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Early Christian Signs & Symbols (cat. 12-15)

15 Gem with the Jonah Cycle Carnelian Early Christian, ca. 300 AD Width: 3/4 inches (1.9 cm.) Private Collection

The most popular of all narrative scenes in early Christian art was the story of Jonah, usually depicted as a compact cycle of episodes, which include Jonah cast from a ship to the waiting "great fish", who takes the form of the classical sea monster, or ketos; spit out by the ketos; and asleep under the gourds. The Old Testament story of Jonah was reinterpreted as a reference to Salvation, Baptism, and to the Resurrection of Jesus, who himself explicitly prophesied, "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:38-40). The gem was reused by Christians at the end of the third century, with the Jonah cycle carved on the back of an older (late first century BC) intaglio engraved with the image of a butting bull.

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