442 FISH OF MOSES—JONAH—SOLOMON’S RING 
the development of the higher criticism and of comparative 
mythology hardly draw the tensely interested congregations 
of yore. 
Tylor points out that at the root of the apologue of Jonah 
lies the widely-spread Nature-myth of the sea-monster or 
JONAH LEAVING THE WHALE’S 
MOUTH. 
From a 14th Century MS. in 
H. Schmidt, Jona, p. 94, fig. 17. 
The picture shows that while 
the whale’s gastric juices had 
completely absorbed Jonah’s 
clothes and curls, they prevailed 
not, possibly from callosity of 
hide, against his body. 
dragon, of which the fight between 
Tiamat and Marduk, and of 
Andromeda and the sea-monster. 
are analogous developments.! 
Cheyne detects the link between 
the original myth and the story 
of Jonah in Jeremiah li. 34, ‘he 
hath swallowed me up as a dragon: 
he hath filled his maw with my 
delicates: he hath cast me out,” 
and again in verse 44, ‘‘and I 
will bring forth out of his mouth 
that which he has swallowed up.” 
Allusions to mythical dragons 
occur elsewhere, as in Psalm Ixxiv. 
13, “ Thou breakest the heads of 
the dragons (or sea-monsters) in 
the water.’’ The curious belief in 
a dragon or fish that swallows the 
moon spreads wide. This draws 
from Mr. R. C. Thompson? the 
comment, “ when it is remembered 
that Jonah was swallowed by the 
‘great fish’ for three days (the 
period of the moon’s disappearance 
at the end of the month), the coin- 
cidence is well worth considering ; 
especially as Jonah is the Hebrew word for dove, and it was 
at Harran, the city sacred to the Moon God, that the dove 
was sacrificed (Al. Nadim, 294).”’ 
But whatever the “ great fish,” and whatever the story’s 
1 An excellent monograph by Hans Schmidt (Jona Eine Untersuchung 
sur vergleichenden Religionsgeshichte, Gottingen, 1907) gives 39 cuts, 
2 Op. cit., p. 53. 
