Jonas

JONAS. - Prophet, son of Amittai (Heb. Amitta) of Gath-hepher (Gath of Hepher) in Galilee; he foretold to Jeroboam II (787-746) his victories (II Kings 14:25). A Jewish legend calls him the son of the widow of Zarephath, raised by Elijah (I Kings 17:17-24). Little reliable traditions place his tomb at Gath-hepher, or in Assyria near the village Nebî Jûnus "prophet J.", on the site of ancient Nineveh.

J. is the hero of the book of the same name, the fifth among the minor prophets of the Hebrew and Latin Bible, the sixth in the Greek. The book contains no discourses, but an episode from the life of J.

Sent by Yahweh to preach penance to Nineveh, capital of the Assyrian Empire, oppressor of Israel, J. refuses and seeks to escape God's command by embarking at Joppa on a Phoenician ship. A storm breaks out, and the lot points to J. as the guilty one. Thrown into the sea, he is swallowed by a great fish (ch. 1). In its belly J. composes a canticle (a true psalm) and after 3 days is vomited onto the Palestinian coast (ch. 2). After a new command, J. brings to Nineveh the message of destruction: in 40 days the capital will be destroyed. The inhabitants do penance and Yahweh forgives them (ch. 3). This is what J. did not want; he grows angry and calls for death. Yahweh reproaches him for such a feeling of hatred and instructs him concerning His mercy, which wills even the Gentiles to be saved, by means of the castor-oil plant that grew but then withered on the same day, this time to J.'s keen regret (ch. 4).

The author's purpose is to teach that God wills even the Gentiles to be saved (4:2). The prophet rebuked by God personifies narrow Jewish particularism. The universalist spirit that animates this little book makes it one of the pearls of Hebrew literature. This teaching, which is its essence, remains intact whether the book is held to be fully historical or is assigned rather to the didactic genre.

The historicity, commonly defended until the 19th century, seems to be taught by Jesus (Mt. 12:39-41; Lk. 11:29-32), who places the example of the Ninevites alongside that, certainly historical, of the queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10) and compares his own fate to that of G.: he will remain 3 days in the tomb, as G. did in the fish. The reference in Tob. 14:4 (only in codex B) is entirely uncertain (R. Galdos, Tobit, Paris 1930, p. 296; A. Miller, Tobin, Bonn 1940, p. 106). The attempted references to cuneiform texts (J. B. Schaumberger) prove unfounded. On the other hand, the disobedience of G. (cf. Jer. 20:7-9), the canticle in the belly of the fish, the total and sudden conversion of Nineveh, appear implausible. Nineveh is spoken of as a city of the past, with inexact references (3:3, 6).

Jesus speaks of G. and the Ninevites for a didactic purpose; he makes an illustrative reference that may be drawn from a historical fact as well as from a partially fictitious or legendary account. Thus 1 Cor. 10:4 and Jude 9 ff. contain references to Jewish legends: cf. 2 Tim. 3:8; Mt. 23:35; Heb. 7:3, etc. Thus the liturgy wishes the soul eternal peace "with Lazarus who was once poor." A body of indications favors the parabolic interpretation, which is increasingly followed by modern exegetes (Lagrange, Van Hoonacker, Tobac, Lesêtre, Holzhey, Gigot, Dennefeld, Chaine, Feuillet, and already St. Gregory of Nazianzus and R. Simon).

Notable is the literary and theological dependence of G. on Jeremiah: the prophet of the nations was the principal source of the author of G. (cf. 1:14 = Jer. 36:15; 3 = Jer. 36; 3:8 = Jer. 18:11; 23:22; 3:10b = Jer. 18:7 f.). The verses of the canticle are reminiscences of the Psalter. All this would tend to confirm the not strictly historical but didactic character of the narrative.

The style, with Aramaisms and neologisms, places G. among the last Hebrew writings of the Old Testament. Today's critics, Catholic or Protestant, hesitate as to the interpretation, whether symbolic (E. König), parabolic, allegorical, or mystical. The time of composition is assigned between c. 500 and 300 B.C.; probably the book was composed c. 300, in the period of the greatest dispersion (v. DIASPORA) and of proselytism. Against the narrower current that opposed the spread of Yahwism among the Gentiles, the need was felt to affirm the non-exclusivism of the religion of Yahweh with regard to the pagans (cf. Is. 56:1-9). The divine authority of the book is attested by Jesus (Mt. 12:39-41; Lk. 11:29-32).

Francesco Spadafora

ICONOGRAPHY

1. In Christian antiquity. The Divine Master himself taught the meaning of the symbolism of the episode of the prophet J., saying: "As J. remained three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so also the Son of Man will remain for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Mt. 12:40). J. cast into the sea and swallowed by the monster is a symbol of the faithful departed laid in the tomb, while the monster represents eternal death, from which the Lord will save the deceased just as he saved G. This concept is expressed in a pseudo-Cyprianic prayer in which it is said: "as you, O Lord, heard G. from the belly of the monster, so also hear me and cast me from death to life."

It was one of the subjects most frequently represented in early Christian funerary art; the cycle is sometimes expressed with four scenes: Jonah thrown from the ship and swallowed by the monster; Jonah cast back onto the shore; Jonah at rest; Jonah tormented by the sun after the plant has withered. These four scenes are found painted in the cemetery "ad duas lauros." In general, however, only the first three are represented; sometimes the ship is omitted; in some cases there is a single scene, or only the casting back of the prophet, as in the cubiculum known as that of the veiled woman in Priscilla, or only Jonah at rest. The storm produced by the wind is sometimes indicated by its personification; the effect of the storm is also expressed by the gestures of the sailors; one, terrified, covers his face with his hands, another is in prayer. Concerning the kind of plant in whose shade the prophet rested, a controversy arose between St. Jerome and St. Augustine because in the Vulgate version the Hebrew word qīqōfōn was rendered as hedera, whereas in the Septuagint version one finds zōzōzōvōr, that is, cucurbita. In art the cucurbita is always represented, except in a fresco in Priscilla (Wilpert, Pitture, pls. 44, 2). Sometimes in the background the city of Nineveh is also represented, as in cubiculum A of the cemetery of Callistus, on a sarcophagus lid from Arles, and on a graffito slab in the cemetery "ad duas lauros" in Rome. The oldest representations of the Jonah cycle are found in Rome in mosaic in the burial cell discovered in 1942 near the confessio of St. Peter in the Vatican, in painting in the cemetery of Callistus (Wilpert, ibid., p. 338, pl. 26, 1), in sculpture on the Lateran sarcophagus no. 119 (id., Sarcofagi, pls. IX, 3; LIX, 3). Outside Rome, in painting, it is found in the cemetery known as that of St. Januarius in Naples, at Bonaria in Sardinia, and at Pécs in Hungary. It is also represented in tomb mosaics, in Rome on terracotta slabs discovered in a cemetery of the Via Latina, now in the Lateran Christian Museum; in Africa at Tabarca, and in a floor now in the Alaoui Museum in Tunis. Coming from Tarsus, now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, there is a sculpture with Jonah thrown from the ship, swallowed and given back by the monster. The scene of Jonah and the monster also appears on a marble slab in the Lateran Museum, coming from the cemetery of Praetextatus; in the inscription of Beratius Nikatoras in the same Museum. It is found further on bronze lamps (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli, VI, Prato 1880, pl. 471, no. 3), on terracotta lamps from Marseille, Syracuse, Sémur-en-Auxois, Paris, Cologne, Carthage. On plates (R. Garrucci, ibid., VI, pl. 465, 4 and 5). On bronze medallions from Pontianus, now in the Vatican Library; on a lead cup; on gilded glass, on gems, in stucco as at Ravenna in the baptistery of St. John in Fonte (R. Garrucci, ibid., II [Prato 1876], pl. 132, 1). On the marble rims of basins from Salona and preserved in Zagreb, the scene of the monster casting back Jonah, on a fragment from Athens, on one from the Russian Archaeological Institute of Istanbul, coming from Smyrna, on another from Laodicea now in the Tchili-Kiosk Museum also in Istanbul (E. Michon, Rebords de bassins chrétiens ornés de reliefs, in Revue biblique, new series, 12 [1915], p. 517 ff.). In miniatures, as in the manuscripts of Rabula, of Cosmas Indicopleustes, in the homiliary of St. Gregory of Nazianzus. In ivories, as in the pyx formerly of St. Ambrose in Milan, now in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad, or in that of the Museum of Bonn; in the lipsanotheca of Brescia, in the gospel-book cover of St. Michael of Murano, now in Ravenna.

As a prophet, G. is depicted at Ravenna in S. Martino, "in caelo aureo," today S. Apollinare Nuovo (R. Garrucci, op. cit., III [Prato 1876], pls. 246-247).

2. In medieval art

Later, medieval painting expresses the same concepts according to the stylistic forms proper to the different ages. Thus the stained-glass windows of Bourges, Le Mans and Lyon (13th century), while the sculptures and mosaics with the image of the prophet swallowed by the sea-monster, which are often found on the parapets of thirteenth-century pulpits in central and southern Italy (Minturno, S. Pietro; Sessa Aurunca; Gaeta, Cathedral; Ravello, Cathedral, and S. Giovanni del Toro) reveal a particular meaning, namely a warning addressed to preachers. Apart from the Catalan Bibles of ca. 1000 and the representations on the monumental Gothic portals, the depictions of G. reach, with Michelangelo's fresco in the Sistine Chapel, with Correggio's in S. Giovanni Evangelista in Parma and with the statue by Lorenzetto (after a design by Raphael) in S. Maria del Popolo in Rome, their highest artistic level. The same may be said of the shipwreck scenes painted by Rubens (Nancy, Museum) and by Poussin (Windsor Castle).