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Jonah The Prophet
Jonah The Prophet The history of Jonah contains a great mystery. For it seems that the fish signifies Time, ýwhich never stands still, but is always going on, and consumes the things which are made by long ýand shorter intervals. But Jonah, who fled from the presence of God, is himself the first man who, having ýtransgressed the law, fled from being seen naked of immortality, having lost through sin his ýconfidence in the Deity.
The ship in which he embarked, and which was tempest-tossed, is this brief and hard life ýin the present time. Just as though we had turned and removed from that blessed and secure life, ýto that which was most tempestuous and unstable, as from solid land to a ship. For what a ship is ýto the land, that our present life is to eternal life.
The storm and the tempests which beat against us are the temptations of this life, ýwhich in the world, as in a tempestuous sea, do not permit us to have a fair voyage free from ýpain, in a calm sea, and one which is free from evils. ý
The casting of Jonah from the ship into the sea, signifies the fall of the first man from ýlife to death, who received that sentence because, through having sinned, he fell from ýrighteousness: “You are dust, and unto dust you shall return.”
His being swallowed by the whale signifies our inevitable removal by time. For the belly ýin which Jonah, when he was swallowed, was concealed, is the all-receiving earth, which ýreceives all things which are consumed by time.
As Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of the fish and was delivered up ýsound again, all of us who have passed through the three stages of our present life on earth—the ýbeginning, middle, and end— rise again. For our present time consists of three intervals: the past, ýthe future, and the present. Thus, the Lord spent three days in the earth as a symbol to teach us ýclearly that our resurrection shall take place after these intervals of time have been fulfilled. Our ýresurrection shall be the beginning of the future age and the end of this. In that age, there is ýneither past nor future, but only the present.
Moreover, Jonah having spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, was ýnot destroyed by his flesh being dissolved, as is the case with that natural decomposition which ýtakes place in the belly, in the case of those meats which enter into it, on account of the greater ýheat in the liquids, that it might be shown that these bodies of ours may remain undestroyed. For ýconsider that God had images of Himself made as of gold, that is of a purer spiritual substance, ýas the angels; and others of clay or brass, as ourselves. He united the soul which was made in ýthe image of God to that which was earthy. As, then, we must here honor all the images of a king, ýon account of the form which is in them, so also it is incredible that we who are the images of God ýshould be altogether destroyed as being without honor. Whence also the Word descended into ýour world, and was incarnate of our body, in order that, having fashioned it to a more divine ýimage, He might raise it incorrupt, although it had been dissolved by time. And, indeed, when we ýtrace out the dispensation which was figuratively set forth by the prophet, we shall find the whole ýdiscourse visibly extending to this.ý St. Methodius |
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