---
title: "Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen"
author: "Various Church Fathers"
translator: "S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Church Fathers"
section: 32 of 199
url: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/32/
cite: "Various Church Fathers, tr. S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.), Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen, section 32. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/32/"
---

# Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian and Origen

*Various Church Fathers, tr. S. Thelwall and others; A. Cleveland Coxe (ed.)*

Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Commodian, and Origen's On First Principles and Against Celsus.

## 32. A Strain of Jonah the Prophet · 3 of 4

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/32/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/church-fathers-tertullian-minucius-felix-commodian-origen/32/#p-N

[¶0] And said, “Why sing’st, with vocal nostril, dreams,

[¶1] In such a crisis? In so wild a whirl,

[¶2] 90 Why keep’st thou only harbour? Lo! the wave

[¶3] Whelms us, and our one hope is in the gods.

[¶4] Thou also, whosoever is thy god,

[¶5] Make vows, and, pouring prayers on bended knee,

[¶6] Win o’er thy country’s Sovran!”

[¶7] Then they vote

[¶8] 95 To learn by lot who is the culprit, who

[¶9] The cause of storm; nor does the lot belie

[¶10] Jonah: whom then they ask, and ask again,

[¶11] “Who? whence? who in the world? from what abode,

[¶12] What people, hail’st thou?” He avows himself

[¶13] 100 A servant, and an over-timid one,

[¶14] Of God, who raised aloft the sky, who based

[¶15] The earth, who corporally fused the whole:

[¶16] A renegade from Him he owns himself,

[¶17] And tells the reason. Rigid turned they all

[¶18] 105 With dread. “What grudge, then, ow’st thou us? What now

[¶19] Will follow? By what deed shall we appease

[¶20] The main?” For more and far more swelling grew

[¶21] The savage surges. Then the seer begins

[¶22] Words prompted by the Spirit of the Lord:

[¶23] 110 “Lo! I your tempest am; I am the sum

[¶24] Of the world’s madness: ’tis in me,” he says,

[¶25] “That the sea rises, and the upper air

[¶26] Down rushes; land in me is far, death near,

[¶27] And hope in God is none! Come, headlong hurl

[¶28] 115 Your cause of bane: lighten your ship, and cast

[¶29] This single mighty burden to the main,

[¶30] A willing prey!” But they—all vainly!—strive

[¶31] Homeward to turn their course; for helm refused

[¶32] To suffer turning, and the yard’s stiff poise

[¶33] 120 Willed not to change. At last unto the Lord

[¶34] They cry: “For one soul’s sake give us not o’er

[¶35] Unto death’s maw, nor let us be besprent

[¶36] With righteous blood, if thus Thine own right hand

[¶37] Leadeth.” And from the eddy’s depth a whale

[¶38] 125 Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells,

[¶39] Unravelling his body’s train, ’gan urge

[¶40] More near the waves, shocking the gleaming brine,

[¶41] Seizing—at God’s command—the prey; which, rolled

[¶42] From the poop’s summit prone, with slimy jaws

[¶43] 130 He sucked; and into his long belly sped

[¶44] The living feast; and swallowed, with the man,