Commentariorum In Jonam Prophetam Liber Unus

The Commentaries of Saint Eusebius Hieronymus, Presbyter of Stridon, in One Book on the Prophet Jonah.

PROLOGUE.

About three years have passed since I interpreted the five prophets—Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai—and, detained by other work, I could not complete what I had begun: for I wrote the book On Illustrious Men, and two volumes Against Jovinian; also an Apologetic, and On the Best Method of Translating, to Pammachius; and two books to Nepotian, or concerning Nepotian, and other works which it would be long to enumerate. Therefore, after so long a time, taking up the interpretation of Jonah as if by a kind of restoration, I beseech him who is a type of the Savior, and who, having remained three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, prefigured the Lord's resurrection, to grant us also our former fervor, that we may deserve the coming of the Holy Spirit upon us. For if Jonah is interpreted as "dove," and the dove is referred to the Holy Spirit, then let us too, from the coming of the dove to us, be interpreted as a dove. I know that the ancient ecclesiastical writers, both Greek and Latin, have said many things about this book, and by such great questions they have not so much revealed its meanings as obscured them, so that their very interpretation needs interpretation, and the reader departs far more uncertain than he was before he read.

Nor do I say this in order to disparage great talents and besmirch others with my own praise, but because it is the commentator's duty to elucidate briefly and clearly what is obscure, and not so much to display his own eloquence as to set forth the meaning of the one he expounds. We ask, then, whether the prophet Jonah, apart from his own volume and the Gospels—that is, the Lord's testimony concerning him—is read anywhere else in the Holy Scriptures. And, unless I am mistaken, it is written of him thus in the volume of Kings: In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash, king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Joash, king of Israel, reigned in Samaria forty-one years. And he did evil before the Lord, and did not depart from all the sins of Jeroboam son of Nabath, who made Israel to sin. He himself restored the borders of Israel in Samaria from the entrance of Hamath as far as the sea of the wilderness, according to the word of the Lord God of Israel, which he spoke by the hand of his servant Jonah, son of Amittai the prophet, who was from Gath, which is in Opher. The Hebrews, moreover, hand down that this was the son of the widow of Zarephath, whom the prophet Elijah raised from the dead, his mother afterward saying to him: Now I know that you are a man of God, and the word of God in your mouth is truth; and for this reason the boy himself was also so named. For Amittai in our language sounds as truth; and because Elijah spoke the truth, he who was raised is said to be the son of truth.

Moreover, Geth is at the second milestone from Saphorim, which today is called Diocoesarea, on the road to Tiberias, a rather small village, where his tomb is also shown. Although others would have it that he was both born and buried near Diospolis, that is, Lydda, not understanding that what is added, Opher, belongs to the distinction of other cities of Geth, which are shown even today near Eleutheropolis, or Diospolis. The book of Tobit also, although it is not held in the Canon, nevertheless, because it is used by ecclesiastical men, records something of this sort, when Tobit says to his son: "Son, behold, I have grown old, and I am at the point of departing from my life: take your sons, and go into Media, my son: for I know what the prophet Jonah spoke concerning Nineveh, that it shall be overthrown" (Tobit 14:5-6). And indeed, as far as pertains to histories both Hebrew and Greek, and especially Herodotus, we read that Nineveh was overthrown when Josiah was reigning among the Hebrews and Astyages was king of the Medes. From this we understand that at the first time, at Jonah's preaching, the Ninevites, having done penance, obtained pardon; but afterward, persevering in their former vices, they provoked against themselves the sentence of God. And the Hebrews report that Hosea, and Amos, and Isaiah and Jonah prophesied in the same times. This much pertains to the foundations of history.

Furthermore, we are not unaware, venerable father Chromatius, that it requires the greatest effort to refer the whole prophet to the understanding of the Savior: namely, that he fled, that he slept, that he was hurled into the sea, that he was received by the sea monster, that he was cast out onto the shore, that he preached repentance, that he was grieved over the salvation of the countless city, that he took delight in the shade of the gourd, that he was reproached by God for having had greater care for a green plant, and immediately for a withered one, than for so great a multitude of people, and the other things that we shall strive to explain in that same volume. And yet, to comprehend the whole meaning of the prophet in a brief preface, no one will be a better interpreter of his own type than he who inspired the prophets and beforehand marked out in his servants the lines of the truth to come. He speaks, therefore, to the Jews who disbelieve his word and do not know Christ the Son of God: The men of Nineveh will rise up in judgment with this generation and will condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. The generation of the Jews is condemned, while the world believes; and while Nineveh repents, unbelieving Israel perishes. They have the books, we have the Lord of the books; they hold the prophets, we the understanding of the prophets; the letter kills them, the spirit gives us life; among them Barabbas the robber is released, for us Christ the Son of God is set free.

THE BOOK BEGINS.

(Chapter 1, Verse 1.) "And the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amathi, saying: Arise, and go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it: for its wickedness has risen up before me." The Seventy, except that they said, "the cry of its wickedness has risen up to me," translated the rest similarly. For the condemnation of Israel, Jonah is sent to the nations, because while Nineveh performs repentance, they persist in wickedness. Moreover, what he says, "its wickedness has risen up before me," or, "the cry of its wickedness has come to me," is the very thing that is said in Genesis: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied" (Gen. 18:20). And to Cain: "The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the earth" (Gen. 4:10). But according to tropology, our Lord is Jonah, that is, a dove—or grieving (for both are interpreted, either because the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and remained in him (Luke 3), or because he himself grieved over our wounds, and wept over Jerusalem, and by his bruise we are healed (Isa. 53)—truly a son of truth; for God is truth (John 14), he is sent to Nineveh the beautiful, that is, to the world, than which we see nothing more beautiful with the eyes of the flesh. Whence also among the Greeks it received its name from adornment; and when each work was completed, it is said of it: "God saw that it was good." To Nineveh, I say, the great city, so that because Israel has despised to hear, the whole world of the nations may hear.

And this for the reason that its wickedness had risen up before God. For when God had built, as it were, a most beautiful house for man to serve Him, man was corrupted by his own will, and from childhood his heart was diligently set upon evil (Gen. 8); and he set his mouth against heaven, and by building the tower of pride (Gen. 11), he deserved that the Son of God should descend to him, so that through the ruin of repentance he might ascend to heaven, who could not by the swelling of pride.

"And Jonah arose to flee to Tharsis from the face of the Lord." The Septuagint reads likewise. The prophet knows, with the Holy Spirit suggesting it to him, that the repentance of the nations is 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, pleading, had said on his behalf: If you forgive them their sin, forgive it; but if you do not forgive it, blot me out of your book which you have written (Exod. 32:31-32), and that Israel was preserved at his prayers, and that Moses was not blotted out of the book, but rather that the Lord had taken occasion through His servant to spare his fellow servants. For in saying, Let me alone, he shows that he could be held back. The Apostle says something similar: I was wishing to be anathema for my brethren, who are Israelites according to the flesh (Rom. 9:3). Not that he himself desires to perish, for whom to live is Christ and to die is gain (Phil. 1); but rather he earns life, in that he wishes to save the others.

Moreover, Jonah, seeing that his fellow prophets were sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel to stir the people to repentance, and that Balaam also had prophesied divinely concerning the salvation of the Israelite people (Num. 23), grieved that he alone was chosen to be sent to the Assyrians, the enemies of Israel, and to the greatest city of his foes, where there was idolatry, where there was ignorance of God; and—what is greater than these—he feared that, through the occasion of his own preaching, once those people had been converted to repentance, Israel would be utterly forsaken. For he knew by the same Spirit by which the proclamation to the Gentiles was believed to be given, that when the nations had believed, then the house of Israel would perish; and he feared that what was one day to come to pass might happen in his own time. Hence Jonah, imitating Cain (Gen. 4) and withdrawing from the face of the Lord, wished to flee to Tharsis, which Josephus interprets as Tharsus, a city of Cilicia, with the first letter changed; yet, so far as can be understood from the books of Paralipomenon, a certain place in India is so called. Furthermore, the Hebrews assert that THARSIS means the sea in general, according to that passage: With a vehement spirit you shall break the ships of Tharsis (Ps. 47:8), that is, of the sea. And in Isaiah: Howl, you ships of Tharsis (Isa. 23:14).

Concerning this, I remember that many years ago I said in a certain letter to Marcella: The prophet, then, was not desiring to flee to a fixed place; but entering the sea, he was hurrying to go wherever he could; and this suits a fugitive and a timid man more—not to choose a place of idle flight, but to seize the first opportunity of sailing. We can also say this: he who thought that God was known only in Judaea, and that his great name was in Israel, after he perceived 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 that you can escape the creator of the sea in the sea? At the same time he is instructed through the salvation and conversion of the sailors, that even so great a multitude as that of Nineveh could be saved by a similar confession. But concerning the Lord and our Savior we can say that he left his home and his fatherland, and, having taken up flesh, in a certain manner fled from heavenly things and came to Tarshish, that is, into the sea of this world, according to what is said elsewhere: This sea is great and spacious, there are reptiles, of which there is no number. Small animals with great ones, there ships will pass through. That dragon which you formed to mock him. For this reason also in his passion he was saying: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: lest the people cry out: Crucify, crucify such a one.

...and "We have no king but Caesar" (ibid., 15), the fullness of the Gentiles might enter in, and the branches of the olive tree be broken off, in place of which the shoots of the wild olive might grow up (Rom. 11). And so great was his piety and love toward the people, for the sake of the election of the fathers and the promise made to Abraham, that even placed on the cross he said: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). Or certainly, since Tharsis is interpreted as "contemplation of joy," the prophet, coming to Joppa—which itself also means "beautiful"—hastens to go to joy, and to give himself wholly over to contemplation in the blessedness of rest, judging it better to enjoy the beauty and variety of knowledge than, on the occasion of the salvation of the other nations, to perish along with the people from 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 its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord." The Septuagint: "And he went up to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tharsis: and he gave his fare, and went up into it, to sail with them to Tharsis from the face of the Lord." That Joppa is a port of Judea, we read both in the books of Kings and of Chronicles (1 Kings 5; 2 Chronicles 2), to which Hiram, king of Tyre, also transported wood from Lebanon on rafts, to be carried to Jerusalem by land.

This is the place where even to this day rocks are pointed out on the shore, on which Andromeda was once bound and freed by the protection of Perseus. The learned reader knows the story; but also in accordance with the nature of the region, the prophet, coming from the mountains and steep places to Joppa and the plains, is rightly said to have gone down and found a ship loosening its rope from the shore and entering the sea, and he gave its fare, or the hire of the ship, that is, of his passage, according to the Hebrew, or a fare for himself, as the Seventy translated. And he went down into it, as is contained more precisely in the Hebrew: for IERED means "he went down," so that, as a fugitive, he might anxiously seek hiding places. Or "he went up," as is written in the Vulgate edition: so that wherever the ship was heading, he might arrive there, thinking he had escaped if he left Judea. But also our Lord, on the farthest shore of Judea (which, because it was in Judea, was called the most beautiful), does not wish to take the bread of the children and give it to the dogs (Matt. 15); but because he had come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, he gives the price to the sailors, so that he who first wishes to heal his own people may save the dwellers by the sea, and amid the whirlwinds and storms, that is, his passion and the reproaches of the cross, having been submerged in hell, he may save those whom, as if sleeping in the ship, he was neglecting (Matt. 8). The prudent reader must be asked not to seek the same order of tropology that he seeks of history.

For the Apostle also refers Hagar and Sarah to the two Testaments; and yet we cannot interpret everything that is narrated in that history tropologically. And writing to the Ephesians about Adam and Eve, he says: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh: this is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church (Eph. 5:31-32). Can we refer the whole beginning of Genesis, and the fashioning of the world, and the creation of mankind to Christ and the Church, because the Apostle has thus made use of this testimony? For suppose we refer what is written, Therefore shall a man leave his father, to Christ, so as to say that he left God the Father in heaven so that the people of the Gentiles 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 the rest, much harder than these? That also which is written by the same Apostle: But they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4), by no means compels 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 (Num. 20), that waters flowed and torrents were filled. Shall we, on this occasion, force the entire history of this passage under the law of allegory?

And should not each passage rather receive a different spiritual understanding according to the diversity of its history? Therefore, just as these testimonies have their own interpretations, and neither the preceding nor the following passages require the same allegory, so also the prophet Jonah cannot, without danger to the interpreter, be referred entirely to the Lord. Nor is this because of what is said in the Gospel: An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights (Matt. 12:39).

(Verse 4.) "But the Lord sent a great wind into the sea, and a great tempest arose in the sea, and the ship was in danger of being broken apart." The Septuagint: "And the Lord stirred up a great spirit in the sea, and a great tempest arose in the sea, and the ship was in danger of being broken apart." The prophet's flight can also be referred to the common person of man, who, despising God's commandments, withdrew from his face and handed himself over to the world, where afterward, by the tempest of evils and the shipwreck of the whole world raging against him, he was compelled to perceive God and to return to him whom he had fled. From this we understand that even those things which men consider beneficial for themselves, when God is unwilling, are turned to their destruction, and that help not only does not benefit those to whom it is given, but even those who give it are likewise broken apart.

Just as we read that Egypt was struck by the Assyrians, because it aided Israel against the Lord's will. The ship that had taken aboard the endangered man is itself endangered: the seas are stirred by the wind, a storm arises out of calm, and nothing is safe when God opposes it.

(Verse 5.) "And the sailors were afraid, and the men cried out to their own god, and they threw the vessels that were in the ship into the sea, so that it might be lightened of them." The Septuagint: "And those who were sailing were afraid, and each one cried out to his own god, and they made a casting of the ship's vessels into the sea, so that the ship might be lightened." They think the ship is weighed down by its usual cargo, and they do not understand that the whole weight is the fugitive prophet. The sailors are afraid, each one cries out to his own god; not knowing the truth, they are not ignorant of providence, and under the error of religion they know that something is to be venerated: they throw the cargo into the sea, so that the ship, made lighter, might pass over the greatness of the waves. But Israel, on the contrary, understands God neither in good things nor in bad; while Christ laments over the people, it has dry eyes.

And Jonah went down into the inner parts of the ship, and was sleeping a deep sleep. The Septuagint says: But Jonah went down into the belly of the ship, and was sleeping, and snoring. As far as the historical account is concerned, the prophet's mind is described as free from care: he is not disturbed by the storm, not by dangers, bearing the same spirit both in calm and when shipwreck is imminent. Finally, others cry out to their gods, they throw the cargo overboard, each one strains at what he can. This man is so quiet and secure, and of such a tranquil mind, that going down into the inner parts of the ship, he enjoys placid 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 commands; and he saw, while the others did not know it, that the storm was raging against himself; therefore he went down into the inner parts of the ship, and hides himself in sadness, lest he see the waves, as if the avengers of God, swelling against him. But that he sleeps is not a matter of security, but of grief. For we read that even the apostles, during the Lord's passion, were weighed down by sleep because of the greatness of their sorrow (Matthew 26). But if we interpret this in a typological sense, the prophet's sleep and his most heavy slumber signify a man grown numb in the sleep of error, for whom it had not been enough to flee from the face of God, unless his mind, overwhelmed by a certain madness, also ignored the wrath of God, and as if secure, slept and resounded with a deep sleep through his snoring nose.

(Ver. 6.) "And the shipmaster came to him, and said to him: Why art thou oppressed with sleep? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be God may think upon us, and we perish not." The Septuagint: "And the pilot came to him, and said to him: Why art thou snoring? Arise, call upon thy God, if in some way God may save us, and we perish not." It is natural for each person, in his own danger, to hope for more from another; hence the shipmaster, or pilot, who ought to have consoled the timid passengers, seeing the magnitude of the danger, wakes the sleeper and reproaches him for his improvident security, and urges that he too, according to his own share, should entreat his God, so that the prayer might be common to those whose danger was common. Further, according to the tropological sense, there are many who, sailing with Jonah and having their own gods, hasten to go to the contemplation of joy. But after Jonah has been detected by lot, and the storm of this world has been calmed by his death, and tranquility has been restored to the sea, then one God will be adored, and spiritual victims will be sacrificed, which, according to the letter, they certainly did not have in the midst of the waves.

(Ver. 7.) "And the 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 Jonah." The Septuagint: "And each one said to his neighbor: Come, let us cast lots, and let us learn 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 having sailed for so long a time they understood the ways of storms and winds; and certainly, if they had seen waves rising that were customary and such as they had once experienced, they would never perhaps have sought out the author of the shipwreck, and through an uncertain matter they would desire to avoid a certain danger. Nor should we immediately, on the basis of this example, trust in lots, or join to this testimony that passage from the Acts of the Apostles where Matthias is chosen by lot into the apostleship (Acts 1), since the privileges of individuals cannot make a common law. For just as in the condemnation of Balaam the ass speaks (Num. 22), and Pharaoh (Gen. 41) and Nebuchadnezzar learn future things through dreams to their own judgment (Dan. 2, 4), and yet do not understand God who reveals them; and Caiaphas also prophesies without knowing it, that it was expedient for one man to perish for all (John 11 and 18): so here too the fugitive is detected by lot, not by the power of the lots, and especially the lots of the Gentiles, but by the will of him who was governing the uncertain lots.

But what is said, "And let us know for whose sake this evil is upon us," here we must understand "evil" as affliction and calamity, according to that saying: "Sufficient for the day is its own evil" (Matt. 6:34). And in the prophet Amos: "If there is evil in a city which the Lord has not done" (Amos 3:6). And in Isaiah: "I am the Lord who make peace, and create evils" (Isa. 45:7). In another place, however, evil is understood as contrary to virtue, according to what we read above in this same prophet: "Has the cry of his evil ascended to me?"

(Ver. 8.) "And they said to him: Tell us, for whose cause is this evil upon us, what is your work, what is your land, and where are you going, or from what people are you?" The Septuagint: "And they said to him: Declare to us for whose sake this evil is upon us, what is your work, and where do you come from, and where are you going, and from what region are you, and from what people are you?" They compel the man whom the lot had pointed out to confess with his own voice why there is such a great storm, or why the wrath of God rages so fiercely 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, where you hasten to go. And one must note the brevity which we used to admire in Virgil: the person is questioned, the region, the journey, the city, so that from these the cause of the danger may also be known.

Young men, what cause has compelled you to traverse unknown ways? Whither are you bound?” he says. “What is your lineage, from what home do you come? Do you bring peace hither, or arms?” (Aeneid, Book V.)

(Ver. 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.” The Septuagint has: “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,” which name the split of the ten tribes from the two peoples imposed upon the people; but, “I am a Hebrew,” that is, a passer-over, just as also Abraham, who could say: “I am a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were” (Ps. 38:13); of whom it is written in another psalm: “They passed from nation to nation, and from one kingdom to another people” (Ps. 104:13). Moses says, “I will pass over and see this great vision” (Exod. 3:3). 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, into which I flee; the dry land, from which I flee. And elegantly, to distinguish it from the sea, it is called not “earth” but “dry land.” And in brief the Maker of the universe is shown to be both Lord of heaven and of earth and of the sea. But it is asked how he is proved to say truly, “I fear the Lord God of heaven,” when he does not keep His commandments.

Unless perhaps we should answer that even sinners fear God, and that it belongs to servants not to love but to fear; although in this passage "fear" can be understood as worship, according to the understanding of those who were listening and still did not know God.

(Ver. 10.) "And the men feared with great fear, and said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the face of the Lord, because he had told them." The Septuagint: "And the men feared with great fear, and said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the face of the Lord, because he had told them." The order of the narrative is reversed: for since it could be said that there was no cause for fear, from the fact that he 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 added that they feared for this reason, because he had told them that he was fleeing from the Lord's sight, and had not done his commandments. Finally they complain and say: What is this that you have done? that is, if you fear God, why do you flee? If you preach one of such great power whom you worship, how do you think you can escape him? But they fear with great fear, because they understand that he is a holy man, and of a holy nation (for, loosening the rope from Joppa, they knew the privilege of the Hebrew nation), and yet they cannot conceal a fugitive. Great is the one who flees, but greater is he who seeks: they do not dare to hand him over, they cannot conceal him. They reproach the fault, they confess their fear: they ask that he himself be the remedy, who had been the author of the sin.

Or at least, as they say, "What have you done?"—they do not rebuke but question, wishing to know the cause of his flight: servants questioning their lord, sons their father, a man his God. "What is this," they say, "so great a mystery, that the land is abandoned, the seas sought out, his homeland left behind, and foreign places desired?"

(Verse 11.) "And they said to him: What shall we do to you, that the sea may cease from us? For the sea was going and swelling." The Septuagint: "And they said to him: What shall we do to you, that the sea may be quiet from us? For the sea was going and stirring up the waves more." Is it because of you, do you say, that the winds, the waves, the sea, the surging deeps are stirred up? You have set forth the cause of the disease; point out the remedy for health. From the very fact that the sea rises against us, we understand that it is the wrath provoked by your being taken aboard. If it is a fault that we have received you, what can we do so that the Lord may not be angry? What shall we do to you? That is, shall we kill you? But you are a worshiper of the Lord. Shall we preserve you? But you are fleeing from God. It is ours to offer our hands; it is yours to command what should be done, so that by that act the sea may be quiet, which now by its swelling bears witness to the anger of its Creator. And immediately the historian joins the cause of this kind of question, saying, "the sea was going and swelling." It was going, as it had been commanded; it was going in vengeance for its Lord; it was going, pursuing the fugitive prophet. But it was swelling at every single moment of time, and, as it were, while the sailors delayed, it was being stirred up into greater waves, to show that it could not defer the vengeance of its Creator.

(Ver. 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 this great tempest is upon you because of me." The Septuagint: "And Jonah said to them, Take me up, and cast me into the sea, and the sea shall be calm for you; for I know that these great waves are against you because of me." 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 this great tempest is because of me. I am not ignorant that the elements are stirred up for my punishment, that it is the world's confusion, that it rages against me, that it vents its fury on you as shipwreck: the very waves command you to cast me into the sea. If I feel the tempest, you will recover calm. And here too we must note the great-heartedness of our fugitive: he does not shuffle, does not conceal, does not deny; but he who had confessed his flight willingly takes on the punishment, desiring to perish himself lest others perish because of him, and lest to the sin of flight be added the guilt of another's death as well. So much for the historical sense; otherwise we are not unaware that the blowing winds, which in the Gospel the Lord commanded to be still (Matt.

(VIII), and the endangered little boat in which Jonah was sleeping, and the swelling sea that is rebuked: "Be silent and be still," are to be referred to the Lord Savior, and to the endangered Church, or to his rousing the apostles, who, abandoning him in his passion, in a sense cast him headlong into the waves. This Jonah says: "I know that this great tempest is upon you because of me," because the winds see me going with you to Tarshish, that is, to sail toward the contemplation of joy, so that I may lead you with me to gladness: that where I am, and the Father, there you also may be (John 14:3). For this reason they rage, for this reason the world, which is set in wickedness, roars (1 John 5:19); for this reason the elements are thrown into confusion: death desires to devour me, so as to kill you as well; and it does not understand that, as if taking bait on a hook, it is to die by my death. "Take me up, and cast me into the sea." For it is not ours to seize death, but willingly to accept it when brought by others. Whence also in persecutions it is not permitted to perish by one's own hand, except where chastity is in danger, but to submit the neck to the striker. Thus, he says, calm the winds, thus pour libations into the seas: the tempest that rages against you because of me will be stilled when I die.

(Verse 13.) "And the men rowed hard to return to dry land, and they could not, because the sea was going and swelling over them." The Septuagint: "And the men tried to return to the land, and they could not, because the sea was going and rising up against them." The prophet had brought forth a sentence against himself; but they, hearing a worshiper of God, did not dare to lay hands on him, and therefore they strove to return to dry land and escape the danger, lest they shed blood, preferring rather to perish than to destroy. O what a great change of things! The people who had served God says: Crucify, crucify such a man (John 19:6). To these it is commanded that they kill, the sea rages, the storm orders it, and neglecting their own danger, they are anxious about another's salvation. Wherefore the Septuagint also says, that is, they desired to do violence and to overcome the nature of things, lest they violate a prophet of God. But in that the men rowed to return to dry land, they thought that without the mystery of him who was to suffer, the ship could be freed from danger: whereas the overturning of the ship was Jonah's relief.

(Verse 14.) "And they cried out to the Lord, and said: We beseech you, Lord, let us not perish for the soul of this man, and do not lay innocent blood upon us, for you, Lord, have done as you willed." The Septuagint: "And they cried out to the Lord, and said: By no means, Lord, let us not perish on account of the soul of this man, and do not lay just blood upon us; for you, Lord, have done as you willed." Great is the faith of the sailors: they are themselves in danger, and they plead for the soul of another. For they know that the death of sin is worse than the death of life. And "do not lay," they say, "upon us innocent blood." They call the Lord to witness that whatever they are about to do should not be reckoned to them, and in a manner they say: We do not wish to kill your prophet, but he himself has confessed your anger, and the storm speaks it, that you, Lord, have done as you willed; your will is being 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 clean from the blood of this man" (Matthew 27:24)? The nations do not wish Christ to perish; they protest the innocent blood. And the Jews say: "His blood be upon us, and upon our children" (ibid. 25).

And therefore, if they lift up their hands, they will not be heard, because they are full of blood: "For you, Lord, have done as you willed"—what we have taken up, what storm arises, what winds rage, what sea is stirred into waves, what the betrayer flees as a fugitive by lot, what he declares ought to be done—this is of your will, Lord; for you have done as you willed. Whence also the Savior says in the psalm: "Lord, I have willed to do your will" (Ps. 39:9).

(Verse 15.) "And they took Jonah, and cast him into the sea, and the sea stood still from its raging." The Septuagint: "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 did not say "they laid violent hands on," but "they took"—as if carrying him with compliance and honor, they cast him into the sea, not resisting, but offering his hands to their will. And the sea stood still, because it had found what it was seeking. As if someone pursues a fugitive and proceeds at a swift pace, once he has caught up, he stops running and stands and holds whom he has apprehended. So too the sea, which in Jonah's absence was enraged, now holding the one it desired in its inmost depths, rejoices and cherishes him, and from joy calm returns.

If we consider, before the passion of Christ, the errors of the world and the contrary blasts of diverse doctrines, and the little boat 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 all things secure and the conversion to God, we shall see how the sea stood still from its boiling at the casting down of Jonah.

(Verse 16.) "And the men feared the Lord with a great fear, and offered sacrifices to the Lord, and vowed vows." The Septuagint reads similarly. Before the Lord's passion, those who feared cried out to their gods; after his passion they fear the Lord—that is, they reverence and worship him—and they do not fear simply, as we read at the beginning, but with a great fear, according to that which is said: "With your whole soul, and with your whole heart, and with your whole mind" (Matthew 22:37). And they offered sacrifices, 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 (Psalm 50). And in another place it is said: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Most High" (Psalm 49:14). And again: "We will render to you the calves of our lips." Therefore they offer sacrifices in the sea, and they promise other vows of their own accord, making vows 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 storm they were perceiving the true words of the prophet.

Jonah, a fugitive in the sea, shipwrecked, dead, saves the tossing little boat; he saves the Gentiles, previously tossed about by the world's error into diverse opinions. And Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, and Joel, who were prophesying at the same time, cannot correct the people in Judea. From this it is shown that the shipwreck cannot be calmed except by the death of the fugitive.

(Chapter II, Verse 1.) "And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah." The Septuagint: "And the Lord commanded a great sea-monster, and it devoured Jonah." The Lord commanded death and hell to receive the prophet. Thinking the prey was in its greedy jaws, it rejoiced as much in devouring as it grieved in vomiting him up. And then was fulfilled what is read in Hosea: I will be your death, O death; I will be your sting, O hell (Hosea XIII, 14). In the Hebrew, however, we read "a great fish," for which the Septuagint translators, and the Lord in the Gospel, call it a sea-monster, explaining the matter itself more briefly. For in the Hebrew it is said DAG GADOL, which is interpreted as "a great fish"—undoubtedly meaning a sea-monster. And it must be noted that where destruction was thought to be, there is custody. Furthermore, what he says, "he prepared"—either from the beginning when he created it, of which it is also written in the psalm: This dragon whom you formed to mock him (Psalm CIII, 26)—or certainly he made it come near the ship, so that it might receive the headlong Jonah into its own bosom, and offer a dwelling-place instead of death: so that he who had felt God angry on the ship might feel him propitious in death.

(Verse 2.) "And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." The Septuagint: "And Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights." The Lord explains the mystery of this passage in the Gospel (Matthew 12), and it is superfluous to say either the same thing or anything other than what he himself who suffered explained. We ask only this: how he was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Some, since when the sun fled from the sixth hour to the ninth hour night succeeded to day, divide it into two days and nights, and adding the Sabbath, reckon three days and three nights to be counted. But let us understand the whole from the part: so that from the fact that he died, we count one day and night, and the second of the Sabbath; but the third night, which is assigned to the Lord's Day, we refer to the beginning of the other day. For even in Genesis the night is not of the preceding day (Genesis 1), but of the following, that is, the beginning of what is to come, not the end of what has passed. So that this may be understood, I will speak more simply. Suppose someone went out from his dwelling at the ninth hour, and at the third hour of the next day arrived at another dwelling: if I say he made the journey in two days, I will not immediately be reproached for lying, because he who walked did not consume all the hours of both days, but a certain part, on the journey. Certainly this seems to me the interpretation. But if anyone does not accept it, and can expound the sacrament of this passage with a better sense, his opinion is rather to be followed.

And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, and said." The Septuagint reads similarly, only with the order changed. If Jonah refers to the Lord, and by the fact that he was in the belly of the sea monster three days and three nights he signifies the passion of the Savior, then his prayer ought also to be a type of the Lord's prayer. Nor am I unaware that there will be some to whom it seems incredible that a man could be preserved three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, in which shipwrecks were being swallowed up. Such people will certainly be either believers or unbelievers. If believers, they will be compelled to believe much greater things: how the three youths sent into the furnace of the blazing fire were so unharmed that not even the smell of the fire touched their garments (Dan. 3); how the sea receded and stood rigid on either side like walls, to provide a path for the people passing through (Exod. 14); how, by human reckoning, when famine had increased, the rage of the lions looked upon its prey with fear and did not touch it; and many things of this kind. But if they are unbelievers, let them read the fifteen books of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and all Greek and Latin history, and there they will see that Daphne was changed into a laurel, or the sisters of Phaethon into trees and peoples; how their most exalted god Jupiter was changed into a swan, flowed in gold, carried off in the form of a bull, and the rest, in which the very shamefulness 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 them of shameful men and defend all things by God's power, they do not attribute the same power to honorable men. But as for what is written: "And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from 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 turned wholly to supplication. For God, who had said of the righteous man: "I am with him in tribulation" (Ps. 90:15); and: "When he calls upon me, I will say: I am present," was present to him, and he who was heard can say: "In tribulation you enlarged me" (Ps. 4:2).

(Verse 5.) "I cried out from my tribulation to the Lord, and he heard me; from the belly of hell I cried out, and you heard my voice." The Septuagint reads similarly, only with this changed: "from the belly of hell you heard the voice of my cry." He did not say, "I cry out," but "I cried out"; nor does he pray concerning the future, but gives thanks concerning the past, indicating to us that from the time when, cast into the sea, he had seen the whale and such a mass of body and its monstrous gaping jaws swallowing him with open mouth, he remembered the Lord and cried out—whether as the waters gave way and the cry found a place, or with the whole affection of his heart, according to what the Apostle says: "Crying out in your hearts, Abba, Father" (Rom. 8:15). And he cried out to him who alone knows the hearts of men, and who speaks to Moses: "Why do you cry out to me?" (Exod. 14:15).

since Scripture records that Moses had cried out nothing before this utterance. This is that which we read in the first of the gradual psalms: When I was in trouble, I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me (Ps. 119:1). But let us understand the belly of hell as the stomach of the whale, which was of such great size that it served as the equivalent of hell. But it can better be referred to the person of Christ, who sings in the Psalm under the name of David: You will not leave my soul in hell, nor will you give your holy one to see corruption (Ps. 15:10). He was in hell living, free among the dead.

(Verse 4.) "And you cast me into the deep, in the heart of the sea, and the flood surrounded me." The Septuagint: "You cast me into the deep of the heart of the sea, and floods surrounded me." As regards the person of Jonah, the interpretation is not difficult: that, enclosed in the stomach of the whale, he was in the deepest place and in the middle of the sea, and was walled about by floods. As regards the Lord Savior, let us take the example of the sixty-eighth psalm, in which he says: I am sunk in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance: I have come into the depth of the sea, and the storm has drowned me (Ps. 68:3), concerning whom it is also said in another psalm: But you have cast off and despised, you have put off your Christ: you have overthrown the covenant of your servant, you have defiled his sanctuary on the earth, you have destroyed all his walls (Ps. 88:39–41), and the rest.

For in comparison with heavenly blessedness and that place of which it is written, "In peace is his holy place" (Ps. 75:3), the earthly dwelling is full of waves, full of storms. Furthermore, by "the heart of the sea" is signified hell, for which in the Gospel we read, "in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:40). For just as the heart of a living creature is in the middle, so hell is said to be in the middle of the earth. Or certainly, according to "in the heart of the sea," that is, he recalls that he is in the midst of temptations. And yet, when he was among bitter waters and was tempted in all things without sin, he did not feel the bitter waters; but he was surrounded by a river, of which we also read in another place: "The rush of the river gladdens the city of God" (Ps. 45:5); while others drank the salty waves, I in the midst of temptations drank the sweetest streams. Nor let it seem impious to you if now the Lord says, "You have cast me into the deep," he who speaks in the psalm: "For they have persecuted him whom you struck" (Ps. 68:27), according to that which is set down in Zechariah in the person of the Father: "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered" (Zech. 13:7).

All your billows and your waves have passed over me." The Septuagint reads: "All your swellings and waves have passed over me." That the swelling waves of the sea passed over Jonah, and that a fierce tempest thundered down, no one doubts. But we ask how all the swellings, and billows, and waves of God passed over the Savior. The life of man upon earth is a trial (Job 7:1), or, as the Hebrew has it, a warfare, because here we fight as soldiers, so that elsewhere we may be crowned. And there is no man who can endure all trials, except him who was tempted in all things, according to our likeness, yet without sin. Hence it is also said to the Corinthians: "No trial shall seize you except what is human. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able; but with the temptation he will also make a way out, so that you can endure it" (1 Cor. 10:13). And because all persecutions and all things that happen do not come upon us apart from the will of God, for this reason they are called the billows and waves of God, which did not overwhelm Jesus but passed through him, threatening shipwreck only, not inflicting it. Therefore all the persecutions and storms by which the human race was being vexed, and by which all the little boats were being broken, thundered down upon my head. I endured the tempests, and I broke the raging storms, so that the rest might sail more safely.

(Verse 5.) "And I said, I am cast away from the sight of your eyes." The Septuagint: "I said, I am cast away from your eyes." Before I cried out from my tribulation and you heard me, because I had taken the form of a servant, I imitated his weakness also, and said: I am cast away from the sight of your eyes. When I was with you and was enjoying your light, and in you, the light, I myself was light, I did not say, I am cast away. But after I came into the depth of the sea and was surrounded by human flesh, I imitate human affections and say: I am cast away from the sight of your eyes. I spoke this as a man; but as God, and as one who, when I was in your form, did not consider it robbery to be equal with you (Philippians 2), desiring to raise up the human race to you, so that where I am and you are, there all who have believed in me and you may be (John 17:24), I say:

"Nevertheless, I shall again see your holy temple." The Septuagint: "Do you think I shall add that I may see your holy temple?" What is said in Greek, and which the Vulgate edition has, "do you think," can be interpreted as "therefore," so that it is, as it were, the final conclusion of a proposition, assumption, and confirmation, and of a syllogism, not from the uncertainty of one who doubts, but from the confidence of one who proves; in place of which we have translated: "Nevertheless, I shall again see your holy temple," according to what is said in another psalm in his person: Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house, and the place of the tabernacle of your glory (Psalm 25:8).

And the Gospel reading in which it is written: "Father, glorify me with you with that glory which I had before the world was made" (John 17:5). And the Father answered from heaven: "And I have glorified, and I will glorify" (John 12:28). Or certainly, because it is read: "The Father is in me, and I in the Father" (John 14:11), 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 have come" (John 16:28). And: "The Word was with God, and God was the Word" (John 1:1). Or the one and same Savior, as man, asks; as God, promises; and concerning his own possession, which he always had, he is secure. But from the person of Jonah, whether by the affection of one wishing or of one trusting, it can be clearly 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 something else.

(Verse 6.) "The waters surrounded me even to my soul, the abyss enclosed me." The Septuagint: "Water was poured around me even to my soul: the last abyss enclosed me." These waters, which are near to the abysses, which roll upon the earth and flow down, which draw much mud along with them, strive to kill not the body but the soul; for they are friends of bodies, and are warmed by its pleasures. Hence, according to what we said above, the Lord speaks in the psalm: "Save me, O Lord, for the waters have entered even to my soul" (Psalm 68:1).

And in another place: "Our soul has passed through the torrent" (Psalm 123:5). And: "Let not the pit shut its mouth upon me, nor let the underworld enclose me" (Psalm 68:16); let him not deny me an exit, who descended willingly and will ascend willingly, who came as a voluntary captive—I must set the captives free, that there may be fulfilled that which is written: "Ascending on high, he led captivity captive" (Psalm 67:19): for those who had formerly been captives in death, he took captive unto life. But by "abysses" we ought to understand certain pernicious and utterly wicked powers, or powers given over to torments and punishments, which even in the Gospel the demons beg not to be compelled to enter (Luke 8). Whence also "there were darknesses upon the abyss" (Genesis 1). Sometimes "abyss" is also taken for the sacraments and the deepest meanings and judgments of God: "The judgments of the Lord are a great abyss" (Psalm 35:7). And: "Abyss calls unto abyss, at the voice of your cataracts" (Psalm 41:8).

The sea has covered my head, I have descended to the farthest parts of the mountains, the bars of the earth have enclosed me forever," while the Septuagint has: "My head entered into the clefts of the mountains; I descended into the earth, whose bars are everlasting restraints." That the sea covered Jonah's head, and that he descended to the farthest parts of the mountains, and came even to the depths of the earth, which by God's will is supported like a globe by bars, as it were, and columns—no one doubts this, of which it is said elsewhere: "I have strengthened its columns" (Psalm 74:4). But concerning the Lord Savior, according to both editions, it seems to me that it can be understood thus: that his principal part and head—that is, the soul which he deigned to assume together with a body for our salvation—descended into the clefts of the mountains, which were covered by waves, which had withdrawn from the freedom of heaven, which the abyss surrounded, which had torn themselves away from God's majesty, and afterward penetrated even to the underworld; to which places, as if to the utmost mire of sins, souls were being dragged, as the Psalmist says: "They shall enter into the lower parts of the earth, they shall become portions for foxes" (Psalm 63:10-11). These are the bars of the earth, and, as it were, certain bolts of the outermost prison and of punishments, unwilling that captive souls should depart from the underworld. Hence the Septuagint translated it significantly—that is, those whom they had once seized, desiring always to hold. But our Lord, of whom we read in Isaiah under the person of Cyrus: "I will break in pieces the gates of bronze, and I will shatter the bars of iron" (Isaiah

and he descended to the farthest parts of the mountains, and was enclosed by eternal bars so that he might set free all who had been confined.

(Verse 7.) "And you have lifted up my life from corruption, O Lord my God." The Septuagint has: "And let my life ascend from corruption, O Lord my God." He spoke properly when he said, "you will lift up," or "let my life ascend from corruption," because he had descended to corruption and to the underworld. This is what the apostles interpret as prophesied in the fifteenth psalm in the person of the Lord: "For you will not abandon my soul in hell, nor will you give your holy one to see corruption"—namely, that David died and was buried, but the flesh of the Savior did not see corruption. Others, however, interpret it as meaning that in comparison with heavenly blessedness and the Word of God, the human body is corruption, because it is sown in corruption; and in the hundred and second psalm it is signified in the person of the Just One: "Who heals all your infirmities: who redeems your life from destruction." Hence the Apostle also says: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" And the body is called a body of death, or a body of humility. These people twist this to the occasion of their own heresy, so that under the person of Christ they may falsely claim the Antichrist; they hold churches so that they may feed their own fattest belly, and living carnally, they argue against the flesh. But we know that the body assumed from the incorrupt Virgin was not the corruption of Christ, but his temple.

But if we are drawn to the sentence of the Apostle to the Corinthians, in which the body is called spiritual (1 Cor. 15), lest we seem contentious, we shall say that the very same body, and the same flesh, rises again which was buried and laid in the ground, but that it changes its glory, not its nature. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (ibid. 53). When it is said, this, the body is shown as it were grasped by two little fingers: this in which we are born, this in which we die, this which those who are to be punished fear to receive, this which virginity awaits as a reward, and adultery dreads as a punishment. In the case of Jonah, however, it can be understood thus: that he who, according to the nature of bodies, ought to have been corrupted in the belly of the sea monster, and to have been turned into food for the beast, and to have been spread through its veins and limbs, remained safe and whole. Furthermore, what he says, O Lord my God, is the affection of one who is flattering, because he felt that the God common to all was his own and, as it were, his proper God, by the greatness of the benefit.

(Verse 8.) “When my soul was in distress within me, I remembered the Lord.” The Septuagint: “When my soul was failing from 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 saying, “I remembered the Lord, and I was glad” (Ps. 76:4). And in another place: “I remembered the days of old, and I kept the eternal years in my mind” (Ibid. 6). When I despaired of salvation, and the frailty of the flesh in the belly of the whale 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 womb of the whale, and my whole hope was the Lord. From these things we learn, according to the Septuagint, that at the time when our soul fails and is torn away from the framework of the body, we ought not to turn our thought to anything else but to him who is our Lord both in the body and outside the body. But in regard to the person of the Savior the interpretation is not difficult—he who said: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death” (Matt. 26:38). And: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Ibid. 39). And: “Into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46), and other things similar to these.

Let my prayer come to you, to your holy temple." The Septuagint reads similarly. Therefore in my tribulation I remembered the Lord, so that my prayer might ascend to the heavens from the farthest sea and from the clefts of the mountains, and come to your holy temple, in which you enjoy eternal blessedness. And it must be considered that in a new kind of way, prayer is made for prayer, and he prays that his prayer may ascend to the temple of God. But he asks, as it were a high priest, that the people may be delivered in his body.

(Verse 9.) "Those who guard vanities in vain will abandon their mercy." The Septuagint: "Those who guard vain things and lies have abandoned their 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 prepared and offers itself of its own accord. And he did not say, "those who do vanities" (for vanity of vanities, and all is vanity (Eccles. 1:2)), lest he seem to condemn all people and to deny mercy to the whole human race; but "those who guard vanities," or lies, who have passed over into an affection of the heart: who not only do vanities, but guard them as though they loved them, and think they have found a treasure. And at the same time observe the prophet's greatness of soul: in the depth of the sea, in the belly of so great a beast, covered by eternal night, he does not think about his own danger, but philosophizes about the general nature of things with a universal judgment. "They will abandon," he says, "their mercy.

Although mercy may be an offense—if we can understand God himself (for the Lord is merciful and compassionate, patient and of great mercy)—nevertheless he does not abandon or detest those who keep vanities, but waits for them to return; they, however, of their own accord forsake the mercy that stands ready and offers itself freely. This can also be prophesied in the person of the Lord concerning the faithlessness of the Jews, who, while they think they are keeping the precepts of men and the commandments of the Pharisees, which are vanity and falsehood, have abandoned God, who had always shown them mercy.

(Verse 10.) "But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of praise: whatever I have vowed I will repay for salvation to the Lord." The Septuagint: "But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of praise and confession; whatever I have vowed I will repay to you, salvation to the Lord." Those who keep vanities have abandoned their mercy; but I, who for the salvation of many have been devoured, will sacrifice to you with the voice of praise and confession, offering myself: because Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. And as a true high priest and sheep he offered himself for us. And I will confess to you, he says, as I confessed before, saying: I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, and I will repay the vows which I have made for the salvation of all to the Lord, so that everything you have given me may not perish forever.

We see what the Savior promised in his passion for our salvation: let us not make Jesus a liar. Therefore let us be clean, and separated from all the filth of sins, so 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 Jonah onto dry land." The Septuagint: "And he commanded the heaven, and cast Jonah onto dry land." These things which we read above, the Lord prayed under the person of Jonah in the belly of the sea monster, of which Job also speaks mystically: "Let him curse it who cursed the day, he who is about to capture the great sea monster" (Job 3:8). Therefore it is commanded to this great sea monster, and to the abysses and to hell, that they restore the Savior to the lands; and that he who had died, in order to free those who were held by the chains of death, might lead many with him to life. But what is written, "it vomited," we ought to understand as: that from the deepest vital parts of death, life came forth as victor.

(Chapter 3—Verses 1, 2.) "And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying: Arise and go to Nineveh the great city, and preach in it according to the former preaching which I speak to you." The Septuagint: "And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying: Arise and go to Nineveh the great city, and preach in it according to the former preaching which I spoke to you." It is not said to the prophet why he did not do what had been commanded him, but the mere rebuke of shipwreck and of being devoured is sufficient for him, so that he who had not perceived the Lord when commanding might understand him when delivering.

Otherwise it is superfluous to wish to impute to a delinquent servant, after his stripes, what he did, since correction of this kind is not so much amendment as reproach. But our Lord, after the resurrection, is sent a second time to Nineveh, so that he who before had in a manner fled, saying: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me (Matthew 26:39), and had been unwilling to give the bread of the children to the dogs (Matthew 15), now, because they had said, Crucify, crucify such a one; we have no king but Caesar (John 19:6, 15), goes willingly to Nineveh, so that after the resurrection he may preach what he had been commanded to preach even before the passion. But everything that he is commanded, that he obeys, that he does not will, that he is again compelled to will, that he fulfills the Father's will a second time—refer this to the man and to the form of a servant, to which 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 a day's journey." The Septuagint: "And Jonah arose, and went to Nineveh, as the Lord had spoken to him. Now Nineveh was a great city unto God, as it were of a journey of three days' way: and Jonah began to enter the city as it were of a journey of one day's way." At once Jonah accomplished in deed what had been commanded him. But Nineveh, to which the prophet was going, was a great city, and of such extent that it could scarcely be encircled by a journey of three days.

But he, mindful of the command and of his former shipwreck, completed a journey of three days with the haste of a single day, although there are some who understand it so simply, that he preached only in a third part of the city, and the word of preaching reached the rest forthwith. 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, in a journey of three days. And this very mystery of human salvation is accomplished by the way of one day, that is, by the confession of one God, with Jonah preaching not so much to the apostles as in the apostles. For he himself says: Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the age (Matthew 28:20). And no one doubts why Nineveh is a great city of God, since the world and all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing (John 1:3). It must also be noted that he did not say, in three days and nights, or, in one day and night, but absolutely, in days and in a day, to show that in the mystery of the Trinity, and in the confession of one God, nothing is dark.

(Verse 4.) “And he cried out and said: Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” The Septuagint: “And he preached and said: Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” The number three, which is given by the Seventy, does not suit repentance; and I wonder greatly why it was so translated, since in the Hebrew there is no community of letters, or syllables, or accents, or word. For “three” is said SALOS, and “forty” ARBAIM. Otherwise, even from Judea, sent on so great a journey to the Assyrians, the prophet was demanding repentance worthy of his preaching, so that ancient and putrid wounds might be healed by a plaster applied for a long time. Furthermore, the number forty suits sinners, both for fasting and for prayer, and sackcloth, and tears, and perseverance in entreaty; for which reason also Moses fasted forty days on Mount Sinai, and Elijah, fleeing from Jezebel, when famine was proclaimed upon the land of Israel and the wrath of God hung over it, is described as having fasted forty days. The Lord himself also, the true Jonah sent to preach to the world, fasts forty days; and leaving us the inheritance of fasting, under this number he prepares our souls for the eating of his body. But that he cried out fulfills that Gospel saying: Standing, he cried out in the temple, saying: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. For every word of the Savior, because he was preaching great things, is called a cry.

(Verse 5.) “And the men of Nineveh believed in God, and they proclaimed a fast, and they were clothed in sackcloth from the greatest to the least.” The Septuagint similarly. Nineveh believed, and Israel persists in unbelief. The foreskin believed, and the circumcision remains faithless. And first the men of Nineveh believe, who had reached the age of Christ; and they proclaim a fast, and are clothed in sackcloth from the greatest to the least. Worthy is both the food and the dress of penitence, so that those who had offended God by luxury and ambition may please him by the condemnation of those things through which they had first offended. Sackcloth and fasting are the weapons of penitence, the aids of sinners: fasting comes first, and then the sackcloth; first what is hidden, and afterward what is open; the one is always shown to God, the other sometimes also to men. And if of two necessary things one must be omitted, I would choose fasting without sackcloth rather than sackcloth without fasting. The greater age begins, and it reaches even to the lesser: for no one is without sin, even if his life be but one day, and his years be numbered (Job 14). For if the stars are not clean in the sight of God, how much more the worm and rottenness, and those who are held guilty by the sin of offending Adam? A most beautiful order sits in place: God commands the prophet. The prophet preaches to the city: first the men believe, and while they preach the fast, every age is clothed in sackcloth.

The men do not proclaim sackcloth, but only a fast; yet these, to whom repentance is commanded, fittingly join sackcloth to the fast, so that the empty belly and the mournful attire may more earnestly entreat the Lord.

(Verse 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 in sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and cried out and said in Nineveh, from the mouth of the king and his princes, saying: Men and beasts, oxen and sheep, let them taste nothing, nor feed, nor drink water, and let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry out to the Lord (Vulg. God) with strength: and let each man turn from his evil way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. Who knows if God may turn and forgive, and turn back 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 your throne, and took away his robe from himself, and was covered with sackcloth, and sat in ashes, and it was proclaimed in Nineveh by the king and by all (Al.

I know that very many interpret the king of Nineveh—who is the last to hear the preaching, and comes down from his throne, and casts off his former adornment, and, clothed in sackcloth, sits in ashes; nor, content with his own conversion, preaches repentance to the rest of his companions as well, saying: Let men and beasts, oxen and flocks be afflicted with hunger, be covered with sackcloth, and, with their former vices condemned, devote themselves wholly to repentance—as referring to the devil, who at the end of the world (because no rational creature, and none that was made by God, obeys him) will come down from his pride, will perform repentance, and is to be restored to his former place. To prove this understanding they also bring forward that example from Daniel, where Nebuchadnezzar, after repentance performed through seven years, is restored to his former kingdom (Dan. 4).

But because holy Scripture does not say this, and it utterly overthrows the fear of God—while men easily slip into vices, thinking that even the devil, who is the author of evils and the fount of all sins, can be saved once penitence has been performed—let us cast this from our minds. And let us know that sinners in the Gospel are sent into eternal fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25), and that of them it is said: Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched (Isa. 66:24). We know indeed that God is merciful, nor, since we are sinners, do we take delight in his cruelty; but we read: The Lord is merciful and just, and our God shows mercy (Ps. 114:5). The justice of God is hedged about by mercy, and it proceeds to judgment with such a balance: he spares in such a way as to judge, he judges in such a way as to show mercy. Mercy and truth have met together: justice and peace have kissed each other (Ps. 84:11). Otherwise, if all rational creatures are equal, and either by virtues or by vices they are raised up or plunged down of their own accord, and after a long circuit and infinite ages there will be a restoration of all things, and one dignity for those who strive—what distinction will there be between a virgin and a prostitute? What difference will there be between the mother of the Lord and—a thing that is a crime even to say—the victims of public lust? Will Gabriel and the devil be the same? The apostles and the demons the same? The prophets and the false prophets the same?

The same martyrs and persecutors? Suppose whatever you like, double the years and times, and heap up infinite ages upon tortures: if the end of all is alike, everything past is as nothing, because we do not ask what we once were, but what we shall always be. Nor am I unaware of what they are accustomed to say against these things, preparing hope and salvation for themselves together with the devil. But it is not for this time to write more extensively against the perverse dogma of those who teach diabolical things in corners and deny them in public. It is enough for us to have indicated what we have understood concerning this testimony, and briefly to intimate, as it were in a commentary, who is the king of Nineveh, to whom the utmost word of God comes. What the eloquence of the world and secular wisdom can avail among the men of this age, Demosthenes, Tullius, Plato, Xenophon, Theophrastus, Aristotle, and the other orators and philosophers bear witness, who are regarded as kings of men, and whose precepts are received not as the precepts of mortals but as the oracles of gods. Whence also Plato says: Republics will be happy if either philosophers rule or kings philosophize.

But how difficult it is for men of that sort to believe in God—to pass over daily examples and say nothing of the ancient histories of the pagans—the testimony of the Apostle is enough for us, who, writing to the Corinthians, says: "Consider, brothers, your calling, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many noble; but God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong, and the base things of the world, and the things that were contemptible, God chose" (1 Cor. 1:26–28), and the rest. Whence again he says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will reject" (ibid. 19). And: "See that no one despoils you through philosophy and empty seduction" (Col. 2:8). From this it is clear that the kings of the world hear the preaching of Christ last of all, and, laying aside the brilliance of eloquence and the ornaments and adornment of words, give themselves wholly over to simplicity and rusticity, and, reduced to a plebeian style, sit in squalor and destroy what they had preached before. Let us set before ourselves the blessed Cyprian (who was formerly a champion of idolatry and rose to such glory of eloquence that he even taught rhetoric at Carthage), who at last heard the sermon of Jonah and, converted to repentance, came to such virtue that he preached Christ publicly and bowed his neck to the sword for him.

Indeed we understand that the king of Nineveh came down from his throne, and exchanged purple for sackcloth, perfumes for mud, and cleanliness for filth—not filth of the senses, but of words. Whence also it is said of Babylon in Jeremiah: Babylon is a golden cup, intoxicating the whole earth (Jer. 51:7). Whom has secular eloquence not intoxicated? Whose mind has it not struck with the arrangement of words and the brilliance of its fluency? It is difficult for powerful men, noble and rich, and harder than all these for the eloquent, 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 meanings but by the cheapness of its words. But when those who previously taught evil, turned to repentance, begin to teach good, then we shall see the peoples of the Ninevites converted by a single preaching, and that come to pass which we read in Isaiah: If a nation is born at once. Understand in the same sense also the men and the beasts covered with sackcloth and crying out to the Lord: that both the rational and the irrational, both the wise and the simple, do penance at Jonah's preaching, according to that which is said elsewhere too: You will save men and beasts, O Lord (Ps. 36:7). But we can also interpret the beasts covered with sackcloth in another way, especially from those testimonies in which we read: The sun and the moon shall be clothed in sackcloth (Ezek. 32:7). And in another place: I will clothe the heaven in sackcloth (Isa.

for the mournful garb, that is, and for grief and sorrow, which are called sackcloth. Also, what is said: Who knows if God will turn and forgive? is for this reason put ambiguously and uncertainly, so that while men are doubtful about their salvation, they may practice repentance more vigorously and more provoke God to mercy.

(Verse 10.) And God saw their works, that they were converted from their evil way, and God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. The Septuagint: And God saw their works, that they had turned back from their evil ways, and God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it. According to either understanding—whether then to the city of Assyria, or daily to the peoples of the world—God threatens that they should repent; and if they have turned, he himself will also turn his sentence, and it will be changed by the people's conversion. Jeremiah and Ezekiel explain this more clearly: namely, that the Lord does not fulfill the good things he has promised, if the good turn to vices; nor the evils with which he threatens the worst, if they have turned back to salvation. So then even now God saw their works, because they turned from their most wicked way: he did not hear the words that Israel was often accustomed to promise: All things whatsoever the Lord has said, we will do, but he beheld their works; and because he prefers the repentance of a sinner to his death, he willingly changed his sentence, because he saw their works changed.

Rather, God persevered in his purpose, willing from the beginning to have mercy; for no one who desires to punish threatens in advance what he is going to do. But "malice," as we said above, understand as punishments and torments—not that God was thinking of doing anything evil.

(Chapter IV, verse 1.) "And Jonah was afflicted with a great affliction, and was angry: and he prayed to the Lord and said." The Septuagint: "And Jonah was grieved with a great grief, and was confounded: and he prayed to the Lord, and said." Seeing the fullness of the Gentiles entering 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 people that is not a people: with a foolish nation I will stir them to anger" (Deut. 32:21), he despairs of the salvation of Israel, and is shaken by great grief, and breaks forth into speech, and sets out the causes of his sorrow, and in a manner says: I alone have been chosen out of so great a number of prophets, to announce to my people, through the salvation of others, their own ruin. He is not grieved, then, as some think, because the multitude of the Gentiles is saved, but because Israel perishes. Whence also our Lord wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19), and was unwilling to take the bread of the children and give it to the dogs (Mark 7). And the apostles first preach to Israel (Acts 13). And Paul desires to be anathema for his brethren, who are Israelites.

and whose are the adoption and the glory and the covenant and the promises and the lawgiving, from whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh (Rom. 9). Beautifully, then, he who grieves—which is what Jonas means—is afflicted with grief, and his soul is sorrowful even unto death; because, as far as in him lay, he endured many things lest the people of the Jews should perish. The name befits one who grieves all the more, signifying a toilsome prophet, and one weighed down by the miseries of pilgrimage and shipwreck. (Vers. 2, 3.) "I beseech you, Lord, is not this my word, while I was still in my land? For this cause I made haste to flee to Tharsis. For I know that you are a clement and merciful God, patient and of much compassion, forgiving upon malice, and now, Lord, I pray, take my soul from me, for death is better for me than life." The Septuagint: "O Lord, are not these my words, while I was still in my land? Therefore I made haste to flee to Tharsis. For I know that you are merciful and compassionate, patient and of much compassion, and one who acts repentance upon malice, and now, Lord and ruler, take my soul from me, for it is better for me to die than to live." That which we have translated "I beseech you," and the Septuagint rendered likewise, is read in Hebrew as ANNA, which seems to me, as an interjection of one entreating, to signify the affection of one coaxing.

Because, therefore, his prayer, when he says he justly wished to flee, in a certain manner accuses the Lord of injustice, he tempers his complaints at the beginning of his entreaty. Was not this, he says, my word, while I was still in my own land? I knew that you would do this: I was not unaware that you are merciful; therefore I did not wish to proclaim you severe and cruel; for this reason I wished to flee to Tharsis, to be free for the contemplation of things, and to enjoy quiet and leisure rather on the sea of this age. I left my house, I abandoned my inheritance, I went out from your bosom, and I came. If I were to say that you are merciful and clement and forgiving of malice, no one would do penance; if I were to proclaim you cruel and only a judge, I knew that this was not your nature. Placed, therefore, in this ambiguity, I preferred rather to flee than either to deceive the penitent by leniency, or to preach about you what you were not. Take away, therefore, Lord, my soul: for death is better for me than life. Take away my soul, which was sorrowful even unto death. Take away my soul: for into your hands I commend my spirit (Luke 23): for death is better for me than life. Living, I could not save the one nation of Israel: let me die, and the world will be saved. The history is manifest, and it can be understood concerning the person of the prophet, as we have often already said, that he is for this reason saddened and wishes to die, lest, with the multitude of the nations converted, Israel perish forever.

(Verse 4.) “And the Lord said: Do you think you are rightly angry?” The Septuagint has: “And the Lord said to Jonah: Are you greatly grieved?” The Hebrew word ARALAC can be translated both “are you angry?” and “are you grieved?”—each of which suits both the prophet’s person and the Lord’s, in that he was either angry, lest he seem to have lied among the Ninevites, or grieved, understanding that Israel was to perish. And reasonably he does not say to him, “You are wrongly angry,” or “you are grieved,” lest he seem to reprove one who was grieved. Nor again, “You are rightly angry,” or “grieved,” lest he contradict his own sentence; but he questions the very one who was angry and grieved, so that he may either answer for the causes of his anger or of his sorrow; or, if he keeps silent, the true judgment of God may be approved by his silence.

(Verse 5.) “And Jonah went out of the city, and sat opposite the east of the city, and made himself a booth there, and sat beneath it in the shade, until he should see what would happen to the city.” The Septuagint similarly. Cain, the first fratricide and homicide, consecrating the bloody world with his brother’s blood, built a city and called it by the name of his son Enoch (Gen. 4). Whence the prophet Hosea says, “I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not enter the city” (Hos. 11:9). For the exits of death are the Lord’s, as the Psalmist says (Ps. 67). For this reason also one city of fugitives is called Ramoth, which is interpreted “the vision of the mother.

And rightly so: anyone who is a fugitive, and because of his sins does not deserve to dwell in Jerusalem, dwells in the city of death, and is across the flowing waters of the Jordan, which is rendered "descent." The dove, therefore—or the one who grieves—goes out from a city of this kind, and dwells opposite the East, from where the sun rises; and there he is in his tabernacle, where, contemplating all things that slip away in time, he waits to see what will befall the aforementioned city: before Nineveh was saved, and the gourd withered; before the Gospel of Christ shone forth, and the prophecy of Zechariah was fulfilled—"Behold, a man, the Orient is his name" (Zech. 6:12)—Jonah was under a booth. For the truth had not yet come, of which the same evangelist and apostle speaks: "God is truth" (1 John 4:8). And it is elegantly added: "And he made himself a booth there, near Nineveh." He made it for himself, for no one of the Ninevites at that time could dwell with the prophet; and he sat under the shade, either in the guise of a judge, or drawn in from his own majesty, and with his loins girded in strength, so that his garments would not flow down entirely to his feet and to us who are below, but would be drawn together upon him with a tighter belt. Furthermore, what he says—"that he might see what would happen to the city"—uses the customary manner of the Scriptures, which joins human affections to God.

(Verse 6.) "And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and it went up over Jonah's head, that it might be a shade over his head, and protect him, for he had labored: and Jonah rejoiced over the gourd with great joy." The Septuagint: "And the Lord God commanded the gourd, and it went up over Jonah's head, that it might be a shelter over his head, and protect him from his evils: and Jonah rejoiced over the gourd with great joy." In this place a certain Cantherius, of the most ancient family of the Cornelii, or (as he himself boasts) of the stock of Asinius Pollio, is said to have accused me at Rome some time ago of sacrilege, because I translated "ivy" instead of "gourd": he feared, evidently, that if ivy grew instead of gourds, he would not have the means from which he secretly and darkly drinks. And in fact on those very gourds of vessels, which are commonly called Saucomariae, they are accustomed to sketch the images of the apostles; from which he also took for himself a name not his own. But if names are so easily exchanged that, instead of the seditious Cornelii tribunes, the Aemilii are called consuls, I wonder why it is not permitted to me to translate "ivy" instead of "gourd." But let us come to serious matters. Instead of "gourd," or "ivy," in Hebrew we read CI-CAEION, which in the Syriac and Punic tongue is also called CICEIA.

But there is a kind of shrub or small tree, having broad leaves like a vine-leaf and a very dense shade, supporting itself on its own trunk, which grows very abundantly in Palestine, and especially in sandy places; and it is wonderful how, if you cast its seed into the ground, once it has been watered it quickly rises into a tree, and within a few days what you had seen as a herb, you look up at as a small tree. Whence we too, at the same time as we were interpreting 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 find license for commenting, and lest they bring in either the beasts of India, or the mountains of Boeotia, or certain portents of that sort, and we followed the old translators, who themselves also translated it as ivy, which is called in Greek; for they had nothing else to say. Let us therefore discuss the history, and before the mystical understandings, let us air the letter alone. The gourd and the ivy are of such a nature that they creep along the ground, and without poles or supports on which they lean, they do not seek higher things. How then, when the prophet did not know, did the gourd, rising in one night, provide a shade, when it does not have the nature to rise on high without trellises and reeds or poles? But the ciceion, when it suddenly provided a miracle in the morning, and showed the repentance of God in the protection of a green shade, also followed its own nature.

But to the person of the Lord Savior, so that we not entirely abandon the gourd, it can be referred thus, that we may recall that saying of Isaiah: The daughter of Zion shall be left like a booth in a vineyard, and like a hut in a cucumber-garden, as a city that is stormed (Isa. 1:8). And let us say that in no other place of Scripture do we find the gourd, because where the cucumber grows, there the gourd is also accustomed to grow. And Israel was compared to this kind, because it once sheltered Jonah under its shade as he awaited the conversion of the Gentiles, and gave no small joy, making a shade and a tabernacle rather than a house, having the image of roofs, not having foundations of houses. Furthermore, our ciceion, a small tree, quickly rising and quickly withering, will be compared in order and life to Israel, sending small roots into the earth, and indeed attempting to raise itself to the heights, but not equaling the height of the cedars of God and the firs. This seems to me also to be signified by the locusts which John ate, who says under the type of Israel: He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30): a small animal, having weak wings, indeed rising 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.

(Vers. 8.) "And the Lord prepared a worm at the ascent of dawn on the morrow, and it struck the gourd, and it withered: and when the sun had risen, the Lord commanded a hot and burning wind; and the sun struck upon Jonah's head, and he was sweltering: and he asked for his soul that he might die, and he said: It is better for me to die than to live." The LXX: "And God commanded a worm in the morning on the morrow, and it struck the gourd, and it was dried up: and immediately when the sun had risen, the Lord commanded a burning spirit of heat, and the sun struck upon Jonah's head, and he was distressed, and his soul was weary of him, and he 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 withering: after he rose, and the darkness of Nineveh was dispelled by his light, the worm was prepared on the morrow at the ascent of dawn (of which the twenty-first psalm is inscribed: For the assumption in the morning; and who springs from the earth without any seed, and says: I am a worm and not a man (Ps. XXI, 7)), it struck the shade, which, deserted 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 will bring a burning wind rising from the desert, and it shall dry up his veins, and shall desolate his fountain (Hosea XIII, 15). And Jonah began to swelter, and again to wish to die in baptism with Israel, so that in the washing he may receive back the moisture which he had lost in denial.

Hence Peter also says to the Jews who were withering: "Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). There are those who understand the worm and the burning wind to be the Roman leaders, who after the resurrection of Christ utterly destroyed Israel.

(Vers. 9.) "And the Lord said to Jonah: Do you think you are rightly angry over the gourd? And he said: I am rightly angry, even to death." The Septuagint: "And the Lord God said to Jonah: Are you greatly grieved over the gourd? And he said: I am greatly grieved, even to death." Above, when the Ninevites were doing penance and the city of the Gentiles was saved, the prophet, when asked this very thing, "Do you think you are rightly angry?" answered nothing, but by his silence confirmed God's question; for knowing that God is clement and merciful and patient and of much compassion, and forgiving of evils, he did not grieve over the salvation of the Gentiles. Here, however, after the gourd had withered and Israel had dried up, and when he was asked with a distinction, "Are you rightly angry over the gourd?" he confidently answered and said: "I am rightly angry," or "grieved, even to death"; for I did not so wish to save others that others should perish, nor so to gain strangers that I should lose my own. And in truth, even to the present day Christ mourns for Israel; and he mourns for Jerusalem even to death—not his own death, but that of the Jews, that those who deny may die and those who confess the Son of God may rise again.

(Vers. 11.) "And the Lord said: You grieve over the ivy, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which was born in a night and perished in a night: and shall I not spare Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know what is between their right hand and their left, and many beasts?" The Septuagint: "And the Lord said: You spared the gourd, for which you did not labor, nor did you nurture it, which was born in a night and perished in a night: but shall I not spare Nineveh, the great city, in which dwell more than twelve myriads of men who do not know their right hand and their left, and many cattle?" It is a matter of excessive difficulty to explain how, according to tropology, it is said to the Son, "You grieve over the ivy, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow," when all things were made through him and without him nothing was made (John 1:3). Hence a certain one, interpreting this passage in order to resolve the pressing question, fell into blasphemy. For taking up that saying from the Gospel, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except one God" (Mark 10:18), he interpreted the Father as good, but the Son, in comparison with him who is perfectly and truly good, as placed in a lesser degree.

And he did not consider this in saying it, namely that he had rather fallen into the heresy of Marcion (who introduces another God, one only good, and another a judge and creator) 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 must be helped by favor and by prayers rather than spurned with a hostile ear, since even the unskilled can carp and detract; but it belongs to the learned, and to those who have known the sweat of laborers, either to stretch out a hand to the weary or to show the way to those who err. Our Lord and Savior did not labor among Israel in the same way as he labored among the people of the Gentiles. Finally, Israel speaks confidently: "Behold, for so many years I serve you, and I have never transgressed your commandment, and you have never given me a kid, that I might feast with my friends; but after this son of yours, who devoured his substance with harlots, came, you killed for him the fatted calf" (Luke 15:29-30); and yet he is not refuted by the father, but is told mercifully: "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours: it was fitting for you to feast and rejoice, because this your brother was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found" (Ibid. 31-32). For the people of the Gentiles the fatted calf was sacrificed, and the precious blood was poured out, of which Paul argues most fully to the Hebrews (Heb. 10). And David says in the Psalm: "A brother does not redeem; a man shall redeem" (Ps. 48:8).

Christ decreed that that one should increase; this one died so that that one might live; this one descended to the underworld so that that one might ascend to the heavens. In Israel, however, there was no such great labor. Hence he also envies his younger brother, because after the substance he had squandered with harlots and pimps, he receives a ring and a robe and flourishes in his former dignity. But what he says, which was born in a single night, signifies the time before the coming of Christ, who was the light of the world, of whom it is said: The night has passed, and the day has drawn near (Rom. 13:12). And it perished in one night, when the sun of righteousness set for 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 the fragments in the wilderness also signify, of twelve baskets (Mark 6). But they do not know what is between right and left, either on account of innocence and simplicity, so that he may show the age of infancy and leave to the understanding how great is the number of the other age, since such is the number of little ones. Or certainly (because the city was great, and in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay (2 Tim. 2:20)), there was in it a very great multitude, which before the repentance it had undergone did not know what was between good and evil, between right and left.

But also many beasts: for great is the number of beasts in Nineveh, and of irrational men, who are compared to senseless beasts and made like them (Ps. XLVIII, 21).