The “great fish” in these scenes bears no resemblance to any living thing. It is generally a monster with contorted body, a long neck and large head, sometimes armed with horns, (see Figs. 81, 82,) probably to distinguish it from the symbolical fish, the emblem of Our Lord, or as a type of “the old serpent, the devil.” The form may have been derived from the mythological representations of the marine monster from whose jaws Andromeda was rescued by Perseus. The latter story, like that of Deucalion and many others in the Greek mythology, probably had its origin in holy scripture. This subject was naturally dear to the early Christians, inasmuch as it was set forth by Our Lord himself as a type of his own resurrection and that of his disciples. Therefore as the persecuted believers met in those solemn and silent chambers of the dead, they inscribed on the sepulchral slabs which hid the mouldering dust of the departed from their view, or on the walls of the _cubicula_ in which they worshipped, this symbol of faith and hope in the glorious resurrection. It also conveyed a lesson of sublimest meaning to the primitive Christians, called to be witnesses for God in a city greater and more wicked and idolatrous than even Nineveh. It was a potent incentive to fidelity even unto death. The storm-tossed bark, the 304 ravening monster, and the prophet’s booth and gourd, were the types of life’s rough voyage, the yawning grave, and the speedy transit to the bowers of everlasting bliss and the refreshing fruits of the tree of life. A long and acrimonious controversy was waged between Jerome and Augustine as to the nature of the plant which overshadowed the prophet. Jerome called it ivy; but Augustine retained the word gourd of the older Italic version, and excluded from his diocese of Hippo the Vulgate version of Jerome containing the obnoxious translation. It is a curious commentary on an ancient dispute in the church, and a proof of the antiquity of the Catacombs, that their frescoes seem to have followed the older version, and to have given their testimony against the _innovation_ of Jerome. See Fig. 85, a copy of a broken sepulchral slab, in which the prophet’s booth is reduced to a single branch of a gourd. [Illustration: Fig. 85.--Jonah’s Gourd.] Here ends this Old Testament cycle, so rich in holy teaching, all whose types and symbols point to the great Antitype of whom Moses and the prophets spake. The New Testament series will in like manner be found to cluster around the person and work of the Redeemer; to the 305 exclusion, however, of the solemn scenes of the transfiguration, the passion, resurrection, and ascension, which are the principal themes of later religious art; and without the slightest indication of that idolatrous veneration of Mary which is the chief feature of modern Romanism, thus showing how far that church has departed from the usage of apostolic times.