Did Jesus Redeem Mankind? — Page 194
? 187 also characterizes it as his singular and magnificent miracle. St. Luke says the same. It reads: "This is an evil generation: they seek a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of Jonas the Prophet. For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the son of man be to this generation. " (St. Luke 11:29-30) St. Luke has reported one thing more here. St. Matthews ended his report with "and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of the Prophet Jonas; for Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. " Here St. Matthews has stated only this much: "The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a a greater than Jonas is here. ” (Matthew 12:141) St. Luke, however, stresses the point that "as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the son of man be to this generation. " In other words, he says in respect of this sign that the way Jonas was a sign for the inhabitants of Nineveh, so shall the Messiah be for the generation of the period.