Quod mari similis sit haec vita

6. Of the same author, that this life is likened to the sea, and on the passage, "When Jesus went with his disciples into the boat and fell asleep." Mariners on the open sea, when they are blown by a fair wind and accomplish their voyage, become cheerful in countenance and shape their appearance as a reflection of the calm. But when the fair weather of the calm continues and relaxes the sailors, so that some fall asleep and others entrust the rudders of the ship even to children, and while the helmsman is carefree and the sailors have dissolved the labor of their skill in the fair weather, then suddenly a very harsh squall dashes down, the winds run out unexpectedly upon the sea, and the sea begins to roar in fury, and the multitude of waves hinders the ship, and the tensions of the intricate ropes hung about the mast, lashed by the violent onset of the winds, whistle. Then, beloved, a clamor full of envy and lamentation arises from the passengers, who expect a death in the deep beyond the natural one.

It is possible to see the sailors storm-tossed by the external turmoil that surrounds them, but even more enervated by the inward clamor of those lamenting, so that the helmsman, having become trembling from cowardice, can no longer use his helmsman's hand for the straight sailing of the ship, and all together await the life among men with a cry. Something of this sort happened to the disciples of the Lord. Transfer my discourse to the Gospel. Jesus went up with the disciples into the boat and was crossing the sea easily. And as long as the Master Christ was awake, every contrary wind was silenced, and the sea was spread out for them like dry land, no wave rose up against the Christ-bearing ship. But when, in accordance with the economy, Jesus slept in the boat according to the nature of the body, and not according to the dignity of the divinity (for the eye of the divinity is sleepless), then the winds, seeing their own chastiser and commander sleeping, like horses when the charioteer sleeps, growing careless, with a violent blast whistling a wild storm, bore down upon the apostolic ship. When a storm arose breathing an incomparable death, and the sea seethed with a roaring boil, and the rage of the waves bristled against the sand that marks the boundary, the disciples, seeing the much-vaunted storm, called upon the much-hymned champion Christ, saying: "Master, save us, we are perishing." The Lord slept in the boat according to the economy, not ignorant of what was to happen, not powerless to grant calm.

Knowing that the sea was about to be stirred up, he slept for two reasons: both to expose the weakness of the disciples’ faint-heartedness in the storm, and to demonstrate to them the power of his divinity. So it was possible to see, beloved, when the Master had woken bodily, everything becoming swifter than itself, the wind fleeing to its own cave, and the sea no longer threatening the apostolic ship, but the waves turning to adoration. Such also is the course of life, that things never remain in the same state, but sometimes it is calm with peace and an abundance of food without need, sometimes it is disturbed like the sea, on the one hand by barbarian invasions, on the other by the plots of tyrants and the entanglements of affairs, and by many other tumults and disorders. For the aforementioned story about the apostolic ship has this meaning: nothing done by the Lord was without mystery. This life has been likened to a sea, the human hypostasis to a ship, carrying as passengers and helmsman the reasonings and the mind. If, then, this ship, that is, the human hypostasis, in this life is storm-tossed by the malice of the devil and by the hostile demons who stir up the waves of desires and cast the salty foam of pleasures against the inner mind, and shake the helmsman mind with desires and sink it into sin—that each human being, shaken by the fiery pleasures, was sunk into sin, David the prophet bears witness to my word.

For when he was shipwrecked with respect to chastity, he cried out, saying: "I came into the depths of the sea, and a storm-wind overwhelmed me." For we do not find this written somewhere in David as history; for where did David sail? Or into what sea did he go and sink? But not at all. What then is it that he says, if not that, being in this life as in a sea, and shaken by pleasures as by waves, and having the joints of his reasonings loosened, having received the violent wave of desire within, having been unstrung with respect to the wife of Uriah, he suffered a shipwreck of chastity. Therefore he said: "I came into the depths of the sea, and a storm-wind overwhelmed me." Then again, having repented and, as it were, having come to his senses from the depth of sin, again grasping the helm of chastity and regulating his own life in chastity, he prayed to God, saying: "Let not a storm-wind of water overwhelm me again, nor let the deep swallow me." Something like this also the Apostle, mystically hinting, says concerning humanity: "I have been shipwrecked three times." For what does he say? "I have been shipwrecked three times; I have spent a night and a day in the deep." For humanity was shipwrecked three times: once in paradise through the transgression, a second time again in the flood of Noah, a third time after receiving the law the people fell into idolatry, until Christ, the helmsman of our souls, came, and having set up the sail of the cross in the middle of the earth, he arranged for us a storm-free voyage to the heavenly city. "I have spent a night and a day in the deep." He calls "night" the time spent in dark error before the coming of the Savior.

He calls "day" the sojourn with Christ in the luminous baptism. Therefore, seeing that all humanity, as we said, is storm-tossed by the malice of the devil, the Word of God, having come into this life, enters the hold of the ship of the Virgin Mary; whose image we find prefigured in the prophet Jonah. For Jonah is sent to Nineveh, Christ comes into this life; Jonah goes into the ship and sleeps in the hold of the ship, and the Word of God for nine months in the womb of the Virgin Mary almost slept, silent to men. Then the diabolical storm of malice was more roused, as in the case of Jonah; but when Jonah was cast into the deep, that is, when Jesus came forth from the womb of the Virgin into this life, every adverse wind was silenced, and until the whale reaches Hades, he performed many signs and wonders while swimming through this life. Jonah came to the whale, and he came to Hades; he spent three days and three nights, the same as Jonah, in Hades.

Jonas is cast out from the whale into Nineveh, and Christ rises from the dead and comes into this world to preach repentance. The Ninevites repent, and so do the citizens of this world. They fast for three days, and the countless multitudes are saved, just as in Nineveh one hundred and twenty thousand people and many cattle were saved. For when the Lord preaches repentance and faith to this world, the twelve tribes of Israel are saved. For when the fullness of the nations enters, then all Israel will be saved. That Jonas was an image of Christ the Lord Himself says in the Gospel: In the same way that Jonas spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so also will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. To Him be the glory and the power unto the ages of ages. Amen.