Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
God sends Jonah to the Ninevites; he flees to Tarshish; God pursues him, stirs up wind and storm at sea; the sailors cast lots to discover the cause, that is, the guilty party; the lot indicates Jonah; he acknowledges his guilt of flight and says: "Take me and cast me into the sea, and the sea will cease from you." He is cast into the sea, and at once the storm ceases.
Vulgate Text: Jonah 1:1-16
1. And the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amathi, saying: 2. Arise, and go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach in it: for its wickedness has come up before Me. 3. And Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the face of the Lord, and he went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish, and he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the face of the Lord. 4. But the Lord sent a great wind upon the sea: and a great tempest arose in the sea, and the ship was in danger of being broken. 5. And the mariners were afraid, and the men cried every one to his god, and they cast the goods that were in the ship into the sea, to be lightened of them: and Jonah went down into the inner part of the ship, and was fast asleep with a deep sleep. 6. And the shipmaster came to him, and said to him: Why are you fast asleep? Rise up, call upon your God, if so be that God will think of us, that we may not perish. 7. And the men said every one to his fellow: Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know why this evil is upon us. And they cast lots: and the lot fell upon Jonah. 8. And they said to him: Tell us on whose account this evil is upon us: what is your business? what is your country, and whither do you go? or of what people are you? 9. And he said to them: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. 10. And the men were seized with great fear, and they said to him: Why have you done this? (For the men knew that he fled from the face of the Lord, because he had told them.) 11. And they said to him: What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm for us? For the sea went and swelled. 12. And he said to them: Take me up, and cast me into the sea, and the sea shall be calm for you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. 13. And the men rowed hard to return to land, but they were not able, because the sea went and swelled upon them. 14. And they cried to the Lord, and said: We beseech You, O Lord, let us not perish for the life of this man, and lay not upon us innocent blood: for You, O Lord, have done as it pleased You. 15. And they took Jonah and cast him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. 16. And the men feared the Lord with a great fear, and offered sacrifices to the Lord, and made vows.
Verse 1
1. AND IT CAME TO PASS. — The particle "and" does not have here the force of a conjunction; for nothing has preceded to which it would join what follows; but in the Hebrew manner it gives the narrative and book their beginning, and serves as an index of it. Hence Ezekiel also begins thus: "And it came to pass." See what was said there.
"The word." — The Chaldean: "The word of the prophecy of the Lord." For prophecy is sometimes called a vision, sometimes the word of the Lord, as I said on Isaiah 1:1.
TO JONAH THE SON OF AMATHI. — From this passage the Hebrews contend that Jonah was the son of the widow of Sarepta; because, they say, he was the son of Amathi, that is, of truth, because his mother, when he was raised to life,
Verse 2
2. ARISE, AND GO TO NINEVEH. — Nineveh in Hebrew first means the same as beautiful, fair, from the root nave, that is, beauty, comeliness. So St. Jerome and Pagninus in the Interpretation of Hebrew Names. Second, it means the same as inhabited, populous, full of people and houses, from the root nava, that is, he dwelt. So Pagninus in the same place. Third, precisely and genuinely Nineveh is called as if Nini nave, that is, the dwelling of Ninus, the royal seat of Ninus, the city of Ninus. So Serarius on Judith chapter 1, Question 6. Hence Nineveh is sometimes called Ninus, sometimes Nina. Now Nineveh was a most powerful city, in which the first Assyrian monarchy established its seat and held it for a thousand years and more. It was situated not on the Euphrates, as Diodorus writes (Book II), but on the Tigris river, as Ptolemy asserts (Book VI, ch. 1), Pliny (Book VI, ch. 13), Herodotus (Book II), and many others. Josephus (Antiquities I, ch. 7) and St. Jerome in his Hebrew Places hold that it was founded by Assur the son of Shem, the son of Noah, and they prove this from Genesis 10:11: "Out of that land went forth Assur, and built Nineveh." But in the same place I showed that by Assur we should understand Ninus, who was the founder of the Assyrian kingdom. Ninus therefore built and named Nineveh after his own name. So Eusebius teaches in his Chronicle, Bede in his Questions on Genesis (69), Strabo (Book XVI), St. Augustine (City of God XVI, 3), Diodorus (Book II), and others. How great and how vast Nineveh was, I shall show in chapter 3. Now God sends Jonah to Nineveh to show that He is the God not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles, and that He has care and providence over them, even if they are most corrupt and wicked.
For Jonah is here sent to Nineveh as to a new Sodom: "For the condemnation of Israel," says St. Jerome, "Jonah is sent to the Gentiles, because while Nineveh does penance, they persist in wickedness."
Allegorically, St. Jerome says: "Christ is Jonah, that is, the dove, or the grieving one; either because the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and remained upon Him; or because He Himself grieved for our wounds, and wept over Jerusalem: and by His stripes we are healed. Truly the Son of Truth is sent to Nineveh the beautiful, that is, to the world, than which nothing more beautiful do we behold with carnal eyes: whence also among the Greeks kosmos (world) takes its name from adornment; so that because Israel has despised Him, the whole world of the Gentiles may hear. And this because its wickedness has ascended before the Lord. For when God had built, as it were, a most beautiful house for the man who was to serve Him, man was corrupted by his own will, etc., and having built the tower of pride, he deserves the Son of God descending to him; so that through the ruin of penance he may ascend to heaven, who through the swelling of pride could not." Again, Christ sent St. Peter and the Apostles as His Jonahs into the world: for just as Jonah, a despised and unknown man, converted Nineveh, the most powerful and greatest city, so the Apostles, fishermen, converted the whole world.
PREACH IN IT — not repentance, as Arias would have it, but destruction, namely: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown;" for Jonah supposed that this prophecy was absolute, not conditional. Hence seeing that it was conditional, and that God was sparing the Ninevites when they repented, he was distressed (ch. 4:2).
FOR ITS WICKEDNESS HAS COME UP — that is to say: The crimes of Nineveh are so great and so public and shameless that they cry out to heaven for vengeance, that they wrest the scourge from Me, that I can no longer be silent or pretend not to notice. Thus it is said in Genesis 18:20: "The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied, and their sin is aggravated exceedingly." So St. Jerome, Theophylactus, Remigius, Vatablus, and others. Briefly but powerfully, St. Gregory (Pastoral Rule III, ch. 32): "Sin with a voice," he says, "is guilt with action; sin with a cry is guilt with boldness." And St. Augustine in the Enchiridion, chapter 80: "Sins," he says, "however great and horrible, when they have become habitual, are believed to be small or none at all; so much so that they seem not only not to be concealed, but even to be proclaimed and broadcast."
Verse 3
3. THAT HE MIGHT FLEE.
"Where do you flee, Enceladus? Whatever shores you reach, you will always be under Jupiter."
The pagan Poet believed and sang (Tristia IV):
"Nothing is so strong, though adamant bind it, that it may remain firmer than the swift fire of Jupiter. Nothing is so lofty and rises above dangers that it is not beneath and subject to God."
Did you, O faithful Jonah, nay more, a Prophet, not know this? And then did you believe you could escape the eyes and hands of the Almighty? I do not believe it. Why then do you flee God? Had you not often heard the Levites chanting in the temple? "Where shall I go from Your spirit, and where shall I flee from Your face? If I ascend into heaven, You are there: if I descend into hell, You are present. If I take my wings in the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me" (Psalm 138:7).
Beautifully, St. Chrysostom in his homily On Jonah teaches that Jonah fleeing was a type of sinners, who like drunkards do not notice where they are going, where they plant their foot, but following their desires are hurled headlong by their own madness.
St. Gregory Nazianzen in his Apology, and St. Jerome, hold that the cause of Jonah's flight was excessive devotion to his own nation, lest it should perish; for by the prophetic spirit Jonah knew that the Israelites would perish when the Gentiles believed; "because the repentance of the Gentiles is the ruin of the Jews," says St. Jerome. "Therefore the lover of his country does not so much begrudge Nineveh its salvation, as he is unwilling that his own people should perish." And shortly after: "He grieves that he alone was chosen to be sent to the Assyrians, the enemies of Israel, and to the greatest city of the enemy, where there was idolatry, where there was ignorance of God. And, what is greater than all this, he feared lest through the occasion of his preaching, when they were converted to repentance, Israel should be utterly abandoned."
Hence secondly, Lyranus and Clarius hold that Jonah feared the power and magnificence of the city and king of Nineveh, and their hostility toward the Jews, as he himself was a Jew.
Thirdly, Jonah himself gives the true and genuine cause of his flight in chapter 4:2: "Is not this," he says, "what I said when I was yet in my own country? For this reason I hastened to flee to Tarshish: for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, patient and of great compassion, and forgiving of wickedness." He fled, therefore, because he presumed that the Ninevites, at these threats of God proclaimed by him, would do penance, and that God would spare the penitent, and so he himself would be mocked as a false prophet.
See by what shadows vain man is vainly troubled. What do you fear, O Jonah, the name of liar, when God Himself does not fear it? This reproach will fall back on Him, not on you: for He is the one who sends, you are the envoy. He is not a liar who threatens punishment, if through his threats he spares the one who amends his life. For this condition changes the status of the matter, and therefore is excepted. For what God threatens and says: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" — understand: if it persists in its crimes, if it does not change its life. For God threatens in order that sinners, terrified by the threats, may correct their lives, and thus escape the threatened punishment: "Because I do not desire the death of him that dies, says the Lord God; return and live" (Ezek. 18:32). Jonah
will be followed by preachers, zealous for their own honor rather than God's, who chase popular approval, who seek a theater for their talent and hunt for praise of their eloquence.
TO TARSHISH. — Note that from Tarshish, grandson of Japheth (Gen. 10:4), the Cilicians originated, and from him the city of Tarsus in Cilicia received its name. Now because the Tarsians and Cilicians were at that time masters of the sea, and powerful in ships and wealth, from this all the neighboring places, and the neighboring sea, were called Tarshish. Then by an extended meaning of the word through synecdoche — from the part, the Tarsian sea, to the whole remaining Mediterranean Sea, indeed any vast sea, especially that of the Carthaginians (who were famous for navigation) — and finally the Ocean itself was called Tarshish. Hence also the chrysolite (a gem), because it is of a sea color, was called Tarshish, as I taught from St. Jerome, Josephus, and others on Isaiah 2:16.
You may ask what Tarshish signifies here.
First, St. Jerome, the Chaldean, Ribera, and others take Tarshish to mean the sea. For Jonah, frightened, a fugitive and wanderer, was not heading for any fixed place, but for any that presented itself for his flight, and so he fled to the sea; for he was striving only to escape the face of the Lord. "The Prophet," says St. Jerome, "did not desire to flee to a fixed place, but entering the sea was hastening to go wherever he could: and this is more fitting for a fugitive and timid person, not to choose a place for leisurely flight, but to seize the first opportunity of sailing." And shortly after: "After he felt Him (God) in the waves, he confesses and says: I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. But if He Himself made the sea and the dry land, why, leaving the dry land, do you think you can avoid the Creator of the sea on the sea?" Namely, Jonah wanted to flee as far as possible from the face of the Lord; hence he fled to the sea; for those who sail to the sea and to overseas regions seem to change heaven and earth and all the elements, and to cross over into a new world. This was the sense of the Jews: hence they called the most remote regions 'the sea' and 'the islands.' Hence the Psalmist, signifying that the most remote nations would come to Christ, says: "The kings of Tarshish (that is, of the sea) and the islands shall offer gifts" (Psalm 71:10); and Isaiah 66:19: "I will send some of those that are saved to the nations, etc., to islands far off."
St. Jerome adds: "And at the same time (Jonah) is taught through the salvation and conversion of the sailors that even so great a multitude as Nineveh could be saved by a similar conversion." Allegorically, about Christ: "We can say that He left His home and His country, and having assumed flesh in a certain way fled from the heavens, and came to Tarshish, that is, to the sea of this age, according to that Psalm: 'This great and wide sea.'" Anagogically, the same St. Jerome says: "Tarshish is interpreted 'contemplation of joy': coming to Joppa, the Prophet, which itself means 'beautiful,' hastens to joy, and enjoying the blessedness of rest, gives himself entirely to contemplation: thinking it better to enjoy the beauty and variety of knowledge than, through the occasion of the salvation of other nations, to lose the people from whom Christ was to be born in the flesh."
Second, Theodoret and Theophylactus take Tarshish to mean Carthage. So also Vatablus: By Tarshish, he says, understand Tunis, or Carthage, cities of Africa. For from Tunis the voyage to Joppa is easy, and vice versa from Joppa to Tunis. So also Mariana takes Tarshish as Carthage or Tunis, which is also called Tarshish in Arabic. Again, Fr. Pineda (On the Affairs of Solomon, Book IV, ch. 15, at the end) takes Tarshish as Tartessus and Baetica, and holds that Jonah wished to flee to Spain, and strives to prove this with many conjectures.
Third, and more truly, others take Tarshish as Tarsus, the city of Cilicia, and Cilicia itself. Hence the Zurich version translates it Tarsus. This is proved first, because Tarshish first and properly signifies Tarsus and Cilicia, as I said a little before. Second, because those who wish to cross the sea necessarily propose to themselves some place in a general way to which they may be carried, and say to themselves, for example: I want to cross over to Italy, or to Africa, or to India. For no one wants to or can live on the sea. Therefore Jonah also went to the sea in order to head for Tarsus, or at least for Cilicia in a general way, not designating any particular city in his mind. Third, the words of Scripture indicate this: "He found a ship going to Tarshish." For the ship was not going to the sea, since it was already on the sea, but was going through the sea to Tarsus. Again: "He went down into it to go with them (the sailors) to Tarshish; and the sailors were intending to go and sail to a fixed place, namely Tarsus: therefore Jonah too, who intended the same thing, was heading for the same place as the sailors."
Fourth, because if the Prophet had wished to signify the sea, he would have clearly said: He fled iamma, that is, to the sea: for iam properly signifies the sea, and nothing else. But Tarshish is ambiguous, and properly signifies Tarsus, improperly the sea. So hold Josephus (Antiquities IX, ch. 11), Rheticius of Autun as quoted by St. Jerome (Epistle 134 to Marcella), Tertullian (On Flight, ch. 10), Abulensis, Lyranus, a Castro, Villalpando on Ezekiel 27:12, and others.
You will say: How then, in verse 8, do the sailors ask Jonah: "Where are you going?" I respond: They ask this because they wish to learn from him the certain and final destination of Jonah's journey, in order to know where and to what end he is going. For they knew that he was going with them to Cilicia, and perhaps to Tarsus; but they did not know where ultimately, and for what reason, he was heading. For they ask this only in order to know the man's situation — who he is, what sort of person, where he is heading, what he is doing, what he intends. This is clear from the words of the sailors: "What is your business? What is your country, and where are you going, or of what people are you?" — that is: Where are you heading? What do you intend to do on this journey? What goal have you set for yourself? For this is what travelers are accustomed to ask one another in carriages and on ships.
FROM THE FACE OF THE LORD — that is, so that he might flee from the place where the Lord had spoken to him, where He had shown him His presence, to the most remote regions — not as if Jonah thought he could hide from God there, for he was a Prophet; therefore he knew that God is everywhere and all-knowing — but because he hoped that God would not recall him, so far a fugitive and resisting, from those most remote regions, nor send him back to Nineveh. Note here: The face of God is said to be there where God shows Himself and His presence to men, whether by speaking, or by working miracles, or by performing works of divine vengeance or clemency.
Thus it is said in Psalm 67:2: "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered: and let those that hate Him flee from before His face. As wax melts before the fire, so let sinners perish before the face of God." And Psalm 95:9: "Let all the earth be moved before His face." And Psalm 96:5: "The mountains melted like wax before the face of the Lord," when He Himself present shook them. And Psalm 113:7: "The earth was moved at the face of the Lord, at the face of the God of Jacob," when He, giving the law on Sinai, shook the mountain with a tremendous earthquake.
Again, because God was accustomed to show His presence in the temple to the high priest and priests, and in Judea to the faithful, especially the Prophets, hence the face, that is, the presence of God is said to be in Judea and in the temple.
Hence the Psalmist says (Psalm 41:3): "When shall I come and appear before the face of God?" — that is, in the temple, before the Holy of Holies, in which upon the ark, the Cherubim, and the propitiatory, as on a throne, God resides. Thus in 1 Kings 1:22, Hannah says to Elkanah about the boy Samuel: "I will not go (to the temple) until the child is weaned, and I bring him, that he may appear before the presence of the Lord, and may remain there continually;" and in chapter 2:18: "But Samuel ministered before the face of the Lord," that is, in the temple before the Holy of Holies. So in Leviticus 1:5, 2:1, 4:4, 6:7, 8:28, and frequently elsewhere, the priest is said to stand or sacrifice "before the Lord," in Hebrew liphne, that is, before the face of the Lord, namely at the altar before the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Jonah therefore fled "from the face of the Lord," that is, from Judea to Tarshish, because in Judea and the temple God was considered to be present in a special way through the singular worship, providence, and aid with which He watched over and directed His own nation, and through the oracles which He generally gave to the Prophets in Judea, rarely outside Judea. So the Hebrews, Theodoret, Lyranus, Vatablus, Mariana, and others.
St. Cyril adds: "Some believed that the power and dominion of God was circumscribed by the borders of Judea alone, and as if packed into it, was excluded from other regions, etc. I think this blessed Prophet, thinking something of the sort, departed from Judea to the cities of Greece." But who would believe this of a faithful and learned man, indeed a Prophet?
Morally, learn here that he who flees from the face of God calling and alluring, falls into the face of God angry and avenging: thus Jonah, fleeing God who was calling him, fell into the devouring whale. "Jonah," says St. Gregory (Moralia VI, ch. 12), "is caught in his guilt, is plunged into the deep, is suddenly swallowed by the devouring whale, and carried by the beast arrives at the place he had scorned to go willingly. Behold, the storm finds the fugitive of God, the lot binds him, the sea receives him, the beast encloses him; and he who refuses to obey his Creator is carried, a prisoner in his own jail, to the place where he had been sent. The Lord therefore catches the wise in their own craftiness, when He also turns to the use of His own will that by which the human will contradicts itself."
Jonah, persuading himself that God's command was harsh, fled from God — who is the safe and certain salvation of those who obey Him — and entrusted himself to raging winds, to the sea, unstable like the moon by which it is governed, to waves that often rise to the sky, to faithless sailors who cast him into the sea, to a ship that stands only four fingers above the sea and is no further from drowning and death, according to the words of the Poet:
"Go now, and commit your soul to the winds, trusting in hewn wood, removed from death by four fingers."
for that is how much the rim of a ship rises above the sea. The foolish and stupid sinner does the same: for abandoning the Creator, he fixes his hopes on creatures, in which he finds nothing but restlessness, turbulence, and danger, and sea-monsters and beasts that devour him. So Sanchez.
On the other hand, St. Augustine wisely counsels in his commentary on Psalm 70: "He who wishes to flee God angry," he says, "let him flee to God appeased." From Jonah therefore we are taught that everyone ought to obey God when He calls, and embrace His vocation, and pursue and accomplish that to which He calls: for it belongs to God to rule and direct all creatures, especially men, to His own ends, by those ways and means which please Him.
God is also the Lord of all, and men are His servants: therefore they ought to obey Him when He calls, much more readily and eagerly than servants comply with a prince who summons them. For if anyone were to refuse, the prince would immediately expel him from his household. Why should not God be able to do the same by His own right, and in fact not rarely do so? For this flight, disobedience and resistance is contempt, injury, and disrespect of God, which He is accustomed to avenge, either in this life or in the next.
There is an emblem of Alciato, number 17: "We must go where the gods call":
"At the crossroads is a mound of stones; upon it stands a mutilated image of a god, made down to the chest. It is therefore a monument of Mercury: hang your garlands, traveler, on the god who shows you the right way. We are all at a crossroads, and on this path of life we go astray, unless God Himself shows us the way."
Hence the famous maxim of Bias: "Follow God," lest God pursue you. For, as Seneca says in Hercules Furens:
"God, the avenger, follows the proud from behind."
And in the Thyestes:
"God turns our affairs, stirred up in swift whirlwind."
And Ovid (Metamorphoses VIII):
"The power of heaven is immense and has no end, and whatever the gods have willed is accomplished."
The same author (Book X):
"All things yield to the kingdom of Jupiter."
And (Tristia V):
"The wrath of God prevails more than human strength."
Thus Abraham followed God calling him from Ur of the Chaldeans into Canaan, not knowing where he was going, and therefore received so many blessings both temporal and spiritual from God (Gen. 12:1; Heb. 11:8). Thus Moses, following God who called him, demanded from Pharaoh the release of the people, and therefore performed so many signs and wonders, and at last drowned Pharaoh with his entire army in the Red Sea. Joshua, Gideon, Samson, David, Isaiah, Daniel, Hosea, and the other Prophets did the same. So in the New Law, Christ followed the Father calling Him to preach and to die for the salvation of mankind. So the Apostles, following Christ calling them to labors and martyrdoms, became the princes of the Church militant and triumphant.
We read in the Life of St. Athanasius that, when St. Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, was on his deathbed, he declared St. Athanasius his successor. Athanasius, sensing this, fled like Jonah: Alexander called him several times, but he remained silent and hid himself. Then Alexander said: "You flee, Athanasius, but you will not escape." For the clergy and the people used force on St. Athanasius and compelled him to accept the episcopal office. He, seeing at last that this was the will of God, obeyed and accepted the office, and therefore was made by God the pillar and champion of the entire Church against the Arians.
The whole wisdom, the whole happiness, the whole good of man therefore consists in this: that through prayers, meditations, almsgiving, fasting, etc., he seek out what God wishes to be done by him — in what state, degree, office, and work God wishes to be served by him — and having learned the will of God, that he carry it out immediately. And this is the one and evident sign of divine predestination: to follow God when He calls; just as, on the contrary, the sign and cause of reprobation is to be unwilling to follow God, but to follow one's own inclinations, wishes, and desires. For this is what Christ says (John 10:27): "My sheep hear My voice (and consequently the goats and the reprobate do not hear it, that is, they do not obey it), and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them from My hand."
Wherefore he who is wise, and who cares for his salvation, should constantly desire this, should pray for this one thing: that God may direct him by those ways, occupations, tasks, and means by which He has predestined to lead him to eternal salvation, and by which He has foreknown that he will certainly and infallibly arrive there. For these ways, prepared and preordained by God for each person, are safe and sure, and therefore carry neither the stumbling-block of sin nor the danger of salvation, which the other paths carry — those which men, without God as their guide, wish to prescribe for themselves and enter upon as if they were wise. As Jonah here, fleeing from God, lost his homeland, the temple, God, the Church, and nearly his life, when instead of solid land he chose the raging sea, and instead of the sacred altar chose and accepted profane Tarshish. This is what is said of Jacob and of everyone who follows God (Wisdom 10:10): "She (divine wisdom and providence) led the just one through right paths, and showed him the kingdom of God, and gave him knowledge of holy things: she made him honorable in his labors, and completed his labors." And verse 17, about the Hebrews whom she led through the desert to the promised land: "She rendered to the just the wages of their labors, and led them in a wonderful way (going before them in a pillar of fire and cloud), and was to them a covering by day, and a light of stars by night, and brought them through the Red Sea," etc.
HE WENT DOWN — from the mountains of Zebulun (for Jonah was a Zebulonite), in which Nazareth is situated, about which William of Tyre writes (History of the Holy War, Book XXI, ch. 26). Among these mountains one is Tabor, on which Christ was transfigured; or "he went down" means he went, he departed, he came.
TO JOPPA. — It is the famous port of all Judea. In Hebrew it is called Japho (whence it is today called Jaffa). "To this port," says St. Jerome, "Hiram, king of Tyre, transported timber from Lebanon on rafts, to be carried overland to Jerusalem. This is the place where to this day rocks are shown on the shore to which Andromeda was bound, and from which she was once freed by the aid of Perseus."
Again, Adrichomius in his Description of the Holy Land says: "Joppa, which is called Japho, that is, beauty or comeliness, a most ancient city founded by Japheth the son of Noah before the flood, situated on the sea on a high promontory (from which Jerusalem can be seen), with a rocky shore, high and steep, strongly fortified with a citadel and walls. Its port is very turbulent, and for that reason convenient for pirate raids; for which purpose, in the time of the Maccabees, it was frequently seized. In this city St. Peter raised Tabitha from the dead (Acts 9), and there received the legates from Cornelius the Centurion, and learned through a vision that the faith of Christ was to be preached not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles. In the year of the Lord 1250, Louis, king of the Franks, surrounded it with towers and walls, and pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land first landed there."
Sanchez holds, with considerable probability, that the poets and historians of the Gentiles derived the fable of Andromeda from the history of Jonah fleeing to Joppa and being swallowed there by a sea-creature, but delivered by God. For that Andromeda was bound to a rock at Joppa, to be devoured by a sea-monster, but was freed by Perseus who slew the beast, is reported not only by Ovid (Metamorphoses IV), but also by Pliny (V, 13), Solinus (Polyhistor XIII), Mela (I, 11), and others. In a similar way they fabricated the flood of Deucalion from the flood of Noah, says St. Justin in his Apology against the Gentiles. So St. Augustine (City of God XVIII, 19) holds that Hercules was none other than Samson. Hence that fateful lock of hair, in which the destiny and stability of the kingdom lay, which the daughter Scylla stole from her sleeping father Nisus, and with it brought the kingdom taken from her father to Minos, the enemy of her father and country. Origen (Against Celsus IV) asserts that Plato borrowed his fables about the gardens and Elysian fields, about the formation of man, about the serpent, which he relates in the Symposium, from the Genesis of Moses. Clement of Alexandria (Book
II of the Stromata) teaches that Minos, the lawgiver of the Greeks, who they say lived familiarly with Jupiter for nine years, was none other than Moses, who, conversing with God on Sinai, received the law from Him. Likewise they fabricated from Noah the two-faced Janus, who saw two ages and, as it were, two worlds; they also transformed him into Bacchus, because he had discovered the vine and wine. From Lucifer cast down from heaven, they formed Ate, driven from heaven by Jupiter, who would disturb and overturn human affairs.
AND HE PAID THE FARE THEREOF — of the ship, that is, he paid the price to the sailors for the use of the ship in which he was being carried; in other words, he paid the fare for the passage, "as if he could cross away from God," says Tertullian (On Flight, ch. 10), where he wrongly argues from Jonah's flight, from which God recalled him, that it is not lawful for a believer to flee in persecution. For it is one thing to flee from God, which Jonah did; another to flee from a tyrant and persecutor, which the Apostles and martyrs did.
Verse 4
4. BUT THE LORD SENT A GREAT WIND UPON THE SEA, AND A GREAT TEMPEST AROSE. — Behold how God catches those fleeing Him in their flight, the wise in their counsels, sinners in their designs and sins, and draws them back to Himself and forces them to return. Jonah thought to find quiet on the sea, and behold, a storm so violent, sent by God, seized him that Scripture says: "And the ship was in danger of being broken," that is, of being dashed and shattered against the waves; and as the Septuagint has it, dialuthenai, that is, dissolved. Pagninus renders it: "and the ship was thought to be breaking, about to be broken;" the Zurich version: "so that one might think the ship was about to be broken;" in Hebrew, word for word: "and that ship thought to be broken," that is, those being carried in the ship thought they were about to suffer shipwreck immediately. So Vatablus. Here applies the verse of the Poet:
"Could Pallas burn the fleet of the Greeks, and sink them in the sea, for the offense and madness of Ajax, son of Oileus, alone?"
Verse 5
5. AND THE MEN CRIED EVERY ONE TO HIS GOD — that is, each one called upon his own god. For there were on the ship, as is customary, men from different regions and religions, that is, from various nations which had various gods; each one therefore in such great danger cried out to his own god and the god of his nation. Note the Hebraism: ish, that is, man, is taken for each one, and signifies distribution.
Tropologically, St. Jerome notes that not only Jonah is punished but also the sailors, because they had received Jonah. So also today those who harbor apostates from the faith or from a religious Order are punished together with them. Learn here how harmful is the fellowship of sinners. So St. Ambrose in his sermon On the Chair of St. Peter teaches that the Apostles were tossed by the storm on account of Judas: "There is calm," he says, "where Peter alone sails; there is storm when Judas is added: although Peter was firm in his own merits, he is nevertheless disturbed by the crimes of the traitor. By the offense of one, therefore, the merits of all were shaken." And from this come the frequent shipwrecks, on account of the sins of the passengers, especially those committed on the ship.
AND THEY CAST THE GOODS (namely the merchandise and cargo that were in the vessels) INTO THE SEA — to lighten the ship. In Hebrew: that it might be lightened of them. This is what the Poet says: "They began to throw things overboard to the winds." Truly St. Chrysostom (Homily I On Penance) says: "The sailors jettisoned the cargo, but the ship was by no means lightened." Why? "Because nothing is so burdensome and heavy as sin and disobedience."
AND JONAH WENT DOWN TO THE INNER PART OF THE SHIP (as if to a more hidden and safer place): AND HE WAS FAST ASLEEP WITH A DEEP SLEEP — partly from the fatigue of the journey he had made coming from Zebulun to Joppa, and partly and more so from dejection and grief of spirit. For Jonah felt the remorse of conscience over his flight, as if God were pursuing him, punishing him, and catching him: hence, to escape and stifle these pangs, he gave himself to sleep. For a bad conscience breeds grief, grief breeds sleep: for sleep buries grief by removing its thought and sensation. Hence the Apostles, when Christ was going to His Passion, were overcome by sleep from sorrow (Matt. 26). So St. Jerome, Theodoret, Theophylactus, and Hugo.
Hear St. Jerome: "He was conscious of his flight and the sin by which he had neglected the Lord's commands, and he saw the storm raging against him while the others were unaware; therefore he went down to the inner part of the ship and hid himself in sadness, lest he should see the waves, as if avengers of God, swelling against him." Tropologically, the same author says: "The very deep sleep of Jonah signifies a man torpid with the sleep of error, for whom it was not enough to flee from the face of God, unless a certain madness so overwhelmed his mind that he should be ignorant of God's wrath, and sleep as if secure, and snore with the deepest sleep." The sinner therefore sleeps in a stupor, indeed in a lethargy: for sin induces this in him. Hence Christ must cry out to him: "Lazarus, come forth."
Allegorically, the sleep of Jonah represents the sleep of Christ in the ship when the storm arose, from which, being awakened, He commanded the winds and the sea (Matt. 8). Where St. Jerome says: "The type of this sign we read in Jonah, when, while the others were in peril, he himself was unconcerned and asleep, and was awakened, and by the authority and mystery of his passion freed those who awakened him." For although Jonah, as a man fleeing God, was a type of the sinner, nevertheless the same man, as a Prophet, bore the type of Christ both in his actions and words.
Verse 7
7. LET US CAST LOTS. — St. Jerome, Theodoret, Remigius, and Lyranus note that the sailors cast lots because, being experienced in the sea, they saw that such a great and sudden tempest, arising in a calm and quiet sea, was not natural, but sent suddenly by God without prior signs, contrary to the course and order of winds, stars, weather, and other secondary and natural causes; for otherwise they would not have resorted to lots if they had recognized the causes to be natural.
Hence, morally, from Jonah here let sailors and passengers learn that storms are often sent by God on account of sins committed on the ship or previously.
So Bias, sailing with wicked men, when they were in danger in a great storm at sea, while the others were imploring the gods, said: "Be quiet, lest the gods notice that you are sailing here," as Laertius reports (Book I, ch. 6). The same Bias, sailing with very wicked men, fell in with pirates. When they said: "We shall perish if we are recognized," he replied: "But I shall perish if we are not recognized." Wherefore Plato maintained that "the sea should be avoided, just as one would avoid a teacher of wickedness."
St. Thomas (Summa II-II, Question 95, article 8) notes secondly that there are three kinds of lots. The first is the divisory lot. This is lawful, and is to be employed whenever there appears no reason why one person should be preferred to another in some useful or difficult matter... The second is the consultory lot, by which divine counsel is sought through lots... The consultory lot is unlawful, for it pertains to tempting God, unless God inspires it... The third kind is the divinatory lot, by which knowledge of a future or present but hidden and secret truth is sought... This likewise is unlawful, unless God inspires its use...
Such was the most ancient Pythagorean lot, by which victory, life, death, and fortunate or unfortunate events were divined through the numerical value of names. For he whose name had more letters and indicators of a greater number was predicted to be the victor; while the one vanquished would be he whose name contained fewer letters and indicators of a lesser number. Thus it was divined by the numbers contained in their names that Patroclus would be conquered by Hector, and Hector overcome by Achilles, as Terentius sings. Indeed, what is remarkable, the same thing is found in the Venerable Bede, in a treatise On the Divination of Death and Life, which is found at the end of volume II of his works, where many wonderful things on this subject are recounted, not to be believed or practiced, being vain and superstitious. Therefore it should be carefully noted that this treatise does not belong to the Venerable Bede, but to Petosyris (a pagan astrologer, it seems), who wrote it and sent it to King Necepso of Egypt, as its inscription indicates. Perhaps this treatise was found in Bede's writing chest, and hence was ascribed and attached to his works by the compiler.
Note thirdly, although this lot of the sailors was superstitious, as I have said, God nevertheless disposed and ordered it, though evil, for good; for He so tempered and directed it that Jonah was detected as the guilty one, acknowledged his fault, and returned to God. For He stirred up the storm so that, when the sailors cast lots, Jonah would be caught as its cause and culprit. In a similar way He directed the lots, or rather the superstitious omen, which the Philistines sought (1 Kings 6:9), saying: "If the cows carrying the ark of the Lord go up toward Beth-shemesh, the God of the Hebrews inflicted this plague of diseases upon us; but if not, we shall know that it happened by chance." For God caused the cows to head toward Beth-shemesh, and when this happened, the Philistines believed that the plague was sent upon them not by chance but by God. In a similar way, in chapter 28:15, when Saul consulted the witch, God caused Samuel to appear in her enchantments and to predict Saul's impending death.
St. Chrysostom gives the reason (Homily 3 on the Epistle to Titus): that God willed to convict the diviners and the sacrilegious by their own lots and omens, to turn those things back upon their own heads, and indeed to make them their own accusers. "God," he says, "rebuked and convicted them (the Philistines) by their own mouth. The same must be said about the witch: for since Saul believed in her, therefore through her God caused Saul to hear that evils would overtake him."
And St. Jerome says: "The fugitive (Jonah) is detected by lot, not by the power of lots and especially not by lots of pagans, but by the will of Him who takes care that the outcome actually comes to pass. So in Suetonius and others we read that lots foretold destruction to the Emperor Domitian; but to Alexander Severus, who expected nothing of the sort, they foretold empire: for to him the following verse of Virgil (Aeneid VI) came out by lot:
'Remember, Roman, to rule the peoples with your command.'"
Moreover, to this day infidel and pagan sailors frequently use lots and divinations. As a witness, let St. Francis Xavier testify, who, describing his journey to Japan in the first letter he sent from Japan to his companions at Goa, in the year of the Lord 1548, on November 3, which is found in Book III of his Epistles, the fifth in order: "We were most distressed," he says, "that the shipmaster and sailors repeatedly consulted the demon by lots, whether it would be advantageous to continue to Japan or not; and at the same time they inquired whether we could hold our course with a favorable voyage, and the lots came out now happy, now sad." And after much more on the same topic, having narrated that the shipmaster's daughter was thrown from the ship by its tossing and drowned, he adds: "Then the Barbarians turned to appeasing the idol with sacrifices, and spent an entire day and night slaughtering birds and setting out feasts for the idol."
Learn here that sacrifices are usually joined to lots in order to appease the idol, that is, the demon who is consulted and asked to respond through the lots. Xavier continues: "Then when the shipmaster inquired by lots why his daughter had perished, the lot came out: if our Emmanuel had perished in the bilge, his daughter would by no means have perished. You see indeed in how great a danger we were, whose life hung on the lots of the devil and the will of his minions." He then writes that he used these remedies: "I prayed more frequently to God, etc., that He would impose harsher torments on the common enemy, the author of those superstitions, whenever he drove the shipmaster to cast lots and to worship him in place of God." And shortly after: "The surest defense is to face the enemy with great and resolute courage, distrusting yourself entirely and relying on God, so that you place all your hopes and strength in Him, and in no way allow yourself to appear to fear or doubt victory with such a great defender and patron. For he often threatened me, declaring that the time had come to avenge his teacher. But since he can harm no one except insofar as God Himself permits it, at such a time distrust of God is more to be feared than the assault of the enemy."
He adds that God permits the devil to tempt the timid and those lacking trust, but not the courageous and those trusting in God, for whom He breaks all the power of lots and of the demon, and so directs them that they serve His glory and the benefit of His own.
AND THE LOT FELL UPON JONAH. — The Syriac version: "And the lot of Jonah came up," for example, the slip of paper inscribed with Jonah's name was drawn first from the urn. So allegorically the soldiers divided the garment of Christ by lot, says St. Augustine (Book IV, On the Creed to the Catechumens, ch. 6).
Verse 8
8. TELL US ON WHOSE ACCOUNT THIS EVIL IS UPON US (why we are tossed by these winds and storms, and all but overwhelmed). WHAT IS YOUR BUSINESS? WHAT IS YOUR COUNTRY? — that is, tell us what work you do, from what land, from what people you come, where you are hastening to go. "Note the brevity," says St. Jerome, "which we used to admire in Virgil:"
"What cause, young men, compelled you to try unknown ways? Where are you heading, he said, what is your race? Where is your home? Do you bring peace or arms?"
"The person, the region, the journey, the city are asked about, so that from these the cause of the crisis may be known" — that is, the danger.
They say therefore: "What is your business?" Do you practice usury, robbery, magic, or some similar illicit art, by which you have made a deity hostile to you? Are you a sacrilegious person, an atheist, a magician, a robber, a usurer, etc.? "What is your country? Where do you come from?" — that is: Do you come from some accursed region, against which the sea-gods and winds, or heaven itself, or the stars are stubbornly hostile, and so you are afflicted by divine hatred toward your region? Are you harassed by the fate of your people, for whom heaven always prepares adverse navigation and the most difficult storms? Or have you wickedly deserted your country, dear to the gods, or sacrilegiously violated or betrayed it, for which crime the heavenly powers exact punishment from you? "Of what people are you," so that by the crime or fortune or hatred of that people, first you and then we on your account are afflicted? For this whole inquiry of the sailors aims at suspecting that Jonah is bound by some great crime, either private or public; whether it belongs to Jonah himself, or to his country and people, which this storm is avenging. So Arias.
Verse 9
9. AND HE SAID TO THEM: I AM A HEBREW — that is, by birth and nation I am a Jew, not a Gentile. The name Hebrew, says Arias, was given to his family from Shem the son of Noah, when he, having crossed the Euphrates river, sought new settlements for himself. Hence it is said of him in Genesis 10:21: "Of Shem also were born children, the father of all the sons of Heber." Second, others think that they were called Hebrews from Heber the father of Peleg, in whose time the division of languages took place, since the use of the Hebrew language remained in his family. But not all the descendants of Heber, and much less of Shem, were called Hebrews, but only those who descend through Abraham. Third, therefore others more correctly hold that Abraham was called a Hebrew, that is, a crosser, because he migrated from Chaldea across the Euphrates to Canaan: hence to him first of all this name was given (Gen. 14:12). From Abraham, therefore, his descendants were called Hebrews, just as they were called Abrahamites. This was once a glorious name; hence the Apostle (2 Cor. 11:22): "Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? So am I." For Christ was a Hebrew, the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles, and the first Christians were Hebrews.
Tropologically, Arias says: Jonah confessed that he was a Hebrew, that is, a passer-by, that is, a transgressor of the divine law and will. Again, a Hebrew, that is, a stranger and pilgrim, who continually tends toward death, and through death to immortality. The Chaldean and the Septuagint, reading abdi instead of ibri (Hebrew), translate: "I am a servant of the Lord."
AND I FEAR THE LORD THE GOD OF HEAVEN (for 'God' in Hebrew is the Tetragrammaton Jehovah, as if to say: I, a Hebrew, worship not idols but the true God of the Hebrews Himself) — that is, I worship Him. Note: In Scripture the worship of God is called fear; and to fear God is to worship Him, both because "fear first made gods in the world," and because the supreme majesty of God especially demands from us fear and reverence. "A son honors his father, and a servant his master: if therefore I am a Father, where is My honor? And if I am a Master, where is My fear?" (Malachi 1:6). For fear, not servile but filial, includes love and reverence of God as our supreme Lord and Father.
WHO MADE THE SEA AND THE DRY LAND — who is the true and only God, as the Creator of the universe and Lord of heaven, sea, and earth; who therefore sent this storm and tempest from heaven upon the air, sea, and land; and who is powerful enough to drown us in the sea, just as to swallow us up when the earth opens; but He sent it on account of my disobedience and flight. For that Jonah told them this is clear from what follows: "For the men knew that he fled from the face of the Lord, because he had told them." For those words refer to this point. And hence it follows:
Verse 10
10. AND THE MEN WERE SEIZED WITH GREAT FEAR — both because they feared exceedingly the power and vengeance of God as Jonah had set it forth, especially since each one was conscious that he himself had often offended and provoked Him; and because they not so much feared as saw with their own eyes that God, so powerful and offended, was pursuing the fleeing Jonah and catching him on their very ship. They feared therefore that they too, as harboring Jonah, would equally be caught by God together with him, punished, and drowned. For just as when a magistrate pursues a thief and robber and invades the house which the thief has entered, the host and all who are in the house are struck with fear lest they be seized and punished by the magistrate together with the thief as associates and accomplices — so much more is the same to be feared with God, who from time to time punishes and avenges even in an innocent people the hidden sins of certain individuals: as He punished the hidden theft of Achan in the entire people of the Hebrews, who were unaware and innocent, allowing them to be slain by the Canaanites, because "there is an accursed thing in your midst, O Israel" (so also in you, O ship and sailors, namely Jonah), Joshua 7:13. So St. Jerome.
"The order of the narrative," he says, "is inverted. For since it might be said: There was no reason for fear from what he confessed to them, saying: 'I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land' — it is immediately added that they feared because he had indicated to them that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord and had not done His commands. Finally they complain and say: 'Why have you done this?' — that is, if you fear God, why do you flee? If you proclaim such great power of the one you worship, how do you think you can escape?" And again: "They fear with a great fear because they understand that he is a holy man of a holy nation; for having cast off from Joppa, they were aware of the privilege of the Hebrew nation, and yet they cannot conceal the fugitive.
Great is the one who flees, but greater is the One who seeks: they dare not hand him over, they cannot conceal him."
Verse 11
11. AND THEY SAID TO HIM: WHAT SHALL WE DO TO YOU? — "They ask," says St. Jerome, "that he who had been the author of the sin may provide the remedy: if it is our fault that we took you aboard, 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 we would preserve a worshipper of the Lord. But you are fleeing from God; it is our part to lend our hands to whatever you command; yours to command what should be done, so that the sea, which now testifies to its wrath by its swelling, may grow calm."
AND THE SEA WILL CEASE — that is, so that it may cease. This is a Hebraism.
FOR THE SEA WENT AND SWELLED — "to show that it could not postpone the vengeance of the Creator," says St. Jerome. And St. Chrysostom in his homily On Jonah says: Just as a faithful servant, seeing a slave flee, pursues him and does not rest until he catches him, brings him back, and presents him to his master, so also the sea pursues the fleeing Jonah and does not cease until it catches him and delivers him to God.
Verse 12
12. AND HE SAID TO THEM: TAKE ME UP AND CAST ME INTO THE SEA. — Note here first, the magnanimous charity of Jonah, by which, lest others perish; also his penitence, by which, in order to make satisfaction to the offended God, he alone wishes to perish. So St. Jerome. Second, that Jonah said this by the inspiration of God, by which he knew that God wished him to be cast into the sea as a kind of expiatory offering and purification; for it was for this reason that God had stirred up this storm. For this is what he says: "For I know that on my account this storm," etc. For otherwise, unless God had demanded that he, as a fugitive, be surrendered to Him in this way, neither could the sailors have drowned him, nor could he himself have given the sailors the power to drown and kill him.
Moreover, God wished Jonah to be plunged into the sea because, in fleeing God, he had taken refuge at the sea. The sea was your desire, O Jonah; let the sea likewise be your tormentor: for in the same thing in which one sins, in that also one is punished. Allegorically, however, the more important reason was to represent the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, about which more shortly.
Hear St. Chrysostom (Homily 5 to the People): "Jonah was fleeing the land, and he was not fleeing the wrath of God. He was fleeing the land, and he brought a storm upon the sea; not only did he gain no good from his flight, but he even brought those who had taken him aboard into the utmost peril: so that you may learn that, just as a ship is of no profit to one living in sins, so the sea does not destroy, nor do beasts consume, one who has been stripped of sin. Indeed both animal and element returned their charge safe and sound to God, and through all these things the Prophet was learning to be gentle and humane, and not to be more cruel than the foolish sailors, the fierce waves, or the beasts. He returned, therefore, preached, threatened, persuaded, saved.
For this reason He did not lead him directly from the ship to the city, but the sailors handed him to the sea, the sea to the whale, the whale to God, God to the Ninevites, and through a long circuit brought the fugitive back." See what follows, where he beautifully teaches the sinner that one must not flee from God, because to escape is impossible, but that evil habits must be changed; for these gave cause to the wound.
This example of Jonah was imitated by St. Gregory Nazianzen: for when a dissension arose at the Council of Constantinople between the Egyptian and Eastern bishops — the former opposing and the latter defending the election of Gregory as Patriarch of Constantinople — he himself entered the council and exhorted all to peace, and for the sake of peace, like another Jonah, offered to devote himself to the sea and freely renounce the patriarchate, which he also generously carried out. Hear him in his poem On His Own Life:
"I emulate the noble deed of Jonah: I gladly give myself for the safety of our ship, though I am not the cause of the tempest raised. Plunge us, taken by lot, into the raging sea; a hospitable whale will receive us. Let this be the beginning of concord for you; let this place be called 'Breadth'; a more splendid future will rise for me here."
He alludes to a similar cession of wells which Isaac made to the men of Gerar (Gen. 26:22), who therefore called the third well, the peaceful one, 'Breadth.'
Allegorically, St. Jerome says: "The Apostles, abandoning Christ in His Passion, were in a way casting Him into the sea. This Jonah says: 'I know that on my account a great storm is upon you, because the winds see me sailing with you to Tarshish, that is, navigating toward the contemplation of joy, to lead you to joy, that where I am and the Father, there you also may be. Therefore they rage, therefore the world roars; death desires to devour Me, that it may kill you likewise, and does not understand that it takes the bait on a hook, so that by My death it may die. Take me and cast me into the sea; the storm that rages against you on My account will be stilled by My death.'"
Verse 13
13. AND THE MEN ROWED HARD TO RETURN TO THE DRY LAND. — Note here the piety of the sailors: for, lest they drown Jonah (although he himself indicated and offered himself for this), they seek the shore to which they might put him ashore, and so look out both for him and for themselves. Therefore, says St. Jerome, "they were striving to return to land and escape the danger, lest they should shed blood, preferring to perish rather than to destroy." But when they see that they cannot overcome the opposing waves, but are being overcome by them, and that the lives of all are at stake, they judge it better that one Jonah should perish than all. They will therefore cast him into the sea, but before they do so, they beg pardon from God. They say therefore:
Verse 14
14. WE BESEECH YOU, O LORD, LET US NOT PERISH FOR THE LIFE OF THIS MAN (in, that is, as the Septuagint has it, on account of the life, that is, the life of Jonah, whom we are drowning and destroying; but unwilling, compelled, and commanded by the very one whom we are destroying. Hence explaining, they add): AND LAY NOT UPON US INNOCENT BLOOD — that is, do not impute to us that we have cast this innocent man into the sea: for although he is innocent toward us and has harmed no one of us, yet toward You he is guilty; for You have declared him guilty by the lots.
Verse 15
15. AND THEY TOOK JONAH AND CAST HIM INTO THE SEA. — "He did not say," says St. Jerome, "'they seized him'; he does not say 'they attacked him'; but 'they took him,' as if carrying him with deference and honor; they cast into the sea one who did not resist, but offered his hands to their will." Arias adds something memorable from Eleazar: "In the treatise of Eleazar, a most ancient interpreter of the divine books, who is said to have written around the time of Christ, a fifth trial is reported to have been made by those men, in order to inquire more carefully into the divine counsel on this matter. For after the private invocations of gods, after the jettisoning of cargo, after the casting of lots, after the prayer and supplication undertaken in common, they frequently attempted this last measure: to lower Jonah, after lifting him up, into the sea up to his neck, and then take him back into the ship. He says that it happened that whenever he was lowered, the sea would grow calm; but when he was taken back, it was felt to roar and swell again. Made more certain of the divine will by this sign, they at last cast Jonah entirely into the sea." The sailors' solicitude in trying to free Jonah makes this same account probable and credible.
AND THE SEA CEASED FROM ITS RAGING — it ceased from its seething, swelling, and waves, "because it had found the one it was seeking," says St. Jerome, "just as when someone pursues a fugitive and advances with hurried step, after he has caught up with him, he stops running and stands and holds the one he has seized: so also the sea, which was angry in Jonah's absence, holding in its bowels the one it desired, rejoices and cherishes him, and from that joy calm returns." So allegorically, he says, when Christ was cast into the sea of His Passion, the fury of idolatry and of every error ceased, the tranquility of faith returned, peace to the world, security to all things, and the conversion of the nations to God: just as therefore the submersion of Jonah is the relief of the ship, so the death of Christ is the salvation of the world.
Note: Although the wind ceased, "yet the wave still rages from the wind that was": so here, after the wind, the sea raged until Jonah was cast in; once he was cast in, it immediately grew calm, to indicate that this storm was both divinely stirred up and divinely calmed, on account of Jonah alone.
Verse 16
16. AND THE MEN FEARED THE LORD WITH A GREAT FEAR — that is, by this miracle of the raging sea instantly calmed, the sailors recognized God as its author, namely that the God of Jonah and the Hebrews is the true God, and they were converted to faith in Him, fear of Him, and worship of Him. So Hugo, Lyranus, and Arias.
AND THEY OFFERED SACRIFICES (not only the spiritual offerings of prayers and thanksgivings, as St. Jerome holds, but also bodily sacrifices: for soon after Jonah was cast into the sea, they reached the shore and there offered sacrifices to the God of the Hebrews. Moreover) THEY MADE VOWS — to be fulfilled in the temple of the Hebrews at Jerusalem, according to the law and rites which they were going to inquire about from the Scribes there; for they could not learn these from Jonah, who had already been cast into the sea. So Theophylactus and Hugo. Wherefore there is no doubt that all these sailors preached and celebrated this miracle, and God its author, everywhere they went from then on. Hence one might suspect that these sailors, worshipping the God of the Hebrews, embraced Judaism and became proselytes.
Jonah, cast into the sea, is swallowed by a great fish; there in a beautiful canticle he invokes and praises God, by whose command he is therefore vomited up onto dry land on the third day.
1. And the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah: and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. 2. And Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish. 3. And he said: I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and He heard me: I cried out of the belly of hell, and You heard my voice. 4. And You cast me forth into the deep, in the heart of the sea, and a flood compassed me: all Your billows and Your waves passed over me. 5. And I said: I am cast away out of the sight of Your eyes: but yet I shall see Your holy temple again. 6. The waters compassed me about even to the soul: the deep closed me round about, the sea covered my head. 7. I went down to the lowest parts of the mountains: the bars of the earth shut me up for ever: and You will bring up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. 8. When my soul was in distress within me, I remembered the Lord: that my prayer may come to You, unto Your holy temple. 9. They that in vain observe vanities forsake their own mercy. 10. But I with the voice of praise will sacrifice to You: I will pay whatsoever I have vowed for my salvation to the Lord. 11. And the Lord spoke to the fish: and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
they cannot. Great is the one who flees, but greater is the one who seeks: they dare not hand him over, yet they cannot conceal him.
Verse 11. AND THEY SAID TO HIM: WHAT SHALL WE DO TO YOU? — "They ask," says St. Jerome, "that the one who had been the author of the sin might himself be the remedy: if it is our fault that we received you, what can we do so that the Lord will not be angry? What shall we do to you? That is, shall we kill you? But we would preserve a worshiper of the Lord? But you are fleeing God; it is ours to offer our hands for whatever you command to be done; it is yours to command, by which act the sea may be calmed, which now testifies to its wrath by its swelling."
St. Gregory Nazianzen imitated this example of Jonah; for when a dissension had arisen at the Council of Constantinople between the Egyptian and Eastern bishops, with the former opposing Gregory's election as Patriarch of Constantinople and the latter defending it, he himself entered the synod, exhorted all to peace, and for the sake of that peace, like another Jonah, offered to devote himself to the sea and freely resign the patriarchate, which he also nobly carried out. Hear him in his poem On His Own Life:
Indeed I emulate the lofty deed of Jonah: I gladly give myself for the safety of our ship, Although I am not the cause of the storm raised; Plunge us, taken by lot, into the raging sea, The hospitable whale will receive us: let this be For you the beginning of concord; let this place Be called Breadth, a more splendid one will arise for me.
He alludes to the similar cession of wells which Isaac made to the Gerarites in Genesis 26:22, who therefore called the third peaceful well Latitude [Breadth].
AND THE SEA SHALL CEASE — that is, so that it may cease. This is a Hebraism.
BECAUSE THE SEA WAS GOING AND SWELLING — "to show that the vengeance of the Creator could not be delayed," says St. Jerome, and St. Chrysostom in his homily On Jonah: Just as, he says, a faithful servant seeing a slave flee pursues him, and does not rest until he seizes, brings him back, and presents him to the master: so also the sea pursues the fleeing Jonah, nor does it cease until it captures him and delivers him to God.
Verse 12. AND HE SAID TO THEM: TAKE ME UP AND CAST ME INTO THE SEA. — Note here first the magnanimous charity of Jonah, by which, lest others perish: likewise his repentance, by which, in order to make satisfaction to God whom he offended, he alone desires to perish. So St. Jerome. Second, that Jonah said these things by the instinct of God, by which he knew that God willed him to be cast into the sea as a propitiatory and expiatory victim; for it was for this reason that this tempest had been stirred up by God. For this is what he says: "For I know that it is because of me that this tempest has come," etc. For otherwise, unless God had demanded him to be surrendered to Himself as a fugitive, neither could the sailors have drowned him, nor could he himself have given the sailors the power to drown and kill him. Moreover, God willed Jonah to be plunged into the sea because, while fleeing God, he had taken refuge at the sea; the sea was your desire, O Jonah, let the sea likewise be your tormentor: for in that in which anyone sins, in that he is also punished. Allegorically, however, the more important reason was to represent the passion and resurrection of Christ, about which more will follow shortly.
Hear St. Chrysostom, Homily 5 to the People: "Jonah was fleeing from the land, and he was not escaping the wrath of God. He was fleeing from the land, and he brought a tempest upon the sea; not only did he obtain no good from his flight, but he also brought those who had received him into extreme danger: so that you may learn that, just as a ship profits nothing for one living in sins, so the sea does not destroy one stripped of sin, nor do beasts consume him: but both the animal and the element returned their charge unharmed to God, and in all things the Prophet learned to be gentle and humane, and to be no crueler than the foolish sailors, the wild waves, or the beasts. Therefore he returned, he preached, he threatened, he persuaded, he saved. For this reason God did not immediately bring him from the ship to the city, but the sailors delivered him to the sea, the sea to the whale, the whale to God, God to the Ninevites, and through a long circuit brought the fugitive back."
Allegorically St. Jerome says: "The Apostles, deserting Christ in His passion, in a certain way were casting Him into the waves. This Jonah says: I know that because of me this great tempest is upon you, because the winds see me sailing with you to Tarshish, that is, navigating toward the contemplation of joy, so that I may lead you to gladness, that where I am and the Father is, there you also may be. Therefore they rage, therefore the world roars, death desires to devour Me, so that it may likewise kill you, and it does not understand that it takes the bait on a hook, so that by My death it may itself die. Take Me up and cast Me into the sea; the tempest which rages against you because of Me will be calmed by My death."
13. AND THE MEN ROWED HARD TO RETURN TO DRY LAND. — Note here the piety of the sailors: for, lest they drown Jonah, although he was indicating and offering himself, they seek the shore where they might set him ashore; and thus they might look after both him and themselves. Therefore, says St. Jerome, "they were striving to return to land and escape the peril, lest they shed blood, preferring to perish rather than to destroy." But when they see that they cannot overcome the opposing waves, but are being overcome by them, and that the lives of all are at stake, they judge it better that one Jonah perish than all. They will therefore cast him into the sea, but before they do so, they pray for pardon from God. They say therefore:
14. WE BESEECH YOU, O LORD, LET US NOT PERISH FOR THE LIFE OF THIS MAN (in, that is, as the Septuagint has it, on account of the soul, that is the life, of Jonah, whom we are drowning and destroying; but unwillingly, compelled, and commanded by the very one whom we are destroying. Whence, explaining further, they add): AND DO NOT LAY UPON US INNOCENT BLOOD — that is to say: Do not impute to us that we have cast this innocent man into the sea: for although he is innocent toward us and has harmed none of our people, yet toward You he is guilty: for You have declared him guilty through the lots.
that one must not flee from God, because escape is impossible, but that evil ways must be changed; for these gave the cause of the wound.
See what follows, where he beautifully teaches that for the sinner not
15. AND THEY TOOK UP JONAH AND CAST HIM INTO THE SEA. — "He did not say," says St. Jerome, "they seized him; he does not say, they attacked him; but they took him up, as if carrying him with deference and honor, they cast into the sea one who was not resisting, but offering his hands to their will." Arias adds from Eleazar something memorable: "In the treatise of Eleazar, the most ancient interpreter of the divine books, who is said to have written around the time of Christ, it is recorded that this was the fifth trial made by those men, by which the divine counsel regarding this matter might be more diligently sought out. For after private invocations of gods, after the jettisoning of cargo, after the casting of lots, after prayer and supplication undertaken in common, they tried that last measure repeatedly, namely that they would lower Jonah, having lifted him, into the sea up to his neck, and then receive him back again into the ship; and he says it happened that as often as he was lowered, the sea would grow calm; but when he was received back, it was felt to roar and swell again: by which sign, made more certain of the divine will, they finally cast Jonah into the sea and plunged him completely." The solicitude of the sailors in trying to free Jonah makes this same account probable and credible.
And the sea stood still from its raging — it ceased from its surging, swelling, and waves, "because it had found what it was seeking," says St. Jerome, "just as if someone pursuing a fugitive proceeds at a hasty pace, and after he has caught up, stops running and stands and holds the one he has seized: so also the sea which was angry in Jonah's absence, holding in its depths the one it desired, rejoices and cherishes him, and from that joy tranquility returns." Thus allegorically, he says, when Christ was cast into the sea of His passion, the heat of idolatry and every error subsided, the tranquility of faith returned, along with peace for the world, security in all things, and the conversion of the nations to God: just as therefore Jonah's submersion is the ship's relief, so Christ's death is the world's salvation.
Note: Although the wind ceased, "yet still from the wind that was, the wave rages:" so here after the wind the sea raged, until Jonah was thrown in; once he was thrown in, it immediately grew calm, to indicate that this tempest was divinely both stirred up and calmed, on account of Jonah alone.
AND THE MEN FEARED THE LORD WITH A GREAT FEAR — that is to say: By this miracle of the sea raging and immediately becoming calm, the sailors recognized God as its author, namely that the God of Jonah and of the Hebrews was the true God, and they were converted to faith in Him, fear of Him, and worship of Him. So Hugo, Lyranus, and Arias.
AND THEY SACRIFICED VICTIMS (not only spiritual offerings of prayers and thanksgivings, as St. Jerome thinks, but also bodily ones: for immediately after Jonah was cast into the sea, they put in to shore, and there they sacrificed victims to the God of the Hebrews. Moreover) THEY MADE VOWS — to be offered in the temple of the Hebrews at Jerusalem, according to the law and rites which they were going to seek out from the Scribes there: for they could not learn these from Jonah, who had already been cast into the sea. So Theophylactus and Hugo. Wherefore there is no doubt that all these sailors thereafter preached and celebrated this miracle and God its author everywhere. Hence someone might suspect that these sailors, worshiping the God of the Hebrews, embraced Judaism and became proselytes.