At the outset of Moby Dick, Father Mapple preaches to a congregation of whalers. His text is the Book of Jonah, and it stands out as one of the most enjoyable fictional sermons of all time. After God has assigned him the task of preaching repentance to the city of Nineveh, Jonah flees “with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas . . . no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,—no friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux.” Melville’s elaborate, melodramatic, and humorous descriptions engage the imagination, but they can distract from the interesting theology of the sermon.

Father Mapple deliberately leaves out the substance of Jonah’s mission, to bring a word of warning to Nineveh: “Never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed,” he tells the seamen. The only question is obedience or disobedience. This focus may be acceptable Calvinist theology. It follows the commentary Calvin wrote on ­Jonah. It also sets the stage for Auden’s quirky ­Kierkegaardian interpretation of Moby Dick in The Enchafèd Flood. But turning the Book of Jonah into an illustration of the choice between obedience or ­disobedience brackets the questions that emerge directly from a reading of the text. How will Nineveh react? How will God respond? And what will the prophet make of all this?

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