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.^[1] . . . So then, as Jonah went from the ship into the belly of the whale,^[2] 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^[3] 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.

We should not despair of those who are still unwilling to correct their vices and do not even blush to defend them. In a similar way hope was not abandoned for that city of which it is written, Three days more, and Nineveh shall be destroyed; yet in those three days it was able to be converted, pray, bewail and merit mercy from the threatened punishment. Therefore let all who are such listen to God while it is possible to hear him in his silence; that is, not punishing at present. For he will come and will not be silent, and he will then reprove when there is no chance of amendment.

Does God for our salvation deceive and say certain things so that the sinner ceases doing what he might do if he had not heard certain of these words? Was the one who says, Yet three days and Nineveh shall be destroyed, speaking as one who speaks truly or not? Or as one who deceives by a deceit that converts? If that kind of conversion did not happen, was what was said no longer a deceit but already truth. There would have been a destruction that followed for Nineveh. It was up to those who hear.

If you want, let us also hear this story: Now the word of the Lord, it says, came to Jonah, saying, ‘Rise and go to Nineveh, the great city.’ He wanted to put Jonah to shame by sending him to the great city of Nineveh, because he foresaw the prophet’s escape. However, let us also listen to the preaching: Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Why do you, God, foretell the sufferings that you will inflict upon Nineveh? So that I will not do what I announced. This is why God threatened with hell—so he would not lead anyone away to hell. He says, Fear that which is spoken to you, and do not be saddened about what has been done.^[1] Why does he establish the appointed time to be only a period of three days? So that you may learn even the virtue of the barbarians—I call the Ninevites barbarians, who were able to annul in three days such anger caused by sin. I want you to marvel at the philanthropy of God, who was satisfied with three days of repentance for so many transgressions. I do not want you to sink into despair, even though you have innumerable sins.

Let us sow in tears, so that we may reap in joy.^[1] Let us show ourselves people of Nineveh, not of Sodom.^[2] Let us amend our wickedness, lest we be consumed with it. Let us listen to the preaching of Jonah, lest we be overwhelmed by fire and brimstone. And if we have departed from Sodom, let us escape to the mountain. Let us flee to Zoar. Let us enter it as the sun rises. Let us not stay in all the plain. Let us not look around us, lest we be frozen into a pillar of salt, a really immoral pillar, to accuse the soul that returns to wickedness.

If the apostle said too little [about fasting], let them hear the prophet [in the psalm] saying, I afflicted my soul with fasting.^[1] One who does not fast is uncovered and naked and exposed to wounds. Finally, if Adam had uncovered himself with fasting, he would not have become naked.^[2] Nineveh freed itself from death by fasting. The Lord himself said, But this kind of demon will be cast out only by prayer and fasting.^[3]

Do you see how vexed God is when fasting is treated despitefully? Learn how delighted he is when fasting is honored. When Eve was maltreated,^[1] he inflicted death as a penalty upon the insolent individual. He revoked death when she was honored once again.^[2] Desiring to show you the power of this thing of importance, he gave her authority over the sentence, after the arrest, to snatch the prisoners from the middle of the journey and change their course toward life. And he did this not only for two or three or twenty people but also for a whole population, in the case of the great and marvelous city of the Ninevites, which had knelt and bowed its head over this pit of perdition and was expecting to suffer the blow from above. Like a heavenly power overseeing Nineveh’s charge, fasting snatched the city from these gates of death and returned Nineveh to life.

They could never have believed in God on the basis of this remark alone, from a completely unknown foreigner threatening them with destruc-tion and adding nothing further, not even letting the listeners know by whom he was sent. Rather, it is obvious he also mentioned God, the Lord of all, and said he had been sent by him; and he delivered the message of destruction, calling them to repentance. When they accepted instruction in this, then, they were naturally told to believe in God; when they accepted both the sentence and the instruction from the prophet’s sermon, they set their eyes on better things so as to give evidence of a decisive and serious repentance.

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.^[1] Thus Josiah served him by performing similar acts.^[2] Thus the king of the Ninevites served him by compelling the whole city to appease the Lord.

The king conquered enemies with a display of valor. He conquered God, however, by humility. He is a wise king who, in order to save his people, owns himself a sinner rather than a king. He forgets that he is a king, fearing God the King of all. He does not bring to mind his own power but rather comes to possess the power of the Godhead. Marvelous! When he forgets that he is a king of men, he begins to be a king of righteousness. The prince, becoming religious, did not lose his empire but changed it. Before he held a princedom of military discipline. Now he obtained a princedom in heavenly disciplines.

Recall that Daniel, passionate man though he was, spent many days fasting. He received as recompense an awesome vision so that he tamed the fury of the lions and turned them into the mildest of sheep, not by changing their nature but by diverting their purpose without loss of their ferocity. The Ninevites too made use of the remedy of fasting and won from the Lord a reprieve. Animals as well as human beings were included in the fast, so that all living things would abstain from evil practices. This total response won the favor of the Lord of all.

Consider, if God had chosen to demolish everything [in a recent earthquake], what we would have suffered. I say this, so that the fear of these events may remain sharp in you and may keep everyone’s resolution firm. He shook us, but he did not destroy us. If he had wished to destroy us, he would not have shaken us. But since he did not wish to destroy us, the earthquake came in advance like a herald, forewarning everyone of the anger of God, in order that we might be improved by fear and prevent the actual retribution.

He has done this even for foreign nations. Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.^[1] Why do you not overcome the city? You threaten to destroy it. Why do you not destroy it? Because I do not wish to destroy, for this very reason I threaten. So what is the Lord saying? Lest I enact my impending judgment, let my word go in advance and prevent my acting. Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Then the prophet spoke. Today these walls speak. I say this, and I do not cease saying it, both to the poor and to the rich: consider how great is God’s anger. Consider how simple his requirement: let us abstain from evil! In a brief moment of time he shattered the mind and resolution of each one of us. He shook the foundations of our hearts.

In uncertainty they repented and obtained certain mercy.

There was no response to their repentance; rather, God met their questioning with silence. Thus [the outcome of] their repentance is left uncertain, that being doubtful of their salvation, they may repent more vehemently and know the mercy, patience and compassion of God even more.

They do not know the issue, and yet they do not neglect repentance. They are unacquainted with the method of the lovingkindness of God, and they are changed amid uncertainty. They had no other Ninevites to look to, who had repented and been saved. They had not read the prophets or heard the patriarchs, or benefited by counsel, or partaken of instruction, nor had they persuaded themselves that they should altogether propitiate God by repentance. For the threat did not contain this. But they doubted and hesitated about this, and yet they repented with all carefulness. What account then shall we give, when these, who had no good hopes held out to them as to the issue, gave evidence of such a change? [What account shall you give], who may be of good cheer as to God’s love for humanity, and have many times received pledges of his care, and have heard the prophets and apostles, and have been instructed by the events themselves, and yet you do not strive to attain the same measure of virtue as they? Great then was the virtue too of these people, but much greater was the lovingkindness of God. . . . That fear was the parent of salvation; the threat removed the peril; the sentence of overthrow stayed the overthrow. Now they have a new and more marvelous issue! The sentence threatening death was the parent of life. . . . Was Nineveh destroyed? Quite the contrary. It arose and became more glorious, and all this intervening time has not effaced its glory. And we all yet celebrate it and marvel at it, that subsequently it has become a most safe harbor to all who sin, not allowing them to sink into despair but calling all to repentance, both by what it did and by what it gained from the providence of God, persuading us never to despair of our salvation.

These things, dearly beloved, we are writing, not only to warn you but also to remind ourselves; for we are in the same arena, and the same contest lies before us. For this reason let us abandon empty and silly concerns and come to the glorious and holy rule of our tradition. Let us see what is good and pleasing and acceptable in the sight of our Maker. Let us fix our gaze on the blood of Christ and realize how precious it is to his Father, seeing that it was poured out for our salvation and brought the grace of conversion to the whole world. Let us look back over all the generations and learn that from generation to generation the Lord has given an opportunity of repentance^[1] to all who would return to him. Noah preached penance,^[2] and those who heeded were saved. Then Jonah announced destruction to the Ninevites and they repented of their sins,^[3] besought God in prayer and, estranged though they were from God, obtained salvation. 1

And that these words are not a vain boast shall be made manifest to you for things that have already happened. What could be more stupid than the Ninevites? What more devoid of understanding? Yet, nevertheless, these barbarian, foolish people, who had not yet heard any one teaching them wisdom, who had never received such precepts from others, when they heard the prophet saying, Yet three days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown,^[1] laid aside, within three days, the whole of their evil customs. The fornicator became chaste; the bold man meek; the grasping and extortionate moderate and kind; the slothful industrious. They did not, indeed, reform one or two or three or four vices by way of remedy, but the whole of their iniquity. But where does this appear, says someone? From the words of the prophet; for the same who had been their accuser and who had said that the cry of their wickedness has ascended up even into heaven,^[2] himself again bears testimony of an opposite kind by saying, God saw that every one departed from their own evil ways. He does not say from fornication or adultery or theft, but from their own evil ways. And how did they depart? As God knew; not as people judged of the matter. After this are we not ashamed, must we not blush, if it turns out that in three days only the barbarians laid aside all their wickedness, but that we, who have been urged and taught during so many days, have not got the better of one bad habit? These people had moreover gone to the extreme of wickedness before; for when you hear it said, The cry of their wickedness is come up before me, you can understand nothing else than the excess of their wickedness. Nevertheless within three days they were capable of being transformed to a state of complete uprightness.

They applied fasting to their wounds. Yes, they even applied extreme fasting—lying prostrate on the ground, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and lamentations. More importantly, they chose a change of life. Let us then see which of these things made them whole. And how shall we know? If we come to the physician, if we seek after him earnestly, he will not hide it from us but will even eagerly disclose it. Rather, in order that no one may be ignorant or have need to ask, he has even set down in writing the medicine that restores sinners. What then is this? God, he said, saw that they turned every one from his evil way, and he repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them. He did not say simply that he saw their fasting and sackcloth and ashes, but their behavior. I say this not to question fasting (God forbid!) but to exhort you that with fasting you do that which is better than fasting, the abstaining from all evil.

Now, if [forgiveness of sin had not] been predicted of Christ, I should find in the Creator examples of such benignity as would hold out to me the promise of similar affections also in the Son of whom he is the Father. I see how the Ninevites obtained forgiveness of their sins from the Creator—not to say from Christ [by way of anticipation], even then, because from the beginning he was acting in the Father’s name.