Commentaria in Judices
THEIR GOD.—Who and what Dagon was I shall tell in book I.
25. AND SHOULD PLAY BEFORE THEM.—By dancing, making movement and motion. Behold the Philistines here mock Samson as a buffoon, as the Jews did Christ suffering, saying: “Prophesy who is he that struck thee?” See to what indignities Samson, the judge and prince of Israel, was brought. Hence Abulensis, pitying his lot, Question XXXV, exclaims: “O admirable calamity of Samson! O most grievous misfortune and reproach of the Jewish people! That strongest of men, stupendous to the whole people, terrible by his very name, Samson, who with most easy blows had tamed the fiercest lions, pouring out great wedges of hostile armies had wrought a slaughter unheard of in all ages, and what is more wonderful with such ease that it was easier for him to do than for us to think. O man too much to be lamented, nay flower of men, who overcoming all in strength wast lacking only in prudence and, drawn by the beauty of a wretched little woman, and deceived by deceitful tears, didst fall into the extremest lot, so that, made more wretched than all whom I have read of, thou art compelled shamefully by enemies, deprived of both lights, to the eternal reproach of the whole Hebrew people, to grind at an ass-mill.”
Moreover how Samson was a type of Christ, hear St. Augustine teaching, serm. 107 On the Time: “Samson signified Christ. Truly I seem to myself to say so, but at once it occurs to those who think: And is Christ conquered by womanish blandishments? And how can Christ be said to have gone in to a harlot? Then also Christ is stripped of his head, his hair is shaved, he is despoiled of power, bound, blinded, mocked. Awake, faith, attend what Christ is, not only what Christ did, but also what he suffered. What did he do? He worked as the strong; he suffered as the weak. In one I understand both, I see the strength of the Son of God; I see the infirmity of the son of man.” And a few things between: “Some things Samson did in the person of the head, some in the person of the body, but the whole in the person of Christ.
For in that he wrought powers and wonders, Samson signified Christ the head of the Church: but in that he acted prudently, he bore the image of those who live justly in the Church; where he was perhaps overtaken and acted incautiously, he figured those who are sinners in the Church.”
26. THAT I MAY TOUCH THE PILLARS ON WHICH THE WHOLE HOUSE LEANS.—Samson here was a type of Christ stretching out his hands to the two ends of the cross, by which dying he overcame and crushed the demons, sin and hell, a type of Christ on the cross.
So therefore he, slain, crushed his slayers, and his passion became the slaughter of the persecutors, says St. Augustine, serm. 107 On the Time. THE HOUSE.—Many think that this house was sacred, or the temple of Dagon. For, verse 23, the Philistines are said to have immolated victims to their god Dagon, and to have feasted there for the capture of Samson; but victims were immolated in a sacred house, namely in a temple. So Suidas, Abulensis, Dionysius, Serarius, Salian and others. Hence Philo, book On the Planting of Noe, teaches that of old men used to feast in the temple, that they might seem to feast modestly and religiously with God; and adds, “from this custom they say the word methyein (that is to be merry, to be drunk) was formed, as if meta ten thysian (after the sacrifice), because after sacred rites the ancients at last gave themselves to cups.” So chap. ix, verse 27, the Sichemites in the temple of the god Berith cursed Abimelech amid feasts and cups; there, therefore, they sacrificed to their idols, and there ate idol-offerings, that is things immolated to idols, as the Apostle teaches, 1 Cor. chap. viii, verse 10. There also they sang the praises of their gods, and then rioted in every kind of luxury and wantonness, as the Hebrews did adoring the golden calf, Exod. chap. xxxii, and 2 Mach. chap. vi, verse 4; Daniel chap. v, verse 4. The same Virgil testifies, Aeneid.
To this it is added that private houses are not so ample as to hold three thousand spectators, nor have halls so ample where Samson playing could have been seen by three thousand: but temples capacious for this are very many.
27. AND FROM THE ROOF AND THE UPPER PART ABOUT THREE THOUSAND.—For roofs in Palestine were flat, and had windows so disposed that spectators through them could see whatever was in the lowest part of the house, as Samson here dancing. So Abulensis.
30. LET MY SOUL DIE WITH THE PHILISTINES.—It is a figure of speech. For the soul cannot die, since it is immortal. The soul, therefore, as the chief part, is put for the whole man, as if to say: Let me die. Or certainly the soul is said to die not in itself but in the body, as if to say: Let the soul die to the body, so that it leaves it and no longer gives it life, as if to say: Let me die, provided the Philistines die. I shall crush by the ruin of the house the Philistines, enemies of Israel, though I myself must be crushed with them. By my death I buy the death of enemies and the life of my fellow citizens.
You will say: Samson here killed himself, therefore he was a homicide of himself; therefore he sinned mortally, and having died in this sin, is damned. St. Augustine answers here, and book I On the City of God chap. xxi, that Samson did not sin, because he killed himself by the instinct of God: The Spirit, he says, had secretly commanded this, who wrought miracles through him, and therefore here heard his prayers, and restored his former strength to do it.
Secondly, because he shook the pillars of the house with this end, that by its ruin he might crush all the princes of the Philistines and very many of the people, and so inflict a notable disaster on his enemies. For although he here asks of God only a private revenge for his blinding, yet because he was a public person, Judge and avenger of his people, and because the Apostle, Heb. chap. xi, commends him for faith and fortitude, and because God here supernaturally helped him to this ruin, it is therefore altogether likely that he referred all this vengeance to the honour of God and the good of his Republic, and to take away the praises ascribed by the Philistines to the idol Dagon for his capture, and restore them to the true God.
Samson therefore here did not properly and physically kill himself, as he would have done if he had pierced himself with a sword, or dashed his head against a pillar; but only permitted himself to be crushed in the common ruin with his enemies, as Eleazar, seeing the royal elephant, put himself under it and killed it, and permitted himself to be buried by the mass of its falling, to free the people, book I. Nor did he kill himself by moral imputation either, because he directly intended to kill the Philistines, but only indirectly and permissively to involve himself in the same disaster, which he could not escape, as I answer secondly: Samson did not sin here; as his death was a work of great fortitude, so also it was a great penalty and satisfaction for past faults. “In such cases,” says Cajetan, “one’s own death is not chosen in itself, but the death of the enemies is chosen in itself, and the accompanying death of oneself is admitted to be borne for the good of vengeance. So the leader of an army, about to lay low the enemies, does not refuse his own accompanying death.” So also Lyranus, and Francis Victoria, Relection on chap. x, On Homicide, at the end; Dominic Soto, book II On Justice, Question IX, art. 8; Lessius, book II On Justice chap. ix, doubt 6, num. 33. And St. Ambrose, epist. 70, says that Samson in death conquered himself: “Though he was incomparable in this life, yet in death he conquered himself, and bore an unconquerable mind, so as to despise and hold as nothing the end of life, dreaded by all. It was a mark of virtue, therefore, that he closed his day with the number of victories, and found not a captive but a triumphal exit. Finally, not by darts but crushed by the corpses of enemies he was buried, covered by his own triumph.” So Ambrose, and St. Paulinus to Cytherius: “He who had lived a slave to the boasting enemy, falls as victor, the enemy overwhelmed.” Finally Bachiarius, epistle to Januarius On receiving the Lapsed, calls Samson a martyr, because he died voluntarily for the religion and honour of God, but abusively. For so soldiers dying in fighting against Heretics and Turks would be martyrs, which no one will say; for a martyr does not fight, but suffers.