SAMSON. - The last of the Israelite judges, son of Manoah (Manah) of the tribe of Dan, a native of Zorah (Heb. Šor'ah, today Šar'ah, about 25 km west of Jerusalem), whose deeds against the Philistines are narrated in Judg 13-16. The name is connected with Šenēš (sun: Heb. Šimšōn; but the older form had an a: Gr. Σαμψών, Vulg. Sampson; cf. Akkad. šamšanu and Šamaš, solar deity). He was endowed with extraordinary strength, which is related to the "Nazirite vow" to which Samson devoted himself by his parents' vow (Judg 13:5). The Nazirite vow entailed, among other things, abstention from cutting the hair: Samson possessed his strength as an extraordinary gift from God precisely because he observed the vow.
He manifested his strength even as a young man, 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 killed 30 men single-handedly, burned the Philistines' ripe crops by sending foxes tied in pairs with lit torches tied to their tails; again to defend himself he killed a great number of enemies (Judg 14:1-15:8). The Philistines then launched an expedition to capture the hero, thus for the first time entering into that relationship of hostility with Israel which lasted for centuries.
Historically, the extra-biblical notices correspond to the Philistines (v.), who had been on the move for about a century after leaving their original seats in Anatolia and Crete, settled on the southern Canaanite coast after a defeat inflicted on them by Ramses II of Egypt, and between the 12th and 11th centuries B.C. sought to extend their control inland.
On that first occasion, Samson allowed himself to be handed over to the Philistines on condition of being spared. Bound, he tore the ropes like threads and with a donkey's jawbone killed 1000 Philistines. On another occasion, locked in a city, at night he wrenched off the doors and bars and carried them all to a mountain.
He was ruined by a woman, Delilah (v.), who, having learned the secret of his strength, reduced him to impotence by having him shorn: the hero was captured and blinded. But later, as his hair grew back—a visible sign of his return to the Nazirite vow and the Yahwistic spirit—during a Dagon (v.), shaking with his arms and toppling the supporting columns of a temple, he buried himself and the Philistines in the ruins.
That the popular narrators' taste for the heroic and the marvelous found some satisfaction in Samson's exploits during the period of oral transmission of the tale is probable and not even reprehensible: the story takes on fantastic contours and the exegete must know how to distinguish. But since the entire background of the incipient Philistine danger is historically accurate, the pardonableness of the error is determined, and the reason for his gifts is conveniently explained, it is wrong to speak of a "myth" and to reject the whole body of 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 sinful and converted hero (Judg 16:28).
ICONOGRAPHY. -
145. Archaeology
Although the biblical figure of Samson was linked by the Fathers of the Church (St. Augustine, St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Gregory the Great, etc.) to that of Christ and the triumph over the Philistines took on among Christians the meaning of divine Redemption and victory over death, early Christian art almost entirely ignored him. However, ancient scholars (Aringhi, etc.) sometimes erred in mistaking for Samson, who carries the gates of Gaza on his back, the scene of the paralytic healed with his bed, and a mosaic found in Malta in the old city has been unfoundedly considered Christian (cf. E. Becker, Malta sotterranea. Studien zur altchristl. und jüdisch. Sepulkralkunst, Strasbourg 1913, p. 79, pl. XXVI). An exception seems to be a fragment of a wooden sculpture with scenes of Delilah's betrayal and the collapse of the Philistine temple (DACL, XV, 1, col. 740); another scene has been restored from a marble sculpture of the 5th century in the "Martyrion" of Seleucia near Antioch (Antioch., III [1941], pl. XVII). The scene of Samson slaying the lion was represented in a 5th-century basilica in Spain, in separate scenes, for which Prudentius composed illustrative distichs (Prudentius, Dittochaeon, nn. 19-20).The other known representations all belong to the minor arts. The decoration of a silk cloth preserved in 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 Samson's life are distributed on the first two registers in the illuminated leaf 347° of the manuscript of St. Gregory Nazianzen (the Parisinus graecus 510 of the 9th century; cf. H. Bordier, Description des peintures et autres ornements contenus dans les manuscrits de la Biblioth. nation., Paris 1883-84, p. 63 sq.). Another depiction is found among Christian symbols in a bronze medallion published by G. Ciampini (De duobus emblematibus, p. 2) and by F. Buonarroti (Osservazioni 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
146. Art
The earliest medieval representations of Samson appear in a cycle of several consecutive scenes drawn from his story; among these cycles the most notable is that carved in various panels of a Romanesque marble transenna (12th-13th century), preserved in the chapel of St. Restituta, attached to the cathedral of Naples.
Separately, the scene of Samson's struggle with the lion was most often depicted; it was frequently repeated in late medieval sculpture beyond the Alps; such Gothic sculptures adorn, for example, the north portal of Chartres Cathedral and the main portal of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Lucas Cranach the Elder has two panels with scenes from Samson's story: in one of them, belonging to the Museum of the Castle of Weimar, the struggle with the lion is depicted; in the second, preserved in the Maximilianum Museum in Augsburg, Delilah is shown cutting Samson's hair.
Very rare are representations of Samson in Italian Renaissance art; among them is noted a fine 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 in the Vatican Library. Also noteworthy is the painting by G. Reni, *Samson Victorious* (Pinacoteca, Bologna).