And the LORD spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
It was not the influence of his natal star but the offense of having neglected the divine prophecy that cast Jonah into the sea. A whale received him and after three days vomited him forth, as a symbol of a future mystery, and preserved him for the service of prophecy. .
Hence he is tempesttossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale. In Defense of His Flight to Pontus, Oration
The prophet is animated with good hope, and now secure about his liberation, he promises that he will sacrifice thanksgiving and that he will fulfill all vows.
If, however, any one imagines it is impossible that people should survive for such a length of time, and that Elijah was not caught up in the flesh but that flesh was consumed in the fiery chariot, let them consider that Jonah, when he had been cast into the deep and swallowed down into the whale’s belly, was by the command of God again thrown out safe upon the land. .
LXX: 'but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of praise and the action of thanksgiving. I will pay all that I have vowed to you, Lord, in salutation.' Those who keep their vanities have abandoned their mercy. But I who have been eaten for the sake of the safety of the multitude, will offer you sacrifices with the voice of praise and thanksgiving, offering myself. For "Christ, our Easter, has been sacrificed". A as a true Pope and lamb he offers himself for us. And I will give thanks to you, saying, "I bless you Father, lord of heaven and earth", and I will keep those vows to the Lord that I made for the safety of others, so that all that " you have given me never dies". We see what the Lord promised in his suffering for our safety: let us not make Jesus a liar, and let us be pure, delivered from all the uncleanness of sins so that he offers us to God the Father as the victims he had promised.
Jonah was swallowed by the monster of the deep, in whose belly whole ships were devoured, and after three days he was vomited out again safe and sound. Enoch and Elijah, who even now, without experiencing a resurrection (because they have not even encountered death), are learning to the full what it is for the flesh to be exempted from all humiliation, and all loss, and all injury and all disgrace. They have been translated from this world and from this very cause are already candidates for everlasting life. To what faith do these notable events bear witness, if not to that which ought to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs and documents of our own future and our completed resurrection? To borrow the apostle’s phrase, these were “figures of ourselves.” They are written that we may believe that the Lord is more powerful than all natural laws about the body.
