1After the example of Sodom, God sends Jonah to warn Nineveh, but Jonah, knowing God's readiness to spare the repentant, flees by ship from Joppa toward Tarsus.
26God raises a storm at sea; the sailors struggle to save the ship, throw the cargo overboard and pray to their gods.
51Jonah sleeps through the storm; woken by the captain, he is found out by lot, confesses that he serves the Creator, and declares himself the cause of the storm.
76The sailors, unable to reach land, cast Jonah overboard; the sea calms, they sacrifice to God, and Jonah lives in the whale's belly as a sign of the Lord.
About this work
Author
Anonymous
Attribution
pseudonymous · Printed among Tertullian's poems in older editions (a Paris manuscript ascribes it to him); not by Tertullian, and the true author is unknown. Peiper prints it with the Heptateuch poems ascribed to Cyprian the Poet.
Standing
Not honoured as a saint or in a church calendar by the Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant traditions. Anonymous or pseudonymous work read and used in the church of its time.
Date
4th-5th century (disputed) (disputed) · Undated; 3rd-5th century in the older literature; a Gaulish setting is often suggested.
Written at
Unknown (disputed)
Language
Latin
Genre
poem
Reference system
line (Peiper's line numbers); each ref is the first line of a passage of about 25 lines
SBL abbreviation
IonaNot yet checked
Clavis
CPL (not yet checked)
Text from
Rudolf Peiper, ed., Cypriani Galli poetae Heptateuchos, CSEL 23 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1891) (Printed edition in the public domain; digital text CC BY-SA 4.0)