Jonah

The fifth of the Minor Prophets. The name is usually taken to mean 
"dove", but in view of the complaining words of the Prophet 
(Jonah, iv), it is not unlikely that the name is derived from the 
root Yanah = to mourn, with the signification dolens or 
"complaining". This interpretation goes back to St. Jerome (Comm. 
on Jonah, iv, 1). Apart from the book traditionally ascribed to 
him, Jonah is mentioned only once in the Old Testament, IV Kings, 
xiv, 25, where it is stated that the restoration by Jeroboam II 
(see Jeroboam) of the borders of Israel against the incursions of 
foreign invaders was a fulfillment of the "word of the Lord the 
God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of 
Amathi, the prophet, who was of Geth, which is in Opher". This 
last is but a paraphrastic rendering of the name Gath-Hepher, a 
town in the territory of Zabulon (Josephus, "Antiq.", XIX, xiii), 
which was probably the birthplace of the Prophet, and where his 
grave was still pointed out in the time of St. Jerome. Mention is 
made of Jonah in Matt., xii, 39 sqq., and in xvi, 4, and likewise 
in the parallel passages of Luke (xi, 29, 30, 32), but these 
references add nothing to the information contained in the Old 
Testament data. According to an ancient tradition mentioned by St. 
Jerome (Comm., in Jonah, Prol., P.L., XXV, 118), and which is 
found in Pseudo-Epiphanius (De Vitis Prophetarum, xvi, P.L., 
XLIII, 407), Jonah was the son of the widow of Sarephta whose 
resuscitation by the Prophet Elias is narrated in III Kings, xvii, 
but this legend seems to have no other foundation than the 
phonetic resemblance between the proper name Amathi, father of the 
Prophet, and the Hebrew word Emeth, "truth", applied to the word 
of God through Elias by the widow of Sarephta (III Kings, xvii, 
24). 

The chief interest in the Prophet Jonah centres around two 
remarkable incidents narrated in the book which bears his name. In 
the opening verse it is stated that "the word of the Lord came to 
Jonah the son of Amathi, saying: Arise and go to Ninive, the great 
city, and preach in it: for the wickedness thereof is come up 
before me." But the Prophet, instead of obeying the Divine 
command, "rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord" 
that he might escape the task assigned to him. He boards a ship 
bound for that port, but a violent storm overtakes him, and on his 
admission that he is the cause of it, he is cast overboard. He is 
swallowed by a great fish providentially prepared for the purpose, 
and after a three day's sojourn in the belly of the monster, 
during which time he composes a hymn of thanksgiving, he is cast 
upon dry land. After this episode he again receives the command to 
preach in Ninive, and the account of his second journey is 
scarcely less marvellous than that of the first. He proceeds to 
Ninive and enters "after a day's journey" into it, foretelling its 
destruction in forty days. A general repentance is immediately 
commanded by the authorities, in view of which God relents and 
spares the wicked city. Jonah, angry and disappointed, wishes for 
death. He expostulates with the Lord, and declares that it was in 
anticipation of this result that on the former occasion he had 
wished to flee to Tharsis. He withdraws from Ninive and, under a 
booth which he has erected, he awaits the destiny of the city. In 
this abode he enjoys for a time the refreshing shade of a gourd 
which the Lord prepares for him. Shortly, however, the gourd is 
stricken by a worm and the Prophet is exposed to the burning rays 
of the sun, whereupon he again murmurs and wishes to die. Then the 
Lord rebukes him for his selfish grief over the withering of a 
gourd, while still desiring that God should not be touched by the 
repentance of a city in which "there are more than a hundred and 
twenty thousand persons that know not how to distinguish between 
their right hand and their left, and many beasts." Apart from the 
hymn ascribed to Jonah (ii, 2-11) the contents of the book are 
prose. 

HISTORICITY

Catholics have always looked upon the Book of Jonah as a fact-
narrative. In the works of some recent Catholic writers there is a 
leaning to regard the book as fiction. Only Simon and Jahn, among 
prominent Catholic scholars, have clearly denied the historicity 
of Jonah; and the orthodoxy of these two critics may no longer be 
defended: "Providentissimus Deus" implicitly condemned the ideas 
of both in the matter of inspiration, and the Congregation of the 
Index expressly condemned the "Introduction" of the latter. 

Reasons for the traditional acceptance of the historicity of 
Jonah: 

I. Jewish Tradition 

According to the Septuagint text of the Book of Tobias (xiv, 4), 
the words of Jonah in regard to the destruction of Ninive are 
accepted as facts; the same reading is found in the Aramaic text 
and one Hebrew manuscript. The apocryphal III Mach., vi, 8, lists 
the saving of Jonah in the belly of the fish along with the other 
wonders of Old Testament history. Josephus (Ant. Jud., IX, 2) 
clearly deems the story of Jonah to be historical. 

II. The Authority of Our Lord 

This reason is deemed by Catholics to remove all doubt as to the 
fact of the story of Jonah. The Jews asked a "sign" -- a miracle 
to prove the Messiahship of Jesus. He made answer that no "sign" 
would be given them other than the "sign of Jonah the Prophet. For 
as the 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. The men of Ninive shall rise in judgment with 
this generation and shall condemn it: because they did penance at 
the preaching of Jonah. And behold a greater than Jonah here" 
(Matt., xii, 40-1; xvi, 4; Luke, xi, 29-32). The Jews asked for a 
real miracle; Christ would have deceived them had He presented a 
mere fancy. He argues clearly that just as Jonah was in the 
whale's belly three days and three nights even so He will be in 
the heart of the earth three days and three nights. If, then, the 
stay of Jonah in the belly of the fish be only a fiction, the stay 
of Christ's body in the heart of the earth is only a fiction. If 
the men of Ninive will really not rise in judgment, neither will 
the Jews really rise. Christ contrasts fact with fact, not fancy 
with fancy, nor fancy with fact. It would be very strange, indeed, 
were He to say that He was greater than a fancy-formed man. It 
would be little less strange were he to berate the Jews for their 
real lack of penance by rating this lack in contrast with the 
penance of Ninive which never existed at all. The whole force of 
these striking contrasts is lost, if we admit that the story of 
Jonah is not fact-narrative. Finally, Christ makes no distinction 
between the story of the Queen of Sheba and that of Jonah (see 
Matt., xii, 42). He sets the very same historical value upon the 
Book of Jonah as upon the Third Book of Kings. Such is the very 
strongest argument that Catholics offer for the firm stand they 
take upon the ground of the fact-narrative of the story of Jonah. 

III. The Authority of the Fathers 

Not a single Father has ever been cited in favor of the opinion 
that Jonah is a fancy-tale and no fact-narrative at all. To the 
Fathers Jonah was a fact and a type of the Messias, just such a 
one as Christ presented to the Jews. Saints Jerome, Cyril, and 
Theophilus explain in detail the type-meaning of the facts of the 
Book of Jonah. St. Cyril even forestalls the objections of the 
Rationalists of today: Jonah flees his ministry, bewails God's 
mercy to the Ninivites, and in other ways shows a spirit that ill 
becomes a Prophet and an historical type of Christ. Cyril admits 
that in all this Jonah failed and is not a type of Christ, but 
does not admit that these failures of Jonah prove the story of his 
doings to have been a mere fiction. 

To the Rationalist and to the advanced Protestant Biblical scholar 
these arguments are of no worth whatsoever. They find error not 
only in Jewish and Christian tradition but in Christ Himself. They 
admit that Christ took the story of Jonah as a fact-narrative, and 
make answer that Christ erred; He was a child of His time and 
represents to us the ideas and errors of His time. The arguments 
of those who accept the inerrancy of Christ and deny the 
historicity of Jonah are not conclusive.