Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. II:
City of God: Chapter 14

Chapter 14.—Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein.

But, say they, many Christians were even led away captive.  This indeed were a most pitiable fate, if they could be led away to any place where they could not find their God.  But for this calamity also sacred Scripture affords great consolation.  The three youths 73 were captives; Daniel was a captive; so were other prophets:  and God, the comforter, did not fail them.  And in like manner He has not failed His own people in the power of a nation which, though barbarous, is yet human,—He who did not abandon the prophet 74 in the belly of a monster.  These things, indeed, are turned to ridicule rather than credited by those with whom we are debating; though they believe what they read in their own books, that Arion of Methymna, the famous lyrist, 75 when he was thrown overboard, was received on a dolphin’s back and carried to land.  But that story of ours about the prophet Jonah is far more incredible,—more incredible because more marvellous, and more marvellous because a greater exhibition of power.

Footnotes

Dan. 3.

Jonah 1-4.

“Second to none,” as he is called by Herodotus, who first of all tells his well-known story (Clio. 23, 24).