SAMSON
423
SAMSON
by an angel, he determined to leave England and,
after some delay, set sail for Brittany. He landed
near Dol, and there built a monastery which became
the centre of his episcopal work in the district. Busi-
ness taking him to Paris, he visited King Childebert
there, and was nominated by him Bishop of Dol;
Dol, however, did not become a regular episcopal see
till about the middle of the ninth century. Samson
attained the age of eighty-five years, and was buried
at Dol. Several early lives of Samson exist. The
oldest, printed by Mabillon in his "Acta Sanctorum"
from a MS. at Citeaux, and again by the Bollandists,
claims to be compiled from information derived
from Samson's contemporaries, which would re-
fer it to about 600. Dom Plaine in the "Analecta
Bollandiana" has edited another and fuller life (from
MS. Andeg., 719), which he regards as earlier than
Mabillon's. Later lives are numerous.
Mabillon-, Acta SS. O. S. B., I (Venice, 1733), 156-74; Acta SS., VI Julv, 568-93; Analecta BolUimL, VI (Paris, 1887), 77-150; Liher Landavensis. ed. Rees (Llandovery. 1850), 287- .305; Capgrave, Nom Legenda Angliiz (London, 1516), 266-68; Hadd-vn and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, I (Oxford, 1869), 1.58-9, 149; II, pt. i (1873), 75-6, 92; Rees, Welsh Saints (London, 1836), 228, 253; Chardon, La vie de St. Samson, evSque de Dol (Paris, 1647).
G. Roger Hudleston.
Samson ("i'^^t' derived from "Z^'i, "sun"), the last and most famous of the Judges of Israel. The narra- tive of the life of Sam.son and his exploits is contained in chapters xiii-xvi of the Book of Judges. After the deliverance effected by Jephte, the Israelites again fell into their evil ways and were delivered over to the Philistines for forty years. An angel of the Lord in the form of a man appears to the barren wife of Manue of the tribe of Dan and promises her that she shall bear a son who shall deliver Israel from the oppression of the Philistines. He prescribes abstinence on the part of both mother and son from all things intoxicat- ing or unclean, and that no razor shall touch the child's head, "for he shall be a Nazarite [q. v.] of God". The angel bearing a similar message again appears to Manue as well as to his wife, and it is only after his disappearance in the flame of a burnt offering tliat they recognize with great fear his celes- tial nature. The child is born according to the pre- diction and receives the name Samson, and the nar- rative informs us that the "spirit of the Lord" was with him from his youth. Strangely enough this spirit impels him in spite of his parents' opposition to choose a wife from among the ungodly Philistines (Judges, xiv, 1-4). On a visit to Thamnatha, the town of his intended bride, Samson gives the first evi- dence of his superhuman strength by slaying a lion without other weapon than his bare hands. Return- ing later he finds that a swarm of bees have taken up their abode in the carcass of the lion. He eats of the honey and the incident becomes the occasion of the famous riddle proposed by him to the thirty Phihstine guests at the wedding festivities: "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. " In their inability to find the answer the guests, toward the end of seven days' feast, induce Samson's wife to coax him to reveal it to her, and no sooner has she succeeded than she declares it to her countrymen. Samson, however, in order to provide the thirty garments pledged in the wager, goes down to Ascalon in "the .spirit of the Lord" and slays thirty Philistines whose garments he gives to the guests who had declared the answer to the riddle. In anger he returns to his father's house, and his bride chooses one of his wedding companions for her husband.
He returns later to claim her and is informed by her father that she has been given to one of his friends, but that he may have instead her younger and fairer sister. Sam.son declines the offer and catching three hundred foxes he couples them tail to tail, and having fastened torches between their tails
turns them loose to set fire to the corn harvests of the
Philistines which are thus destroyed together with
their vineyards and olive-yards. The Philistines re-
taliate by burning the faithless wife and her father,
whereupon Samson makes a "great slaughter of
them" and then retires to dwell in a cavern of Etam
in the tribe of Juda. Three thousand Philistines fol-
low him and take up their quarters at Lcchi. The
men of Juda, alarmed, blame Samson for this invasion
and deliver him up bound to the enemy. But when
he is brought to them the spirit of the Lord comes
upon him; he bunsts his bonds and slays a thousand
Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Being thirsty
after this exploit, he is revived by a spring of water
which the Lord causes to flow from the jawbone.
Later while Samson is visiting a harlot in Gaza the
Philistines gather about the city gate in order to seize
him in the morning, but he, rising at midnight, takes
the gate, po,sts and all, and carries it to the top of a
hill in the direction of Hebron. Subsequently he falls
in love with a woman named Dalila of the valley of
Sorec, who is bribed by the Philistines to betray him
into their hands. After deceiving her three times as
to the source of his strength, he finally yields to her
entreaties and confesses that his power is due to the
fact that his head has never been shaved. The para-
mour treacherously causes his locks to be shorn and
he falls helpless into the hands of the Phili.stines who
put out his eyes and cast him into prison. Later,
after his hair has grown again he is brought forth on
the occasion of the fea.st of the god Dagon to be ex-
hibited for the amusement of the populace. The
spectators, among whom are the princes of the Phi-
listines, number more than three thousand, and they
are congregated in, and upon, a great edifice which is
mainly supported by two pillars. These arc seized by
the hero whose strength has returned; he pulls them
down, causing the house to collapse, and perishes him-
self in the ruins together with all the Philistines.
Because of certain re.semblances some scholars have claimed that the biblical account of the career and ex- ploits of Samson is but a Hebrew version of the pa- gan myth of Hercules. This view, however, is noth- ing more than a superficial conjecture lacking serious proof. Still less acceptable is the opinion which sees in the biblical narrative merely the development of a solar myth, and which rests on little more than the admitted but inconclusive derivation of the name Samson from shemesh, "sun". Both views are re- jected by such eminent and independent scholars as Moore and Budde. The story of Samson, like other portions of the Book of Judges, is doubtless derived from the sources of ancient national legend. It has an ethical as well as a religious import, and histori- cally it throws not a little light on the customs and manners of the crude age to which it belongs.
Lagrange, Le Livre des Juges (Paris, 1903); Moore, The Book of Judges in The ' International Critical Commentary (1895); ViGOUROux, Diet, de la Bible, s. v. JamES F. DrISCOLL.
Samson, Abbot of St. Edmunds, b. at Tottington, near Thetford, in 1135; d. 1211. After taking his M.A. in Paris, Samson returned to Norfolk and taught in the school at Bur>'. In 1160 the monks of St. Edmunds sent him to Rome on their behalf to appeal against an agreement of the abbot and King Henry II, and for this on his return Abbot Hugh promptly clapped him into gaol. In 11G6 Sam.son was a fuUv-professed monk, and on his election as abbot on' Hugh's death in 1182 he had filled a number of offices — those of sub-sa(;rist, guest- master, pittancer, third prior, master of novices, and master of the workmen. For the rest of his life, as Abbot of St. Edmunds, Samson worked with prodigious activity for the abbey, for the town, and for the State. He regained the right of joint election of two bailiffs for the abbey and town, made a thorough investigation of the proper-
