Augustine of Hippo

In his own words on Jonah

• Jonah 1:17

  The last question is about Jonah, and it is not put as if it were taken from Porphyry but as if it were a laughingstock of the pagans. It is expressed thus: "Please tell me what we are to think about Jonah, who is said to have been three days in the belly of a whale. It is improbable and unbelievable that he should have been swallowed up with his clothing and should have been inside the fish. If it is figuratively said, please explain it.… I have noticed that this sort of question is a matter of much jest and much laughter to pagans. The answer to this is that either all the divine miracles are to be disbelieved or there is no reason why they should not be believed. We should not believe in Christ himself and that he rose on the third day, if the faith of the Christians feared the laughter of the pagans.

  LETTER 170:6

• Jonah 2:1

  To this I reply, that either all the miracles wrought by divine power may be treated as incredible, or there is no reason why the story of this miracle should not be believed. The resurrection of Christ Himself upon the third day would not be believed by us, if the Christian faith was afraid to encounter Pagan ridicule. Since, however, our friend did not on this ground ask whether it is to be believed that Lazarus was raised on the fourth day, or that Christ rose on the third day, I am much surprised that he reckoned what was done with Jonah to be incredible; unless, perchance, he thinks it easier for a dead man to be raised in life from his sepulchre, than for a living man to be kept in life in the spacious belly of a sea monster. For without mentioning the great size of sea monsters which is reported to us by those who have knowledge of them, let me ask how many men could be contained in the belly which was fenced round with those huge ribs which are fixed in a public place in Carthage, and are well known to all men there? Who can be at a loss to conjecture how wide an entrance must have been given by the opening of the mouth which was the gateway of that vast cavern? unless, perchance, as our friend stated it, the clothing of Jonah stood in the way of his being swallowed without injury, as if he had required to squeeze himself through a narrow passage, instead of being, as was the case, thrown headlong through the air, and so caught by the sea monster as to be received into its belly before he was wounded by its teeth. At the same time, the Scripture does not say whether he had his clothes on or not when he was cast down into that cavern, so that it may without contradiction be understood that he made that swift descent unclothed, if perchance it was necessary that his garment should be taken from him, as the shell is taken from an egg, to make him more easily swallowed. For men are as much concerned about the raiment of this prophet as would be reasonable if it were stated that he had crept through a very small window, or had been going into a bath; and yet, even though it were necessary in such circumstances to enter without parting with one's clothes, this would be only inconvenient, not miraculous.

  LETTER 102, TO DEOGRATIAS

• Jonah 3:3

  Why, then, are we asked what was prefigured by the prophet being swallowed by that monster and restored alive on the third day? Christ explained it when he said an evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it, but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was in the whale's belly three days and three nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. … So then, as Jonah went from the ship into the belly of the whale, so Christ went from the tree into the tomb, or into the abyss of death. And as Jonah was sacrificed for those endangered by the storm, so Christ was offered for those who are drowning in the storm of this world. And as Jonah was first commanded to preach to the Ninevites but his prophecy did not come to them until after the whale had vomited him out, so the prophecy made to the Gentiles did not come to them until after the resurrection of Christ.

  LETTER 102:6

• Jonah 3:6

  A sovereign serves God one way as a man, another way as a king. He serves him as man by living according to faith. He serves him as king by exerting the necessary strength to sanction laws that command goodness and prohibit its opposite. It was thus that Ezekiel served him by destroying the groves and temples of idols and the high places that had been set up contrary to the commandments of God. Thus Josiah served him by performing similar acts. Thus the king of the Ninevites served him by compelling the whole city to appease the Lord.

  LETTER 185:5.19

• Jonah 3:10

  In uncertainty they repented and obtained certain mercy.

  EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 50

• Jonah 4:5-6

  But when Jonah made himself a booth and sat down opposite the city of Nineveh, waiting to see what would befall it, the prophet played a part of different significance. He was a type of the carnal people of Israel, for he was sad over the preservation of the Ninevites! He was frustrated over the redemption and salvation of the Gentiles! This is why Christ came to call "not the just but sinners to repentance." But the shadow of the vine over his head was the promise of the Old Testament. Its law manifested, as the apostle says, "a shadow of things to come." God was offering shade from the heat of temporal evils in the land of promise.

  LETTER 102:6

• Jonah 4:6

  A certain bishop, one of our brethren, having introduced in the church over which he presides the reading of your version, came upon a word in the book of the prophet Jonah, of which you have given a very different rendering from that which had been of old familiar to the senses and memory of all the worshippers, and had been chanted for so many generations in the church. [Jonah 4:6] Thereupon arose such a tumult in the congregation, especially among the Greeks, correcting what had been read, and denouncing the translation as false, that the bishop was compelled to ask the testimony of the Jewish residents (it was in the town of Oea). These, whether from ignorance or from spite, answered that the words in the Hebrew manuscripts were correctly rendered in the Greek version, and in the Latin one taken from it. What further need I say? The man was compelled to correct your version in that passage as if it had been falsely translated, as he desired not to be left without a congregation — a calamity which he narrowly escaped. From this case we also are led to think that you may be occasionally mistaken. You will also observe how great must have been the difficulty if this had occurred in those writings which cannot be explained by comparing the testimony of languages now in use.

  Augustine Letter 71 (To Jerome), Chapter 3, Section 5

• Jonah 4:6

  I desire, moreover, your translation of the Septuagint, in order that we may be delivered, so far as is possible, from the consequences of the notable incompetency of those who, whether qualified or not, have attempted a Latin translation; and in order that those who think that I look with jealousy on your useful labours, may at length, if it be possible, perceive that my only reason for objecting to the public reading of your translation from the Hebrew in our churches was, lest, bringing forward anything which was, as it were, new and opposed to the authority of the Septuagint version, we should trouble by serious cause of offense the flocks of Christ, whose ears and hearts have become accustomed to listen to that version to which the seal of approbation was given by the apostles themselves. Wherefore, as to that shrub in the book of Jonah, if in the Hebrew it is neither "gourd" nor "ivy," but something else which stands erect, supported by its own stem without other props, I would prefer to call it "gourd" in all our Latin versions; for I do not think that the Seventy would have rendered it thus at random, had they not known that the plant was something like a gourd.

  Augustine Letter 82 (To Jerome), Chapter 5, Section 35

• Jonah 4:7

  But the worm came in the morning. It gnawed at the vine and withered it. For when the gospel had been published by Christ's mouth, all those things withered and faded away. The shade of the vine symbolized temporal prosperity for the Israelites. And now those people have lost the kingdom of Jerusalem and their priesthood and sacrifice. All of this was a foreshadowing of the future. They were scattered abroad in captivity and afflicted with a great flood of suffering, just as Jonah—so it is written—suffered grievously from the heat of the sun. Yet the salvation of penitent nations is preferred to Jonah's suffering and the shade that he loved.

  LETTER 102:6