Jonah 4:8

This has been the present which you have made us with your excess of wisdom, that we are all judged even by the heathen as lacking in wisdom... The ears of simple men among the Latins ought not after four hundred years to be molested by the sound of new doctrines... Now you are yourself saying... When the world has grown old and all things are hastening to their end, let us change the inscriptions upon the tombs of the ancients, so that it may be known by those who had read the story otherwise, that it was not a gourd but an ivy plant under whose shade Jonah rested; and that, when our legislator pleases, it will no longer be the shade of ivy but of some other plant.

"But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, it is better for me to die than to live." LXX: 'and God commanded a worm early the next morning, which smote the gourd that it withered. When the sun had risen the Lord immediately commanded a hot and burning wind. The sun hit upon Jonah's head in his distress and suddenly became very exhausted and he said, it is better for me to die than to live.' Before the sun of justice [Mal. 4:2] rose the shade was verdant and Israel was not dry. But after it rose, and when the darkness of Nineveh had been dispersed by its light, a worm obtained for the first light of the next day smote the gourd, (the worm, which is mentioned in the title to psalm twenty-one: "in honour of the morning incarnation", and which was born from the earth without any seed, can say, 'I am a worm and not a man' [Ps. 21:7]. And Jonah, abandoned by God's aid, loses all his strength. The Lord ordered a hot and burning wind, which was prophesied by Hosea: "the Lord will bring a wind out of the desert, which will dry up the rivers and abandon his fountain" [Hos. 13:15]. And Jonah began to get hot and once again he wants to die in the baptism of Israel to receive in this basin the moisture which he lost in his refusal to do God's word. This is why Peter speaks to the Jews who are parched, saying, "Repent, and let each of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for payment for your sins, so that you might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" [Act. 2:38]. There are those for whom the worm and the burning wind represent the Roman generals who, after the resurrection of Christ, completely destroyed Israel.

You tell me that I have given a wrong translation of some word in Jonah, and that a worthy bishop narrowly escaped losing his charge through the clamorous tumult of his people, which was caused by the different rendering of this one word. At the same time, you withhold from me what the word was which I have mistranslated; thus taking away the possibility of my saying anything in my own vindication, lest my reply should be fatal to your objection. Perhaps it is the old dispute about the gourd which has been revived, after slumbering for many long years since the illustrious man, who in that day combined in his own person the ancestral honours of the Cornelii and of Asinius Pollio, brought against me the charge of giving in my translation the word "ivy" instead of "gourd." I have already given a sufficient answer to this in my commentary on Jonah. At present, I deem it enough to say that in that passage, where the Septuagint has "gourd," and Aquila and the others have rendered the word "ivy" (κίσσος), the Hebrew manuscript has "ciceion," which is in the Syriac tongue, as now spoken, "ciceia." It is a kind of shrub having large leaves like a vine, and when planted it quickly springs up to the size of a small tree, standing upright by its own stem, without requiring any support of canes or poles, as both gourds and ivy do. If, therefore, in translating word for word, I had put the word "ciceia," no one would know what it meant; if I had used the word "gourd," I would have said what is not found in the Hebrew. I therefore put down "ivy," that I might not differ from all other translators. But if your Jews said, either through malice or ignorance, as you yourself suggest, that the word is in the Hebrew text which is found in the Greek and Latin versions, it is evident that they were either unacquainted with Hebrew, or have been pleased to say what was not true, in order to make sport of the gourd-planters.

When he admitted to feeling this way to the extent of preferring death to life on this account, God said, I call you as judge. Consider, then, if it is right for you to grieve over the pumpkin vine, which you did not cultivate, neither planting it nor watering it. It came into being at dawn, and a worm and the sun proved its ruin at day’s end. For my part, on the contrary, is it right for me to treat without mercy this city, which was brought into being by me, containing more than 120, inhabitants who do not know their right hand from their left, and many cattle? Give thought to this, then, and marvel at the lovingkindness for its reasonableness.