Commentaria in Judices
Symbolically, learn here how vain are the strength, wealth and all things of the world. Behold Samson, strong of arm, perished by his own strength. So also Milo of Croton, who killed a fierce bull with his fist and carried it on his shoulders for a mile, died by his own strength. For, grown old, going through the woods, wishing to try his former strength, when he tried to split an oak, the parts coming together again by their own force, he was caught and crushed. So most warlike soldiers die fighting, most skilful swimmers swimming.
Finally many think that from the history of Samson the Gentiles borrowed the deeds and fables of their Hercules; since in truth Hercules was none other than Samson. So Philastrius, book On Heresies chap. viii: “The pagans,” he says, “usurping strong men from the figure of Samson, called them Hercules.” St. Augustine, book XVIII On the City of God chap. xix: “The judge of the Hebrews Samson, being wonderfully strong, was thought to be Hercules.” Otto of Freising, book I chap. xxv: “They thought the most strong Samson, on account of his incredible strength, to be Hercules.”
Pererius on Genesis chap. xlix, prophecy 6: “Samson was in truth such in bodily strength and fortitude of mind as the Greeks with ambitious lying feigned Hercules to have been.” Martin de Roa, book V of Singulars chap. vii: “The ancients depicted the labours, strength and hardships of Hercules from the history of Samson.”
They prove it first, because most of the fables of the Gentiles were taken from Holy Scripture, as the fables of the Titans from the history of the giants; the deluge of Deucalion from the deluge of Noe; the burning of Phaethon from the burning of Sodom; the Elysian fields and gardens from the earthly Paradise, etc., as Origen teaches book IV Against Celsus; St. Justin, Apology chap. i; Clement of Alexandria, chap. i of the Stromata; Tertullian in the Apologetic; Nazianzen, orat. 20; St. Jerome on chap. v of Amos; St. Augustine, book II On Christian Doctrine chap. xxvii.
Secondly, because Hercules is said to have lived in the same age as Samson. Hence Eusebius, Preface to the Chronicle: “It seems to me,” he says, “that Hercules and Samson were not far apart in time, since both were about the capture of Troy.” So also St. Augustine, book XVIII On the City of God chap. xii: “In these times,” he says, “Hercules was held famous in Tyria, otherwise Syria.”
Thirdly, because Hercules was famous, and was worshipped as a hero and great god by the Tyrians and Palestinians, as Herodotus testifies, book I, chap. xx, Cicero, book III On the Nature of the Gods, Pliny, book XXXVII, chap. v, and St. Augustine in the place already cited. But in the same place, namely in Judea, which borders on the Philistines and Tyrians, Samson flourished. Again Hercules fought not with a sword but with a club, whence he is painted with a club. So also Samson slew the Philistines not with a sword but with the jawbone of an ass, as with a club.
Fourthly, because Hercules (in Greek Herakles) was a symbol of the sun; and Samson in Hebrew is the same as a little sun, as I said chap. xiii, verse 24. Hear Macrobius, book I of the Saturnalia chap. xx: “And in truth that Hercules is the sun is clear even from the name. For Heracles, what else is it but hera kleos, that is the glory of the air, and what other glory of the air is there but the illumination of the sun, at whose departure the darkness is hidden in its depth? Moreover the administrations of the sacred rites among the Egyptians, by manifold acts assert the manifold power of God, signifying that this is Hercules.” The twelve labours of Hercules are the twelve signs of the Zodiac, which the sun runs through and completes every year.
Fifthly and chiefly, because the deeds of Hercules are like and as it were the same as the deeds of Samson. For Hercules killed a lion, whence he is painted with the lion’s skin, so also Samson. Hercules, to free himself and his own, underwent the greatest labours and contests: so also Samson. Hear Serarius, Question XXXVI. Is not the Nemean lion of Hercules the Thamnathite lion of Samson? The Hydras, Centaurs, Stymphalian birds and other fictions of the kind, do they not hint at the attacks of the Ascalonites, Gazites and other Philistines, and heap everything up with greater lies? What of the two columns of Hercules, are they not those two which Samson shook and through which he sent as it were an ocean of evils upon the Philistines? Likewise the foul servitude and effeminacy of Hercules with Omphale, of which Origen, books III and VII Against Celsus, and the rest of the impurity and lust of his life, does it not proclaim the wantonness and bitter servitude of Samson with the harlot of Gaza and Dalila? And the penitence of the same Hercules after his homicides and lusts, of which the same Origen, book III Against the same Celsus, and Pliny, book XXXV, chap. xi, and the expiations again and again by Thestius and Eumolpus, and the initiations of the Eleusinian rites, what does it indicate but Samson’s penitence and the renewal of the religion of the sacred Nazariteship? The death on mount Oeta undertaken freely and of his own accord means not nothing as to Samson’s voluntary death.
Finally in the life of Samson that Herculean saying is seen:
My right hand is to me better than any star.
30. AND HE KILLED MANY MORE AT HIS DEATH THAN HE HAD KILLED BEFORE IN HIS LIFE.—For dying he killed all the princes of the Philistines, and three thousand of the people. Philo the Biblical writer therefore less truly asserts that he crushed forty thousand enemies in dying. This is what Samson intended, namely to inflict on the Philistines a huge disaster, by which he might free the Hebrews from their servitude, even though he knew that he would be crushed in the same ruin. By his death, then, he gained life and liberty for his people. And in this he was a type of Christ, who slew more dying than living; because by his death he enervated the powers of the demons, of sin, death and hell, and freed us from their yoke. For, as St. Paulinus says, epist. 4: “In the passion of Christ the house of Zabulus (that is of the devil) fell, and the kingdom of death was dissolved. So by dying he destroyed death itself, dissolving enmities in his flesh, and making both one, that is man and God, whom God and man Christ Jesus joined together in himself.”
So Judas Machabeus in his last fight, contending with few against very many, and falling, killed more dying than living. So our Edmund Campion, the English Samson, who was the first of the Society of Jesus to die generously for the Orthodox faith, converted more by dying by his piety, modesty, fortitude and cheerfulness than living by preaching, as eye-witnesses told me, indeed some then converted by him. So Martyrs slew, indeed gave life to, more by dying than by living, because they converted more by their patience, constancy and alacrity in death than living by their exhortations; hence in the Lives of the Martyrs we read that now a hundred, now three hundred, now a thousand, now three or five thousand were converted to Christ: for “the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians,” says Tertullian in the Apologetic.
Like to this is what the Greeks relate of their Achilles. For Achilles, pierced by Apollo’s darts and mortally wounded, attacked the Trojans more fiercely, and slew more, and put others to flight, so that the Trojans did not dare even to approach his corpse after he was slain, as if it were still breathing slaughter. Indeed dying he addressed the fleeing Trojans: “Alas, timorous Trojans, not even dead shall you be able to withdraw yourselves by flight from my spear, but dead I shall make you pay the penalty for your madness. As he said, they shuddered, as fawns in the mountains, fearful, are afraid of the voice of a roaring lion,” says Quintus Calaber, book III of the Paralipomena.
Finally our Salian in the Epitaph of the Mausoleum of Samson among other things gives him these eulogies: “Samson, a hero renowned for a thousand prodigies, nay himself wholly a prodigy, etc. He shakes and shatters the huge pillars, the seat of many thousands, and with the whole temple of Dagon throws it down and hurls it headlong, and dying, crushed under his own trophies, shuts up the enemy and the servitude of his people in the same sepulchre, in which the glowing sun (for Samson in Hebrew is the same as Sun), running his course with none to hinder, lost both his course and his light. In the thirty-ninth year of his age, before the birth of the true Samson.”