common
judgment. For if, when it happens that two
children die at the same time in one house, the hardship becomes intolerable, and
if to Job this of all things seemed the most intolerable, that the roof fell in
upon all his children, and they were thus killed; what must it be to behold not
one house, nor two children, but a nation of a hundred and twenty thousand buried
beneath the ruins!”
“You know how terrible a disaster is this, for lately has this
very warning happened to us, not that any prophet uttered a voice, for we are not
worthy to hear such a voice, but the warning crying aloud from on high more distinctly
than any trumpet. However, as I was saying,
‘Yet three days,’ said the prophet, ‘and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’ A terrible warning indeed, but now we have nothing
even like that; no, there are no longer ‘three days,’ nor is there a Nineveh to
be overthrown, but many days are already past since the Church throughout all the
world has been overthrown, and leveled with the ground, and all alike are overwhelmed
in the evil; nay more, of those that are in high places the stress is so much the
greater. Wonder not therefore if I should
exhort you to do greater things than the Ninevites; and why? Nay more, I do not now proclaim a fast only, but
I suggest to you the remedy which raised up that city also when falling. And what was that? ‘God saw their works,’ says the prophet,
‘that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil which He
said He would do unto them.’ Jonah 3:10”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230110.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on Colossians,
Homily 5, Colossians 2:5, paragraphs 7, and 10:
“But these indeed are things unseen. Will ye that I lead the discourse to those which
are seen; those which have already happened?
Tell me, how did the beast contain Jonah in its belly, without his perishing? Is it not void of reason, and its motions without
control? How spared it the righteous man? How was it that the heat did not suffocate him? How was it that it putrefied him not? For if to be in the deep only, is past contriving,
to be both in the creature’s bowels, and in that heat, is very far more unaccountable. If from within we breathe the air, how did the
respiration suffice for two animals? And
how did it also vomit him forth unharmed?
And how too did he speak? And how
too was he self-possessed, and prayed? Are
not these things incredible? If we test them
by reasonings, they are incredible, if by faith, they are exceeding credible.”
“Christ was to rise again; see now how many sure signs there were;
Enoch, Elias, Jonas, the fiery furnace, the case of Noah, baptism, the seeds, the
plants, our own generation, that of all animals. For since on this everything was at stake, it,
more than any other, had abundance of types.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230305.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on First Timothy,
Homily 15, 1 Timothy 5:20, paragraph 6:
“So that, as I have ever said, the threatenings of hell show the
care of God for us no less than the promises of heaven. For the threat cooperates with the promise, and
drives men into the kingdom by means of terror.
Let us not think it a matter of cruelty, but of pity and mercy; of God’s
concern and love for us. If in the days of
Jonah the destruction of Nineveh had not been threatened, that destruction had not
been averted. Nineveh would not have stood
but for the threat, Nineveh shall be overthrown. Jonah 3:4”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230615.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
John, Homily 19, John 1:42, paragraphs introduction, and 2b:
“And when Jesus beheld him, He said, ‘You are Simon, the son of
Jonas; you shall be called Cephas, which is, by interpretation, a stone.’ ”
“ ‘You are Simon, the son of Jonas.’ By the present, the future is guaranteed; for
it is clear that He who named Peter's father foreknew the future also. And the prediction is attended with praise; but
the object was not to flatter, but to foretell something future.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240119.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
John, Homily 23, John 2:17, paragraph 2:
“Wherefore He will not give them a sign; and before, when they
came and asked Him, He made them the same answer, ‘A wicked and adulterous
generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but
the sign of the prophet Jonas.’ Matthew 16:4 Only then the answer was clear, now it is more
ambiguous. This He does on account of their
extreme insensibility; for He who prevented them without their asking, and gave
them signs, would never when they asked have turned away from them, had He not seen
that their minds were wicked and false, and their intention treacherous. Think how full of wickedness the question itself
was at the outset.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240123.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
John, Homily 72, John 13:31, paragraph 2:
“And this is what He said of Himself, ‘When I am lifted up,
then you shall know that I Am’ John 8:28; and again, ‘Destroy this Temple’ John 2:19;
and again, ‘No sign shall be given unto you but the sign of Jonas.’ Matthew 12:39
For how can it be otherwise than great glory, the being able even after death
to do greater things than before death?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240172.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Gospel of
John, Homily 88, John 21:15, paragraphs introduction, and 1:
“ ‘So when they had dined, Jesus says to Simon Peter, Simon, son
of Jonas, do you love Me more than these? He says unto Him, Yea, Lord, You know
that I love You.’ ”
“… that which most of all brings good will from on high, is tender
care for our neighbor. Which therefore Christ
requires of Peter. For when their eating
was ended, Jesus says to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of Jonas, do you love Me more
than these? He says unto Him, Yea, Lord,
You know that I love You.’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240188.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Statutes,
Homily 3, paragraphs 8, 9, and 10:
8. “The Publican fasted
not; and yet he was accepted in preference to him who had fasted; in order that
you may learn that fasting is unprofitable, except all other duties follow with
it. The Ninevites fasted, and won the
favor of God. Jonah 3:10 The Jews, fasted too, and profited nothing, nay,
they departed with blame.”
9. “Let us see then how
the Ninevites fasted, and how they were delivered from that wrath — ‘Let
neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything,’ Jonah 3:7
says (the prophet). What do you say? Tell me — must even the irrational things fast,
and the horses and the mules be covered with sackcloth? ‘Even so,’ he replies…. When therefore, aforetime, famine had seized upon
the Jews, and a great drought oppressed their country, and all things were being
consumed, one of the prophets spoke thus, ‘The young heifers leaped in their
stalls; the herds of oxen wept, because there was no pasture; all the cattle of
the field looked upward to You, because the streams of waters were dried
up.’ Joel 1:17 Another prophet bewailing the evils of drought
again speaks to this effect: ‘The hinds calved in the fields and forsook it,
because there was no grass. The wild
asses stood in the forests; they snuffed up the wind like a dragon; their eyes
did fail, because there was no grass.’ Jeremiah
14:5”
10. “But, as I said before,
we may see what it was that dissolved such inexorable wrath. Was it, forsooth, fasting only and sackcloth? We say not so; but the change of their whole life. Whence does this appear? From the very language of the prophet…. ‘And God saw their works.’ Jonah 3:10
… ‘That they turned everyone from their evil ways, and the Lord repented
of the evil that He had said He would do unto them.’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/190103.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Statutes,
Homily 5, paragraphs 15, 17, and 18:
15. “And this I plainly
know from the love of God toward man, as well as from those things which He has
done for men, and cities, and nations, and whole populations. For He threatened the city of Nineveh, and said,
‘There are yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’ Jonah iii
What then, I ask, Was Nineveh overthrown? Was the city destroyed? Nay, quite the contrary; it both arose, and became
still more distinguished; and long as is the time which has elapsed, it has not
effaced its glory, but we all still celebrate and admire it even to this day. For from that time it has been a sort of excellent
haven for all who have sinned, not suffering them to sink into desperation, but
calling all to repentance; and by what it did, and by what it obtained of God’s
favor, persuading men never to despair of their salvation, but exhibiting the best
life they can, and setting before them a good hope, to be confident of the issue
as destined in any wise to be favorable.
For who would not be stirred up on hearing of such an example, even if he
were the laziest of mortals?”
17. “Let us imitate the
spiritual wisdom of the barbarians. They
repented even on uncertain grounds! For the
sentence had no such clause, ‘If you turn and repent, I will set up the city;’ but
simply, ‘Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’ Jonah 3:9
What then said they? ‘Who knows
whether God will repent of the evil He said He would do unto us?’ Who knows?
They know not the end of the event, and yet they do not neglect repentance! They are unacquainted with God’s method of showing
mercy, and yet they change upon the strength of uncertainties! For neither was it in their power to look at other
Ninevites who had repented and been saved; nor had they read prophets; nor had they
heard patriarchs; nor had they enjoyed counsel, or partaken of admonition; nor had
they persuaded themselves that they should certainly propitiate God by repentance. For the threatening did not imply this: but they
were doubtful, and hesitating concerning it; and yet they repented with all diligence. What reason then shall we have to urge, when those,
who had no ground for confidence as to the issue, are seen to have exhibited so
great a change; but thou who hast ground of confidence in the mercy of God, and
who hast frequently received many pledges of His care, and hast heard prophets,
and apostles, and hast been instructed by actual events; hast yet no emulation to
reach the same measure of virtue as these did!
Great assuredly was their virtue!
But greater by far was the mercy of God!
And this may be seen from the very greatness of the threat. For this reason God did not add to the declaration,
‘But if you repent. I will spare:’ in order
that by setting forth a sentence without limitation, He might increase the fear
and having increased the fear, He might constrain them more speedily to repentance.
18. The prophet is indeed
ashamed, foreseeing what the issue would be, and conjecturing that what he had prophesied,
would remain unaccomplished; God however is not ashamed, but is desirous of one
thing only, viz. the salvation of men, and corrects His own servant. For when he had entered the ship, He straightway
there raised a boisterous sea; in order that you might know that where sin is, there
is a tempest; where there is disobedience, there is the swelling of the waves. The city was shaken because of the sins of the
Ninevites; and the ship was shaken because of the disobedience of the prophet. The sailors therefore threw Jonah in the deep,
and the ship was preserved. Let us then drown
our sins, and our city will assuredly be safe!
Flight will certainly be no advantage to us; for it did not profit him; on
the contrary, it did him injury. He fled
from the land indeed, but he fled not from the wrath of God; he fled from the land,
but he brought the tempest after him on the sea; and so far was he from obtaining
any benefit by his flight, that he plunged those also who received him into the
extremest peril. And while he sat sailing
in the ship, although the sailors, the pilots, and all the necessary apparatus of
the ship were there present, he was placed in the utmost danger. After, however, having been thrown out into the
deep, and having put away his sin by means of the punishment, he had been conveyed
into that unstable vessel, I mean, the whale’s belly, he enjoyed great security. This was for the purpose of teaching you, that
as no ship can be of any use to him who is living in sin, so him who has put away
his sin, the sea cannot drown, nor monsters destroy. Of a truth, the waves received, but they did not
suffocate him. The whale received him, but
did not destroy him; but both the animal and the element gave back to God unhurt
that, with which they were entrusted; and by all these things the prophet was taught
to be humane and merciful; and not to be more cruel than wild beasts, or thoughtless
sailors, or unruly waves. For even the sailors
did not immediately at first give him up, but after much compulsion; and the sea
and the monster guarded him with great kindness; all these things being under God’s
direction.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/190105.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Statutes,
Homily 6, paragraphs introduction, 4, and 5:
Introduction. “The case
of Jonah is further cited in illustration.”
4. “Men who had been familiar
with such journeys all their lives, and whose constant business it was to ride on
horseback, now broke down through the fatigue of this very riding; so that what
has now happened is the reverse of what took place in the case of Jonah…. Through the very means by which each party hoped
to accomplish their object, through these each received an hindrance. Jonah expected to escape by the ship, and the
ship became his chain.”
5. “But if there was so
much of providential care in the first breaking out of this wound of iniquity, much
more shall we obtain a greater freedom from anxiety, after conversion, after repentance,
after so much fear, after tears and prayers.
For Jonah was very properly constrained, in order that he might be forcibly
brought to repentance; but you have already given striking evidences of repentance,
and conversion. Therefore, it is necessary
that you should receive consolation, instead of a threatening messenger.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/190106.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Homilies on the Statutes,
Homily 20, paragraph 21:
“And that these words are not a vain boast, shall be made manifest
to you from things that have already happened.
What could be more stupid (the original meaning) than the Ninevites? What more devoid of understanding? Yet, nevertheless, these barbarian, foolish people,
who had never yet heard any one teaching them wisdom, who had never received such
precepts from others, when they heard the prophet saying, ‘Yet three days, and
Nineveh shall be overthrown,’ Jonah 2:4 laid aside, within three days, the whole of their
evil customs. The fornicator became chaste;
the bold man meek; the grasping and extortionate moderate and kind; the slothful
industrious. They did not, indeed, reform
one, or two, or three, or four vices by way of remedy, but the whole of their iniquity. But whence does this appear, says some one? From the words of the prophet; for the same who
had been their accuser, and who had said, that ‘the cry of their wickedness has
ascended up even to heaven:’ Jonah 1:5 himself again bears testimony of an opposite kind,
by saying, ‘God saw that everyone departed from their own evil ways.’ He does not say, from fornication, or adultery,
or theft, but from their ‘own evil ways.’
And how did they depart? As God knew,
not as man judged of the matter. After this
are we not ashamed, must we not blush, if it turns out that in three days only the
barbarians laid aside all their wickedness, but that we, who have been urged and
taught during so many days, have not got the better of one bad habit? These men had, moreover, gone to the extreme of
wickedness before; for when you hear it said, ‘The cry of their wickedness has
come up before me;’ you can understand nothing else than the excess of their wickedness. Nevertheless, within three days they were capable
of being transformed to a state of complete virtue. For where the fear of God is, there is no need
of days, or of an interval of time; as likewise, on the contrary, days are of no
service where there is a want of this fear.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/190120.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), No One Can Harm the Man
Who Does Not Injure Himself, paragraph 14:
“But the Ninevites, although a barbarous and foreign people who
had never participated in any of these benefits, small or great, neither words,
nor wonders, nor works, when they saw a man who had been saved from shipwreck, who
had never associated with them before, but appeared then for the first time, enter
their city and say, ‘yet three days and Nineveh shall be overthrown,’ Jonah 3:4
were so converted and reformed by the mere sound of these words, and putting
away their former wickedness, advanced in the direction of virtue by the path of
repentance, that they caused the sentence of God to be revoked, and arrested the
threatened disturbance of their city, and averted the heaven-sent wrath, and were
delivered from every kind of evil.
‘For,’ we read, ‘God saw that every man turned from his evil way, and
was converted to the Lord.’ Jonah 3:10 How turned?
I ask. Although their wickedness was
great, their iniquity unspeakable, their moral sores difficult to heal, which was
plainly shown by the prophet when he said, ‘their wickedness ascended even unto
the heaven:’ Jonah 1:2 indicating by the distance of the place the magnitude
of their wickedness; nevertheless such great iniquity which was piled up to such
a height as to reach even to the heaven, all this in the course of three days in
a brief moment of time through the effect of a few words which they heard from the
mouth of one man and he an unknown shipwrecked stranger they so thoroughly abolished,
removed out of sight, and put away, as to have the happiness of hearing the declaration,
‘God saw that everyone turned from his evil way, and He repented of the evil
which God said He would do them.’ Do you
see that he who is temperate and watchful not only suffers no injury at the hands
of man, but even turns back Heaven-sent wrath?
Whereas he who betrays himself and harms himself by his own doing, even if
he receives countess benefits, reaps no great advantage. So, at least, the Jews were not profited by those
great miracles, nor on the other hand were the Ninevites harmed by having no share
in them; but inasmuch as they were inwardly well-disposed, having laid hold of a
slight opportunity they became better, barbarians and foreigners though they were,
ignorant of all divine revelation, and dwelling at a distance from Palestine.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1902.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), Two Letters to Theodore
After His Fall, Letter 1, paragraph 15b:
“Well, do I convince you, that one ought never to despair of the
disorders of the soul as incurable? … ‘Who knows whether God will repent and be
entreated, and turn from the fierceness of His wrath, and that we perish
not? And God saw their works that they
turned from their evil ways, and God repented of the evil which He said He
would do unto them and He did it not.’ Jonah
3:9-10 Now if barbarian, and unreasoning
men could perceive so much, much more ought we to do this who have been trained
in the divine doctrines and have seen such a crowd of examples of this kind both
in history and actual experience.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1903.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), “Homily on the Passage
“Father, if it be possible . . .”, Paragraph 2:
“The cross is the impregnable wall, the invulnerable shield, the
safeguard of the rich, the resource of the poor, the defense of those who are exposed
to snares, the armor of those who are attacked, the means of suppressing passion,
and of acquiring virtue, the wonderful and marvelous sign. ‘For this generation seeks after a sign: and
no sign shall be given it save the sign of Jonas;’ Matthew 12:39
and again Paul says, ‘for the Jews ask for a sign and the Greeks seek
wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.’
1 Corinthians 1:22”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1910.htm
St. John Chrysostom (349-407), “Homily on the Paralytic
Lowered Through the Roof, Paragraph 3:
“He speaks thus at the present time in order that we may not hear
these words in time to come. He threatens,
He exposes us in this world, that He may not have to expose us in the other: even
as He threatened to overthrow the city of the Ninevites Jonah 1:2
for the very reason that He might not overthrow it. For if He wished to publish our sins He would
not announce beforehand that He would publish them: but as it is He does make this
announcement in order that being sobered by the fear of exposure, if not also by
the fear of punishment we may purge ourselves from them all.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1911.htm
St. Justin Martyr (100-165), Dialogue with Trypho (Chapters
89-108), Chapters 107, 108:
107. “And that He would
rise again on the third day after the crucifixion, it is written in the memoirs
that some of your nation, questioning Him, said, ‘Show us a sign;’ and He replied
to them, ‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and no sign shall
be given them, save the sign of Jonah.’ And
since He spoke this obscurely, it was to be understood by the audience that after
His crucifixion He should rise again on the third day. And He showed that your generation was more wicked
and more adulterous than the city of Nineveh; for the latter, when Jonah preached
to them, after he had been cast up on the third day from the belly of the great
fish, that after three (in other versions, forty) days they should all perish, proclaimed
a fast of all creatures, men and beasts, with sackcloth, and with earnest lamentation,
with true repentance from the heart, and turning away from unrighteousness, in the
belief that God is merciful and kind to all who turn from wickedness; so that the
king of that city himself, with his nobles also, put on sackcloth and remained fasting
and praying, and obtained their request that the city should not be overthrown. But when Jonah was grieved that on the (fortieth)
third day, as he proclaimed, the city was not overthrown, by the dispensation of
a gourd springing up from the earth for him, under which he sat and was shaded from
the heat (now the gourd had sprung up suddenly, and Jonah had neither planted nor
watered it, but it had come up all at once to afford him shade), and by the other
dispensation of its withering away, for which Jonah grieved, [God] convicted him
of being unjustly displeased because the city of Nineveh had not been overthrown,
and said, ‘You have had pity on the gourd, for the which you have not labored, neither
made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. And shall I not spare Nineveh, the great city,
wherein dwell more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?’ ”
108. “And though all the
men of your nation knew the incidents in the life of Jonah, and though Christ said
among you that He would give the sign of Jonah, exhorting you to repent of your
wicked deeds at least after He rose again from the dead, and to mourn before God
as did the Ninevites, in order that your nation and city might not be taken and
destroyed, as they have been destroyed; yet you not only have not repented, after
you learned that He rose from the dead, but, as I said before you have sent chosen
and ordained men throughout all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless
heresy had sprung from one Jesus, a Galilean deceiver, whom we crucified, but his
disciples stole him by night from the tomb, where he was laid when unfastened from
the cross, and now deceive men by asserting that he has risen from the dead and
ascended to heaven.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01287.htm
Origen (184/5-253/4), Against Celsus, Book VII,
Chapters 53, and 57:
53. “But you have had the
presumption to include in her writings many impious things, and set up as a god
one who ended a most infamous life by a most miserable death. How much more suitable than he would have been
Jonah in the whale’s belly, or Daniel delivered from the wild beasts, or any of
a still more portentous kind!”
57. “After this, as though
his object was to swell the size of his book, he advises us ‘to choose Jonah
rather than Jesus as our God;’ thus setting Jonah, who preached repentance to the
single city of Nineveh, before Jesus, who has preached repentance to the whole world,
and with much greater results. He would have
us to regard as God a man who, by a strange miracle, passed three days and three
nights in the whale’s belly; and he is unwilling that He who submitted to death
for the sake of men, He to whom God bore testimony through the prophets, and who
has done great things in heaven and earth, should receive on that ground honor second
only to that which is given to the Most High God. Moreover, Jonah was swallowed by the whale for
refusing to preach as God had commanded him; while Jesus suffered death for men
after He had given the instructions which God wished Him to give. Still further, he adds that Daniel rescued from
the lions is more worthy of our adoration than Jesus, who subdued the fierceness
of every opposing power, and gave to us ‘authority to tread on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.’ Finally, having no other names to offer us, he
adds, ‘and others of a still more monstrous kind,’ thus casting a slight upon both
Jonah and Daniel, for the spirit which is in Celsus cannot speak well of the righteous.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04167.htm
Origen (184/5-253/4), Commentary on the Gospel of
Matthew (Book XII), Chapter 3, “The Answer of Jesus to Their Request.”:
“Next let us remark in what way, when asked in regard to one sign,
that He might show it from heaven, to the Pharisees and Sadducees who put the question,
He answers and says, ‘An evil and
adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and there shall be no sign given to
it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet,’ when also, ‘He left them and
departed.’ Matthew 16:4 But the sign of Jonah, in truth, according to
their question, was not merely a sign but also a sign from heaven; so that even
to those who tempted Him and sought a sign from heaven He, nevertheless, out of
His own great goodness gave the sign. For
if, as Jonah passed three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so the Son
of man did in the heart of the earth, and after this rose up from it — whence but
from heaven shall we say that the sign of the resurrection of Christ came? And especially when, at the time of the passion,
He became a sign to the robber who obtained favor from Him to enter into the paradise
of God; after this, I think, descending into Hades to the dead, ‘as free among
the dead.’ And the Savior seems to me to
conjoin the sign which was to come from Himself with the reason of the sign in regard
to Jonah when He says, not merely that a sign like to that is granted by Him but
that very sign; for attend to the words, ‘And there shall no sign be given to
it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.’ Matthew
16:4 Accordingly that sign was this sign,
because that became indicative of this, so that the elucidation of that sign, which
was obscure on the face of it, might be found in the fact that the Savior suffered,
and passed three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. At the same time also we learn the general principle
that, if the sign signifies something, each of the signs which are recorded, whether
as in actual history, or by way of precept, is indicative of something afterwards
fulfilled; as for example, the sign of Jonah going out after three days from the
whale’s belly was indicative of the resurrection of our Savior, rising after three
days and three nights from the dead….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/101612.htm
Sulpitius Severus (363-420), Sacred History (Book
I), Chapter 48:
“The remarkable faith of the Ninevites is related to have been
manifested about these times. That town,
founded of old by Assure, the son of Sem, was the capital of the kingdom of the
Assyrians. It was then full of a multitude
of inhabitants, sustaining one hundred and twenty thousand men, and abounding in
wickedness, as is usually the case among a vast concourse of people. God, moved by their sinfulness, commanded the
prophet Jonah to go from Judea, and denounce destruction upon the city, as Sodom
and Gomorra had of old been consumed by fire from heaven. But the prophet declined that office of preaching,
not out of contumacy, but from foresight, which enabled him to behold God reconciled
through the repentance of the people; and he embarked on board a ship which was
bound for Tharsus, in a very different direction. But, after they had gone forth into the deep,
the sailors, constrained by the violence of the sea, inquired by means of the lot
who was the cause of that suffering. And
when the lot fell upon Jonah, he was cast into the sea, to be, as it were, a sacrifice
for stilling the tempest, and he was seized and swallowed by a whale — a monster
of the deep. Cast out three days afterwards
on the shores of the Ninevites, he preached as he had been commanded, namely that
the city would be destroyed in three days, as a punishment for the sins of the people. The voice of the prophet was listened to, not
in a hypocritical fashion, as at Sodom of old; and immediately by the order, and
after the example, of the king, the whole people, and even those infants newly born,
are commanded to abstain from meat and drink: the very beasts of burden in the place,
and animals of different kinds, being forced by hunger and thirst, presented an
appearance of those who lamented along with the human inhabitants. In this way, the threatened evil was averted. To Jonah, complaining to God, that his words had
not been fulfilled, it was answered that pardon could never be denied to the penitent.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/35051.htm
Tatian (c. 120-c. 180), The Diatessaron, Section
5, “John 1:35”, paragraph 2:
“We have found the Messiah.
John 1:42a And he brought him unto
Jesus. And Jesus looked upon him and said,
You are Simon, son of Jonah: you shall be called Cephas.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/100205.htm
Tatian (c. 120-c. 180), The Diatessaron, Section
23, paragraph 3, and “Mark 8:27”, paragraph 6:
3. “It seeks a sign, and
it shall not be given a sign, except the sign of Jonah the prophet.”
6. “Blessed are you, Simon
son of Jonah….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/100223.htm
Tatian (c. 120-c. 180), The Diatessaron, Section
54, “John 21:15”, paragraph 6:
“And when they had breakfasted, Jesus said to Simon Cephas, Simon,
son of Jonah, do you love me more than these?
He said unto him, Yea, my Lord; you know that I love you. John 21:16 Jesus said unto him, Feed for me my lambs. He said unto him again a second time, Simon, son
of Jonah, do you love me? He said unto him,
Yea, my Lord; you know that I love you. He
said unto him, Feed for me my sheep. John
21:17 He said unto him again the third time,
Simon, son of Jonah, do you love me? And
it grieved Cephas that he said unto him three times, Do you love me? He said unto him, My Lord, you know everything;
you know that I love you. John 21:18 Jesus said unto him, Feed for me my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto you, When you were
a child, you girded your waist for yourself, and go whither you would, but when
you shall be old, you shall stretch out your hands, and another shall gird your
waist, and take you whither you would not.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/100254.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), De Corona (The
Chaplet), Chapter 8:
“… many other things … are notwithstanding to be met with … the
service of God. Let Minerva have been the
first who built a ship: I shall see Jonah and the apostles sailing.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0304.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), Against Marcion
(Book II), Chapters 17, and 24:
17. “Trace God's Government
in History and in His Precepts, and You Will Find It Full of His Goodness…. Nay, this very long-suffering of the Creator will
tend to the condemnation of Marcion; that patience, (I mean,) which waits for the
sinner's repentance rather than his death, which prefers mercy to sacrifice, Hosea 6:6
averting from the Ninevites the ruin which had been already denounced against
them, Jonah 3:10….”
24. “Look here then, say
you: I discover a self-incriminating case in the matter of the Ninevites, when the
book of Jonah declares, ‘And God repented of the evil that He had said that He
would do unto them; and He did it not.’ Jonah
3:10 In accordance with which Jonah himself
says unto the Lord, ‘Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew that You
are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and
repentest You of the evil.’ Jonah 4:2 It is well, therefore, that he premised the attribute
of the most good God as most patient over the wicked, and most abundant in mercy
and kindness over such as acknowledged and bewailed their sins, as the Ninevites
were then doing. For if He who has this attribute
is the Most Good, you will have first to relinquish that position of yours, that
the very contact with evil is incompatible with such a Being, that is, with the
most good God.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03122.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), Against Marcion
(Book IV), Chapter 10:
“Now, if nothing of this sort had been predicted of Christ, I should
find in the Creator examples of such a benignity as would hold out to me the promise
of similar affections also in the Son of whom He is the Father. I see how the Ninevites obtained forgiveness of
their sins from the Creator Jonah 3:10 —
not to say from Christ, even then, because from the beginning He acted in the Father's
name.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03124.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), Against Marcion
(Book V), Chapter 11:
Now, if the title of Father may be claimed for (Marcion’s)
sterile god, how much more for the Creator?
To none other than Him is it suitable, who is also the Father of
mercies, 2 Corinthians 1:3 and (in the prophets) has been described as
full of compassion, and gracious, and plenteous in mercy. In Jonah you find the signal act of His mercy,
which He showed to the praying Ninevites.
Jonah 3:8”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), On the Flesh of Christ,
Chapter 18:
“Now, that we may give a simpler answer, it was not fit that the
Son of God should be born of a human father's seed, lest, if He were wholly the
Son of a man, He should fail to be also the Son of God, and have nothing more than
a Solomon or a Jonas, Matthew 12:41-42 —
as Ebion thought we ought to believe concerning Him.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0315.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), On the Resurrection of the
Flesh, Chapters 32, and 58:
32. “Now I apprehend that
in the case of Jonah we have a fair proof of this divine power, when he comes forth
from the fish's belly uninjured in both his natures — his flesh and his soul. No doubt the bowels of the whale would have had
abundant time during three days for consuming and digesting Jonah's flesh,
quite as effectually as a coffin, or a tomb, or the gradual decay of some quiet
and concealed grave….”
58. “… that the fires of
Babylon injured not either the miters or the trousers of the three brethren, however
foreign such dress might be to the Jews;
Daniel 3:27 that Jonah was swallowed
by the monster of the deep, in whose belly whole ships were devoured, and after
three days was vomited out again safe and sound….”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0316.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), On Prayer, Chapter
17, paragraph 2:
“Do the ears of God wait for sound? How, then, could Jonah's prayer find way out unto
heaven from the depth of the whale’s belly, through the entrails of so huge a beast;
from the very abysses, through so huge a mass of sea? What superior advantage will they who pray too
loudly gain, except that they annoy their neighbors? Nay, by making their petitions audible, what less
error do they commit than if they were to pray in public?”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0322.htm
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 240), On Modesty, Chapter
10, paragraph 2:
“Was that, then, the reason why Jonah thought not repentance necessary
to the heathen Ninevites, when he tergiversated (equivocated, hedged) in the duty
of preaching? Or did he rather, foreseeing
the mercy of God poured forth even upon strangers, fear that that mercy would, as
it were, destroy (the credit of) his proclamation? And accordingly, for the sake of a profane city,
not yet possessed of a knowledge of God, still sinning in ignorance, did the prophet
nearly perish? Jonah 1:iv except that he suffered a typical example of the
Lord's passion, which was to redeem heathens as well (as others) on their repentance.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0407.htm
The Apostolic Constitutions (Book II), paragraph
XXII (22) [on repentance]:
“So also, when God had caused Jonah to be swallowed up by the sea
and the whale, upon his refusal to preach to the Ninevites, when yet he prayed to
Him out of the belly of the whale, He retrieved his life from corruption.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07152.htm
The Apostolic Constitutions (Book V), paragraphs
VII (7), and XX (20):
7. “Now He that brought
Jonas Jonah ii in the space of three days, alive and unhurt,
out of the belly of the whale, and the three children out of the furnace of Babylon,
and Daniel out of the mouth of the lions, does not want (lack) power to raise us
up also. “
20. “And the Ninevites,
when they fasted three days and three nights,
Jonah 3:5 escaped the execution of
wrath.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07155.htm
The Apostolic Constitutions (Book VI), paragraph
XVIII (18):
“And God reproaches Jehoshaphat with his friendship towards Ahab,
and his league with him and with Ahaziah, by Jonah the prophet: ‘Are you in
friendship with a sinner? Or do you aid
him that is hated by the Lord?’ ‘For
this cause the wrath of the Lord would be upon you suddenly, but that your
heart is found perfect with the Lord….’ ”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07156.htm
The Apostolic Constitutions (Book VII),
paragraph XXXVII (37):
“You who has fulfilled Your promises … accept the prayers which
proceed from the lips of Your people … as You accepted of the gifts of the righteous
in their generations…. … You respected the
sacrifice … of Jonah in the whale's belly;
Jonah ii”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07157.htm
The Apostolic Constitutions (Book VIII), also
called The Apostolic Canons, paragraph IX (9):
“Almighty, eternal God, Lord of the whole world, the Creator and
Governor of all things, who hast exhibited man as the ornament of the world through
Christ, and gave him a law both naturally implanted and written, that he might live
according to law, as a rational creature; and when he had sinned, You gave him Your
goodness as a pledge in order to his repentance: Look down upon these persons who
have bended the neck of their soul and body to You; for You desire not the death
of a sinner, but his repentance, that he turn from his wicked way, and live. You who accepted the repentance of the Ninevites,
who wills that all men be saved, and come to the acknowledgment of the truth…. Jonah 3”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07158.htm
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