The Sign of Jonah Author(s): Bezalel Narkiss Source: Gesta, Vol. 18, No.

1, Papers Related to Objects in the Exhibition "Age of Spirituality", The Metropolitan Museum of Art (November 1977-February 1978) (1979), pp. 6376 Published by: International Center of Medieval Art Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/766792 Accessed: 13/03/2009 06:12
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The Sign of Jonah

BEZALEL NARKISS

Hebrew University, Jerusalem

To the undyingmemory of CoraTrostler a Mentch and a friend. The most popular Old Testament scene depicted by the Early Christianartistswas Jonah lying asleep, naked, under a booth covered by a climbing gourd vine, near a sea monster from whose mouth he had emerged. Many other episodes from the dramaticstory of Jonah were representedby Early Christianartists, some of which figuredin the Age of Spirituality Exhibition at the MetropolitanMuseumof Art in New York and appear as examples in this paper. These are described individually and in relation to similar monuments in the catalogue of the Exhibition.' Being such a common subject, the cycle of Jonah pictureshas been discussedmany times, and some successful attempts have been made to trace its origin, but not all the problems have been completely solved. It is hoped that this paper will fit anotherpiece of the puzzle into place.2 It has been assumed that two distinct sources combined to produce the artistic representationsof the Jonah cycle. The non-biblical story behind the depicted episodes was mainly of Jewish midrashicorigin, while the visual formulae and gestures stemmed from Roman Pagan art.2a According to the Bible, the prophet Jonah sought to evade God's command to preach to the sinful citizens of Nineveh that their end was near(Jonah 1:2, 3:2). He did not wish to call on them to repent, since he knew that if they did mend their ways, they would be forgiven by God, his own prophecy of their destruction would not be fulfilled and he would thus be humiliated by appearingto be a false prophet. The book of Jonah is in many ways an odd phenomenon amongthe Major and Minor Prophets, as it contains no literary prophecies, whether of wrath or of comfort. It is undoubtedly a late compilation from the early Hellenistic period, a tale suitable for performancein the theatre,ratherlike the book of Esther. The different stages of the story, constructed as a series of dramatic escapes by Jonah, are easily visualized and inspire the artist'simagination. The scenes depicted start with Jonah's first escape, embarkingon a ship sailing from Joppa to Tarshish.WhenGod causes a storm at sea, Jonahis cast, at his own behest, into the stormy waves which then cease their raging.Seeing the miracle of the sea being calmed, the pagan sailors confess their belief in Jonah's God. Jonah does not drown, since God sends a large fish to swallow him up, but his sufferingis such in the belly of the fish that he prays to God for deliverance.God
GESTA XVIII/1 ? The InternationalCenter of Medieval Art 1979

makes the fish spew him out after three days and three nights. Once rescued, Jonah is forced to preach to Nineveh, warning that in forty days the city will be destroyed.Whenthe people repent and God saves them, Jonah is displeasedand prays to God for the second time. He explains that he had earlier avoided pronouncingthe prophecypreciselybecausehe feared that God would rescind his decision to overthrow the city. In his anger, Jonah leaves Nineveh, builds himself a booth, and sits in its shade waiting to see what will happen to the city. God makes a shady castor-oil tree (qiqayon) grow up above Jonah, of which he is very glad;but at sunriseGod sends a worm to kill the tree, and then causes a hot wind to blow, which angers Jonah and makes him faint and wish to die. "Are you truly angry because of the witheringof the tree?" God asks Jonah. "I am truly angry, even unto death" is his answer. The moral follows, contrastingJonah's concern for the tree, which lived so briefly and which he did not even help to grow, with his attitude toward Nineveh, a great city with thousands of inhabitantswhich he was angeredto see saved. It was not only the moral of the story which made the book of Jonah, despite the image of a stubborn prophet, popular and important in the Jewish tradition from the early Hellenistic-Mishnaicperiod onwards. Jonah is mentioned as one of many in the prayer"He who answeredthe prayer of [Jonah], He will answer us," the Hebrew prayer which was the basis of the ChristianOrdo Commendationis Animae.3 Moreover, Jonah is the biblical book which is read and expounded at the Minhah, evening prayer on the Day of Atonement, just before Ne'ila, the closing prayer.4 God's mercifulness is probably the primaryreason for this, but it must also be due to the characterof Jonah, whom the midrash,while treatingas an example of stubbornness, changed from a negative figure evading God's orders into one of the harbingers of the Messiah.5The homilies on Jonah for the Day of Atonement appear to be very old, and two of them were attributed to Philo.5a Although the four versions of the MidrashJonah are late compilations from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries,it is obvious from the details, which appear earlier in the Gospels, in the Talmud, in the Koran, and in the artistic representations,that the midrashiccompilations were established as early as the first century A.D.6 Closest to the Early Christian representationsof the Jonah
63

cycle is the De Rossi version of MidrashJonah, which may reflect the earliestof the versions.It is clearlydividedinto two parts, the first a moralistic homily dealing exclusively with the repentant Ninevites and their extraordinaryattempts to return property stolen severalgenerationsback, and making no mention of the Jonah story; the second part is more narrative, treating Jonah's seafaring escape and the withered tree episode as a continuous story, but not dealingwith the Ninevites. This part may have been the origin of the Early Christianrepresentations,as will be discussedlater. The first associationsof Jonah with the redemptionare in conjunction with the prophet Elijah, the immediate forerunner of the Messiahaccordingto the Jewish tradition.Jonah is said to be the son of the widow of Zarephath(I Kings 17:17-23), who was resuscitatedby Elijah and who is thereforea symbol of resurrection.7Like Elijah, the midrashthinks of Jonah as one of the people who did not die, but were taken up bodily into heaven.8 One of his tasks in the MessianicAge is to bind and bring Leviathan, God's playful creature (Psalm 104:26), to be feasted upon by the "righteousin Paradise", and according to the "printed version" of MidrashJonah, his agreementto do so savedhim from drowningat sea.9 There is no point in detailing here all the stories in these midrashim,since not all the details were given artistic representationin the Early Christian period. The Early Christian attitude to Jonah must have been very similar to the Jewish, in spite of the original saying of Christ.There is only one instance in his teachingswhere Jesus mentions the prophet Jonah. It occurs duringhis controversy with the Phariseesafter healing a man's withered arm on the sabbathand another blind and dumbman. The amazedpeople called him "the son of David," but to the Phariseesthese miracles were not a proof of Jesus' messianic qualities, and they asked him to give them a sign from heaven. Angeredat their request, Jesus says that this adulterousgeneration deserves no sign save for "the sign of Jonah." Christprobably meant that Jonah could not give any proof of his truthfulness, to Deuteronomy since his prophecywas not fulfilled.According of his fulfillment is the of a true the sign prophet (18:22), Jonah which he must die. anticipated(4:2) prophecy, failing that the Nineviteswould repent,that God would pardonthem, that the city would not be overthrown,and thus no sign of his truthfulnesswould be given and he would be "proved"false. Jesus, like Jonah, will not give any sign from heaven.'1 Moreover, Jesus, unlike Jonah, would prefer the people to repent and live. The original meaning of this saying was no doubt ambiguous to the evangelists themselves, since they added severalinterpretationsto their text. 1 One of these is that "this adulterousgeneration,"unlike Jonah'swill not be
given a sign (Mt. 12:39, 16:4);12 another compares Jonah's

three days and nights in the monster's belly with the time Christ spent in the "heart of the earth" after his crucifixion (Mt. 12:40). This latter interpretationundoubtedly became the most influential reason for depicting Jonah in pre- and art. post-Constantinian 64

It was evidentlyimmaterial believers to the EarlyChristian and artists that the analogy in St. Matthewis not complete. Not only did Christspendonly two nightsin the "heartof the earth," but an exact analogywith the book of Jonahmay even carry a negative implication. The Jewish image of the messianic Jonah must have been so strong in the consciousnessof his disciples that the mere mention of Jonah by Jesus called forth a number of homiletical interpretations,mostly in the of style of midrashicexegeses.'3 St. Matthew'sinterpretation Jonah's miraculousemergencefrom the fish's belly as a prefiguration of Christ'sresurrectioncame to be the most prominent artistic representation. It must have been at this point in the history of Christian dogma that the Early Christian artists, who strove in the main to depict magical figures of miraculoussalvation,became awareof Jonah as one of them. Together with Noah preservedfrom the flood, Daniel saved from the lions' den, and the three Hebrewsrescuedfrom the Christian artistsaw Jonah fiery furnace, the pre-Constantinian as a most important figure.'4 Unlike Noah, Daniel or Job who, accordingto the Bible, were righteouspersonsdeserving redemption,Jonah falls into the categoryof the sinnersAdam and Eve, who were expelled from paradise,or Moses striking the rock, for which he was not allowed to enter the promised land. The interpretation of Jonah given by the evangelists legitimized his depiction, just as it did other sinful episodes, methods of interpretation. using similarmidrashic Matthew's second interpretation, concerning the salvation of the repentantNinevites,was not depictedby the Early Christians;and his first interpretation,that of Jonah's resurrection, may have best been expressed by the prophet's emergence from the fish. However, the most popular representation became the reclining Jonah, as the figure of an idyllic being, sometimes in combination with the unrelated episodes of the spewing out, and at times the swallowingof Jonah, by the whale. It would appearthat the EarlyChristian artists adopted a whole narrativecycle of Jonah episodes, rather than selecting the most significant one and turningit into a symbol. They were able to find suitable Christian interpretationsfor each of the episodes, although some narrative scenes, the Christianmeaning of which is obscure to us, must have been taken from an earliercycle. This narrative cycle was probably known to and depicted by the Early Christianartists, though some episodes only survivein later, post-iconoclastic versions. The entire cycle is based on the second part of the MidrashJonah from the De Rossi manuscript.1 This part of the De Rossi Midrashstarts with an explanation of why Jonah fled,' 6 and it may fit the probableoriginal meaningof Jesus' sign of Jonah. His first action is to embark upon a ship, since he thought God's power did not extend beyond the land. Early Christian artistic representationsof this episode are rare: one of them is a relief on the edge of a fragmentaryround table, now in the Louvre.'7 Jonah, fully dressed,is climbinga gangplank,stretchinghis armout to one of the two partly dressedsailorsin the little boat. A portrayal

of this sort must have been the source of a similarrepresentation in the Paris Gregorymanuscriptof the late ninth century.18 The repentant sailors play an important role in the midrashic story of Jonah. In addition to mentioning the biblical act of praying,the midrashin Pirkei de RabbiEliezer sees the ship as representingthe whole world and the sailors all the seventy nations of the world. The depiction of seven people in the ship on the Lipsanothekof Brescia, in one of the chapels at El-Bagawat, as well as in the later ParisPsalter, the Serbian Psalter in Munich, and the Roda Bible in Paris, was correctly taken by Prof. Carl Otto Nordstrom to represent the seventy nations.19 The sailors also jettison all the cargo, and when they try to immerse Jonah in the water to test his promise that the sea would become calm, they do so feet first. This testing of Jonah contradictsmost EarlyChristwhich show Jonahbeing thrownoverboard ian representation, head first, and only very few retain Jonah being lowered feet first into the sea. One of them is the MetropolitanMuseum ship with Jonah episodes, where the naked Jonah is being lowered by one of the sailorsinto the mouth of a sea monster
(Fig. 1).20

Museum FIGURE1. TheJonahship;Metropolitan of Art.

Jonah'snakednessshould, accordingto the midrash,occur later, after he is cast up by the fish, but in most catacombs and sarcophagiJonah is naked, as well as the sailors. This may be the result of the sailorsjettisoning their belongings to decrease the ship's weight; more likely, it was borrowed from marineepisodes in contemporarypaganrepresentations. Marine scenes on pagan sarcophagihave a connotation of resurrection,and they include ships, sailors, and dragon-like sea monsters, as well as putti and dolphins.21 Comparing Jonah scenes with pagan marine sculpture may give an insight into the way such a cycle was composed by assembling scenes of the sailorsthrowpaganelements. Even the narrative Jonah and the monster overboard swallowingand spewing ing him out must have been based on portrayalsof earlier mythological episodes. I would not like to suggestan immediate model for any of these Jonah scenes,althoughthe long-eared, dragon-headed,fearsome ketos with a fish-tail was used in depictions of classical episodes such as Hercules or Perseus fighting a monster, and Jason being swallowedand disgorged by a dragon.22 of a sea monster The appearance in artisticrepresentations ratherthan the biblical"largefish" derivedno doubt from the Septuaginttranslationof "largefish" as ketos.23 This translation may have originatedfrom a midrashicinterpretationof the fish which swallowed Jonah. According to the midrash, this was a special creature,made by God on the fifth day of creation, and differed from Leviathan, with which Jonah conversed.24 Leviathan,the king of the sea, was another of God's special creatures,intended for his play (Psalm 104:26) and ultimately for feastingupon by the righteousin the messianic world to come.25 According to this Jewish concept, Leviathan had to be essentially a fish, with fins and scales, or else it would be an unclean water creatureunfit for the Jewish righteousto eat.26 It was in accordancewith the mid-

rash that the Septuagint translatorschose the term ketos to 7 make it clearthat the "largefish" is differentfromLevithan.2 In no midrash does Jonah appearto be in Leviathan'sbelly. Moreover,while in the fish's belly, accordingto the De Rossi version of the midrash, Jonah saves "his fish" from being devoured by Leviathanby remindingthe latter that Jonah's future task is to tie a rope to Leviathan'stongue,28 and bringhim to the Feast of the Righteous.In most EarlyChristian monumentsJonah'sfish is thus depicted as a ketos, a monster, and not as Leviathan, in accordance with the Jewish 9 and the Septuagint.2 midrashicinterpretation that the midrash identifies not It is therefore surprising hell feature which with a of fish the belly Jonah's (she'ol),30 Fathers Christian of the some second was adopted by century as a proof that there is a place for the soul to exist in after Tertullianclearly death, from which it can be resurrected.31 refers to such an existence when he talks of refrigeriuminterim,32but only in the fourth century does St. Zeno state explicitly about Jonah's ketos. "cetum esse non dubitur infernum".33 The Koran also implies that the whale's belly was to be the place where Jonah "would have remaineduntil the day of their being raisedup," if he did not pray.34 In the heat of this belly of hell Jonah lost his clothes and hair, acand cordingto the printedandDe Rossi versionof the midrash, was plagued by flies and mosquitoes in order that he should repent and call on God in prayer.No examplesof Jonahpraying in the belly of the ketos are extant from the EarlyChristian period, but the fact that this episode appearsin the ninth century Chludov Psalter, immediately after the iconoclastic controversy,may indicate that this depiction did exist in preiconoclastictimes.35 The ketos spewingJonah out naked is no doubt inspired by the midrashand is shown in the catacombsin the third 65

FIGURE 2. Maritime episodes of Jonah on a sarcophagus;Ny Carlsberg,

Copenhagen.

FIGURE 3. Episodes from the lives of Jonah, Noah, Daniel and Moses on a blue and gold glass bowl;Romisch-GermanischesMuseum, Cologne.

FIGURE 4. Angel presenting a garment to Jonah; Persian gouache painting in the Metropolitan Museum.

century, though on sarcophagionly in the fourth century (Fig. 2).36 This is the most significantscene for symbolizing the resurrection,and it occupies an important place in the blue glass bowl from Cologne (Fig. 3).37 HereJonah seems to be bald as well as naked, in accordance with the midrash. This is a very rare scene in Early Christianart. Its appearance in the late tenth century Menologionof Basil II as well as in the early ninth century Stuttgart Psalter may lead to the assumption that there was an Early Christian model for them both.38 The nakedness of Jonah emerging from the "belly of hell" apparentlyaccorded with the Jewish as well as with the Christianideas of the naked soul. It is a Platonic idea, which was widespreadand adopted by Philo, St. Paul and even Hadrian.39Probablyborrowedfrom the association of Amor and Psyche, the soul was commonly depicted as a small, naked putto in all types of religionin the late Roman Empire.40 The ketos disgorging a naked Jonah no doubt gave rise to the later Byzantine idea of showing the sea and land giving up their dead at the Last Judgment, as represented in icons and illuminatedmanuscripts.41 A rare episode of Jonah being spewed out naked from of a large fish, while a flying angelgiveshim a robe mouth the to cover his nakedness, is painted on a large, single leaf of paper by a Moslem Persian artist of the late fourteenth or Museumof Art in early fifteenth century, in the Metropolitan New York (Fig. 4).42 It is alleged to be a page from a large codex of Rashid-ad-Din's Compendiumof Histories, but its no writing on the verso, and that it has that fact the size, text does not mention this rareincident disRashid-ad-Din's allow this assertion. Illustrated manuscripts of Rashid-adDin depict Jonah issuing from a large fish's mouth, dressed, and with no angel.43 The angel next to Jonah is not mentioned in any known Jewish, Moslem or Christiantexts, although, as will be seen later, he appearsin other monuments and may have been describedin a text which is now lost. Jonah reclining naked under a gourd is, as has been stated above, the most popularscene in Early Christianart in both the pre- and post-Constantinian periods. According to the De Rossi version of MidrashJonah and contrary to the Bible, it follows the episode of Jonah being spewed out. It is also related consecutively in the Koran, which states that Jonah was cast upon a desert or a shore "ill. And [God] caused to grow up over him a tree," and immediately "We made him an envoy to a hundred thousand or more [Ninevites]." (Surah 37:145-148). The Koran no doubt depends on the Jewish and Christianinterpretations,and the same probably goes for the ninth century Arabic historian AlTabari,who elaboratedon the word "ill" in the Koran,stating that Jonah was like a newborn baby when he emergedfrom the fish's fiery belly.44 The Early ChristianFathers do not mention this scene at all, and therefore any modern interpretation has to rely on circumstantialevidence and comparisons. It is possible that a homiletical text existed and has been lost. Nonetheless, this is one of many widely depicted episodes in Early Christian art which seem to have

66

been important to the believers and artists, although the teachers and theologians commented little on them. Credit is due to V. Schultze, who in 1880 suggested a comparison of the reclining Jonah with the sleeping Endymion, whose eternal youth made him the type of a survivorwho lives for ever.45 The identification of Jonah with Endymion was not initiated by any of the Early ChurchFathers,many of whom objected to any representationsfor fear of idolatry.46 The picture, borrowed from Endymion, of Jonah lying naked under the gourd must have been a powerful image for the believers, who could identify themselves with the ever-living
Christ-Jonah-Endymion figure (Fig. 5).47 Other sleepers in

FIGURE5. Selene visitingthe sleepingEndymion;sarcophagus in the Museum. Metropolitan

Antique pagan mythology were represented in a similar attidude, such as Dionysos or Ariadne, though none of them is identical in pose and in idea with the resurrected, immortal Endymion.48 There are some variationsin the portrayalof Jonah under the gourd which may relate to different episodesin the story. In the catacombs, Jonah is always reclining under a constructed booth, whereas on the sarcophagithere is only a tree growing above him. This may correspond to the two phases in the biblical story, where first Jonah built himself a booth, and later God made a tree grow above him. The booth is not mentioned in the midrash, nor in the Koran. There is also a difference in the kind of tree under which Jonah rests. In the fourth century Augustine and Jerome correspondedabout the identificationof the plant.49 Augus- FIGURE 6. Jonah reclining dressed under a gourd; statuette in the Museumof Art. tine preferred the Old Latin cucurbita, which he thought Cleveland was a plant with squash-likefruit and which he identified with the Hebrew quqayon and the Septuagint KoXoKuvIrl. Jerome used hedera, a creepingplant, in his new translation. The depictions mainly illustrate the squash-likefruit mentioned in the Septuagintand Old Latin version, either climbing over a booth or growingas a tree. Although the creeping hedera, Ktaoo6in Greek, may have been a more suitable"salvation plant" to show, since it grows at times over dionysiac figures, the cucurbitaentered the scenes earlierand remained there almost exclusively. Some representationscombine the leavesof the hederawith the fruit of the cucurbita. The question of Jonah, shown dressed in the Rabbula Gospels and on a few sarcophagi,and in particularin the Cleveland statuette (Figs. 6, 7), must also be considered.50 It can hardly be for modesty's sake. WilliamWixom and Ernst Kitzingersuggest as possible models a river god, Nile, Zeus Aesclepios and Jupiter, all of whom have similar faces and reclinein a similarway. Since none of these is consistently dressed,it is difficult to trace their exact model. It is interesting that there are some sheep next to the dressedJonah on the Pisa sarcophagus. In fact, he is dressedand reclineslike a and for the small symbol of a gourd in low but shepherd, he for a shepherd.OtherJonahslying under relief, might pass the gourd surrounded by sheep are known. The earliestis that in Santa MariaAntiqua,with sheep above the tree, which only looks like a booth, but is really a ground line on which the

FIGURE7. Ship andJonah;side of the Pisa,Camposanto Sarcophagus.

sheep are grazing.51 This is an idyllic scene referringto Paradise, in which the soul rests for ever, afterescapingfrom death in Berlinjust depicts and the fire of hell.52 A sarcophagus Jonah reclining, surrounded by sheep and shepherds.53 A 67

FIGURE8. Jonah recliningon a ketos and blessedby an angel;ivory Museum, pyxis in the Hermitage Leningrad.

single sheep is depicted on the British MuseumJonah sarcohas three sailors, phagus.54The ship on the same sarcophagus but no casting overboardof Jonah is shown, nor is he swallowed or disgorged, although there are two ketoi, one near the ship and the other near the recliningJonah. The choice of subjects on a single sarcophagusor a single catacomb cubiculum will be discussed below, and may help to determine the development and origin of the cycle. On the sides of the BritishMuseumsarcophagus are a peacock and a third ketos, both under gourd plants. It must have been a very benevolent patron or artist who placed the ketos, hell, under the blessingof a paradisal gourd! Another variation of the reclining Jonah scene should be mentioned, found mainly on Eastern ivories (Fig. 8).55 This shows Jonah recliningon top of the ketos'body, possibly denoting Christ tramplinghell (Psalm 91:13) and conquering death. However,next to him stands a winged angel,holding a scroll and giving a blessing. The second scene, which should precede it, is the casting of Jonah into the sea, where a ketos is lying in wait for him, and in the two pyxides anotherangel stands holding a cross. In the sea are little fish and dolphins. I have no knowledge of a text which mentions angels in connection with Jonah, but should like to suggest that a lost midrash or homily might account for them.56 There are a few clay lamps of a North African type, which show Jonah on the tail of the ketos.57 They seem very crude, and the hanging squashfruit looks like a comb. The Clevelandwoven linen depicts a similar scene, although Jonah is leaning on a short column, as if the composition is copied from a statuette resemblingthe marble ones in Cleveland,though of different iconography.58 68

The next episode in the midrash,as in the Bible (Jonah 4:9-11), is Jonah's discussion with God after the gourd has withered.In this final biblical episode God puts the strongest in the catapressureon Jonah. In most of the representations combs Jonah is seated, instead of reclining, with one arm lifted, and usually naked; on some occasions the burningsun is depicted, on others the booth has no leaves.59 Jonah is shown arguing with God under a glaring sun in the Constantinopolitan Theodore Psalter of 1066 in the British Library.60 It depicts Jonah, fully dressed,sitting under a tree, with the sun and the hand of God above him and an angel standing next to him. This angel, too, may have been mentioned in a lost homiletical text. However, this scene of a bearded man seated under a tree, with an angel approaching him, resemblesElijah being awakened by an angel who gives him a cake to eat which will suffice for his forty days'journey through the desert to Horeb (I Kings 19:4-8). The relation between Elijah'slife and that of Jonahhas alreadybeen noted in this paper. Two prayersof Jonah'sare mentioned in the Bible. One is his ode of supplication inside the fish (2:2-10), and the other after God's reversalof his judgment on the Ninevites. However, the De Rossi version of the MidrashJonah omits the second prayer, but adds a long thanksgivingby Jonah after his trial and argument with God about the withered tree.61 This concludes the story of Jonah in a more explicit way than the abrupt end of the biblical text. Not many Early Christian representationsexist of Jonah praying,and the Cleveland statuette is by far the most representative of
them (Fig. 9).62 The large-scale Jonah in the Paris Psalter

is made the culmination and the most important episode in

FIGURE 9. Jonah praying; statuette in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

the cycle.63 It also appearson a small sardonyxgem in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, where, fully dressed in a long tunic, with arms raised, he is seen to the right of a ship out of which he is voluntarilyjumping.64 Beneath the ship is a ketos and to the left Jonah is sitting under a tree, on top of which a dove is perched. Jonah in prayer also appears in eleventh century Byzantine Psalters, which may have used Early Christianmodels.65 If the cycle is midrashic,Jonah, fully dressed, standing praying can only be intended as the last, thanksgiving,episode, since in his first prayer he was inside the fish;if it is biblical,it depicts Jonah'ssecond prayer. The pictorialcycle of the life of Jonah in EarlyChristian art, described above, is almost entirely based on the second part of De Rossi's version of Midrash Jonah. This omits Jonah's role in the conversion of the Ninevites, and makes

him recline naked under a gourd following his emergence from the ketos. This fitted the Christianidea of life in an idyllic paradise after the resurrection from the dead, the "sign of Jonah" according to St. Matthew's interpretation (12:40). The episodes relating to Jonah's preaching at Nineveh and the repentance of the Ninevites are very rare in Early Christian art, and appear to follow the biblical narration, with a few doubtful allusions to the "printed version" of the MidrashJonah. One depiction, possibly of the gate of Nineveh on the shore where Jonah is thrown up, appearson the right-handwall of the SacramentChapelA3 in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus in Rome (Fig. 10).66 The three-tiered lighthouse in the center of a sarcophagusfrom the Museo Nazionale, which has a winged putto rowing the boat in its center, does not necessarily represent the city of Nineveh, nor does the fiery furnacein the fragmentfrom Santa Maria in Trastevere.The three men praying in this fragment are 7 probably the three Hebrewsand not Ninevitesgivingpraise.6 However, in the Rabbula Gospels of 586 there is undoubtin the 8 which also appears edly a representationof Nineveh,6 ninth and tenth century Greek manuscripts of the Sacra Parallela,the ParisGregoryand the ParisPsalter.69Therethe prophet is seen preachingto the mourningking and citizens. Jonah is shown approachingthe gate of Nineveh in the Theodore Psalter of 1066.70 Repentant Ninevites are also rare, none appearingon Early Christianmonuments. Those in the ParisGregoryareheadedby the king rendinghis clothes. In the SacraParallelathe repentantNinevites and their cattle are enclosed in two different compartmentswhile Jonah is preachingto them.71 If not based on the Bible (3:7-8), the enclosure in compartmentsmay allude to the "printedversion" of MidrashJonah, which states that in order to voice their repentance more loudly, the Ninevites separatedcows and mares from their offspring,thus addingto the clamour.72 In those few examples illustratingthe Ninevite part of the story there is nothing explicitly midrashic, and they could all be biblical in origin. They appear at times together with the midrashicepisodes mentioned earlier, as in the relief on the ArmenianChurch of Akhthamarof 915-921, where four Ninevites are enclosed in roundels next to their king, listening to Jonah preaching, fully dressed.73 'Ihere seem to be two different cycles depictingthe life of Jonah: one deals with his preachingto the Ninevites, and is mainly based on the Bible; while the other, illustrating Jonah's seafaring episodes, derives from the midrash,and is only loosely based on the Bible. It is ratherstrangethat the episodes of the repentantNinevites did not become a popular Jonah. art, similarto the resurrected subject in Early Christian After all, this interpretationof the "sign of Jonah", stating that the repentant Ninevites "will testify againstthis generation", appearsnot only in Matthew 12:41, but also in Luke 11:32. Nor was the third interpretationof the testimony of the Queen of Sheba (Mt. 12:42, Lk. 11:31) depicted until 69

them as a model a detailed narrativecycle, from which they could select the requiredscene. Their pious Christianpatrons would not, however, understanda small detail taken out of context unless they were familiar with the detailed iconography of the narrativecycle. To paint a single ketos or to chisel a single hangingsquash,79or even to depicta completely naked Endymionlying under a gourd would make sense only to the initiate who knew what it represented.Any symbol, even an abstract one such as a solitary anchor or a cross, necessarily has an ultimate origin in narrative,which gave rise to the symbolicconnotationin the first instance.
FIGURE10. Jonahspewedout next to a city gate and reclining flanked in the SacramentChapelA3 of the Calby two doves; wall-painting Rome. lixtus Catacomb,

much later in the Middle Ages. These two examples of converted gentiles were taken by some ChristianChurchFathers to be the most importantmeaningof the "sign of Jonah".74 However, althoughtheir homilies may have been popular,the idea of resurrectionand of eternal life was much more engaging to the Early Christiansin a world where such syncretistic ideaswere at the core of every religiousfaith.75 When viewed collectively, the consecutivepictorial cycle of the life of Jonah is quite wide. It is mostly related to his tests and trials, accordingto the misrashictext. The episodes depicted are very detailed, and were at times brokendown by the artists into minute sectional scenes. Only by listing them can one appreciate the possible permutations employed by the artists. The first scene is of Jonah embarkingat Joppa. The ship shown on its own with sailors aboard may also represent this episode (Fig. 7). The turbulentsea with frightened sailors, one coveringhis face, is the next scene, which is at times combined with casting the prophet overboard (Figs. 2, 3). He is, however, sometimes lowered into the sea feet first to test his allegation(Fig. 1). On some ships there is at least one man praying,professingbelief in Jonah's God who miraculously calmed the stormy sea and saved Jonah from drowning (Fig. 7).76 Below the ship is a ketos (Figs. 2, 3), which at times swallows Jonah when thrown overboard (Fig. 11). In other instances the ketos swallowing Jonah or a lone ketos at sea forms a separate scene. The Jonah is a separatescene (Figs. 1-4, 6, 7),77 ketos disgorging sometimes appearingagain afterwardsby itself, next to the most popular scene of Jonah recliningnaked under a tree or booth. Some ivories have a scene with Jonah lying on the ketos and an angel standing next to him (Fig. 8).78 Next comes Jonah sitting or reclining alone (Fig. 11), or under a burning sun or withered gourd, and once, in the Theodore Psalter, with an angel approachingand the hand of God. The last scene of this cycle is of Jonah praying and giving thanks(Fig. 9). This cycle indicates that although the Christianartists at times painted a single episode, they must have had before 70

The story of Jonah existed as a narrativecycle before a single reclining, naked youth, flanked by two doves, was painted to decorate an entire wall (Fig. 10).80 In some of the earliest catacomb paintings and sarcophagi there are cycles of three, four, or five scenes. The most famous is that in the SacramentChapelA6 of the Callixtuscatacomb,which contains four scenes: 1. Jonah, naked, being cast overboard; 2. The ketos at sea; 3. Jonahbeing spewedout naked;4. Jonah reclining naked under a booth.81 The sarcophagi at Pio Cristiano, No. 119, at Velletri and in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen as well as the Cologne blue cut glass bowl with added gold all have the same four scenes (Figs. 2, 3).82 The North African redwareplate in the Mainz Museum has five other scenes, in addition to the previous four, one of them of Jonah sitting naked and arguingwith God.83 Other combinations of four scenes are used in the third and fourth centuries.The BritishMuseumsarcophagus depicts: 1. The ship, without Jonah being thrown overboard;2. A ketos near the ship; 3. A ketos near a naked Jonah, 4. Jonah recliningnaked under a booth with a gourd.84 The Cleveland statuettes representfour other scenes, which do not include the ship at all (Figs. 6, 9):85 1. A ketos swallowingJonah; 2. A ketos spewing Jonah out naked; 3. Jonah reclining, clothed, under a gourd; 4. Jonah in prayer, clothed. The first three scenes, without the ship, appear more frequently in Early Christian art,86 but the most common cycle in catacomb painting of the fourth century has the following four scenes: 1. Jonah being cast overboard,naked, into the ketos' mouth (possibly a conflated scene); 2. Jonah being spewed out naked by the ketos; 3. Jonah reclining,naked; 4. Jonah sitting arguing,naked (Fig. 11).87 This cycle has iconographicvariations of detail. One such, painted on the back wall of Cubiculum III in the Catacomb of Domitilla, has a naked, recliningJonah, but also a dressedJonah reclining under a sun.88 Once these cycles existed, the artist could create any combinationhe fancied. The most popularwas to shorten the cycle by depicting two extreme episodes: Jonah being thrown overboard,and reclining.89In post-iconoclastic the cycle becomeswider and includes illuminatedmanuscripts, details which may have existed in Early Christianart. The Theodore Psalter of 1066 has five scenes: 1. CastingJonah overboard, fully clothed; 2. Jonah, clothed, praying in the

FIGURE 11. Jonah cycle and orants surrounding a good shepherd; ceiling of the Chapel with Orpheus of the Petrus and Marcellinus Catacomb, Rome.

belly of the ketos; 3. Jonah being spewed out naked, 4. Jonah, dressed, preaching to Nineveh; 5. Jonah sitting, dressed, under a blazing sun, arguing with an angel.90 The entire visual cycle of Jonah was no doubt originally created with the help of classical pagan models, whether from sarcophagi, three-dimensional sculpture, ivory, woven linen, wall painting, or even illuminated manuscripts. There are in the Jonah cycle too many classical quotations for them to be an accidental borrowing by one artist. This initial creation of a detailed Jonah cycle could hardly have been by Christian artists of the third century. It must, in the first instance, have been the work of Jewish artists, based on midrashic sources, from which the Christians could have adopted the most christianizing elements. It was probably essential for a Christian of the pre-Constantinian period to

have the pagan scenes and figures legitimized by a Jewish artist before he could use them. That this Jonah cycle was Jewish is evident not only from its dependence on Jewish midrashic structure and sources, but also by comparison with other Jewish narrative cycles created in the late second and early third centuries. The system of adopting pagan attitudes and figures by judaizing them is well known from the wall paintings of the mid-third century synagogue of Dura Europos, and from other monuments of the period.9 1 The story of Jonah has not survived in the Dura synagogue, nor on any other Jewish object,92 but the detailed narrative elements in the surviving Christian art may further substantiate this assumption. The image of the ketos, which is distinct from Leviathan, Jonah's nakedness, or the occasions when he is lowered, rather than cast, into the sea are such examples, not essential to the Christian image, but very important to the Jewish midrashic interpretation. The question of where these Jewish artistic narrative cycles appeared arises at this point, though no detailed answer need be given. Suffice it to point out that biblical episodes were not used by the Jews of the Hellenistic period as sepulchral art, contrary to the practice of the Early Christians. Painted walls of synagogues like that of Dura, and possibly illuminated manuscripts,93 were educational and more in line with the Jewish use of the homiletical midrash and targum (interpretatory translation) in the synagogue. It must have been much easier for the Christian artist who wanted to convey St. Matthew's resurrection connotation of the "sign of Jonah" to adopt it from existing Jewish pictorial models, giving it his Christian interpretation. Not that a Christian artist was incapable of creating this cycle himself, using the pagan elements around him; but for that he would have had to be well versed in the intricate, detailed, Jewish midrashic interpretations, and to be interested in representing them, rather than the immediate biblical text. It is more likely that the elements used by the Early Christian artist to depict the "sign of Jonah" were adopted from an existing Jewish midrashic narrative cycle of the life of Jonah, which was available to him as a model, and from which he selected those which suited his purpose.

NOTES

1. The Age of Spirituality (New York, 1979), Catalogue Nos. 361, 365-368, 369, 371, 377, 384, 385, and 390. I should like to thank the Director and the Readers of the Index of Christian Art of Princeton University and the members of the Institute for Advanced Study for their kind help in the preparation of this paper. I am especially grateful to Professors Kurt Weitzmann, Irving Lavin and Ernst Kitzinger, as well as to Mrs. Heidi Kaufmann, Mrs. Aliza Cohen and Miss Christine Evans for their helpful remarks.

2. Otto Mitius, Jonas auf den Denkmalern des christlichen Altertums, Archaologische Studien zum christlichen Altertum und Mittelalter, 4 (Freiburg i.B. 1897), counted 177 depictions of Jonah in Early Christian art. H. Leclercq, "Jonas", in Dictionnaire d'Archeologie Chretienne et de Liturgie 7, 2 (Paris, 1927), cols. 2572-2631, listed 207 items relating to Jonah, most of which have Jonah under the gourd. T. Klauser, "Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der christlichen Kunst 4", Jahrbuch fur Antike und Christentum, 4 (Miinster, 1961): 128-145, counted 26 extant

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representations of Jonah under a gourd out of 81 depictions of 16 Old Testament episodes, see 133-135. A. Ferrua, "Paralipomeni di Giona", Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, 38 (Citta del Vaticano, 1962): 7-69, adds scores of items to the basic descriptions of the catacombs and sarcophagi. G. Wilpert, Le Pitture delle Catacombe Romane (Rome 1903); G. Wilpert, I Sarcofagi cristiani antichi, 1-3 (Rome, 1929-36). See F.W. Deichmann, Repertorium der Christlich-Antiken Sarkophage, 1: Rom und Ostia (Wiesbaden, 1967); E. Dassmann, "Suindenvergebung durch Taufe, Busse und Martyrerfurbitte in den Zeugnissen friihchristlicher Frommigkeit und Kunst", Munsterische Beitrige zur Theologie 36 (Miinster, 1973): 222-232, 385-397; J. Speigl, "Das Bildprogramm des Jonasmotivs in den Malereien der romischen Katakomben", Romische Quartalschrift 73 (1978): pp. 1-15. I am grateful to Prof. Ernzt Kitzinger for bringing this last reference to my notice. 2a. C.O. Nordstr6m, "Some Jewish Legends in Byzantine Art", Byzantion, 25-27 (1955-1957): 487-508, especially "The Prophet Jonah", pp. 501-508. See the brief summary by Eduard Stommel, "Zum Problem der fruhchristlichen Jonasdarstellungen", Jahrbuch fur Antike und Christentum 1 (Minster, 1958): 112-115. For a general refutation, see Ferrua, Giona, 64-65. 3. Called in Hebrew Mi she'anah, because of its repetitious first words. See Leclercq, DACL, 4.1: 435-440. 4. Chaim M. Horowitz, (ed.), Agadat agadot (Sammlung kleiner Midraschim) (Berlin 1881, in Hebrew), 13, 36. 5. L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia, 1909-1914) 4: 246-253, 6: 348-352. 5a. Horowitz, Midraschim, 36, and J. Freudenthal in Jahresbericht des judisch-theologischen Seminars, (Breslau, 1869): 9-12, 141147. They are preserved only in Armenian, and are of Hellenistic Jewish origin, though not by Philo, see H. Lewy, "The PseudoPhilonic De Jona", Studies and Documents, 7 (London, 1936): 1-49. I am grateful to Prof. Nina Gassoyan for her help in interpreting the Armenian texts. A Latin translation was published by J.B. Aucher, Philonis Judaei Paralipomena Armena, II (1826). 6. The four versions of Midrash Jonah are similar in their concept of Jonah and in most of their details. It is, however, obvious that they are different compilations, since their structure is not similar, and some elements are elaborated to form separate entities. The version of Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 10, may have used in part the same text as the version of the Yalqut Shim'oni Nos. 550-551. The latter, however, has some important additions, such as an elaborate story of a king who, when his wife died, took a negligent nurse to look after his son; or the untidy female fish which swallowed Jonah after he was spewed out by the first fish, in order to cause him more aggravation by means of the 3,650 million little fish she had in her belly. A third version, which was printed in Prague in 1595, contains stories additional to the Yalqut Shim'oni, and an important appendix on God's creation of special things during the six days of creation, which was translated into Hebrew from the Aramaic Zohar in pericope Vayaq'hel. The last appendix in this version is allegorical, identifying Jonah with the soul, the ship with "this world", and the fish with "hell". The fourth version of Midrash Jonah, from the De Rossi collection, ms. 563 in the Vatican Library, was first printed with an introduction by Horowitz, Midraschim, 11-14, 25-35. The second, narrative part of the De Rossi version is similar to the beginning of the Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer. All the versions were reprinted in Hebrew by Y.D. Eisenstein, Otzar Midrashim (New York, 1915, and later reprints) 1: 217-222. Pirkei de Rabbi Eleizer is translated into English by G. Friedlander (London, 1916 and later reprints), 65-73.

7. Ginzberg, Legends, 4: 197; 6: 318; Midrash Tehillim, ch. 26, (ed. Buber, Wilna 1891, p. 220); Jerusalem Talmud, Sukkah, 5, 55a; Pirkei de Rabbi Eleizer, 33 (English trans., p. 240); Genesis Rabbah, 98:11. These associations are probably based on some similarities between the life of Jonah and that of Elijah. According to the Bible, Elijah was the first to lie under a tree in the desert wishing that he might die, after his victory over the prophets of Baal (I Kings 19:4-8). The number of days, forty, is also mentioned there which Elijah spent travelling to Horeb, sustained by the food given to him by an angel. The midrash Seder Eliahu Rabbah 18:97-98 considers the widow's resuscitated son, the "Messiah of the Tribe of Joseph", to be different from Elijah, the forerunner of the Messiah of the Tribe of Judah. However, Ginzberg, Legends, 6: 351, thinks that this must have been a Christian influence. Otherwise Jonah is also thought in the midrash to be one of the 2,200 disciples of the prophet Elisha, the one whose task was to anoint Jehu. See Genesis Rabbah, 21:5, cf. Ginzberg, Legends, 4: 246; 6: 348. 8. Midrash Tehillim, 26 (Buber 220). See Ginzberg, Legends, 4: 253; 6: 351. This is based on the biblical account that he escaped from the bowels of the fish, which he himself called in his first prayer "the belly of hell" (Jonah 2:2). He probably remains in Paradise until the end of time, when he will perform his tasks. Elijah, the Messiah of the House of David, also awaits his time in Paradise. 9. For the "printed version" of Midrash Jonah, see A. Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrash (Jerusalem, 1938, in Hebrew), 1: 98, 99. For the De Rossi version see Horowitz, Midraschim, 32; Eisenstein, Otzar, 219, 221. 10. The same instance is repeated several times with variations: Mt. 12:38-42; 16:1-4; Mk. 8:11-12; Lk 11:29-32. In Mt. 16:4 the sign of Jonah is mentioned with no added meaning; in Mk. 8:1112 Jonah is not mentioned at all in connection with Christ's refusal to give any sign. 11. See A.H. MacNeile, The Gospel according to St. Matthew (London, 1955), 181-182; T.W. Manson, The Sayings of Jesus (London, 1949), 89-91; 0. Glombitza, "Das Zeichen des Jonas", Neutestamentliche Studien 8 (1962): 359-366; J. Howton, "The Sign of Jonah", Scottish Journal of Theology 15 (1962): 288-304. 12. The first derogatory reference to the people of his generation is clearly the beginning of the Evangelist's gloss on Christ's saying. It is stressed by the first explanatory example given by Matthew 12:41 and Luke 11:32, that "the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah", and Jesus is "greater than Jonah" and will not evade his mission, nor will he be angered if the people repent and are saved. See Manson, Sayings, 91-92. The righteous Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba who, according to Mt. 12:41-43 and Lk. 11:31-32, will testify against "this generation" in the Day of Judgement, are further interpretations of the sign of Jonah by the Evangelists. See MacNeile, Gospel, 183-185. Luke 11:30 gives another interpretation, making Jonah a sign for the Ninevites, as is the Son of Man for "this generation". 13. Interesting in this respect is R. Eisler's interpretation of IXOY;Yas "Jesus son of the fish", identifying Christ with Jonah and Joshua the son of Nun (= fish, in Aramaic), both saviours of the house of Joseph. See Orpheus - The Fisher, Comparative Studies in Orphic and Early Christian Cult Symbolism, (London, 1921), 171, 187. 14. Klauser, Studien 4: 133-135. 15. Horowitz, Midraschim, 29-35. The first part of this midrash deals with the complete repentance of the Ninevites starting with the words: "Jonah went into Nineveh wholeheartedly, as it says

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(Jonah 3:4) 'and Jonah began to enter into the city'." It ends with Jonah pleading for his life after he recognized God's deeds. See Horowitz, Midraschim, 25-29. The second part starts similarly to the Yalqut Shim'oni, but continues differently: "It was on Thursday that Jonah ran away from God." It repeats the entire Pirkei de Rabbi Eleizer, but adds the later episodes of the burning of his clothes in the fish's belly and so on. 16. According to the midrash, Jonah's first prophecy to Jeroboam, recorded in II Kings 14:25 as pronounced by a prophet of the same name, came true, contrary to the second prophecy about Jerusalem, which is not recorded in the Bible. Jonah feared that the third prophecy, to Nineveh, would also fail. See Babylonian Talmud, Yevamoth, 98a. 17. It comes from Athens and dates probably from the fifth century. See E. Michon, "Rebords de bassins chretiens orn6s de reliefs", Revue biblique n.s. 12 (1915): 517, fig. 9; Leclercq, Jonas, No. 65, fig. 6288. 18. Paris Bib. Nat. ms. grec 510, fol. 3. See H. Omont, Miniatures des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliotheque nationale du VIe au XIVe siecle (Paris 1929), pl. 20. Some sarcophagi which depict a ship with sailors, but without the casting overboard of Jonah, may be remnants of Jonah's embarkation scene, or something like a combined scene of the embarkation and casting overboard, which was left with the ship and sailors only. See F. Gerke, Die christlichen Sarkophage der Vorkonstantinischen Zeit (Berlin, 1940), e.g. pls. 32.2 and 58.3, the Santa Maria Antiqua sarcophagus; pl. 30.1, the right side of the Pisa, Camposanto sarcophagus (Fig. 7); pl. 30.3, Antinori Collection in Florence; pl. Rome. However, since they all have one sailor as an orant, they more likely represent the sailors who believed after seeing Jonah's miracle. Another scene of the frightened sailors may be represented on sarcophagi where one of the sailors has his hand over his eyes, Leclercq, Jonas, DACL, 7.2, figs. 6296, 6297. It could, however, be the lamenting Jonah, as Leclercq suggested (col. 2604), or Jonah asleep on the boat (1:5). 19. "Some Jewish Legends in Byzantine Art," Byzantion 25-27 (1955-57): 501-503, pls. 7-8. 20. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, No. 77.7. From Tarsus, first half of the fourth century. For bibliography, see Age of Spirituality, No. 369. Jonah lowered into the sea feet first is also represented in the fourth century mosaic on the east wall of the Capella dei Giulii in the crypt of St. Peter's in the Vatican within the vine which surrounds Christ-Helios. See B.M. ApollonjGhetti (ed.), Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di San Pietro in Vaticano (1951), 2: pl. XIIb. E. Stommel thinks that the Metropolitan ship and Giulii mosaic are the only representations of the Sign of Jonah, since they depict the burial and resurrection, see Beitrage zur Ikonographie der Konstantinischen Sarkophagplastik (Bonn, 1954), 42. 21. Some of the Early Christian sarcophagi still preserve pagan details, copied from models of sarcophagi with marine subjects. Some are mentioned by Gerke, Sarkophage, 161-164. In the ship, its sail, the sailors' dress or nakedness, he notes similarities to Odysseus episodes, pls. 15, 23.1. The sarcophagus of the Museo delle Terme in Rome has a striking winged putto-sailor, and also preserves a lighthouse, with fire on top, ibid., pl. 28.1; there are naked sailors fishing on the Doria Pamphili sarcophagus, ibid., pl. 23.4; as well as the putti in the mosaic of Aquileia Cathedral. Gerke also noted the similarity of Jonah reclining with the monster next to him on this sarcophagus to Poseidon playing with his ketos on pagan sarcophagi, cf. Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pls. 191.1, 296.4. Many

more similarities can be found in A. Rumpf, Die Meerwesen auf den antiken Sarkophagreliefs (Berlin, 1939), e.g. pls. 3 (16), 19 (76), 26 (87), 30, 57 (282); for the dragon-like ketos see pp. 113-116. For the resurrection connotations see F. Cumont, Recherches sur le symbolisme funeraire des Romains (Paris, 1942), 166-169; F. Cumont, After-Life in Roman Paganism (Yale, 1922), 154-155. 22. The possible relation with mythological episodes was dealt with by Hans Schmidt, Jona (G6ttingen, 1907), Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des alten und neuen Testaments, 7; see especially 3-24. KTroqis used in Greek for a large fish or a whale, but became peculiar to a special fish-tailed sea creature with two front legs, which has monstrous characteristics, a long-eared, dragon's head with sharp teeth and a straight, elongated lower jawbone; Pistris in Latin. 24. The end of the "printed version" of Midrash Jonah, based on the Zohar, loc. cit., describes God's special creations on each of the six days of Creation. 25. Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra, 74a; Hagiga, 14b. The future Messianic Feast is mentioned by Christ when he institutes the Eucharist, Mt. 26:29. Strangely enough, the Leviathan of Ps. 104:26 is called 6pxKWovin the Septuagint (103:26). 26. Levit. 11:9-12. For the pictorial image of Leviathan in Jewish art, see J. Gutmann, "When the Kingdom Comes", Art Journal 27/2 (1967-68): 168-175; B. Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (Jerusalem, 1969), 29, 90, pl. 25. In Islam too Jonah is regarded as one of the Righteous. See Surahs 21:87-88, 37:138148. In Surah 67:48-50 he is said to be chosen to sit among "the Upright" in Paradise. 27. The Septuagint translates taninim, the whales of the fifth day of Creation (Gen. 1:21), as KnJrg. 28. Based on the midrash of Job 40:25-30. 29. There are, however, some Early Christian representations with a fish rather than a monster swallowing Jonah. This does not necessarily identify them as Leviathans, e.g. the painting on the vault of the cubiculum with the Madonna in the Petrus and Marcellinus Catacomb in Rome; cf. Wilpert, Catacombe, pl. 61. In the Paris Psalter only the head of the large fish with ears appears, Bib. Nat. gr. 139, fol. 431v, cf. Omont, Min. Grecs, pi. 12; H. Buchthal, The Miniatures of the Paris Psalter (London, 1938), p. 40, pl. 12. The relief on the south exterior of the Akhthamar Monastery of the Holy Cross of 915-921 has a large fish with a monster's head swallowing Jonah, although a winged Persian senmurw, monster, with a fish lying under it is spewing him out. S. Der Nersessian, Akhthamar, Church of the Holy Cross, (Cambridge, Mass., 1965), figs. 17-19, pp. 23-24. The Akhthamar Jonah may depict more accurately the midrash of the female fish which re-swallowed Jonah, as well as Jonah lying bald, the seated king of Nineveh and the mourning Ninevites enclosed in medallions. Most of the later eastern representations of Jonah continue to depict a sea monster with a twisted tail, e.g. the ninth century Chludov Psalter, Moscow, Historical Mus. gr. 129, pl. 157, M.V. Szepkina, Miniatori Chludovsko Psaltiri (Moscow, 1977); the Paris Gregory, Bib. Nat. gr. 510, fol. 3, Omont, Min. Grecs, pl. 20; also eleventh century monastic psalters, such as the Mount Athos, Pantokrator 61, fol. 217v, S. Dufrenne, l'Illustration des Psautiers Grecs du Moyen Age, 1, (Paris, 1966): pl. 32; and the Theodore Psalter, London, British Library, Add. 19352, fol. 201; S. Der Nersessian, L'Illustration des Psautiers Grecs du Moyen Age, 2 (Paris, 1970): fig. 317, p. 60. Most of the western representations in the later Middle Ages depict a fish, though the Stuttgart Psalter has the monster depicted twice, as an illustration to Ps. 69, where Jonah is cast out 23.

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of the ship naked, and to Ps. 147, where he is spewed out; E.T. De Wald, The Stuttgart Psalter, Biblia folio 23, Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek (Stuttgart, 1930), fols. 79 and 147v, It is interesting that in the reliefs on the archivolts of the west portal of Santa Maria at Ripoll Jonah is entering the mouth of a large fish feet first, cf. A.K. Porter, Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads (Boston, 1923), pl. 576. Some Early Christian monuments depict other fish beside the sea monster, the best examples are a sarcophagus in the National Museum in Belgrade which has many dolphins, see F. Gerke, Der Trierer Agricius-Sarkophag (Trier, 1949), pl. 4 (7); the fragment of a round table relief from Istanbul also has one dolphin under the monster, Michon, op. cit., p1. 2 (2); Leclercq, Jonas, DACL, 7.2, p. 2592, No. 67, fig. 6289; and many eastern ivories, such as the Leningrad and Hanover pyxides, see F. Hahn. Funf Elfenbein-Gefasse des fruhesten Mittelalters (Hanover, 1862), pl. 2; Leclercq, Jonas, fig. 6317; as well as the Ravenna ivory plaque, cf. W.F. Volbach, Early ChristianArt (New York, 1961), fig. 223. 30. Based on Jonah's prayer (2:3), the very end of the "printed version" of Midrash Jonah, as found in the Zohar, dealing with the judgment of the dead man by God. The sea is the graveyard, the fish's bowels are hell (Jonah 2:4). See Jellinek, Betha-Midrash, 104. 31. The second century Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons sees Jonah's experience as a sign that death is not final, and that God can bring the repentant back to life from hell. See Adversus haeres 1.III, 21, 1. Origen, Contra Celsum, VII, 53, 57 sees Jonah as a sign of Christ's resurrection from hell. The importance of Jonah's "resurrection" to the Early Christians is obvious from his inclusion in the prayer for the dead, in some pericope readings, and his prayer was added to the Psalter as an ode, although there were already some Psalms which were related to the Jonah story. Stommel, Ikonographie, 47, 50. 32. Adversus Marcionem, 34; and De monogamia, 10; see Stommel, Ikonographie, 44-45; A. Stuiber, Refrigerium Interim (Bonn, 1957). 33. Tractat II, 17:3 (Migne, PL, XI, col. 448). 34. Surah 37:144. 35. See Szepkina, Chludov, fol. 157. It also appears in later eleventh century marginal psalters, e.g. Vat. Barb. gr. 372, pl. 254 and Brit. Lib. Add. 19352, fol. 201, see Der Nersessian, Theodore Ps., fig. 317. Jonah standing in prayer as one of the Cleveland marble statuettes (Fig. 9 and Age of Spirituality, No. 368) was suggested by Ernst Kitzinger in his lecture "The Cleveland Marbles" (see Acts of the 1975 Congress of ChristianArchaeology in Rome) as depicting Jonah's prayer in the ketos' belly. If so, this orant Jonah is very different from the Jonah sitting crosslegged in all post-iconoclastic monastic psalter illumination mentioned before. It seems to me to depict the third and final prayer of Jonah, as mentioned in the midrash, and will be discussed later. I am grateful to Prof. Kitzinger for letting me read his paper before it was printed. 36. Klauser, Studien 4, p. 133; Gerke, Sarkophage, 161; Stuiber, Refrigerium, 137. 37. Stommel, Ikonographie, 42 on resurrection symbolism; Age of Spirituality, No. 377, for the Cologne bowl. 38. Vatican, gr. 1613, fol. 49, see Codices e Vaticani Selecti 8, Il Menologio di Basilio II (Turin, 1907), pl. 59; De Wald, Stuttgart, fol, 147v where a devil holding a red ring appears in the background. 39. Stommel, Ikonographie, 45. 40. Cumont, Symbolisme, 104-176.

E.g. a twelfth century icon in St. Catherine, Sinai; see G. and M. Sotiriou, Icones de Mont Sinat 1 (Athens, 1956): fig. 151; K. Weitzmann, "Byzantine Miniature and Icon Paintings in the Eleventh Century", Proceedings of the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 1967), 221-222, pl. 39. An early fourteenth century monastic psalter in the Walters Art Gallery, W. 733, fol. 73v, illustrates Ps. 103: 25-27. The sea creatures include a triton riding a hippocamp, and animals disgorging naked people. See A. Cutler, "The Marginal Psalter in the Walters Art Gallery, a reconstruction", The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 35 (1977): 59-60, fig. 27. The ketos and lion's heads representing hell are probably also the origin of the depictions of Christ's Harrowing of Hell in western art, cf. Stommel, Ikonographie, 45-47. 42. Dimand, Handbook of Mohammedan Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1944), figs. 14, 15; The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin (Autumn 1978), 12-13. 41. 43. Karl Jahn, Die Geschichte der Kinder Israels des Rashid ad-Din (Wien, 1973), 88-89, pls. 40, 68 of a Persian ms. of 1430 and an Arabic ms. of 1314. The Persian manuscript depicts two dressed men in conversation. I am grateful to Prof. Richard Ettinghausen for a fruitful discussion and for the above reference. The Metropolitan Museum painting No. 33.133/94404 measures 12-9/16 x 18-15/16 inches; acquired through the Pulitzer Bequest Fund, 1933.

44. Tabari, Annals I, 782-789. For other Moslem interpretations see R. Delbrueck, Probleme der Lipsanothek in Brescia (Bonn, 1952), 22-23; Nordstrom, Jonah, 504 45. V. Schultze, Archdologische Studien uber altchristliche Monumente (Wien 1880), 81, cf. Stommel, Ikonographie, 49; Cumont, Symbolisme, 246-250; E. Weigand, "Die spatantike Sarkophagskulptur im Licht neuerer Forschungen", Byzantinische Zeitschrift 41 (1941): 115-116; Nordstrom, Jonah, 506.

46. W. Elliger, Die Stellung der alten Christen zu den Bildern in den ersten vier Jahrhunderten, 1 (Leipzig, 1930). 47. Endymion Sarcophagus, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1924, 24.97.13. For other Endymion sarcophagi, see C. Robert, Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs 3-1 (Rome, 1969): 53-111, pls. XIV-XXV.

48. Close to the concept of revival and resurrection is Dionysios, who at times lies asleep in this posture as well, see F. Matz, Die Dionysischen Sarkophage, 1 (Berlin. 1968), Nos. 37, 39, 41, 45. 46 (Ariadne), pls. 36, 37, 41, 47, 51, cf. Stommel, Jonas, 112, pl. 8a, b. 49. Weigand, Forschungen, 149; Leclercq, Jonas, cols. 2592-2596; Delbrueck, Lipsanothek, 23. The Hebrew qiqayon is a castor-oil plant, Ricinus communis. I am grateful to Dr. A. Yanovski for this identification. 50. For the sarcophagi in Pisa, Camposanto, and a fragment from the Museum of the Praetextatus Catacomb in Rome, see Gerke, Sarkophage, PI. 30.2 and 29.2 respectively. On the statuette, Age of Spirituality, No. 367. 51. Gerke, Sarkophage, PI. 52.2. 52. Stommel, Ikonographie, 49. 53. Gerke, Sarkophage, PI. 53.1. 54. H. Rosenau, "Problems of Jewish Iconography", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 56 (1960): 13-18, figs. 8-10. 55. E.g. the Leningrad Hermitage Pyxis, Age of Spirituality, No. 395; the Hahn Pyxis from Hanover, see F. Hahn, Funf ElfenbeinGefdsse des fruhesten Mittelalters (Hanover, 1862), pl. 2, No. 5;

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Leclercq, Jonas, fig. 6317, No. 205; Ravenna ivory plaque, Volbach, Early Christian, fig. 223. 56. The relation of the angel to the reclining Jonah is somewhat similar in these ivories to the relation of the reclining Jonah to putti or victories holding the inscription tablets on some sarcophagi lids, e.g. F.W. Deichmann, Repertorium der ChristlichAntiken Sarkophage, 1, Rom und Ostia (Wiesbaden, 1967), Tafelband, Pls. 17, No. 52.1; 61, No. 314; 89, Nos. 589 and mainly 590; 121, No. 770; 160, No. 993. This could have been the pictorial origin of such representations on the ivories, which may have been inspired by a suitable text, or in its turn instigated a narrative homiletical interpretation. 57. Many such lamps exist in several collections, cf. Leclercq, Jonas, fig. 6307. 58. Age of Spirituality, No. 390. 59. For the burning sun, e.g., Catacombs of Domitilla, Cubiculum III, and Petrus and Marcellinus, Cubiculum 52. The first has no booth, and Jonah is reclining. See Wilpert, Catacombe, P1. 67; for the booth without leaves see Catacomb of Hermes, an arcosolium with a demoniac, in R. Garrucci, Storia della arte Cristiana nei primi otto secoli delle chiese, 6 (Rome, 1880), pl. 83.2. 60. Add. 19352, fol. 201, see Der Nersessian, Theodore Ps., fig. 317. 61. Horowitz, Midraschim, 35. Other versions of Midrash Jonah also omit the second prayer, but do not add the last thanksgiving. 62. Age of Spirituality, No. 368. 63. Omont, Min. Grecs, pl. 12; Buchthal, Paris Ps., pl. 12. Prof. Kurt Weitzmann has recently suggested that the praying figures standing to the right of the picture illustrating the odes in "Aristocratic Psalters" are a development of the Macedonian Renaissance, see "The Ode Pictures of the Aristocratic Psalter Recension", Dumbarton Oaks Papers 30 (1976): 67-84. In the case of Jonah this attitude of prayer had an Early Christian model. 64. C. Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets (London, 1950), 312, pl. 19, No. 347; Leclercq, DACL, 6.1, col. 842, fig. 5070; Klauser, Studien 4: 140, Fig. 6b. 65. E.g. Vatican, Barb. gr. 372, fol. 254; Vat. gr. 752, fols. 479, 484, see E.T. De Wald, Illustrations of the Septuagint, 3/2 (Princeton, 1941), pls. 55, 58.

72. Jellinek,Midrash, 100. 73. Der Nersessian, Akhthamar, figs. 17-19. 74. E.g. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 2, Apol.: 107-109; Leclercq, Jonas, 7.2, cols. 2575-6, cf. A. Condamin, "Jonas", Dictionnaire Apologetique de la Foi Catholique 2 (1911): col. 1546-1559. F. Cumont, After-Life in Roman Paganism (Yale, 1922); idem, Symbolisme, mainly 204-250. 76. The printed Midrash Jonah also speaks about all seventy nations who were present on the ship and were all converted. See Nordstrom, Jonah, 501-504. The Brescia casket, the Paris Psalter and the Roda Bible in Paris, Bib. Nat. Lat. 6, II, fol. 83, depict seven people on the boat. See C. Nordstr6m, Cahiers Archeologiques 15 (1965): 196, fig. 11. 77. Only rarely did an artist manage to combine the swallowing and spewing out of Jonah by depicting him between two ketoi. This appears in a stucco relief in the Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna. See F. Deichmann, Ravenna (Wiesbaden, 1969), fig. 85. 78. Next to the reclining Jonah in the Catacomb of Lucia in Syracuse there is a standing trumpeter, perhaps announcing the coming of the Messiah of the Tribe of Joseph, similar to Elijah blowing the shofar for the coming of the Messiah of the Tribe of Judah. See P. Orsi, "Siracusa. La catacomba di S. Lucia. Esplorazioni negli anni 1916-1919" Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita 15 (1918): 178-280, fig. 6. 79. E.g. on a fragment of a tomb slab from the Pratextatus Catacomb, cf. Ferrua, Giona, fig. 29. 75.

66.

Wilpert, Catacombe, 47-49, PI. 26.2. 67. For these carvings see Gerke, Sarkophage, Pls. 28.1 and 2.2 and p. 158. The fourth person belongs to the scene.

68. C. Checcheli (ed.), The Rabbula Gospels (Olten and Lausanne, 1959), fol. 6a. 69. The Sacra Parallela, Paris, Bib. Nat. gr. 923, fol. 15, see K. Weitzmann, "Illustrations of the Septuagint", Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination (Chicago, 1971), 65, fig. 43. Paris Gregory and Paris Psalter see Omont, Min. Grecs, pls. 12 and 20; for the latter also Buchthal, Paris Ps., pl. 12. 70. Der Nersessian, Theodore Ps., fig. 317. 71. Weitzmann, Septuagint, fig. 43, p. 56. Professor Weitzmann has suggested that the standing Jonah in Vat. Chis. R. VIII.58 (ibid., fig. 42) is a survival of an early Byzantine model. There are indeed several pre-iconoclastic Jonahs standing holding scrolls, e.g. in Bawit, Monastery of Apollo, Chapel 12 (M6moires, Institut Fran9ais d'Archeologie Orientale au Caire, 12, 1904, pl. XXXV); in the Codex Rossanensis, fol. 4v, and the Syriac Bible, Paris Bib. Nat. Syr. 341, fol. 128v, Omont, Mon. Piot, 17 (1909): 96, pl. 8:14; and many such post-iconoclastic Jonahs.

80. E.g. Callixtus, Sacrament Chapel AS, Wilpert, Catacombe, pl. 47.1; cf. Klauser, Studien 4. 131, fig. 7c. The dove, Jonah in Hebrew, has long been connected with the Jonah cycle, and is a link with the salvation of Noah in Early Christian art. See A. de Waal, "Noe-Jonas", Rbmische Quartalschrift 23 (1909): 250-253. Some sarcophagi and catacombs depict Noah next to Jonah, and at times they interchange, to the extent that the entire message can be understood only when all the pictures are read together. For example, the sarcophagus of Junia Julia Juliane in the Lateran Museum (Gerke, Sarkophage, 6.1), depicts the casting overboard of Jonah on the left with the head of a ketos next to it, while above it to the right an orant Noah, saved in his ark, is looking towards the dove on the left. On the other side of the inscription tablet are sheep grazing in Paradise, which appears to be a substitute for a complete tripartite cycle of Jonah. Cf. J. Howton, Scottish Journal of Theology (1962) who takes "the sign of Jonah" to mean "the sign of the Dove". 81. Wilpert, Catacombe, pl. 47.2, dated by Klauser, Studien 4: 131, fig. 8c, to the pre-Constantinian period. The ketos at sea should be regarded as a scene of its own, because it does appear alone, e.g. in the Hypogeum of the Aurelii. See Wilpert in Accad. Pontif. di Archaeol., Memorie, 1/2 (1924): pl. VI. Also because there are scenes in which Jonah is cast into the mouth of the ketos. 82. For the first two, see Gerke, Sarkophage, pl. 1.1, 6.2 and Age of Spirituality, Nos. 361, 371; for the third, Gerke, Sarkophage, pp. 161-163, pl. 2.1, sees the cycle as consisting of three episodes only. The appearance of an entire ketos is typical of the third century; in the fourth century only its head appears (p. 162). 83. Dated to the second half of the fourth century, Age of Spirituality, No. 384. For another fragmentary plate with similar mold stamps, see Garrucci, Storia 6. pl. 465.4. 84. Rosenau, Iconography, fig. 8. 85. End of the third century, Age of Spirituality, Nos. 365-368. 86. E.g. a sarcophagus in the Allen Memorial Museum at Oberlin; see Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 172.6.

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87. E.g. Petrus and Marcellinus, the vaults of the cubiculi with a Madonna with Peter, and with Orpheus, Wilpert, Catacombe, pls. 61, 96 and 100. 88. Garrucci, Storia, 1: P1. 27. 89. E.g. Sarcophagus in Rome, Museo Nazionale, Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 397. 90. Der Nersessian, Theodore Ps., fig. 317.

91. For a brief summary, see my introduction to the "Jewish Realm" in Age of Spirituality. 92. Unless one considers the Cologne blue glass bowl a Jewish artifact, see Irmgard Schiiller, "A Note on Jewish Gold Glass", Journal of Glass Studies 8 (1966): 48-61. 93. See Weitzmann, Septuagint.

Photograph credits. FIGS. 1, 4, 5 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); FIGS. 2, 7 (after Wilpert, Sarcofagi; FIG. 3 (Rbmisch-Germanisches Museum); FIGS. 6, 9 (The Cleveland Museum of Art); FIG. 8 (Hermitage Museum, Leningrad); FIGS. 10, 11 (after Wilpert, Catacombe).

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The Sign of Jonah

BEZALEL NARKISS p. 63, col. 2, line 7 from end of column: after attributed to Philo.5a add: There are four midrashic versions of the Jonah story which I called in accordance with their origin: (a) Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer; (b) Yalqut ShimConi; (c) The Printed version (Prague, 1595); and (d) DeRossi (manuscript 563).6 p. 63, col. 2, line 2 from end: delete reference to note 6. p. 64, col. 1, line 27: instead of "in spite of the original" read "as can be gathered from the Evangelists' interpretations of the original." p. 64, col. 1, line 37: for "meant like Jonah" read meant that He like Jonah. p. 67, col. 1, line 30: for quqayon read qiqayon. p. 67, col. 1, line 35: for Ktooa6 read Kiooc . p. 67, col. 1, line 42: for (Figs. 6, 7) read (Figs. 6,9). p. 72, n. 5a, line 6: for Gassoyan read Garsoian. p. 73, n. 18: after line 11 add 28.1.2, from the Museo Nazionale and Palazzo San Severino in. p. 73, n. 20: add to its end: In the first Armenian homily on Jonah, the Prophet is said to jump into the sea voluntarily. See Freudenthal, op.cit., p. 12, note 1.
p. 73, n. 25, line 4: for SPXKWoread 8paKWv. read KrTr/. p. 73, n. 27, line 2: for KrT/r

p. 73, n. 29, line 20: for pl. 157 read fol. 157. p. 74, n. 30, line 4: for Betha-Midrash, 104 read Bet Ha-Midrash, 1:104. p. 74, n. 35, line 2: for pl. 254 read fol. 254. p. 75, n. 72: for Midrash, 100 read Bet Ha-Midrash, 1:100. p. 75, n. 81, line 3: after "because" read there are instances where.

des 4. Jahrhunderts Ein Kastchenbeschlag in Mainz. zu Ikonographie und Funktion. Beobachtungen

ERIKA DINKLER-VON SCHUBERT p. 89, Fig. 1, caption: for Rekonstruction read Rekonstruktion. p. 89, col. 1, line 5: for Pannonien,' read Pannonien,l.

p. 89, col. 1, line 19: for Figs. read Figg. p. 89, col. 2, line 12: for gesehen-mit read gesehen mit. p. 89, col. 2, line 20: for Figs. read Figg. p. 89, col. 2, line 21: for Capitolina- hier read Capitolina - hier. p. 90, col. 1, line 3: for Figs. read Figg. p. 90, line 7: for Figs. read Figg. p. 90, line 8: for nach-mit read nach - mit. p. 90, col. 1, line 9: for links- ist read links - ist. p. 90, col. 1, fig. 4, caption: Tensa Capitolina should occur before Achill und Hector. p. 90, col. 1, line 11: for Entwurs read Entwurf. p. 90, col. 1, line 16: for (Pa)LU(s) read (Pa)UL(s). p. 91, col. 1, Fig. 7b, caption: for Quellwuher read Quellwunder. p. 91, col. 1, line 10: for und -Verz5gerungen read und - Verz6gerungen.

p. 91, col. 2, line 1: for eingerechnet- eine read eingerechnet - eine. p. 91, col. 2, line 35: for kopfen read KPpfen. p. 91, col. 2, line 43: for Figs. read Figg. and for ansich read an sich. p. 91, col. 2, line 46: for beginnend-um read beginnend - um. p. 91, col. 2, line 55: for wir-mit read wir - mit. p. 92, col. 1, line 1: for sicht- fir read sicht - fiir. p. 92, col. 1, line 3: for sie-mit bereits abgeschliffener Bedeutung-in read sie - mit bereits abgeschliffener Bedeutung - in. p. 92, col. 1, line 14: for Medallionbilder read Medaillonbilder. p. 92, col. 1, line 42: for Reiter -zwei nah verwandte Bildtypen-flankiert read Reiter - zwei nah verwandte Bildtypen - flankiert. p. 92, col. 2, Fig. 8, caption: for Museum read Muizeum. p. 92, col. 2, line 4: for Ikonographie. read Ikonographie:. p. 92, col. 2, line 29: for ist-soweit read ist - soweit.