Final Thoughts

Cum angustiaretur in me anima mea, Domini recordatus sum. LXX: Cum deficeret ex me anima mea, Domini recordatus sum.  Cum, inquit, nullum aliud sperarem auxilium, recordatio Domini mihi saluti fuit, juxta illud: Recordatus sum Domini, et laetatus sum. Et in alio loco: Recordatus sum dierum antiquorum, et annos aeternos in mente habui. Ego cum desperarem salutem, et carnis fragilitas in medio ventre ceti nihil me de vita sperare permitteret, quidquid impossibile videbatur, Domini recordatione superatum est. Videbam me clausum in utero ceti, et tota spes mea Dominus erat. Ex quibus discimus juxta Septuaginta eo tempore quo deficit anima nostra, et a corporis compage divellitur, non nos debere alio cogitationem vertere, nisi ad eum, qui et in corpore et extra corpus noster est Dominus. Sanctus Hieronimus, Commentarius In Jonam Prophetem

'When my soul was in torment in me, I remembered the Lord.' The Septuagint has: 'When my soul forsook me, I remembered the Lord.' 1 When, he says, I had hope of nothing else, I recalled to myself the salvation of the Lord, according to which, 'I remembered the Lord and I was joyful 2 And in another place: ' I remembered the days of old, and the endless years I had in my mind. 3 When I was desperate for salvation, and the weakness of the flesh in the belly of the whale allowed me no hope of life, however impossible it seem, by recollection of the Lord, I was saved. I saw myself closed up in the body of the whale and all my hope was in the Lord. From which learn from the Septuagint that it is that time when the soul passes away and breaks away from the bond of the body that we should turn to no thought but to him who is Lord in and outside of the body. Saint Jerome, Commentary on Jonah 1 Jonah 2.8  2 Ps 76.4. 3 Ps 76.6