Since the holy God has promised those who hope in him a means of escape from every affliction, we, even if we have been cut off in the midst of the seas of evils and are racked by the mighty waves stirred up against us by the spirits of wickedness, nevertheless endure in Christ who strengthens us. We have not slackened the intensity of our zeal for the churches, nor do we, as in a storm when the waves rise high, expect destruction. We still hold fast to our earnest endeavors as much as is possible, sensible of the fact that he who was swallowed by the whale was considered deserving of safety because he did not despair of his life but cried out to the Lord. So then, we ourselves, having reached the uttermost limit of evils, do not give up our hope in the Lord but watch and see his help on all sides.

Do you praise the fearlessness of Elijah in speaking to tyrants and his translation in fire^[1] and the noble heritage of Elisha, the sheepskin mantle, accompanied by the spirit of Elijah?^[2] Then praise also the life of Basil passed in the midst of the fire, I mean in the multitude of temptations, and his preservation through fire which burned but did not consume, the miracle of the bush.^[3] Praise also the fair garment of skin, which came to him from on high, his fleshlessness. I shall omit other parallels, as the young men bedewed in the flames^[4] and the fugitive prophet praying in the belly of the fish and coming forth from the monster as from a chamber. I shall pass over the just man in the den, restraining the ferocity of lions,^[5] and the struggle of the seven Maccabees,^[6] who with a priest and their mother was perfected by blood and all kinds of tortures. Basil emulated their endurance and achieved their glory.

The word for depth (profundum)^[1] stands for porro fundum, the far bottom, whose lowest levels are wholly submerged. From here the prophet cried to the Lord so that he could be more easily heard. It was from this depth that Peter poured forth his glorious tears and from here that the tax collector, who had fallen so deeply into sin that he could not even raise his eyes to heaven, beat his blameworthy breast. Finally from these depths Jonah, who was set in the whale’s belly and had entered hell alive, spoke to the Lord with silent vehemence. The whale was a house of prayer for the prophet, a harbor for him when shipwrecked, a home amid the waves, a happy resource at a desperate time. He was not swallowed for sustenance but to gain rest; and by a wondrous and novel precedent the beast’s belly yielded up its food unharmed, rather than consumed by the normally damaging process of digestion. Jonah bears witness to this in his book when he says, And the Lord commanded a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, and the rest. In that same passage he recounted his prayers as well with prophetic truth. What an outstandingly and wholly glorious repentance, a humility that experiences no fall, grief that rejoices people’s hearts, tears that water the soul! Indeed this depth, which conveys us to heaven, has no inkling of hell. So observe the power of holy prayer, believing as it does that it must be heard the more quickly, the deeper the depths from which it cried to the Lord. So finally there follows, Lord, hear my prayer, for those who have buried themselves in the bowels of holy humility are all the closer to the Highest. Thus when he prayed from the depths he quickly gained the gifts of the highest Redeemer.

Now that I have made mention of the great prophet, who typifies the holy mystery, foreshadowed the death which lasted three days and the salvation it restored, I should like to retrace the footsteps of my poem and briefly hasten back to Jonah. Wondrous are the Lord’s stratagems. Though plunged in the sea, he tossed on the waves unharmed. Though de-voured, he lived on, and the beast that swallowed him remained unfed by the living food [of his body]. He was the booty but not the food of the whale whose belly he used as a home. What a worthy prison for God’s holy runaway! He was captured on the very sea by which he had sought to flee.

Translated to the deep belly of the massive beast, he was imprisoned in a living jail. Thrown from the ship to destruction, he yet sailed upon the waters, an exile from land, a guest of the brine. He walked in the cavern of the whale’s body, a prisoner both captive and free. He was free upon the waves as he floated in that whale, both within the sea and outside it. And though physically incarcerated, the prophet emerged in spirit to return to God. His body was constrained by the great body [of the whale], but the bonds of earth did not constrain the flight of his mind. Though enclosed in that belly, he broke out of his prison by prayer and reached God’s ears. Free for prayer but detained from flight, he proved himself by his faith. He had attempted to escape God by sea, to hide from God in a ship, but now he believed that the Lord was with him even inside that whale submerged in the sea.

Like Jonah when he was in the belly of the fish, I prayed to you on behalf of the people. Similarly, Christ was with God from his mother’s womb, according to what is written, Before the child knew good or evil, he chose the good.^[1]

I cried out, he says, to the Lord my God in my affliction, and he heard me. Out of the belly of hell he heard my cry. I, says Jonah, who previously thought that God appears to prophets only in Jerusalem, found him present even in the whale’s belly. And having prayed to him, I was delivered by his love of humanity. He calls the whale’s belly the belly of hell because the beast is deadly. In fact, Jonah was already presumed dead. He survived only by God’s grace. Moreover, Jonah says that he was in the belly of hell because this is also a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.^[1] It is especially surprising that the one who really tasted death said that he was three days and three nights in the belly of earth, yet the one who saw just the shadow of death called the whale’s belly the belly of hell. This was because the life of Jonah was beyond his control, while in the case of the Lord both his death and his resurrection were voluntary. That is why the Gospel calls the place of hell and death the heart of earth, while here the belly of whale is called the belly of hell. He heard my voice, says Jonah, since otherwise he would not be alive to say this.

Jonah fulfilled a type of our Savior when he prayed from the belly of the fish and said, I cried for help from the midst of the netherworld. He was in fact in the fish, yet he says that he is in the netherworld. In a later verse he manifestly prophesies in the person of Christ: My head went down into the chasms of the mountains. Yet he was still in the belly of the fish. What mountains encompass you? But I know, he says, that I am a type of him who is to be laid in the sepulcher hewn out of rock. While he was in the sea, Jonah says, I went down into the earth, for he typified Christ, who went down into the heart of the earth.

When a person has completely abandoned the world, it seems to one that one is living in a remote desert, full of wild beasts.^[1] One is filled with unutterable fear and indescribable trembling, and cries to God like Jonah from the whale, from the sea of this life, or like Daniel^[2] from the pit of the lions and the fierce passions, or like the three children^[3] from the burning furnace and the flames of innate desire, or like Manasseh^[4] from the brazen statue of this earthly mortal body. The Lord hears that person and delivers him from the abyss of ignorance and love of this world, just like the prophet who came out of the whale, never to go back again.

Hoping for salvation by human resources is no salvation, for mortal means will not rout death. So those who live in a time of anxiety should be anxious to pray to the Lord of heaven, who dispenses sadness or gladness and who alone by his transcendent sway can ensure that troubles are removed and happy times restored. . . . The power of prayers and the healing efficacy of tears in the presence of God our Father is the lesson we must learn from Nineveh saved by its grief. . . . So the faith that relies on God should strengthen panicking hearts, and its trust in God should in time of sorrow anticipate untroubled days. For fear of God ensures freedom from fear, whereas the one who does not fear God alone is right to fear everything. Those who have no confidence in Christ as bearer of salvation must put their trust in legions.

Jonah was swallowed by the monster of the deep, in whose belly whole ships were devoured, and after three days he was vomited out again safe and sound. Enoch and Elijah, who even now, without experiencing a resurrection (because they have not even encountered death), are learning to the full what it is for the flesh to be exempted from all humiliation, and all loss, and all injury and all disgrace. They have been translated from this world and from this very cause are already candidates for everlasting life.^[1] To what faith do these notable events bear witness, if not to that which ought to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs and documents of our own future and our completed resurrection? To borrow the apostle’s phrase, these were figures of ourselves.^[2] They are written that we may believe that the Lord is more powerful than all natural laws about the body.

Hence he is tempest-tossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale.

It was not the influence of his natal star but the offense of having neglected the divine prophecy that cast Jonah into the sea. A whale received him and after three days vomited him forth, as a symbol of a future mystery, and preserved him for the service of prophecy.

If, however, any one imagines it is impossible that people should survive for such a length of time, and that Elijah was not caught up in the flesh but that flesh was consumed in the fiery chariot, let them consider that Jonah, when he had been cast into the deep and swallowed down into the whale’s belly, was by the command of God again thrown out safe upon the land.