Commentary on Jonah

(Verse 1.) And the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying: Arise, and go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it; for its wickedness has come up before me. The Seventy, except that they said, "the cry of its wickedness has come up to me," translated the rest similarly. Jonah is sent to the gentiles for the condemnation of Israel, in that while Nineveh does penance, they persevere in wickedness. Further, as to what he says, "its wickedness has come up before me," or "the cry of its wickedness has come up to me," this is the very thing which is said in Genesis: The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied. And to Cain: The voice of thy brother's blood cries out to me from the earth.

But according to the tropology, our Lord, Jonah—that is, "dove," or "grieving" (for it is interpreted both ways: either because the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and remained upon him, or because he himself grieved over our wounds, and wept over Jerusalem, and by his bruise we are healed: truly the son of truth, since God indeed is truth)—is sent to the beautiful Nineveh, that is, to the world, than which we behold nothing more beautiful with the eyes of the flesh. Whence also among the Greeks it received its name from adornment, from κόσμος: and when each of the works was completed, it is said of it: God saw that it was good. To Nineveh, I say, a great city, so that because Israel disdained to hear, the whole world of the gentiles might give ear. And this because its wickedness had come up before God.

For when God had built for man, as it were, a most beautiful house, that man might serve him in it, man was corrupted by his own will, and from childhood his heart was diligently inclined to evil: and he set his mouth against heaven, and having built the tower of pride, he deserved that the Son of God should descend to him, so that through the ruin of penance he who could not ascend to heaven through the swelling of pride might climb up. And Jonah rose up to flee into Tarshish from the face of the Lord. The Seventy likewise. The prophet knows, the Holy Spirit suggesting it to him, that the penance of the gentiles would be the ruin of the Jews. Therefore, as a lover of his own country, he does not so much envy the salvation of Nineveh, as he does not wish his own people to perish.

Otherwise he had read that Moses, when entreating, had said for the people: If thou wilt forgive them their sin, forgive it: but if not, blot me also out of thy book, which thou hast written, and that at his prayers Israel had been preserved, and that Moses had not been blotted out of the book—nay rather, that the Lord had taken occasion through his servant to spare his fellow-servants. For when he says, "blot me out," he shows that he can be held back. Something like this the Apostle also says: I wished to be an anathema for my brethren, who are Israelites according to the flesh. Not that he himself desired to perish, to whom to live is Christ, and to die is gain; but rather he earns life, while he desires to save others.

Moreover, Jonah, seeing his fellow-prophets sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to call the people to penance, and Balaam too prophesying divinely concerning the salvation of the people of Israel, grieves that he alone is chosen to be sent to the Assyrians, enemies of Israel, and to the greatest city of the enemies, where there was idolatry, where there was ignorance of God: and what is more, he feared that by occasion of his preaching, if they were converted to penance, Israel would be utterly abandoned. For he knew by the same spirit, by which the proclamation to the gentiles was entrusted to him, that when the nations should have believed, then the house of Israel would perish, and he feared lest that which was destined to happen at some time should happen in his own time.

Whence Jonah, imitating Cain, and withdrawing from the face of the Lord, wished to flee into Tarshish, which Josephus interprets as Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, with the first letter changed; but as far as can be understood from the books of Chronicles, a certain place in India is so called. Further, the Hebrews maintain that THARSIS (תרשיש) means "sea" in general, according to that: In a vehement spirit thou shalt break the ships of Tarshish, that is, of the sea. And in Isaiah: Howl, ye ships of Tarshish. Concerning which, many years ago, I remember having said in a certain letter to Marcella: The prophet, therefore, did not desire to flee to a certain place; but, entering the sea, hastened to go wherever he could: and this is more fitting for a fugitive and a fearful man, not to choose a place for leisurely flight, but to seize the first opportunity of sailing.

This too we can say, that he who thought God was known only in Judea, and his name great in Israel, after he felt him in the waves, confesses, and says: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land: but if he himself made the sea and the dry land, why, leaving the dry land, do you think you can escape the Creator of the sea while in the sea? At the same time he is instructed, through the salvation and conversion of the sailors, that so great a multitude as Nineveh can likewise be saved by a similar confession. But of our Lord and Saviour we can say that he left his home and his own country, and, having assumed flesh, in a manner fled from the heavenly places, and came into Tarshish—that is, into the sea of this present age—according to what is said elsewhere: This great and wide sea, therein are creeping things without number.

Small animals with great ones; there the ships shall pass through. This dragon whom thou hast formed to play therein. For this reason also in his passion he said: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: lest, when the people cried out, "Crucify, crucify such a one". And: "We have no king but Caesar", the fullness of the gentiles might enter in, and the branches of the olive be broken off, in place of which the shoots of the wild olive might grow up. And of such piety and love was he toward the people, for the sake of the election of the fathers, and the promise made to Abraham, that, placed upon the cross, he said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Or else, since Tarshish is interpreted "the contemplation of joy," the prophet, coming to Joppa, which itself signifies "beautiful," hastens to go to joy, and to enjoy the blessedness of quiet, giving himself wholly to contemplation, thinking it better to enjoy the beauty and variety of knowledge, than through the occasion of the salvation of the other nations that the people should perish, of whom Christ was to be born in the flesh. (Verse 3.) And he went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tharsis: and he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, that he might go with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord. LXX: And he went up to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tharsis; and he paid his fare, and went up into it, that he might sail with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord. That Joppa is a port of Judea we read also in the books of Kings and Chronicles (2 Chron.

2), to which Hiram also, king of Tyre, transported timber from Lebanon on rafts, that it might be carried thence to Jerusalem by an overland journey. This is the place in which, even to this day, rocks are shown on the shore where Andromeda, having been bound, is said to have once been freed by the protection of Perseus. The learned reader knows the story; but also, in keeping with the nature of the region, the prophet, coming from the mountainous and rugged parts down to Joppa and the plains, is rightly said to have "gone down," and to have found a ship loosing its rope from the shore and entering the sea, and he paid the fare thereof, that is, the hire of the ship, that is, of its passage, according to the Hebrew, or the fare for himself, as the Septuagint rendered it. And he went down into it, as is properly contained in the Hebrew: for IERED (ירד) means "he went down": as a fugitive anxiously seeking hiding places.

Or "he went up," as it is written in the Vulgate edition: that wherever the ship should go, he might arrive, thinking himself to have escaped if he left Judea. But our Lord also, on the farthest shore of Judea (which, because it was in Judea, was called most beautiful), does not wish to take the bread of the children and give it to dogs; but because he had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he gives the price to the sailors, that he who first wishes to heal his own people might also save the dwellers of the sea, and amid whirlwinds and storms—that is, in his passion and the reproaches of the cross—being submerged in hell, might save those whom, as if sleeping in the ship, he seemed to neglect. The prudent reader must be asked not to wish to seek the same order in the tropology as in the history.

For the Apostle too refers Hagar and Sarah to the two Testaments; and yet we cannot interpret tropologically everything that is narrated in that history. And disputing about Adam and Eve to the Ephesians, he says: "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak in Christ and in the Church". Can we refer the whole beginning of Genesis, and the fabric of the world, and the condition of man, to Christ and the Church, because the Apostle used this testimony in this way?

For suppose we take what is written: "Therefore shall a man leave his father," and refer it to Christ, so as to say that he left God the Father in heaven, that the people of the nations might be joined to the Church: how can we interpret what follows, "his mother," unless perhaps we say that he left the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of the Saints, and other things much more difficult than these? That too which is written by the same Apostle: "And they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them; and that rock was Christ" does not at all compel us to refer the whole book of Exodus to Christ. For what can we say? That this rock was struck by Moses, not once but twice, that waters flowed and torrents were filled. Shall we, on this occasion, force the whole history of this place under the law of allegory? Is it not rather that each passage, according to the diversity of the history, receives a diverse spiritual understanding?

Therefore, just as these testimonies have their own interpretations, and neither what precedes nor what follows requires the same allegory: so also the prophet Jonah, not without risk to the interpreter, can be wholly referred to the Lord. Nor is this because it is said in the Gospel: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given to it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights". (Verse 4.) But the Lord sent a great wind into the sea, and there arose a great tempest in the sea, and the ship was in danger of being broken. LXX: And the Lord raised up a great wind upon the sea, and there arose a great tempest in the sea, and the ship was in danger of being broken.

The flight of the prophet can also be referred to the person of man in general, who, despising the precepts of God, withdrew from his face, and gave himself over to the world, where afterward, by the tempest of evils and by the shipwreck of the whole world raging against him, he was compelled to feel God, and to return to him whom he had fled. From this we understand also that those things which men reckon salutary for themselves, when God is unwilling, are turned into destruction, and not only does the help not benefit those to whom it is offered, but even those who offer it are likewise broken. As we read that Egypt was conquered by the Assyrians, because it gave aid to Israel against the will of the Lord.

The ship that had taken up the one in danger is itself now in danger: the seas are stirred up by the wind, in calm a tempest arises, nothing is secure when God is opposed. (Verse 5.) And the mariners were afraid, and the men cried each to his god, and cast forth the vessels that were in the ship into the sea, that it might be lightened of them. LXX: And those who were sailing were afraid, and each cried to his own god, and made a casting-out of the vessels of the ship into the sea, that the ship might be lightened. They think the ship is overweighted with its usual load, and do not understand that the whole weight is that of the fleeing prophet.

The sailors fear, each cries to his own god; not knowing the truth, they do not fail to know providence, and under the error of religion they know that something is to be venerated: they throw the burdens into the sea, that the vessel, lightened, might leap over the greatness of the waves. But on the contrary, Israel understands God neither in good things nor in evil; while Christ weeps over the people, it has dry eyes.

And Jonah went down into the inner parts of the ship, and was fast asleep. LXX: But Jonah went down into the belly of the ship, and slept, and snored. As far as concerns the history, the prophet's mind is described as untroubled: not disturbed by the storm, not by dangers, having the same disposition both in calm and in the imminent shipwreck. Then the others cry to their gods, throw the cargo overboard, each striving with what he can. He is so quiet and secure, and of such tranquil mind, that going down into the inner parts of the ship, he enjoys a peaceful sleep. But this too can be said: he was conscious of his flight and of the sin by which he had neglected the Lord's precepts; and he perceived that the storm was raging against him, though the others did not know it: therefore he went down into the inner parts of the ship, and hid himself in sadness, lest he should see the waves swelling up against him as if avengers of God.

But that he sleeps is not a sign of security, but of grief. For we read also that the Apostles, in the passion of the Lord, were weighed down with sleep from the greatness of their sorrow. But if we interpret it typologically, the sleep of the prophet and his very heavy slumber signify a man torpid in the sleep of error, for whom it had not sufficed to have fled from the face of God, unless his mind, overwhelmed by a certain senselessness, were also ignorant of the wrath of God, and, as though secure, were sleeping and resounding a deepest slumber with a rasping nostril. (Verse 6.) And the shipmaster came to him, and said to him: Why are you weighed down with sleep? Arise, call upon your God, if perhaps God will think upon us, and we shall not perish. LXX: And the ship's captain came to him, and said to him: Why do you snore? Arise, call upon your God, if perhaps God may save us, and we shall not perish.

It is natural for each person, in his own peril, to hope more from another: hence the shipmaster, or captain, who ought to have consoled the fearful passengers, seeing the magnitude of the danger, rouses the sleeper, and rebukes him for his imprudent security, and admonishes him that he too, for his part, should beseech his God: that, since the danger was common, the prayer might also be common. Further, according to the tropology, there are many who, sailing with Jonah and having their own gods, hasten toward the contemplation of joy.

But after Jonah has been caught by the lot, and the tempest of that world stilled by his death, and calm restored to the sea, then the one God will be worshiped, and spiritual victims will be offered, which of course, according to the letter, they did not have in the midst of the waves. (Verse 7.) And a man said to his companion: Come, and let us cast lots, and let us know why this evil is upon us: and they cast lots, and the lot fell upon: And each said to his neighbor: Come, let us cast lots, and let us know for whose sake this evil is upon us: and they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.

They knew the nature of the sea, and, sailing for so long a time, they knew the reasons of storms and winds, and surely if they had seen waves arising such as they were accustomed to and had at times experienced, they would never perhaps have sought the cause of the shipwreck, and through an uncertain thing wished to avoid a certain danger. Nor should we, on the basis of this example, immediately give credence to lots, or link to this testimony that passage from the Acts of the Apostles, where Matthias is chosen by lot to the apostolate, since the privileges of individuals cannot make a common law.

For just as the ass speaks for the condemnation of Balaam, and Pharaoh, and Nebuchadnezzar, in judgment upon himself, come to know future things through dreams, and yet do not understand God as the one revealing them: Caiaphas too prophesies unknowingly, that it was expedient that one man should die for all: so also here the fugitive is caught by lot, not by the power of the lots, and especially not of the lots of the heathen, but by the will of him who governed the uncertain lots. But as for what is said: "And let us know for whom this evil is upon us," here we ought to take "evil" as meaning affliction and calamity, according to that saying: "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof". And in the prophet Amos: "Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord has not done?" And in Isaiah: "I am the Lord who makes peace, and creates evil".

In another place, however, "evil" is understood as the opposite of virtue, according to what we read above in this same prophet: "The cry of her wickedness has ascended to me." (Verse 8.) And they said to him: Tell us, for whose cause this evil is upon us, what your work is, what your country is, and where you are going, or of what people you are. LXX: And they said to him: Tell us for whose sake this evil is among us, what your work is, and whence you come, and where you are going, and from what region you are, and of what people you are.

Him whom the lot had indicated, they compel to confess with his own voice why so great a tempest is, or why the wrath of God rages so against them: "Tell us," they say, "for whose cause this evil is upon us; what work you do, from what land, from what people you set out, whither you hasten to go." And one should note the brevity here, which we used to admire in Virgil:

Young men, what cause has driven you
to try unknown ways, whither do you tend, he said:
What is your race: whence your home, do you bring peace here, or arms?
(Aeneid, book 5.)

The person, the region, the journey, the city are asked about: so that from these the cause of the danger too might be known. (Verse 9.) And he said to them: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. LXX: And he said to them: I am a servant of the Lord, and I worship the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. He did not say, "I am a Jew," a name imposed on the people by the schism of the ten tribes from the two; but, "I am a Hebrew," that is, περάτης, "one who crosses over," just as Abraham also, who could say: "I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were": of whom it is written in another psalm: "They went from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people". Moses says: "I will cross over and see this great vision".

"And I fear the Lord God of heaven": not the gods whom you invoke, and who cannot save, but the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. The sea, in which I am fleeing; the dry land, from which I am fleeing. And elegantly, in distinction from the sea, it is called not "earth" but "dry land." And in a brief phrase the Maker of the universe is shown, who is Lord both of heaven, and of earth, and of the sea. But it is asked how he can be proved to speak truly when he says: "I fear the Lord God of heaven," since he does not do his precepts. Unless perhaps we should answer that sinners too fear God, and that it belongs to servants not to love, but to fear; although in this passage "fear" may be understood as "worship," according to the understanding of those who were listening, and who as yet did not know God.

Verse 10. And the men feared with a great fear, and said to him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the face of the Lord, because he had told them. LXX: And the men feared with a great fear, and said to him, Why hast thou done this? The order of the narrative is inverted: for whereas it might have been said, there was no cause for fear from the fact that he had confessed to them, saying: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land: immediately it is subjoined that they feared for this reason, because he had told them that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, and had not done his commandments. Accordingly they remonstrate and say: Why hast thou done this? That is, if thou fearest God, why dost thou flee? If thou proclaimest him whom thou worshippest to be of such power, how dost thou think thou canst escape him?

Now they fear with a great fear, because they perceive him to be holy, and a man of a holy nation (for having loosed the rope from Joppa, they knew the privilege of the Hebrew nation), and yet they cannot conceal the fugitive. Great is he who flees, but greater is he who pursues: they dare not surrender him, they cannot conceal him. They rebuke his fault, they confess their fear: they ask that he himself, who had been the author of the sin, be the remedy for it. Or certainly, when they say, Why hast thou done this? They are not rebuking but asking, wishing to know the cause of the flight, of a servant from his master, of a son from his father, of a man from God. What, they say, is so great a mystery that the land should be deserted, the seas be sought, the fatherland be forsaken, foreign places be desired?

Verse 11. And they said to him: What shall we do to thee, that the sea may cease from us? For the sea kept going on, and swelling. LXX: And they said to him, What shall we do to thee, that the sea may be quieted from us? For the sea kept going on, and stirring up its waves the more. Is it because of thee, thou sayest, that the winds, the waves, the sea, the seething depths have been stirred up? Thou hast set forth the cause of the sickness; show us the cure. From the fact that the sea rises against us, we understand that the anger is on account of receiving thee. If it is a fault that we have received thee, what can we do, that the Lord may not be angry? What shall we do to thee? Is this it—shall we kill thee? But thou art a worshipper of the Lord: shall we save thee? But thou fleest from God.

Ours it is to lend our hands; what thou biddest be done is thine to command, by doing which the sea may be quieted, which now by its swelling testifies the anger of the Creator. And immediately the narrator joins the cause of a question of this kind, saying, the sea kept going on, and swelling. It went on, as it had been bidden: it went on for the vengeance of its Lord: it went on, pursuing the fugitive prophet. And it kept swelling at every moment of time, and, as though the sailors were delaying, it was roused into greater waves, to show that it could not defer the vengeance of the Creator.

Verse 12. And he said to them, Take me up, and cast me into the sea, and the sea shall cease from you: for I know that because of me this great tempest is upon you. LXX: And Jonah said to them, Take me up, and cast me into the sea, and the sea shall be quieted from you: for I know that because of me these great waves are against you. Against me the tempest thunders, it seeks me, it threatens you with shipwreck, that it may seize me: it will seize me, that by my death you may live. I know, he says, that because of me this great tempest is upon you. I am not ignorant that the elements are troubled for my punishment, that there is confusion of the world, that it rages against me, that shipwreck rages against you: the very waves command you to cast me into the sea. If I feel the tempest, you will recover tranquility.

And we must likewise note the greatness of soul of our fugitive: he does not equivocate, he does not dissemble, he does not deny; but he who had confessed his flight willingly assumes the penalty, wishing to perish himself, lest others also perish on his account, and lest to the sin of flight there be added also the crime of another's death. This as regards the history: but we are not unaware that the blowing winds, which in the Gospel the Lord commanded to be still, and the endangered little ship, in which Jonah was sleeping, and the swelling sea which is rebuked: be silent and be still, refer to the Lord Savior, and to the endangered Church, or to his rousing of the Apostles, who by forsaking him in his passion were in a manner casting him headlong into the waves.

This Jonah says: I know that because of me a great tempest is upon you, for the winds see me going with you to Tarshish, that is, sailing toward the contemplation of joy, that I may lead you with me to gladness: that where I am and the Father, there you also may be. For this reason they rage, for this reason the world, which is set in wickedness, roars (I John,): for this reason the elements are troubled: death desires to devour me, that it may kill you together with me; and it does not understand that, as on a hook, it takes the bait, so that by my death it may itself die. Take me up, and cast me into the sea. For it is not for us to seize death for ourselves, but willingly to receive it when inflicted by others. Whence also in persecutions it is not permitted to perish by one's own hand, except where chastity is endangered; but one must submit one's neck to the one striking.

Thus, he says, appease the winds, thus pour libations into the sea: the tempest which rages against you because of me will be calmed by my death.

Verse 13. And the men rowed hard to return to the dry land, and could not: for the sea kept going on, and swelling upon them. LXX: And the men tried to return to the land, and could not, for the sea kept going on, and rising up the more against them. The prophet had pronounced sentence against himself; but they, hearing him to be a worshipper of God, did not dare to lay hands on him, and therefore strove to return to the dry land, and to escape the peril, lest they should shed blood, being more willing to perish than to destroy. O what a change of affairs! The people who had served God says: Crucify, crucify such a one. These men are commanded to kill, the sea rages, the tempest commands, and, neglecting their own peril, they are anxious for another's safety. Wherefore the Seventy also say παρεβιάζοντο, that is, they wished to use force and to overcome the nature of things, lest they should do violence to the prophet of God.

And as for the fact that the men rowed to return to the dry land, they thought, apart from the mystery of him who was about to suffer, that the ship could be freed from peril: whereas the casting down of Jonah was the relief of the ship.

Verse 14. And they cried to the Lord, and said: We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not upon us innocent blood, for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. LXX: And they cried to the Lord, and said: By no means, O Lord, let us not perish because of the life of this man, and lay not upon us righteous blood, for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee. Great is the faith of the sailors: they themselves are in peril, and they entreat for another's life. For they know that the death of sin is worse than that of life. And lay not, they say, upon us innocent blood.

They call the Lord to witness, that whatever they are about to do may not be reckoned to them, and they say, as it were, we do not wish to kill thy prophet, but thy wrath—and he himself has confessed it, and the tempest speaks it—for thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee; thy will is fulfilled through our hands. Does not the voice of the sailors seem to us to be the confession of Pilate, who washes his hands, and says: I am innocent of the blood of this just man? The Gentiles do not wish Christ to perish, they protest his innocent blood. And the Jews say: His blood be upon us, and upon our children. And therefore if they lift up their hands, they will not be heard, because they are full of blood.

For thou, O Lord, hast done as it pleased thee: that we have received him, that the whirlwind arises, that the winds rage, that the sea is stirred up into waves, that the fugitive is betrayed by lot, that it is shown what ought to be done—this, O Lord, is of thy will, for thou hast done as thou wouldst. Whence also the Savior says in the psalm: O Lord, I desired to do thy will.

Verse 15. And they took Jonah, and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. LXX: And they took Jonah, and cast him into the sea, and the sea stood still from its commotion. He did not say they seized, he does not say they assailed, but they took: as though bearing him with deference and honor, they cast him into the sea, not resisting, but offering their hands to his own will. And the sea stood still, because it had found what it was seeking. As if one were pursuing a fugitive, and proceeding with hastened step, after he has overtaken him, he ceases to run, and stands and holds fast whom he has apprehended. So too the sea, which in Jonah's absence was raging, holding in its bosom the one it desired, rejoices and cherishes him, and from joy tranquility returns.

If we consider, before the passion of Christ, the errors of the world, and the contrary blasts of diverse doctrines, and the little ship, and the whole human race, that is, the creature of the Lord, in peril, and after his passion the tranquility of faith, and the peace of the world, and the security of all things, and the conversion to God, we shall see how, after the casting down of Jonah, the sea ceased from its raging.

Verse 16. And the men feared the Lord with a great fear, and they sacrificed victims to the Lord, and vowed vows. The Seventy likewise. Before the Passion of the Lord, fearing, they had cried out to their own gods: after his Passion they fear the Lord, that is, they venerate and worship him, and they do not fear simply, as we read in the beginning, but with great fear, according to what is said: With thy whole soul, and thy whole heart, and thy whole mind. And they sacrificed victims, which certainly according to the letter they did not have in the midst of the waves: but because a sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit. And in another place it is said: Offer to God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy vows to the Most High.

And again: We will render to thee the calves of our lips; therefore they sacrifice victims in the sea, and, making vows, they promise other things of their own accord: that they will never depart from him whom they had begun to worship. For they feared with a great fear: because from the calm of the sea and the flight of the tempest they perceived the prophet's words to be true. Jonah, a fugitive on the sea, shipwrecked, dead, saves the tossing little ship: he saves the heathen, previously cast about into various opinions by the world's error. And Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Joel, who prophesied at the same time, are unable to correct the people in Judea. From which it is shown that shipwreck cannot be calmed, except by the death of the fugitive.

(Verse 1.) And the Lord prepared a great fish, that it might swallow Jonah. The LXX: And the Lord commanded a great whale, and it devoured Jonah. The Lord commanded death and hell to receive his prophet.

That fish, thinking it a prey with greedy jaws, rejoiced as much in the devouring as it grieved in the vomiting. And then was fulfilled that which is read in Hosea: I will be thy death, O death: I will be thy bite, O hell (Hosea XIII, 14). But in the Hebrew we read "great fish," for which the Seventy interpreters, and the Lord in the Gospel, call it a whale, explaining the thing itself more briefly. For in the Hebrew it is said Dag gadol (דג גדול), which is interpreted "great fish": there is no doubt that it signifies a whale. And it must be noted, that where destruction was thought to be, there was safekeeping.

Furthermore, as to what he says, "prepared," either from the beginning when he founded it, of which it is also written in the psalm: This dragon which thou hast formed to play therein: or certainly he made it come alongside the ship, that it might receive the falling Jonah into its bosom, and provide a dwelling-place instead of death: so that he who in the ship had felt God angry, might in death feel him propitious. Verse 2. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. LXX: And Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights. The Lord expounds the mystery of this passage in the Gospel, and it is superfluous to say either the same thing, or anything other than what he himself, who suffered, expounded. This alone we ask, how he was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Some, dividing the Parasceve—when, the sun fleeing from the sixth hour to the ninth hour, night succeeded day—into two days and nights, and adding the sabbath, reckon that three days and three nights are to be computed: but let us understand the whole by the part, synecdochically: so that from the fact that he died on the Parasceve, we reckon one day and night, and the sabbath another: but the third night, which is assigned to the Lord's Day, let us refer to the beginning of the other day: for in Genesis also the night is not that of the preceding day, but of the following, that is, the beginning of the future, not the end of the past. That this may be understood, I will speak more simply.

Suppose someone went out from a lodging at the ninth hour, and arrived at another lodging at the third hour of the next day: if I should say he made the journey in two days, I should not immediately be charged with falsehood, because he who walked did not spend all the hours of both days, but a certain part of them, on the journey. This certainly seems to me the interpretation. But if anyone does not accept this, and can expound the mystery of this passage with a better sense, his opinion is rather to be followed. And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the fish, and said: The LXX likewise, only with the order changed. If Jonah is referred to the Lord, and from the fact that he was three days and nights in the belly of the whale he signifies the Passion of the Savior, his prayer also ought to be a type of the Lord's prayer.

Nor am I ignorant that there will be some to whom it will seem incredible that a man could be preserved for three days and three nights in the belly of a whale, in which shipwrecks were being caused,—men who will certainly be either faithful or unfaithful: if faithful, they will be compelled to believe much greater things: How the three boys, cast into the furnace of the burning fire, were so unharmed that not even the smell of the fire touched their garments: How the sea withdrew, and stood rigid on either side like walls, to provide a way for the people passing through: How, by human reasoning, the rage of the lions, though increased by hunger, looked upon its prey with fear, and did not touch it: and many things of this kind.

But if they will be unbelievers, let them read the fifteen books of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and all Greek and Latin history, and there they will see either Daphne turned into a laurel, or the sisters of Phaethon turned into poplar trees: how their Jupiter, their most exalted god, was changed into a swan, flowed as gold, seized as a bull, and other things, in which the very baseness of the fables denies the sanctity of divinity. They believe these things, and say that all things are possible to God: and while they believe base things, and defend the whole power of God, they do not attribute the same power also to honorable things. But as to what is written: And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the fish, and said, we understand that after he perceived himself to be safe in the belly of the whale, he did not despair of the Lord's mercy, and was wholly turned to supplication.

For God, who had said of the just man: I am with him in tribulation. And: When he shall call upon me, I will say: I am here, was present to him, and he who was heard can say: In tribulation thou hast enlarged me. Verse 3. I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and he heard me: out of the belly of hell I cried, and thou didst hear my voice. The Seventy likewise, only this being changed: out of the belly of hell of my cry thou didst hear my voice.

He did not say, "I cry," but "I cried": nor does he entreat concerning the future, but gives thanks concerning the past: indicating to us that from the time when, cast into the sea, he saw the whale, and so great a bulk of body, and monstrous open jaws swallowing, he remembered the Lord, and cried out, either the waters yielding and his cry finding room, or with the whole affection of his heart, according to what the Apostle says: Crying in your hearts, Abba, Father. And he cried out to him who alone knows the hearts of men, and who says to Moses: Why criest thou to me? Although Scripture nowhere records that Moses had cried out before this word. This is that which we read in the first psalm of degrees: When I was in trouble I cried to the Lord, and he heard me. Let us understand, moreover, "the belly of hell" as the belly of the whale, which was of such magnitude that it held the likeness of hell.

But it can better be referred to the person of Christ, who under the name of David sings in the psalm: Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell: nor wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. He who was in hell while living, free among the dead.

Verse 4. And thou hast cast me into the deep in the heart of the sea, and a flood compassed me about. LXX: Thou hast cast me into the deep of the heart of the sea, and floods compassed me about. As far as the person of Jonah is concerned, the interpretation is not difficult: that, shut in the belly of the whale, he was in the deepest and midst of the sea, and hedged about by floods. As far as concerns the Lord the Savior, let us take an example from the sixty-eighth psalm, in which he speaks: I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing: I am come into the depth of the sea, and a storm has overwhelmed me; concerning whom it is also said in another psalm: But thou hast rejected and despised, thou hast put off thy Christ: thou hast overturned the covenant of thy servant, thou hast profaned his sanctuary on the earth, thou hast destroyed all his hedges, and the rest.

For in comparison to heavenly blessedness, and to that place of which it is written: In peace is his holy place, every earthly habitation is full of waves, full of tempests. Furthermore, by "the heart of the sea" hell is signified, for which we read in the Gospel: In the heart of the earth. But as the heart of an animal is in the middle, so also hell is said to be in the middle of the earth. Or certainly, according to the anagogical sense, "in the heart of the sea"—that is, he recalls that he was in the midst of temptations. And yet, though he was among bitter waters, and was tempted according to all things, without sin, he did not feel the bitter waters: but was surrounded by a river, of which we also read in another place: The stream of the river makes the city of God glad: while others were drinking salt waves, I in the midst of temptations was drinking the sweetest streams.

Nor let it seem impious to you that the Lord now says: Thou hast cast me into the deep, who speaks in the psalm: For they have persecuted him whom thou hast smitten, according to that which is put in the person of the Father in Zechariah: I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.

All thy whirlpools and thy waves passed over me. LXX: All thy risings and thy waves passed over me. That the swelling waves of the sea passed over Jonah, and that a savage tempest thundered, no one doubts. But we ask how all the risings, and whirlpools, and waves of God passed over the Savior. The life of man upon earth is a temptation, or as it is in the Hebrew, a warfare, because here we war, that elsewhere we may be crowned. And there is no man who can sustain all temptations, except him who was tempted in all things, according to our likeness, without sin. Whence also it is said to the Corinthians: Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human. And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with temptation a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.

And since all persecutions, and all things that happen, do not befall apart from the will of God: therefore they are called the whirlpools and waves of God, which did not overwhelm Jesus, but passed over him, only threatening shipwreck, not bringing it. Therefore all the persecutions and whirlwinds by which the human race was vexed, and all the little ships were broken, thundered over my head. I sustained the tempests, and broke the raging whirlwinds, that the rest might sail more securely. (Verse 5.) And I said, I am cast away from before the sight of thine eyes. LXX: I said, I am cast away from thine eyes. Before I cried out from my tribulation, and thou didst hear me, because I had taken on the form of a servant, and imitated also its fragility, I said: I am cast away from before the sight of thine eyes. When I was with thee, and enjoyed thy light, and in thee, being light, I was light, I did not say, I am cast away.

But after I came into the depth of the sea, and was surrounded with the flesh of man, I imitate human feelings, I say: I am cast away from before the sight of thine eyes. This I spoke as man; but as God, and as one who, when I was in thy form, thought it not robbery to be equal with thee, wishing to raise up the human race to thee: that where I am and thou art, there also may all be who have believed in me and thee, I say: Nevertheless I shall again see thy holy temple. LXX: Shall I, thinkest thou, add to see thy holy temple?

That which is said in Greek, ἆρα, and which the vulgate edition has as "thinkest thou," can be interpreted as "therefore," so that it might be, as it were, the final conclusion of a proposition and assumption, of confirmation and syllogism, not from the uncertainty of one in doubt, but from the confidence of one affirming: for which we have translated: Nevertheless I shall again see thy holy temple, according to that which is said from his person in another psalm: Lord, I have loved the beauty of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwelleth. And the Gospel reading in which it is written: Father, glorify me with thyself, with the glory which I had before the world was made. And the Father answered from heaven: I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. Or certainly, since it is read: The Father in me, and I in the Father, just as the Son is the temple of the Father, so the Father is the temple of the Son.

For he himself says: I came forth from the Father, and am come. And: The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Or the one and the same Saviour asks as man; as God he promises; and he is secure concerning his own possession, which he has always had. From the person of Jonah, however, whether in the affection of one desiring, or of one trusting, it can plainly be understood that, placed in the depth of the sea, he desired to see the temple of the Lord, and that in the prophetic spirit he was elsewhere, and contemplated another thing. (Verse 6.) The waters compassed me about even to the soul, the deep hath closed me round about. LXX: The water was poured about me even to my soul: the deep hath compassed me, the last of all.

These waters, which are near to the depths, which roll upon the earth, and flow down, and which draw much slime with them, strive to kill not the body, but the soul; for they are friends of bodies, and are cherished by its pleasures. Whence, according to what we said above, the Lord speaks in the Psalm: Save me, O Lord, for the waters have come in even unto my soul. And in another place: Our soul hath passed through a torrent. And: Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me, nor let hell close upon me; let it not deny me an exit, I who descended of my own accord, shall of my own accord ascend, who came a willing captive, ought to set free the captives, that this may be fulfilled: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive: for those who had before been captives in death, he took up unto life.

But by the "deeps" we ought to understand certain destructive and most evil powers, or powers given over to torments and punishments, to which also in the Gospel the demons beg that they be not compelled to go. Whence also: and darkness was upon the deep. Sometimes the deep is taken also for the mysteries and most profound meanings, and the judgments of God: Thy judgments, O Lord, are a great deep. And: Deep calleth on deep, at the voice of thy cataracts. The sea covered my head, I went down to the lowest parts of the mountains, the bars of the earth have shut me up for ever. LXX: My head went in unto the clefts of the mountains: I went down into the earth, whose bars are everlasting fastenings.

That the sea covered Jonah's head, and that he went down to the extremities of the mountains, and came even to the depths of the earth, by which, as by bars and columns, the globe of the earth is upheld by the will of God, is doubtful to no one; concerning which it is also said elsewhere: I have established its pillars.

But concerning the Lord Saviour, according to both editions, it seems to me that it can be understood thus: that his chief and head part, that is, the soul which together with the body he graciously assumed for our salvation, went down into the clefts of the mountains, which were covered by the waves, which had withdrawn themselves from the liberty of heaven, which the deep surrounded, which had cut themselves off from the majesty of God, and afterward also penetrated even to the lower regions: to which places, as to the lowest slime of sins, souls were being drawn, the Psalmist saying: They shall enter into the lower parts of the earth, they shall be the portions for foxes. These are the bars of the earth, and, as it were, certain bolts of the extreme prison and of the punishments, unwilling that the captive souls should go forth from the lower regions. Whence the LXX significantly translated κάτοχοι αἰώνιοι, that is, always desiring to hold fast those whom they had once seized.

But our Lord, of whom under the person of Cyrus we read in Isaiah: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and burst the bars of iron, went down to the extremities of the mountains, and was shut in by everlasting bars, that he might free all who had been shut up. (Verse 7.) And thou wilt bring up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. LXX: And let my life ascend from corruption, O Lord my God. He said fittingly, thou wilt bring up: or let my life ascend from corruption, because he had descended to corruption and to the lower regions. This is what the Apostles interpret in the fifteenth psalm as prophesied from the person of the Lord: For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption: that is, that David indeed died and was buried, but the flesh of the Saviour did not see corruption.

Others, however, interpret it that, in comparison with heavenly blessedness and the Word of God, the human body is corruption, which is sown in corruption; and in the hundred and second psalm it is signified from the person of the Just One: Who healeth all thy infirmities, who redeemeth thy life from destruction. Whence also the Apostle says: Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? And it is called the body of death, or the body of humility. This they draw to the occasion of their heresy: so that under the person of Christ they falsely represent antichrist: that they may hold the churches, so as to nourish a very fat belly, and, living carnally, dispute against the flesh. But we know that the body assumed from the incorrupt Virgin was not Christ's corruption, but his temple.

But if we are drawn into the opinion of the Apostle to the Corinthians, in which the body is called spiritual, lest we seem contentious, we will say that indeed the same body, and the same flesh rises which was buried, which was laid in the earth; but that it changes its glory, not its nature: for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. When it is said "this," the body is shown as it were grasped between two fingers: this in which we are born, this in which we die, this which those who are to be punished fear to receive back, this which virginity awaits as a reward, which adultery dreads as a punishment. But concerning Jonah it can be understood thus: that he who, according to the nature of bodies, ought to have been corrupted in the belly of the whale, and to have gone into the food of the beast, and to have been dispersed through veins and limbs, remained safe and whole.

Further, what he says: O Lord my God, is the expression of one being affectionate, because he felt the God common to all to be, by the greatness of the benefit, his own and, as it were, his personal God. (Verse 8.) When my soul was in anguish within me, I remembered the Lord. LXX: When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord.

When, he says, I hoped for no other help, the remembrance of the Lord was my salvation, according to that: I remembered the Lord, and was glad. And in another place: I remembered the days of old, and had the eternal years in mind. When I despaired of salvation, and the fragility of the flesh in the midst of the whale's belly allowed me to hope nothing concerning life, whatever seemed impossible was overcome by the remembrance of the Lord. I saw myself shut up in the whale's womb, and my whole hope was the Lord. From which we learn, according to the Seventy, that at the time when our soul faints, and is torn away from the framework of the body, we ought to turn our thought to no other, except to him who is our Lord both within the body and outside the body. But concerning the person of the Saviour the interpretation is not difficult, who said: My soul is sorrowful even unto death.

And: Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. And: Into thy hands I commend my spirit: and other things like to these.

That my prayer may come to thee, to thy holy temple. LXX likewise. Therefore in tribulation I remembered the Lord, that my prayer might ascend from the depths of the sea and from the clefts of the mountains up to heaven, and come to thy holy temple, in which thou enjoyest eternal blessedness. And it is to be considered that, in a new manner, a prayer is made for a prayer, and he prays that his prayer may ascend to the temple of God. He asks, moreover, as a high priest, that in his body the people may be set free. (Verse 9.) They that observe vanities in vain, forsake their own mercy. LXX: They that observe vain things and lies, have forsaken their own mercy. God is merciful by nature, and ready by clemency to save those whom he cannot save by justice: but we, by our own fault, lose and abandon the mercy that is ready and offered of its own accord.

And he did not say, they who do vanities (for vanity of vanities, and all is vanity, lest he seem to condemn all, and to deny mercy to the whole human race; but he said, they who observe vanities, or falsehood, who have passed over into an affection of the heart: who not only do vanities but so keep them as though they loved them, and thought that they had found a treasure. And at the same time observe the greatness of soul of the prophet, who, in the depth of the sea, covered with eternal night in the belly of so great a beast, thinks not of his own danger, but philosophizes with a general statement about the nature of things. They will forsake, he says, their own mercy.

Although mercy be offended—which we can understand to be God himself (for the Lord is merciful and compassionate, patient and of great mercy—nevertheless he does not abandon or detest those who observe vanities, but waits for them to return: but they of their own accord abandon the mercy that stands and offers itself. This can also be prophesied from the person of the Lord concerning the perfidy of the Jews, who, while they esteem themselves to keep the precepts of men and the commandments of the Pharisees, which are vanity and falsehood, have forsaken God who had always had mercy upon them. (Verse 10.) But I with the voice of praise will sacrifice to thee: whatsoever I have vowed I will pay, for salvation is of the Lord. LXX: But I with the voice of praise and confession will sacrifice to thee, whatsoever I have vowed I will pay to thee, the saving act belongs to the Lord.

They that observe vanities have forsaken their own mercy: but I, who have been swallowed up for the salvation of many, will sacrifice to thee with the voice of praise and confession, offering myself: for Christ our Passover is sacrificed. And as a true high priest and sheep he offered himself for us. And I will confess, he says, to thee as I have confessed before, saying: I will confess to thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth; and I will pay the vows which I made for the salvation of all to the Lord, that all that thou hast given me may not perish for ever. We see what the Saviour promised in his passion for our salvation: let us not make Jesus a liar: let us therefore be clean, and separated from all the filth of sins, that he may offer us as victims to God the Father, which he had vowed. (Verse 11.) And the Lord spoke to the fish: and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

LXX: And he commanded the whale, and it cast Jonah forth upon the dry ground. These things which we read above under the person of Jonah, the Lord entreated in the belly of the whale, of whom also Job speaks mystically: Let him curse it who cursed the day, he who is about to catch the great whale. It is commanded, therefore, to this great whale, and to the depths and to hell, that they restore the Saviour to the earth: and he who had died, that he might set free those who were held by the bonds of death, brings up with him very many unto life. But as for what is written, "it vomited out," we ought to take it ἐμφατικώτερον (more emphatically): that from the innermost vitals of death, victorious life came forth.

(Verses 1, 2.) And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying: Arise and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach in it according to the former preaching, which I speak to thee.

LXX: And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying: Arise, and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach in it according to the former preaching, which I spoke to thee. It is not said to the prophet, why hast thou not done what had been commanded thee, but the mere rebuke of the shipwreck and the swallowing suffices for him, so that he who had not perceived the Lord commanding might understand him delivering. Otherwise it is superfluous, when a servant has offended, to wish to charge him after the blows with what he did, since a rebuke of this kind is not so much a correction as a reproach.

Our Lord, however, after the resurrection is sent a second time to Nineveh, so that he who had somewhat fled before, saying, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, and had been unwilling to give the bread of the children to the dogs; now, because they said, Crucify, crucify such a one: We have no king but Caesar, goes of his own accord to Nineveh, that he may preach after the resurrection that which he had been commanded to preach even before the passion. But all that is commanded, that he obeys, that he is unwilling, that he is again compelled to be willing, that he carries out the Father's will a second time—refer this to the man and to the form of a servant, to whom such words are fitting. (Verse 3.) And Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord: and Nineveh was a great city of God, of three days' journey: and Jonah began to enter into the city on a journey of one day.

LXX: And Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, as the Lord had spoken to him. Now Nineveh was a great city to God, as it were a journey of three days: and Jonah began to enter the city as it were a journey of one day. Immediately Jonah, by his deed, fulfilled what had been commanded him. Now Nineveh, to which the prophet was going, was a great city, and of such extent that it could scarcely be circled in a journey of three days. But he, mindful of the command and of his former shipwreck, completed in the haste of one day a journey of three days—although there are some who understand it thus simply, that he preached only in the third part of the city, and the word of preaching quickly reached the rest.

But our Lord is properly said to rise after the underworld, and to preach the word of the Lord, when he sends the apostles to baptize those who were in Nineveh, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—that is, on a journey of three days. And this very sacrament of human salvation is accomplished by a journey of one day, that is, by the confession of one God, with Jonah preaching not so much through the apostles as in the apostles. For he himself says: Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. And no one can doubt why Nineveh is a great city of God, since the world and all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.

It should also be noted that he did not say, three days and nights, or, one day and night, but absolutely, days and a day, so as to show that in the mystery of the Trinity, and in the confession of one God, nothing is dark. (Verse 4.) And he cried and said: Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. LXX: And he preached and said: Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. The number three, which is placed by the Seventy, does not fit repentance: and I wonder greatly why it was so translated, since in the Hebrew there is no commonality of letters, nor of syllables, nor of accents, nor of the word. For three is called SALOS (שלש), and forty ARBAIM (ארבעים). Otherwise too, the prophet, sent from Judea on so long a journey to the Assyrians, was demanding a penitence worthy of his preaching, so that ancient and rotten wounds might be healed by a plaster applied for a long time.

Moreover, the number forty fits sinners, and fasting, and prayer, and sackcloth, and tears, and perseverance in supplication: for which reason Moses also fasted forty days on Mount Sinai, and Elijah, fleeing Jezebel, when famine had been declared over the land of Israel, and the wrath of God was hanging above, is described as having fasted forty days. Our Lord himself too, the true Jonah sent to preach to the world, fasts forty days: and leaving us the inheritance of fasting, prepares our souls under this number for the eating of his body. And as for his crying out, that Gospel saying is fulfilled: He stood and cried in the temple, saying, He who thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For every word of the Saviour, because he was preaching of great things, is called a cry. (Verse 5.) And the men of Nineveh believed in God, and proclaimed a fast, and were clothed with sackcloth, from the greatest even to the least. LXX likewise. Nineveh believed, and Israel persists in unbelief.

The uncircumcision believed, and the circumcision remains faithless. And first the men of Nineveh believe, who came to the age of Christ: and they proclaim a fast, and are clothed with sackcloth from the greatest even to the least. Worthy too is the food and the garb of repentance, so that those who had offended God by luxury and ambition might make satisfaction through the condemnation of those very things by which they had first offended. Sackcloth and fasting are the weapons of repentance, the helps of sinners: first fasting, and then sackcloth; first that which is hidden, and afterward that which is manifest: the one is always shown to God, the other sometimes also to men. And if of the two necessary things one must be given up, I would rather choose fasting without sackcloth, than sackcloth without fasting. The greater age begins, and it reaches even to the least: for no one is without sin, even if his life were of one day only, and the years of his life were numbered.

For if the stars are not clean in the sight of God, how much more the worm and rottenness, and those who are held bound by the sin of the offending Adam? But the order too is most beautiful: God commands the prophet. The prophet preaches to the city: first the men believe, and while they are proclaiming a fast, every age is clothed with sackcloth.

The men do not proclaim sackcloth, but only fasting: but those to whom repentance is enjoined, in consequence, join sackcloth to fasting, so that an empty stomach and a mournful garb may the more earnestly entreat the Lord. (Verses 6 and following.) And the word came to the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne, and cast off his garment from him, and was clothed with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and cried and said in Nineveh, from the mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: Let not men and beasts, oxen and flocks, taste anything, nor feed, nor drink water, and let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry unto the Lord with strength; and let a man turn from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. Who knows if God will turn and forgive, and turn away from the fury of his wrath, and we shall not perish?

The Septuagint: And the word drew near to the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne, and took away his robe from him, and was covered with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and it was proclaimed in Nineveh by the king and by all (another reading: men) his great men, saying: Let not men and beasts, oxen and sheep, taste anything, nor feed, nor drink water: and men and beasts were covered with sackcloth, and they cried to the Lord vehemently, and each one turned back from his evil way, and from the iniquity that was in their hands, saying: Who knows if God will turn and be entreated, and turn away from the wrath of his fury, and we shall not perish?

I know that very many interpret this (that the king of Nineveh—who is the last to hear the preaching, and descends from his throne, and casts off his former adornment, and clothed in sackcloth, sits in ashes; and not content with his own conversion, also preaches penitence to his other leaders, saying: Let men and beasts, oxen and flocks, be tormented with hunger, be covered with sackcloth, and having condemned their former vices, let them wholly give themselves over to penitence) as referring to the devil, who at the end of the world (since no rational creature made by God should perish) shall descend from his pride, shall perform penitence, and shall be restored to his former place. And to confirm this understanding they also bring forward that example from Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar, having done penance for seven years, is restored to his former kingdom.

But since Holy Scripture does not say this, and since it utterly overturns the fear of God, while men easily slip into vices, thinking that even the devil, who is the author of evils and the source of all sins, can be saved after doing penance—let us cast this out of our minds. And let us know that in the Gospel sinners are sent into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels, and that of these it is said: Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched. We know indeed that God is merciful, and we who are sinners do not delight in his cruelty; but we read: The Lord is merciful and just, and our God shows mercy. The justice of God is fenced about with mercy, and it proceeds to judgment with such circumspection: thus it spares, that it may judge; thus it judges, that it may show mercy. Mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace have kissed.

Otherwise, if all rational creatures are equal, and either by their own virtues or vices raise themselves up or plunge themselves down, and after a long circuit and infinite ages a restoration of all things will take place, and one dignity for all who have fought the fight—what distinction will there be between a virgin and a prostitute? What difference will there be between the Mother of the Lord and (a wicked thing even to say) the victims of public lust? Will Gabriel and the devil be the same? Will the apostles and the demons be the same? The prophets and the false prophets? The martyrs and the persecutors? Imagine what you will, double the years and the times, and heap up infinite ages of torments: if the end of all is the same, then everything past counts for nothing, because we do not ask what we once were, but what we shall always be. Nor am I ignorant of what is usually said against this, and how men prepare hope and salvation for themselves along with the devil.

But it is not the time now to write at greater length against this perverse doctrine, and against the diabolical conspiracy of those who teach one thing in corners and deny it in public. It is enough for us to have indicated what we think concerning this testimony, and to intimate briefly, as it were in a commentary, who the king of Nineveh is, to whom at last the word of God comes. What worldly eloquence and secular wisdom avail among men of this age, Demosthenes, Cicero, Plato, Xenophon, Theophrastus, Aristotle, and the rest of the orators and philosophers bear witness, who are regarded as kings among men, and whose precepts are received not as the precepts of mortals, but as if they were the oracles of gods. Whence Plato also says: States would be happy if either philosophers ruled, or kings philosophized.

But how difficult it is for men of this sort to believe in God—to pass over daily examples, and to be silent about the ancient histories of the pagans—the testimony of the Apostle suffices for us, who, writing to the Corinthians, says: See, brethren, your calling, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the strong, and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, has God chosen, and so forth. Whence again he says: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will reject. And: See that no one spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.

From which it is clear that the kings of the world hear the preaching of Christ last of all, and having laid aside the splendor of eloquence and the ornaments and adornment of words, give themselves wholly over to simplicity and rusticity, and, reduced to plebeian manner, sit in squalor, and destroy what they had formerly preached. Let us set before ourselves blessed Cyprian (who was formerly a defender of idolatry, and came to such glory of eloquence that he even taught rhetoric at Carthage), how at last he heard the word of Jonah, and, converted to penitence, came to such virtue that he preached Christ publicly, and bent his neck to the sword for him. Truly we understand that the king of Nineveh descended from his throne, and exchanged purple for sackcloth, perfumes for filth, cleanliness for squalor—not squalor of the senses, but of words. Whence also concerning Babylon it is said in Jeremiah: Babylon is a golden cup that made all the earth drunk. Whom has not secular eloquence made drunk?

Whose mind has it not dazzled with the composition of its words and the splendor of its skill? It is difficult for powerful, noble, and rich men, and much more difficult for eloquent men, to believe in God: for their mind is blinded by riches and wealth and luxury, and, surrounded by vices, they cannot see the virtues and the simplicity of Holy Scripture; they judge it not by the majesty of its meaning, but by the plainness of its words. But when those very ones who formerly taught evil things, turned to penitence, begin to teach good things, then we shall see the peoples of Nineveh converted by a single preaching, and that will come to pass which we read in Isaiah: If a nation is born at once.

Understand in the same sense also the men and beasts covered with sackcloth and crying to the Lord: that both the rational and the irrational, both the wise and the simple, do penance at the preaching of Jonah, according to that which is also said elsewhere: Men and beasts you will save, O Lord. But we may also interpret the beasts covered with sackcloth in another way, especially with reference to those testimonies where we read: The sun and moon shall be clothed with sackcloth. And in another place: I will clothe the heavens with sackcloth, namely for a mournful garb, and for sorrow and sadness, which are metaphorically called sackcloth.

As for that which is said: Who knows if God will turn, and forgive?—it is set forth ambiguous and uncertain for this reason: that while men are in doubt about their salvation, they may do penance more strongly, and provoke God the more to mercy. (Verse 10.) And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way; and God had mercy concerning the evil which he had said he would do to them, and he did it not. The Septuagint: And God saw their works, that they had turned from their evil ways, and God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them, and he did it not. According to either understanding, whether then to the city of Assyria, or daily to the peoples of the world, God threatens that they may do penance; and if they are converted, he too will change his sentence, and will be changed by the conversion of the people.

This both Jeremiah and Ezekiel explain more clearly, namely that the Lord does not fulfill the good things which he has promised, if the good turn to vices; nor the evils which he threatens to the very wicked, if they turn back to salvation. So then, even now, God saw the works, that they had turned from their most wicked way: he did not hear the words which Israel used often to promise: All things whatsoever the Lord shall say, we will do; but he beheld the works: and because he prefers the penitence of the sinner rather than his death, he willingly changed his sentence, because he saw the works changed. Rather, God persevered in his merciful purpose, willing this from the beginning: for no one who desires to punish threatens beforehand what he is going to do.

But understand "evil," as we said above, in the sense of punishments and torments: not that God devised anything evil.

(Verse 1.) And Jonah was afflicted with great affliction, and was angry; and he prayed to the Lord and said. The Septuagint: And Jonah was grieved with great grief, and was confounded; and he prayed to the Lord, and said. Seeing the fulness of the Gentiles beginning to come in, and that being fulfilled which is said in Deuteronomy: They have provoked me with those who are not gods, and I will provoke them with a nation that is not a nation: with a foolish nation I will stir them to anger, he despairs of the salvation of Israel, and is shaken with great grief, which breaks forth into speech, and he sets forth the causes of his sorrow, and speaks after a fashion: I alone am chosen from so great a number of prophets, to announce ruin to my own people through the salvation of others.

He is not grieved, then, as some suppose, because a multitude of the Gentiles is saved; but because Israel perishes. Whence also our Lord wept over Jerusalem, and would not take the bread of the children, and give it to the dogs. And the Apostles preached first to Israel. And Paul desires to be anathema for the sake of his brethren, who are Israelites, and whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenant, and the promises, and the giving of the law, of whom are the fathers, and of whom is Christ according to the flesh. Beautifully, moreover, does he who is grieving (which is what "Jonah" means) suffer affliction with grief, and his soul is sorrowful even unto death; because, that the people of the Jews might not perish, he endured much, as far as was in him.

The name also fits the story of one who grieves more, signifying a laboring prophet, weighed down with the miseries of wandering and shipwreck. (Verses 2, 3.) I beseech thee, O Lord, is not this what I said, when I was yet in my own country? Therefore I hastened to flee into Tharsis. For I know that thou art a gracious and merciful God, patient, and of great compassion, forgiving in the face of wickedness; and now, O Lord, I beseech thee, take my soul from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. LXX: O Lord, are not these my words, when I was yet in my own country? For I know that thou art merciful and compassionate, patient, and of great compassion, and one who repenteth over evils; and now, O Sovereign Lord, take my soul from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

That which we have rendered "I beseech thee," and the Seventy translated ὦ δή, is read in the Hebrew as ANNA (אנא), which seems to me to signify an interjection of one entreating, expressing the affection of one coaxing. Because, therefore, his prayer, while he says he wished justly to flee, in a certain way accuses the Lord of injustice, he tempers his complaints with an opening entreaty. Is not this, he says, what I said, when I was yet in my own country? I knew that thou wouldst do this: I was not unaware of thy mercy; therefore I was unwilling to announce something severe and harsh: therefore I wished to flee into Tharsis, to be free for contemplation of things, and to enjoy rather the quiet and leisure in the sea of this age. I left my house, I abandoned my inheritance, I went out from thy bosom, and I came.

If I were to say thou art merciful and gracious and forgiving of wickedness, no one would do penance; if I were to announce thee cruel, and only a judge, I knew this was not of thy nature. Being placed, then, in this doubt, I preferred rather to flee, than either to deceive the penitent by leniency, or to preach of thee what thou wast not. Take, therefore, O Lord, my soul: for it is better for me to die than to live. Take my soul, which has been sorrowful even unto death. Take my soul: for into thy hands I commend my spirit, for it is indeed better for me to die than to live. Living, I could not save the one nation of Israel: let me die, and the world will be saved.

The literal narrative is plain, and concerning the person of the prophet it can be understood, as we have often said, that he is therefore saddened and wishes to die, lest, the multitude of the nations being converted, Israel should perish for eternity. (Verse 4.) And the Lord said: Dost thou think thou dost well to be angry? LXX: And the Lord said to Jonah, Art thou exceedingly grieved? The Hebrew word Ara lac (חרה לך) can be translated both "and thou art angry" and "and thou art grieved": both of which fit the person of the prophet and of the Lord, for either he was angry, lest he should seem to have lied to the Ninevites, or he was grieved, understanding that Israel would perish. And reasonably he does not say to him, "thou art wrongly angry" or "grieved," lest he seem to reprove one who is grieved.

Nor again, "thou art rightly angry" or "grieved": lest he should contradict his own sentence; but he questions him who is angry and grieved, that he might answer either the causes of his anger or of his sorrow: or, if he should be silent, that the true judgment of God might be proved from his silence. (Verse 5.) And Jonah went out of the city, and sat toward the east of the city, and made himself a booth there, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would happen to the city. The LXX likewise. Cain, the first fratricide and murderer, dedicating the bloody world with his brother's blood, built a city, and called it after the name of his son Enoch. Whence also the prophet Hosea says, I am God and not man, in the midst of thee holy: and I will not enter into the city. For, as the Psalmist says, the issues of death belong to the Lord.

Wherefore also one of the cities of refuge for fugitives is called Ramoth (ראמות), which is interpreted "vision of death." And rightly, whoever is a fugitive, and because of sins does not deserve to dwell in Jerusalem, dwells in the city of death, and is beyond the streams of Jordan, which express the descent. The dove, then, goes out, or grieving, from a city of this sort, and dwells toward the East, whence the sun rises: and there he is in his tabernacle, where, having contemplated all the passing times, he awaits what will befall the aforesaid city: before Nineveh was saved and the gourd withered; before the Gospel of Christ shone forth; and before the prophecy of Zechariah was fulfilled: Behold, a man, the Orient is his name, Jonah was under the booth. For the truth had not yet come, of which the same evangelist and apostle speaks: God is truth. And elegantly it is added, "And he made himself a booth there", next to Nineveh.

He made it for himself, for none of the Ninevites at that time could dwell with the prophet: and he sat in the shade, either in the garb of a judge, or drawn in upon himself because of his majesty, and girded about the loins with strength, so that his garments would not flow all the way down to his feet, and to us who are below, but were drawn together upon himself with a tighter belt. Further, as to what is said, "that he might see what would happen to the city," he uses the customary manner of the Scriptures, so as to join human affections to God. (Verse 6.) And the Lord God prepared an ivy, and it grew up over the head of Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, and protect him, for he had suffered greatly: and Jonah rejoiced over the ivy with great joy.

LXX: And the Lord God commanded a gourd, and it grew up over the head of Jonah, that it might be a covering over his head, and protect him from his troubles: and Jonah rejoiced over the gourd with great joy. At this point a certain Cantherius, of the most ancient stock of the Cornelii, or (as he himself boasts) of the line of Asinius Pollio, is said to have long ago at Rome accused me of sacrilege, because I translated "ivy" instead of "gourd": he feared, evidently, lest, if ivy should grow instead of gourds, he would have none from which he might secretly and in the dark drink. And indeed on those very little gourd-shaped vessels, which are commonly called "Saucomariae," images of the apostles are wont to be shadowed forth: from which he too has assumed for himself a name that is not his own.

But if names are so easily exchanged, that instead of the seditious Cornelian tribunes, the Aemilian consuls are so named, I marvel why it should not be permitted to me to render "ivy" instead of "gourd." But let us come to serious matters. Instead of "gourd," or "ivy," in the Hebrew we read ciceion (קיקיון), which is also called in the Syriac and Punic tongue ciceia. It is a kind of shrub, or small tree, having broad leaves in the manner of a vine-leaf, and very dense shade, sustaining itself on its own trunk, which grows very frequently in Palestine, and especially in sandy places: and it is a marvel in what manner, if you cast the seed into the ground, it quickly springs up, warmed, into a tree, and within a few days what you had seen as a herb, you look up at as a small tree.

Wherefore also we, at the same time that we were translating the prophets, wished to express this very name of the Hebrew tongue, because the Latin language did not have this species of tree; but we feared the grammarians, lest they should find license for commenting, and should invent either beasts of India, or mountains of Boeotia, or some portents of that sort, and so we followed the ancient translators, who themselves also rendered "ivy," which in Greek is called κισσὸς, for they had nothing else to say. Let us then discuss the history, and, before the mystical understandings, let us examine the letter alone. The gourd and the ivy are of such a nature that they creep along the ground, and without forked poles or supports on which to lean, do not seek higher things. How then, without the prophet's knowledge, did the gourd, growing up in one night, provide shade, since it does not have the nature to rise on high without trellises and reeds or poles?

But the ciceion, though in its sudden growth it provided a miracle, and showed the power of God in the protection of a green shade, nevertheless followed its own nature. But as regards the person of the Lord Savior, lest, on account of φιλοκολόκυνθον (fondness for the gourd), we should altogether abandon the gourd, it can be referred thus, that we recall that saying of Isaiah: The daughter of Zion shall be left as a booth in a vineyard, and as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a city that is besieged. And let us say that in no other place of Scripture do we find the gourd mentioned, except that where the cucumber grows, there the gourd also is wont to grow. And Israel has been compared to this kind, because once it protected Jonah under its shade, while he awaited the conversion of the nations, and afforded him no small joy, making for him a shade and a tabernacle, rather than a house, having the likeness of a roof, but not having the foundations of houses.

Further, the ciceion, our small shrub, quickly rising up and quickly withering, will be compared in its order and life to Israel, sending small roots into the ground, and indeed striving to be lifted up to the heights, but not equaling the height of the cedars of God and the firs.

Which the locusts also seem to me to signify, on which John fed, who says under the type of Israel: He must increase, but I must decrease: a small animal, having weak wings, rising indeed from the earth, but not able to fly higher, so that it is more than a creeping thing, and yet is not equal to the birds. (Verses 7 and 8.) And God prepared a worm, at the rising of the dawn on the next day, and it struck the ivy, and it withered: and when the sun had risen, the Lord commanded a hot and burning wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, and he was faint, and he asked for his soul that he might die, and said: It is better for me to die than to live.

LXX: And God commanded a worm in the morning of the next day, and it struck the gourd, and it was withered: and as soon as the sun had risen, the Lord commanded a burning wind of heat, and the sun struck upon the head of Jonah, and he was distressed, and he was weary of his soul, and said: It is better for me to die than to live. Before the sun of righteousness arose, the shade was green, and Israel was not withered: after that sun arose, and the darkness of Nineveh was scattered by its light, the worm, prepared for the next day at the rising of dawn (concerning which the twenty-first psalm is inscribed: "For the morning assumption"; and who, without any seed, arises from the earth, and says, I am a worm, and no man, struck the shade, which, deprived of God's help, lost all its greenness.

And the Lord commanded a hot and burning wind, of which it is prophesied in Hosea: The Lord shall bring a burning wind rising up from the desert, and shall dry up its veins, and shall lay waste its fountain. And Jonah began to be faint, and again to wish to die in baptism together with Israel, that in the washing he might receive back the moisture which he had lost in denial. Whence also Peter speaks to the withered Jews: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. There are those who understand the worm and the burning wind as the Roman leaders, who, after the resurrection of Christ, utterly destroyed Israel. (Verse 9.) And the Lord said to Jonah: Dost thou think thou dost well to be angry over the ivy? And he said: I do well to be angry, even unto death.

LXX: And the Lord God said to Jonah, art thou exceedingly grieved over the gourd? And he said: I am exceedingly grieved, even unto death. Above, when the Ninevites were doing penance and the city of the nations was saved, the prophet, being asked the same question, "Dost thou think thou dost well to be angry?" answered nothing, but confirmed the question of God by his silence, for, knowing that God was gracious and merciful and patient and of great compassion, and forgiving of wickedness, he did not grieve over the salvation of the nations: but here, after the gourd had dried up and Israel had withered, and, being asked with a distinction, "Dost thou do well to be angry over the ivy?" he confidently answered and said: I do well to be angry, or to be grieved, even unto death: for I did not wish so to save others, that others should perish; not so to gain those who were foreign, that I should lose my own.

And indeed even to the present day Christ mourns Israel: and mourns Jerusalem even unto death—not his own death, but that of the Jews—that they who deny may die, and that they who confess the Son of God may rise again. (Verses 10 and 11.) And the Lord said: Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, neither didst thou make it grow: which came up in one night, and perished in one night: and shall not I spare Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left, and many cattle? LXX: And the Lord said: Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, nor nourished it, which came up in the night, and perished in the night: but shall not I spare Nineveh, that great city, in which more than twelve myriads of men dwell who know not their right hand and their left, and many cattle?

It is a matter of very great difficulty to explain how, according to the tropological sense, it can be said to the Son: Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, neither didst thou make it grow, since all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing. Hence a certain interpreter of this passage, in order to resolve the difficulty confronting him, fell into blasphemy. For taking up that saying from the Gospel: Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, God, he interpreted the Father as the good one. The Son, however, in comparison with him who is perfectly and truly good, he set in a lower rank.

And he did not consider, in saying these things, that he was reading them rather in the manner of Marcion, "to die rather than," he had fallen into a heresy (which sets up one God who is merely good, and brings in another as judge and creator) rather than that of Arius, who, though he proclaims the Father greater and the Son lesser, nevertheless does not deny that the Son is the Creator. Therefore what we are about to say must be heard with indulgence, and our efforts ought rather to be aided by favor and by prayers than spurned by a malevolent ear, since even the unskilled can carp and detract; but it belongs to the learned, and to those who know the sweat of the laboring, either to lend a hand to the weary, or to show the way to those who err. Our Lord and Saviour did not labor in Israel in the same way as he labored among the people of the Gentiles.

Accordingly Israel speaks confidently: Behold, so many years do I serve thee, and I have never transgressed thy commandment, and thou hast never given me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but after this thy son, who hath devoured his substance with harlots, is come, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf: yet he is not rebuked by the father, but is told gently: Son, thou art always with me, and all that is mine is thine: it was fitting to make merry and rejoice, because this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; was lost, and is found. For the people of the Gentiles the fatted calf was sacrificed, and the precious blood was poured out, concerning which Paul discourses most fully in his letter to the Hebrews. And David in the psalm says: A brother does not redeem; a man will redeem. Christ determined that the one should increase: the other died, that the former might live: this one descended to hell, that the other might ascend into heaven.

But in Israel there was no such great labor. Hence too he envies his younger brother, because after his substance had been squandered with harlots and panders, he receives the ring and the robe, and is restored to his former dignity. Now when it says, which came up in one night, it signifies the time before the coming of Christ, who was the light of the world, of whom it is said: The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. And it perished in one night, when the sun of righteousness set upon them, and they lost the word of God. But the city of Nineveh, great and most beautiful, prefigures the Church, in which the number is greater than that of the ten (or twelve) tribes of Israel: which also the twelve baskets of fragments in the wilderness signify.

Now they know not how to distinguish between the right hand and the left, either because of innocence and simplicity, so as to indicate the age of infancy, and leave to the understanding how great is the number of the other age, when the number of little ones is itself so great. Or else (since it was a great city, and in a great house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth), there was in it a very great multitude, which, before repentance had been performed, did not know what was between good and evil, between the right hand and the left. But also many cattle: for great is the number in Nineveh both of beasts of burden and of unreasoning men, who are compared to senseless cattle, and made like unto them.