Fathers

Jonah 2

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Then Jonah prayed to Yahweh, his God, out of the fish’s belly. He said, “I called because of my affliction to Yahweh. He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried. You heard my voice. For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever: yet have you brought up my life from the pit, Yahweh my God. “When my soul fainted within me, I remembered Yahweh. My prayer came in to you, into your holy temple. Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to Yahweh.” Then Yahweh spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land.

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What the Fathers say

Jonah 2:1

Eastern Fathers

Cyril of Alexandria

The event would rightly be taken to be truly remarkable and surpassing rhyme or reason. If God were said to be responsible however; who would still demur? the Divinity is powerful, and easily changes the nature of living things to whatever he chooses, nothing standing in the way of his ineffable wishes.

Commentary on the Twelve Minor Prophets, Jonah ↗

Methodius of Olympus

As, then, Jonah spent three days and as many nights in the whale's belly, and was delivered up sound again, so shall we all, who have passed through the three stages of our present life on earth -- I mean the beginning, the middle, and the end, of which all this present time consists -- rise again. For there are altogether three intervals of time, the past, the future, and the present. …

Methodius Fragments: On the History of Jonah ↗

Western Saints

Augustine of Hippo

To this I reply, that either all the miracles wrought by divine power may be treated as incredible, or there is no reason why the story of this miracle should not be believed. The resurrection of Christ Himself upon the third day would not be believed by us, if the Christian faith was afraid to encounter Pagan ridicule. …

Letter 102, To Deogratias ↗

Ambrose of Milan

From my mother's womb you are my God; for I have been placed in the womb by you and have never departed from it. Like Jonah, who was placed in the belly of the whale, I was interceding for the people. And he truly was with God in his mother's womb, as it is written: 'Before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste' (Isaiah 7:16).

Interrogation of Job and David, Chapter 6 ↗

Jerome

"Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly." LXX: similar. If Jonah is compared to the Lord, and his time of three days and three nights in the belly of the whale is a sign of the suffering of the Saviour, his prayer also ought to be a kind of prayer of the Saviour. Some people, I don't doubt, will find it difficult to believe that a man can spend three days and three nights in the belly of a whale, especially after a shipwreck. These people can either be religious or not. …

Commentary on Jonah, Chapter 2 ↗