If, however, any one imagines it is impossible that people should survive for such a length of time, and that Elijah was not caught up in the flesh but that flesh was consumed in the fiery chariot, let them consider that Jonah, when he had been cast into the deep and swallowed down into the whale’s belly, was by the command of God again thrown out safe upon the land.
Jonah was swallowed by the monster of the deep, in whose belly whole ships were devoured, and after three days he was vomited out again safe and sound. Enoch and Elijah, who even now, without experiencing a resurrection (because they have not even encountered death), are learning to the full what it is for the flesh to be exempted from all humiliation, and all loss, and all injury and all disgrace. They have been translated from this world and from this very cause are already candidates for everlasting life. To what faith do these notable events bear witness, if not to that which ought to inspire in us the belief that they are proofs and documents of our own future and our completed resurrection? To borrow the apostle’s phrase, these were “figures of ourselves.” They are written that we may believe that the Lord is more powerful than all natural laws about the body.
Hence he is tempesttossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale. In Defense of His Flight to Pontus, Oration
Hence he is tempest-tossed, and falls asleep, and is wrecked, and aroused from sleep, and taken by lot, and confesses his flight, and is cast into the sea, and swallowed but not destroyed by the whale.
It was not the influence of his natal star but the offense of having neglected the divine prophecy that cast Jonah into the sea. A whale received him and after three days vomited him forth, as a symbol of a future mystery, and preserved him for the service of prophecy.
"And the LORD spoke unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." LXX: 'and he ordered the whale to vomit Jonah out onto the dry land'. That which we read above as being about Jonah, the Lord prayed for in the stomach of the whale about which Job speaks in an unclear way: "let he who curses this day curse him, he who will capture the great whale" [Job. 3:8 LXX]. The great whale, the deep and hell are then ordered to give back the Lord to the dry earth; thus he who had died to free those detained by the chains of death, can lead with him many others towards life. With regard to the expression 'vomited' we must take this to be said in a very emphatic way, to mean that triumphant life has emerged from the deepest and most impenetrable parts of death.
The prophet is animated with good hope, and now secure about his liberation, he promises that he will sacrifice thanksgiving and that he will fulfill all vows.
[AD 202] Irenaeus on Jonah 2:10