Samson

SAMSON. - The last of the Israelite judges, son of Manoah (Mānōah) of the tribe of Dan, a native of Zorah (Heb. Ṣor'āh, today Ṣar'āh, about 25 km west of Jerusalem), whose exploits against the Philistines are narrated in Judg. 13-16. The name is connected with šēmaš "sun": Heb. Šimšōn; but the older form had an a: Gk. Σαμψών, Vulg. Sampson; cf. Akkad. šamšānu and Šamaš, solar deity, and c. He was endowed with extraordinary strength, which is linked to the "Nazirite vow" to which S. devoted himself at his parents' behest (Judg. 13:5). The Nazirite vow entailed, among other things, abstinence from cutting the hair: S. possessed his strength as an extraordinary gift from God, precisely insofar as he observed the vow.

He manifested his strength from his youth, on the occasion of adventures among the Philistines (among whom he chose his wife, despite his parents' reluctance): he tore apart a lion, to defend himself he single-handedly killed 30 men, he burned the ripe crops of the Philistines by sending among them jackals tied in pairs with a lit torch tied to their tails; again to defend himself he killed a great number of enemies (Judg. 14:1-15:8). The Philistines then made an expedition to seize the hero, entering for the first time with Israel into that relationship of hostility that lasted for centuries.

Historically, this corresponds to the extra-biblical accounts according to which the Philistines (v.), who had been on the move for about a century after leaving their original settlements in Anatolia and Crete, settled on the coast of southern Canaan after a defeat inflicted on them by Ramses II of Egypt, between the 12th and 11th centuries B.C., sought to expand into the hinterland as well.

That first time S. allowed himself to be handed over to the Philistines on condition that his life be spared. Bound, he tore the ropes like cords and with a donkey's jawbone killed 1000 Philistines. Another time, shut up in the city, at night he tore away the doors and the bars and carried them all up a mountain. He was ruined by a woman, Delilah (v.), who, informed of the secret of his strength, reduced him to impotence by having him shorn: the hero was captured and blinded. But later, when his hair had grown back, the outward sign of his return to the Nazirite vow and to the Yahwistic spirit, on the occasion of a Philistine feast of the god Dagon (v.), shaking with his arms and pulling down the supporting columns of a temple, he buried himself and the Philistines in the ruins.

That the taste of popular narrators for the heroic and the marvelous during the period of the oral transmission of the story found in Samson's exploits some satisfaction is probable and not even reprehensible: the story acquires contours of fantasy and the exegete must know how to distinguish. But since the whole background of the incipient Philistine danger is historically accurate, the personality of the hero is determined, and the reason for his gifts is suitably explained, it is wrong to speak of a "myth" and to reject the whole of the episodes as legendary. The religious sense of the narrative lies in the idea of providential graces for the salvation of Israel and in the personal story of the hero, a sinner and a convert (Judg. 16:28).

Giovanni Rinaldi

ICONOGRAPHY

1. Archaeology

Although the biblical figure of S. was likened to that of Christ by the Fathers of the Church (St. Augustine, St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Gregory the Great, etc.) and although the triumph over the Philistines took on for Christians the meaning of divine Redemption and of victory over death, ancient Christian art almost entirely ignored him. Nevertheless, early scholars (Aringhi, etc.) sometimes fell into the error of mistaking for S., who carries the gates of Gaza on his back, the scene of the paralytic healed with his bed, and by some a mosaic found in Malta in the old City is held to be Christian, without foundation (cf. E. Becker, Malta sotterranea. Studien zur altchristl. und jüdisch. Sepulkrelkunst, Strasbourg 1913, p. 79, pl. XXVI). An exception seems to be a fragment of wooden sculpture with its scenes of Delilah's betrayal and the collapse of the Philistine temple (DACL, XV, 1, col. 740); another scene has been recovered from a 5th-century marble sculpture in the "Martyrion" of Seleucia near Antioch (Antioch., III [1941], pl. XVII). The scene of S. striking down the lion was represented in a 5th-century basilica in Spain, in separate scenes, for which Prudentius composed the illustrative distichs (Prudentius, Dittochaeon, nos. 19-20).

The other known representations all belong to the minor arts. The decoration of a silk fabric kept at the Lateran reproduces the episode of the struggle with the lion (cf. P. Lauer, Le trésor du Sancta Sanctorum, in Fondation E. Piot, Monum. et mém., 15 [1906], pl. XVIII). A group of scenes with episodes from the life of S. are distributed over the first two registers in folio 347 of the illuminated manuscript of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Parisinus graecus 510 of the 9th century; cf. H. Bordier, Description des peintures et autres ornements contenus dans les manuscrits grecs de la Biblioth. nation., Paris 1883-84, p. 63 ff.). Another figuration is found among Christian symbols in a bronze medallion published by G. Ciampini (De duobus emblematibus, p. 4) and by F. Buonarroti (Osservaz. sopra alcuni framm. di vasi ant. di vetri ornati di figure trovati ne' cimit. di Roma, Florence 1716, p. 2, pl. I, 1).

Pasquale Testini

2. Art

The oldest medieval representations of S. are presented in a cycle of several consecutive scenes, drawn from his story; among these cycles the most notable is the one carved in various panels of a Romanesque marble chancel screen (12th-13th century), which is preserved in the chapel of St. Restituta, attached to the cathedral of Naples.

Separately, the scene of S.'s struggle with the lion was above all used to be depicted; it was often repeated by transalpine sculpture of the late Middle Ages; such Gothic sculptures adorn, for example, the northern portal of the cathedral of Chartres and the main portal of the cathedral of St. Stephen in Vienna. By Lucas Cranach the Elder there are two panels with scenes from the story of S.: in one of them, owned by the Museum of the Castle of Weimar, the struggle with the lion is seen; in the second, which is preserved in the Museum of the Maximilianeum at Aschaffenburg, Delilah is painted cutting S.'s hair.

Representations of S. in the art of the Italian Renaissance are very rare; among them one notices a beautiful miniature by the Florentine Attavante, datable to 1476, which adorns the text of the Book of Judges in the splendid Bible of Duke Federico, one of the most distinguished manuscripts of the Vatican Library. Also to be noted is the painting by G. Reni, S. victorious (Pinacoteca, Bologna).

Witold Wehr