Prophecy of Jonah, a canonical book of the Old Testament; in which it is related, that Jonah was ordered to go and prophesy the destruction of the Ninevites; but that disobediently attempting a voyage another way, he was discovered by the rising of a sudden tempest, and cast into the sea; where he was swallowed up by a whale, which having lodged him three days and three nights in his belly, disgorged him upon the shore; whereupon being sensible of his past danger and surprising deliverance, he betook himself to the journey and embassy to which he was appointed; and arriving at Nineveh, the metropolis of Assyria, he, according to his commission, boldly laid open to the inhabitants their sins and miscarriages, and proclaimed their sudden overthrow; upon which the whole city, by prayer and fasting, and a speedy repentance, happily averted the divine vengeance, and escaped the threatened ruin.

Ionian, anciently was a province of the Lesser Asia, or Natolia, bounded by Etolia on the north, Lydia on the east, Caria on the south, and the Archipelago on the west.

Ionic Order. See Architecture, p. 352.

Ionic Dialect, in grammar, a manner of speaking peculiar to the people of Ionia.

Ionic Sect was the first of the ancient sects of philosophers; the others were the Italic and Eleatic. The founder of this sect was Thales, who, being a native of Miletus in Ionia, occasioned his followers to assume the appellation of Ionic: Thales was succeeded by Anaximander, and he by Anaximenes, both of Miletus; Anaxagoras Clazomenius succeeded them, and removed his school from Asia to Athens, where Socrates was his scholar. It was the distinguishing tenet of this sect, that water was the principle of all natural things.