The Book of the Holy Rosary: Part III, Chapter III. Scripture Types of the First Glorious Mystery: Jonas Cast Out from the Whale’s Belly; Samson Bursts His Bands
1. Jonas the Prophet is vomited forth from the belly of the whale.
The foremost among all the figures of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead in the old law is that which our Divine Saviour Himself calls the “sign of the prophet Jonas.” Certain of the scribes and Pharisees had said to Him, “Rabbi, we would see a sign from Thee?” To whom He replied, “An evil and an adulterous generation seeketh a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonas. For as Jonas was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so the Son of Man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matt. xii. 39).
The history of Jonas may be briefly narrated from the book of the Holy Scripture which bears his name as follows: The word of the Lord came to Jonas, the son of Amath, saying, “Arise and go to Nineve, that great city, for the wickedness thereof is come up before Me.” Jonas is jealous that a prophet should be sent to preach to a city of the Gentiles, and seeks to escape from before the face of the Lord by taking ship to sail in the opposite direction towards Tharsis; but the Lord sent a great wind upon the sea, and when all hope was lost, one sailor said to his neighbour, “Let us cast lots, and let us know wherefore this hath happened to us.” And they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonas.
Jonas then said to the captain and the sailors, “Take me and cast me into the sea, and it shall be calm before your face, for I know that it is for me that this great tempest is come upon you.” And the men rowed that they might get back to the land, but they could not, for the sea ran high and strong against them; and they cried to the Lord and said, “We beseech Thee, O Lord, let us not perish in the soul of this man, and lay not upon us the innocent blood, for as Thou hast willed, O Lord, so hast Thou done.” And they took and cast Jonas into the sea, and the sea was stilled from its raging.
Now, the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow Jonas, and Jonas was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And Jonas prayed to the Lord his God out of the belly of the fish, and said—PRAYER OF JONAS IN THE BELLY OF THE FISH.
“I cried out of my affliction to the Lord, and He heard me: I cried out of the belly of hell, and Thou hast heard my voice. And Thou hast cast me forth into the deep in the heart of the sea, and a flood hath compassed me: all Thy billows, and Thy waves have passed over me. And I said: I am cast away out of the sight of Thy eyes: but yet I shall see Thy holy temple again. The waters compassed me about even to the soul: the deep hath closed me round about, the sea hath covered my head. I went down to the lowest parts of the mountains: the bars of the earth have shut me up for ever: and Thou wilt bring up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul was in distress within me, I remembered the Lord: that my prayer may come to Thee, unto Thy holy temple. They that in vain observe vanities, forsake their own mercy. But I with the voice of praise will sacrifice to thee: I will pay whatsoever I have vowed for my salvation to the Lord.”
And God spoke and the fish vomited out Jonas upon the dry land.
“Jesus, the true Jonas,” writes St Jerome, “may be understood to say to His apostles, who, in deserting Him in the hour of His Passion, in a manner took and cast Him into the sea, ‘I know that this great tempest is come upon you for My sake. The world which lieth in wickedness rages, and its elements are in commotion. Death seeks to swallow Me up that it may destroy you likewise, and it does not understand that My death will be its own destruction. Take Me and cast Me into the sea. It is not for Me to throw Myself into the way of death, but to accept it joyfully at the hands of others. The tempest, which rages on My account against you, will be stilled from its raging on My death.’ But the men would not, and rowed with all their might to get back to the land. These sailors strove against the raging elements with all their strength, that they might not have to lay violent hands on the prophet of God, although he had spoken against himself. O strange and marvellous perversion! The people who profess to be servants of God they cry out against their Prophet, ‘Crucify Him! crucify Him!’ and these men, when they are told to put him to death and the raging storm bids them comply, are more solicitous to save him than themselves. They thought that they should be able to save the ship without having to drown Jonas, and did not know that the drowning of Jonas would be the saving of the ship. When afterwards they say, 4 Lay not the innocent blood upon us,’ do not these words of the sailors appear to be identical with the confession of Pilate, who washes his hands and says, ‘I am clean from the blood of this Man.’ The Gentiles are unwilling that Christ should die, and protest that the innocent blood be not laid to their charge; while the Jews cry, ‘His blood be upon us and upon our children’ and, therefore, even if they lift up their hands they shall not be heard, for they are full of blood: ‘For as Thou hast willed, O Lord, so hast Thou done.’
That we have taken Him on board, that the storm has arisen, that the sea runs high, that the Fugitive is betrayed by the lot falling upon Him, that He Himself directs us what is to be done, is all by Thy will, O Lord, for ‘Thou hast done as Thou hast willed.’ So Christ also speaks in the Psalm, ‘I have willed to perform Thy will, O Lord’ (Ps. xxxix. 9).”
“And further,” continues St Augustine, replying to the question of a heathen who represented himself as desiring to embrace the Christian faith if he could be satisfied upon it and some other points, as to what was prefigured by the monster who swallowed the prophet and vomited him forth alive on the third day, “there is scarcely room for inquiry, since Christ has Himself declared that His resurrection is signified by it. Therefore, just as Jonas was cast from the deck of the vessel, and was swallowed down into the belly of the whale, so Christ was taken from the wood of the Cross and laid in the sepulchre; and as this was done to Jonas for the benefit of those who were in danger of their lives on board the vessel, so Christ suffered for those who are tossed about upon the waves of this life. And as the command was in the first instance given that Jonas should go to preach to the Ninevites, but, notwithstanding his preaching, did not reach them until after the whale had vomited him up upon the shore, so the Word of prophecy had, in point of fact, long before been sent to the nations of the world, but it had never reached them until after the resurrection of Christ from the dead.”
The sequel of St Augustine’s explanation of the mysteries contained in the figure of Jonas will not need any apology, notwithstanding that the truths contained under it somewhat pass beyond the strict limits of what the Mystery requires.
“When Jonas makes a dwelling-place for himself, and sits down opposite the city of Nineve, waiting to see what would happen, he assumes another character, and becomes another figurative personage, representing the people of Israel according to the flesh. For this people grudged the salvation of the Ninevites, that is, the liberation and redemption of the nations, though Christ came not to call just men but sinners to repentance. The shade of the gourd above his head were the promises of the old law, or its gifts themselves, in which beyond all doubt there was a shadow of what was to come, affording a kind of protection from the heat and burning of the evils which befell the people in the land of promise. The worm which God prepared in the morning and struck the gourd, so that it withered up and died, is the figure of Christ Himself, from whose mouth the Gospel has come, and who has caused all the things which possessed a temporary value among the people of the Jews, as shadows of what was to come, to wither up and to die. And this people having lost the kingdom of Jerusalem, the priesthood and the sacrifices of the temple, which were all shadows of things to come, are now scorched up with the burning heat of tribulation, just as Jonas, according to the narrative of the Scripture, was broiled in the heat, and suffered vehemently from it. And yet, notwithstanding, the salvation of the nations and of all who are penitent is held to be of more account than the sufferings of Jonas and the preservation of the shade which he so much loved.
“Unbelievers may laugh and babble in contemptuous derision of Christ being the worm here referred to, and indeed generally at all such figurative interpretation of the mysteries contained in the history of the prophets, until they find themselves consumed and destroyed. For of such as these Isaias prophesies, and by him t God says to us, ‘Hearken to Me, you that know what is just, My people, who have My law in your heart; fear ye not the reproach of men, and be not overcome by their calumnies, neither think anything of their despising you. For the worm shall eat them up as a garment, and the moth shall consume them, whereas My justice continueth for ever’ (Isa. li. 7). Let us, therefore, acknowledge the worm of the morning, especially as He deigns to call Himself by this name in the Psalm which bears the title ‘For the Morning Protection,’ saying, ‘But I am a worm and no man, the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people’ (Ps. xxi.) This is one of those reproaches which we are commanded not to fear by Isaias when he says, ‘Fear not the reproaches of men.’
“What can be clearer than the light which the sequel of events throws upon this prophecy? The same Psalm continues, ‘They spoke against Me with their lips, and shook their heads at Me. He trusted in God, let Him then deliver Him; let Him save Him, seeing that He delighteth again in Him.’ And when all was carried into execution which is there predicted, viz., ‘They have pierced My hands and My feet;’ ‘They have numbered all My bones;’ ‘They have looked and stared upon Me;’ ‘They have parted My garment among them, and for My vesture did they cast lots;’ the ancient prophecy does but describe everything as minutely and circumstantially when it is only about to come to pass, as it is afterward described in the words of the Evangelist who is narrating what has actually been done. If, therefore, in this His humiliation, this worm was an object of derision, does He continue an object of derision now that we see that the prediction which the Psalm continues is fulfilled, ‘All the ends of the earth shall bethink themselves, and shall be converted to the Lord; and all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in His sight. For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and He shall have dominion over the nations.’ The Ninevites thus bethought themselves and were converted to the Lord. This salvation, through the repentance of the nations, so long before prefigured in Jonas, Israel begrudged and still continues to begrudge, stripped of its shade and broiled with the heat. Any one, it is true, may most legitimately give a different interpretation to all the other Mysteries which are veiled under the figure of the prophet Jonas, provided his interpretation is conformable to the rule of faith; but as regards the fact of Jonas having been three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, no one may legitimately interpret this in any sense that is different from that which we have received from our Heavenly Master Himself” (Letter of St Augustine to the Priest Deogratias, cii. in the Benedictine edition).
2. Figure of Samson bursting the bands with which, in his love for Delila, he had suffered himself to be bound.
“Let us understand,” writes St Augustine, “that great mysteries lie hid under this history. What does Samson himself prefigure? If I say that he is the type of Christ, I seem to myself to be saying nothing but the truth; and still, those who turn their thoughts to the subject will be sure to meet me with the question, Was Christ overcome by female blandishments? and what can there be in common between Christ and the yielding to the seductions of a harlot? Again, when had Christ His head shorn of its hair? when was He despoiled of His strength, bound, deprived of His eyes, and exposed to public derision? Let faith wake up and understand what Christ is, not merely what He did, but what He suffered. In all that He did, He was the Man of strength, in all that He suffered, He was the Man of infirmity. In Him I perceive both. I see the strength of the Son of God, and the infirmity of the Son of Man. And there is yet one thing more. For Christ in His entirety, as the Scripture represents Him, is both Head and Body. And as the Head of the Church is no other than Christ, so the Body of Christ is no other than the Church; for the Church has no existence in itself alone, but together with its Head forms the whole Christ. And in so far as Samson has worked prodigies of strength, he becomes the figure of Christ, the Head of the Church.
“And the woman of the Philistines whom Samson loved prefigures the Church, which, before the recovery of the knowledge of the one God, had committed adultery with idols, according to the words of the Apostle, who says, ‘But God commendeth His love towards us, because when as yet we were sinners according to the time, Christ died for us’ (Rom. v. 8)” (Augustine, Sermon ccclxiv., new order).
The particular passage in Samson’s history which is figurative of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is thus briefly narrated in the Holy Scripture: “And after these things, Samson loved a woman of the Philistines, who dwelt in the valley of Sorec, and who was called Delila. And the princes of the Philistines came to her and said: Beguile him, and learn where his great strength lies, and in what way we may prevail over him, and bind him to afflict him, and we will each of us give to thee one thousand one hundred pieces of silver. Delila therefore spake to Samson, and said: Tell me, I pray, wherein is thy great strength, and wherewith mayest thou be bound, so that thou canst not break loose. And Samson answered: If I shall be bound with seven withes, that are not yet dry, but still green, I shall become weak as other men. And the princes of the Philistines brought the seven green withes to her as he had said, and she bound him therewith. But as the princes of the Philistines lay in wait in her room, and hid themselves in ambush, she cried to him: The Philistines are upon thee, Samson! But he burst the bonds, as a man breaketh a thread of tow that is twisted on a distaff when it has been scorched by the fire, neither knew they where his great strength lay” (Judges xvi. 4, &c.)
“Samson loved,” writes Father Camphausen, “and was deceived by his love. Love for a woman not deserving of his love sold him, betrayed him, bound him, and delivered him into the hands of his enemies. Why was he sold and betrayed?—he loved. Why was he caught and bound?—he loved. In all this, how truly is Samson the figure of Christ! Jesus Christ, the Son of God, loved. He loved the nations of the world, He loved the Jewish Synagogue. In the words of the prophet Isaias, He says, ‘With an everlasting love have I loved thee. O man! for this cause have I been made Man; for this cause have I suffered such great things; for this cause have I been taken, bound, scourged, and crucified, because I have loved thee, O man!’” (Sermon iii. on Samson, Passio Christi Adumbrata.)
Samson suffers himself to be bound by Delila; Jesus suffers Himself to be nailed to the Cross by the officers of Pilate, though He had said to Peter, “Thinkest thou not that I could pray to My Father, and that He would presently give to Me more than twelve legions of angels. But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled?” (Matt. xxvi. 53.)
Then when Samson is bound, and seems to be asleep in her arms, Delila cries, “The Philistines are upon thee, Samson.” When Jesus, after having suffered Himself to be bound on the Cross, seems to be fallen asleep, and is laid in the tomb, Pilate says to those who had lain in wait to seize him, “Take ye the guard, go make the sepulchre sure as you know how.” But Samson is now no longer willing to be bound. He bursts the bands as a man would break a thread of tow twisted with the fingers, when it has smelt the fire. Jesus will now no longer submit to the dominion of death, and He bursts the bands with which He had suffered Himself to be bound. Behold the angel comes down from heaven, the stone is rolled away from the door of the sepulchre, and the keepers for fear become as dead men. Jesus, the true Samson, has now burst every band with which His enemies have sought to bind Him. Death hath no more dominion over Him; He is risen from the dead.