Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/571

 JONAS

490

JONATHAN

district was the occasion of liis composition of the life of St. Vaast, the first Prankish Bishop of Arras (Pas- de-Calais). Owing to a promise made to the local monks during a short visit to the monastery of Bobbio in 639, he wrote between 640 and 64.3 his principal literary work, the "Life of St. C'ohimbanus ". In 659, when he was sent by the queen-regent Bathildis on a mission to C'halon-sur-Saone, he was abl^ot of a mon- astery which cannot now be determined. During this journey he sojourned for a few days at the monastery of St. John of R(5ome (now Moutier-.Saint-Jean) in the Diocese of Langres. To comply with a request made by the monks on this occasion he wrote the life of tlieir founder, St. John. The work to which Jonas chiefly owes his literary fame comprises, besides the "Life of St. Columbanus", the lives of the abbots .\ttala and Bertulf of Bobbio, Eustace of Luxeuil, and the .-Vbhess Burgundofara (or Fara) of Evoriac (now Faremoutiers). The biographies of Columbanus and his successors, though written in a bombastic style, contain invaluable historical information. Jonas ar- riveil at Bobbio but three years after Cohmibanus's death, and based his invalualile accoimt of the great Irisli saint on the testimony of persons who had known him intimately. Eustace, .\ttala, and Bertulf, he knew personally. Bede incorporated these lives into his ecclesia.-itical history, while Flodoard turned that of St. Columbanus into hexameter verse. The "Life of St. Fara" is chiefly an account of the miraculous events alleged to ha\-e occurred during this saint's rule at Evoriac. The works of Jonas, exclu.sive of the " Life of St. Vaast ". are printed in P. L., LXXXVII, 1011-88; better edition bv Krusch in "Mon. Germ. Hist.; Script. Rer. Mer."," Ill, 406-13, 505-17; IV, 61-152 (Hanover, 1896 and 1902).

Bennett in Dift. Christ. Biog., III. 4;^0-l; Hardy, Descrip- tive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, I. i (London, 1862), 210-2; L.lWLOR, The Manu- scripts of the Vita S. Columbani in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. XXXII. sect. C. part I (Dublin. igO.?) ; Seeb.vss in Realencyk. fur prot. Theol., s. v. Jonas von Bobbio; W-^tten- BACH, Deutschlaruis Geschichtsquellen, I (7th ed.), 1.32.

N. A. Webeb.

Jonas of Orleans, bishop and ecclesiastical writer, b. in .\quitaine; d. in 843 or 844. From 818, when he succeeded Bishop Theodulf in the See of Or- leans, until the time of his death he played an impor- tant role in the ecclesiastical affairs of France. He was present in 82.5 at the so-called Coimcil of Paris, at which the question of the veneration of images was again discussed, and Jonas was one of the messengers sent by the emperor to submit to Pope Eugene II excerpts from the acts of the meeting. He also at- tended the Council of Paris in 829, which treated of reforms to be introduced in Church antl State, and drew up the report of the proceedings of the Synod of Thionville (835) concerning the deposition of Ebbo of Reims. His good -nill toward monastic institutions was demonstrated by the restoration of fhemonasterj- of Saint-Mesmin in his diocese.

Jonas left the following writings; (1) "De Institu- tione laicali " (rules of Christian life for laymen); (2) "De Institutione regia" (rules of Christian life for princes); (3) "De Cultu imaginum " (on the venera- tion of images); (4) a recension of the "Vita" of St. Hubert. The first of these was destined for Matfrid, Count of Orleans, and is almost entirely made up of citations from the Scriptures and the Fathers. To the second work of Jonas, which bears no inscription in the manuscript, d'Achery has appropriately pre- fixed the title "De Institutione regia". It was destined for Pepin, King of .\qiiitaine, son of Louis the Pious. A sort of supplement to the bishop's first work, it follows the same method and bears the same character. The fact that the acts of the Coimcil of Paris (829) and the contents of these two treatises of Jonas are largely identical has raised the question of their priority. The view, at one time more commonly

held (d'Achery, Biihr. Knust. Himly, DOmmler), that the synodal acts borrowed from the "De Institutione regia " of Jonas, has been abandoned by se\eral recent scholars who have reversed the relationship of de- pendence (Waitz. Simson, Ebert).

In spite of the difference of opinion in this regard, it is generally conceded that Jonas is the author of both the acts and the treatises. The work on the veneration of images was written at the request of Louis the Pious in refutation of the Iconoclastic views of (^'laudius, Bishop of Turin. Jonas wrote it without having read the writings of Claudius, which he knew only through an extract sent to him by Louis the Pious. He main- tains that images are justified for purposes of com- memoration, in.struction, and ornament, but does not seem to admit the lawfulness of their veneration. The work first appeared in print at Cologne in 1554. We owe to Jonas also the recension of the "Vita S. Hubert!" and a short history of the transfer of this saint's relics to the monastery of Andoin. The fact that Bishop Walcaud of Liege besought him to present this life of St. Hubert in a more elegant liter- ary form is evidence of the reputation which Jonas enjoyed as a writer. For the works of Jonas sec Migne, P. L., CVI, 121-394; the Ufe of St. Hubert is found in Arndt, " Kleine Denkmiiler aus der Merovin- gerzeit " (Hanover, 1874).

.A.MELUNG, Lfd.vi uml Schrifirn dr.^ liisrimfs J,m„s inn Drlrnris in Programm des Vitzthumschen (iurn ■ i !ir<^,l,^ Iir-itri, Isssi; Simson, Jahrbiieher dcs fvinki^ ' I:, ,- / . ' ,/: ;/; ii'ro7nme« (Leipzig. IST4-76). p;i-i;!, 'I' !■ '^' ^' ' miiii.u, Histoire des auteurs sacrcs, XII (I'hi-, l-viiji, :;sm m1 Lbiiia, Literatur des Mittelallers. II (Leipzig, ISSO). 22.5-:jO; KESSELin Kirchenlex., s. v. ; Poole. Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought (London, 1884), 36 sq., 236: Chevalier. Bio-Bibl., new ed., II. 2646.

X. A. Weber.

Jonathan (jnjin'' or jnJV — Yahweh hath given, cf. Theodore; Sept. ' luvaBav), name of several persons mentioned in the Old Testament. Among these may be mentioned the following; —

(1) JoN.\TH.\N-, the son of Gersam the son of Moses, mentioned by name in Judges, xviii, 30, and as a young Levite in xvTi, 7 sqq. Having left Bethlehem, his native town, he came to JIt. Ephraim, where he was induced by a certain Michas to remain as priest of an idol. This idol was afterwards seized bj' the Danites and carried to Lais, whither Jonathan ac- companied them, and he and his descendants acted as priests of the idol untU the days of the Captivity.

(2) JoN.\TH.\N (\'ulg. JoN.\TH.\s), eldest son of Saul by Achinoam (I Kings, xiv, 49, 50). He first appears a.s taking part with his father in the struggle against the Philistines, and such was his bravery that Saul confided to him the command of a thousand soldiers in Gabaa. Jonathan's defeat of the garrison of the Phil- istines in Gabaa, and liis subsequent victory on the confines of the same town are narrated in I Kings, xiii, xiv. Through an intervention regarded as miracu- lous (xiv% 15) the latter combat resulted in a general rout of the Philistines, and Saul in the excitement of the pursuit proclaimed a rash oath, sa\ing; "Cursed be the man that shall eat food till evening, till I be re- venged of my enemies." The course of the flight led through a forest where wild honey appeared upon the ground, but the people tasted it not for they feared the oath. But Jonathan, not having heard his father's pronouncement, innocently tasted the honey, and, when a halt was called in the evening and the priest consulted Yahweh as to a further pursuit of the enemy, no answer was given. .Saul immediately assumed that some sin had been committed against the Lord, and again he rashly swore that, even should the guilt be found on his son Jonathan, he should surelj- die. The lots having indicated .Jonathan as the guilty one, he confessed to having tasted the honey, and was saved only by the intervention of the people (I Kings, xiv, 45). When, after his victory over Goliath, the