foretell more and greater ideas and events than can be gleaned from a literal interpretation […]. Jonah, the most beautiful dove, prefigures the passion of the Lord; he calls the world to conversion and, in his mission to Nineveh, proclaims salvation to the Gentiles” (Epistulae, 53). 1:1–3. The book begins with the failed attempt to send Jonah on a mission. The place-names and the whole scene are less real than symbolic: Jonah is sent to Nineveh
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