Commentaria in Judices
Serarius thinks that from this deed of Samson the Roman Vulpinalia arose. For the Romans every year burned a fox, because one whose hens a fox had eaten began to burn the fox; but the fox, escaping from the pyre, set fire to the neighbouring crops. But this seems to be a fable, while this history of the foxes set forth by Samson is true. Hence the Romans seem to have taken it, as many other things, from the Hebrews. For Rome transferred to itself the rites and superstitions of all nations. Tropologically, St. Ambrose on Psalm cxviii, serm. 4 on the Canticle, by foxes understand heretics: First, because both have great guile and art of deceiving. Hence St. Isidore, book XII of the Etymologies chap. ii, gives this etymology for the fox: “The fox (vulpes),” he says, “is so called as if volupes; for it is nimble of foot, and never runs in straight courses, but in winding turns, a fraudulent animal, deceiving by snares. For when it has no food, it feigns death: and so it seizes and devours the birds descending as to a carcass.”
Hear St. Ambrose, in the place already cited: “By this figure (of the foxes) he signifies that wicked and fraudulent men, and especially heretics, have a free tongue for barking, but their issues hindered: they have religious beginnings, but the end of their fraud destined for burning, and therefore he sent out also three hundred foxes, because the perfidious desire to commend themselves by preaching the cross, but cannot hold its mystery, who by this preaching, composed and false and feigned, strive rather to burn the fruits of others: whereas the true cross of the Lord does not burn up the merits of others, but they strive to set fire to other men’s fruits. For the present free in mouth, but bound for future fire, signifying by the torches at their tails the burning of their end.”
Secondly, these foxes are divided in their heads, but joined in their tails; because among heretics there are as many opinions as heads; yet all in the end conspire to attack the orthodox faith.
Thirdly, heretics, like Samson’s foxes, lay waste all things with their strifes, wars, slaughters and fires.
Fourthly, they harm the Philistines, that is those who follow alien dogmas, not the faithful constant in the faith.
Fifthly: “What do the tails of the foxes mean,” says St. Augustine, “but the hinder parts of heretics, who have as their first parts” (as it were heads) “flattering, great, deceptive works; but the hinder parts bound, that is condemned, and drawing fire at the end, to consume the fruits and deeds of those who consent to their seductions.”
Sixthly, a fox cannot be tamed, nor by any art change its ways and crafty nature; so neither can heretics. Hence no heresiarch (except Berengarius, whose salvation is doubtful) is read to have returned to the Orthodox faith. I saw at Louvain a newly born little fox, which, joined with the kittens of a cat, was nourished with them on the cat’s milk, but it presently killed the kittens of the cat: I saw another brought up playfully with a puppy of a dog, but so that the fox did not take on canine ways, but the dog took on vulpine ways from its companion the fox.
Seventhly, the fox when it wishes imitates the barking of a dog and the howling of a wolf; so heretics feign to be others, and boast that they imitate the Orthodox voice and faith.
Eighthly, the fox never runs in straight courses, but always in winding turns. So among heretics all things are crooked, cunning, distorted, and they contrive nothing but frauds, slaughters, betrayals of Catholics.
Ninthly, a fox enters a cave by one way and goes out by another, says St. Augustine on Psalm lxxx; so heretics, when pressed by reason, slip out another way. Again they creep in by flatteries, but when they have gained dominion they turn savage, and go out by rapine, slaughters and the deaths of citizens.
Tenthly, the fox is cunning (callidus) because hot (calidus), and hence stinking; so heretics burn with envy, anger and lust, and hence stink.
Eleventhly, wherever a fox has urinated, it at once makes the ground barren, so that it cannot germinate: so where heretics have poured out their heresy, all the germs of virtues wither. They themselves, therefore, bear a cunning fox under a crafty breast.
Samson, therefore, catching foxes is a doctor refuting heretics, and by them burning the books and synagogues of heresies. So Origen, homily 4 on the Canticle, and St. Augustine on Psalm lxx.
5. BOTH THE CORN THAT WAS ALREADY BOUND IN SHEAVES, AND THAT WHICH WAS YET STANDING ON THE STALK,—that is, crops both reaped and gathered into a heap, and those not reaped and still standing in the field. In Hebrew, he set on fire from the heap to the standing corn; the Septuagint, they burned from the threshing floor to the cut ears.
6. AND THEY BURNT BOTH HER AND HER FATHER,—because by her second marriage she gave Samson occasion to burn their crops. Josephus adds that her kinsfolk also were burnt. Behold this woman, wishing to escape the burning threatened her by the Philistines, by her perfidy ran into the same fire. Again learn here that adulteresses (such as this woman was) were of old punished with death, and with that of fire and burning. Hence also Judas ordered his daughter-in-law Thamar to be burnt for adultery, Gen. chap. xxxviii, verse 24. See what I said there. Hear St. Boniface, epist. 19 to Ethibald king of the Mercians: “The Saxons compel an adulteress to end her life hanged by a halter, and over her burning and consumed pyre they hang her seducer.”
8. AND HE SMOTE THEM WITH A GREAT SLAUGHTER (striking, laying low and slaying those he met everywhere); SO THAT, ASTONISHED, THEY PUT THE LEG UPON THE THIGH,—which is a sign of intense and anxious thought: for then, as if astonished, we are wont to place the calf of one leg upon the other thigh. So St. Augustine and Hugh of St. Victor. The Hebrew: he smote them leg upon thigh with a great slaughter. Vatablus: he smote them in the leg together with the shin; that is, he smote them in the legs and thighs together. The Chaldee: he smote the horsemen with the footmen; Rabbi David: he smote them turning himself about on his feet, that is, wheeling round, he slew all about him, that he might not be hurt from behind. So the Portuguese, few in India fighting against many barbarians, fight in a ring, wheeling round. The Hebrews and Burgensis: he smote them with his leg, that is with his heels, the thighs of the Philistines, as if to say: Not striking with arms but kicking with his heels he dashed their thighs. So various men variously. But our translator renders best and most fully according to the sense which I gave, with which the Septuagint agree, who render: he smote them leg upon thigh (placing it from astonishment) with a great slaughter.
This is the second slaughter of this chapter inflicted by Samson on the Philistines; the third, dealt with the jawbone, we shall hear at verse 15.
HE DWELT IN A CAVE OF THE ROCK ETAM,—which was situated in the tribe of Juda, and had a torrent near it, says Adrichomius. Scripture hints here that the preceding fight of Samson took place in the neighbouring mountains of Juda, and that thence the victor Samson withdrew to the cave Etam, where on account of the narrowness of the places a single soldier could be a match for very many fighters, and so much the more Samson, who alone in the middle of the field surpassed several hundreds. Yet he did not withdraw thither from fear, but, as Dionysius says, that there he might the more quietly attend to God, by whose impulse he was doing these things. And lest the city which he might have approached should be endangered on his account: since he wished to protect himself only by his own danger and virtue. So Salian.
13. AND THEY BOUND HIM.—Samson could have resisted his fellow citizens and said: I for your sake smote the Philistines, to break their strength, that they might not rule over you; why then do you give me, your liberator, up to them? But he would not, that he might render them free and unharmed from the Philistines, in which he gave a notable example of legal justice, as of civic charity, because he exposed his own life to danger of death for the public safety of his fellow citizens and of the Republic. Hear St. Ambrose, paraphrasing this place and vividly describing the sentiments of Samson, epist. 24, which in the old edition is epist. 70: “And what is the form of justice, O race of the Abrahamites, that my vengeance should be ruinous to me, first for a wife cheated of me, then carried off, and that without danger it should not be allowed to avenge a domestic injury? Do you so incline your minds to the shameful servility of slaves that you offer yourselves as executors of another’s insolence, and turn your hands against yourselves? If I must perish because I felt grief, it pleases me, being free, to perish by the hands of the Palestines. My house was assailed, my wife solicited. If it was not allowed me to live without their fraud, at least let it be allowed me to die without the crime of my own people. I returned the injury received, I did not inflict one. Judge you whether the requital was worthy. They complain of the loss of crops; I of the loss of my wife. Compare the sheaves of the harvest and the partner of my bed. They themselves approved my grief, whose injuries they avenged. See what service they think you worthy of. They wish him to be afflicted with death by you whom they themselves judged worthy of vengeance against those who had wronged me, and who furnished the ministry of vengeance. But if you bear your necks so submissive to the proud, give me up into the hands of the enemy, and do not kill me yourselves. I do not refuse death, but I flee your contagion. But if you yield to fear, bind my hands with insolent chains: unarmed though I be, they will find arms for themselves in the loosed knots. Surely they will think the condition imposed on them satisfied, if you give them me alive into their power.”