Seas and Rivers

Increpans mare, et exsiccans illud et omnia flumina ad desertum perducens. Juxta litteram Dei potentia describitur, qui vindicaturus est de adversariis Israelem, quod non grande sit ei Asyyrios destruere, cujus majestatis sit etiam elementa mutare. Vel certe quia semel de consummatione mundi esse diximus prophetiam, et hoc simpliciter accipite: cum venerit mundi consummatio, et pertransierit coelum et terra, mare quoque et fluvies siccari. Sed mihi legenti illud in Psalmis: 'Hoc mare magnum et spatiosum: ibi reptilia quorum non est numeras: animalia parva cum magnis; ibi naves perambulant. Draco iste quem formasti ad illudendum ei, dignum videtur bonitate, et clementia Dei, omnem amartiduinem et salsuginem maris, sua comminatione destruere: et regnantem in aquis humiliare draconem, et malitiae exsiccare gurgites in quibus parva natant reptilia, quorum non est numerus: neque enim digna sunt numero quae cum dracone versantur. Flumina quoque ad desertum perducens, omnem fulsi nominis scientiam, quae se contra Deum erigens, flumine eloquentiae utitur, et volubilitate verborum, et tumentes contorquens gurgites, cum miraculo spectantium fertur in pronum. Vide Platonem, specta Demosthenem, Tullium quoque philosophum pariter et oratorem, et haereticorum principes intuere, de quibus fuit Valentinus, Marcion, Bardesanes, Tatianus, et de fluminibus non ambiges. Sed haec omnia consumet Dominus Jesus spiritu oris sui, et destruet illuminatione adventus sui, et ad deserta per ducet. Simulque cerne quod juxta titulum, qui inscribitur Assumptio Ninive: liber visionis Naum Elcesaei, recte et in Ninive mundus figuraliter intelligitur, et mare ejus eloquentiae flumina in consummatione siccantur. Sanctus Hieronymus, Commentariorum In Naum Prophetam Source: Migne PL 25.1234d-1235b

At His rebuke the sea shall dry up and all the rivers become desert. 1 According to the letter the power of God is described here, who shall be revenged on the enemies of Israel, for whom it is no great thing to destroy the Assyrians, He whose majesty transforms even the elements. Or certainly because we have spoken once concerning the prophecy of the consummation of the world, this also should be simply understood: when comes the consummation of the world, heaven and earth pass away, and the seas and the rivers shall dry up. But there comes to me those lines of the Psalm: 'This great and spacious sea where there are reptiles without number, animals great and small, there where boats sail. The dragon whom you formed to play with,' 2 and it seems worthy that by goodness, even the mercy of God, that He destroy with His threat all the bitterness and salinity of the sea and humiliate the dragon ruling in the waters, and that He drain the floods of wickedness in which the little reptiles swim, of which there are a countless number, for they are not worthy of numbering who swim with the dragon. He also turns the rivers to desert, that is, the knowledge of every celebrated name, which flows against God, which uses the river of eloquence and the volubility of words, and swells into a fearsome flood, which is a wonder to those who see it brought to heel. See Plato, look at Demosthenes, Cicero also, together with all the philosophers and orators, and mark there the princes of the heretics, among whom were Valentinus, Marcion, Bardesanes, Tatian, and be in no doubt concerning these rivers. All these the Lord Jesus shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, 3 and he shall destroy them by the radiance of His coming, and lay them to waste. And at same time, see according to the title of the book, which is written as 'An oracle about Nineveh, the book of Nahum of Elkosh,' that Nineveh is rightly understood as a figure of the world, and in its end, with its sea, the rivers of eloquence dry up. Saint Jerome, Commentary on Nahum 1 Nahum 1.4 2 Ps 103, 26-26 3 2 Thes 2.8