[Milton-L] Reading Samson Agonistes

[Carol Barton]

Jim, reading your most recent post: I think you still have to factor in 
patience, fortitude, and--above all--"Love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, with all thy strength, and with all thy might."

Isn't that what Samson's doing--literally--when not knowing what he's 
supposed to do at the pillars until the moment that he does it--he follows 
God's will rather than his own? Like Jesus, he's aware that "of [
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Rovira" <jamesrovira at gmail.com>
To: "John Milton Discussion List" <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2008 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Reading Samson Agonistes


> Derek:
>
> Thanks for the response.  Hopefully this will be a productive
> conversation for both of us.
>
> You may have missed it, but I made an argument to this effect in a
> previous email.  I argued that Samson was listed as a "hero of faith"
> because of his moral failings, yes.  But I defined these moral
> failings in terms of his violation of all three terms of his Nazirite
> vow (his hair being cut was the last one).  Despite the fact that he
> was no longer obedient to the terms of his vow, he prayed to God for
> strength and was heard.  So he didn't fulfill the requirements of the
> law but did receive his strength -- justification by faith.  I think I
> also mentioned Rahab in this context.  So our disagreement is in our
> location of Samson's moral failings, and what seems to me to be your
> uncritical assumption that Samson's killing of the three thousand is
> the moral failing that qualifies him for being a hero of faith to the
> author of Hebrews.
>
> First, as I said previously, Christian thought is hardly uniform in
> its judgment of actions such as Samson's.  From a pacifist perspective
> they are immoral, yes.  From a Just War theory perspective, probably
> not, because he was acting in resistance to an invading and occupying
> force.  In the thought of the latter not all killing is murder.  You
> may disagree, of course, but you still need to acknowledge the
> presence of a significant tradition along these lines within
> Christianity rather than assume that -the- Christian judgment on
> Samson's killing of the 3000 would be uniform.
>
> Part of my response to you was that you're judging Samson's acts by NT
> standards (love your enemies), and I don't think that's valid
> reasoning.  I gave the reasons in a previous post.  However, I don't
> think you're even reasoning properly from Hebrews 11.  Samson is
> listed as a hero of faith along with a number of other people in Heb.
> 11:32-38.  One difficulty in interpreting this passage in Hebrews is
> that there's a list of people followed by a list of deeds,  and it's
> very difficult to line the two up, but the listed deeds that seem most
> applicable to Samson are "administering justice" (really, many listed
> could be said to have done that) and having his "weakness turned to
> strength" (in physical terms, only Samson) as well as being in prison
> and in chains (could also apply to several).
>
> I think we should see that Samson is a "hero of faith" to the author
> of Hebrews not -in spite of- the fact that he killed 3000 people, but
> -because of- the fact that he killed 3000 people.  Samson prayed to
> God for strength to pull down the pillars to kill all those people,
> his prayer -was answered by God-, so he is a hero of faith.  At no
> point do any NT authors explicitly condemn Samson on this point and
> the pertinent passage in Hebrews seems to praise him, never mind the
> narrative of Judges.  His moral failings should be defined only in
> terms of OT law, and those would be marrying a Philistine woman and
> breaking the terms of his vow.  His manner of delivering Israel from
> the Philistines was not a moral failing (at least on his own terms),
> as this act was in accordance with Jewish law (see the terms of the
> covenant in Deut. 27).
>
> I think killing all the Philistine nobility and other leadership
> probably did qualify for beginning the deliverance of Israel --
> because the terms of the Mosaic covenant have to do primarily with
> God's blessing on their land and with maintaining sovereignty over
> it-- and because it would be very difficult for the Philistines to
> maintain an occupation of Israel without a government.
>
> At any rate, given both OT and NT justification for Samson's act of
> killing, it seems that the verbal ambiguity about Samson's prayer in
> Milton's text is a striking deviation on Milton's part.  There is no
> ambiguity in the source text -- Samson clearly prays, and Samson's
> prayer is clearly heard and answered by God, so that Samson's killing
> of 3000 Philistines is clearly an act of Divine retribution.  Milton's
> verbal ambiguity seems to me to indicate a personal ambiguity toward
> Samson's act, an ambiguity that may have come from parallels Milton
> saw in Samson's story with his own situation -- perhaps, the very
> reasons he chose to retell Samson's story to begin with.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 3:06 PM, Derek Wood <dwood at stfx.ca> wrote:
>>  Jim,
>>  You clearly have an expectation about how a 'hero of faith' should 
>> behave. Where does it come from? Does the Bible tell us? Should he be a 
>> nice Jewish boy who obeys his mother, doesn't get drunk, pick fights and 
>> kill people he doesn't like? You're in good company because most Milton 
>> scholars in the 20th C. did just that. Assuming the hero of faith must be 
>> good, they constructed one, ignoring Milton's text where it was awkward. 
>> But does the Bible present the morality of the hero of faith? It does: in 
>> the story of Samson, of Rahab the harlot etc. Isn't the murder of 3000 
>> people homicide? Samson was saved by faith not works. Of course we don't 
>> expect him to behave like Christ.  Christ brought a New Covenant better 
>> than the Old one. In PR Christ refuses Satan's offer of legions, military 
>> power,  dominion etc. PR. echoes many moments in SA (e.g. the motions) 
>> but only to contrast the new Christian ethic with the OT consciousness 
>> and morality. Christ dies as does Samson but how !
> differsntly! Remember, Milton, unlike many Protestants, disagreed with 
> Luther and Calvin in abrogating the Old Testament rules and morality. 
> Samson did the best he could, but he was 'exiled from light.' Remember the 
> angelic promise before his birth, that he would begin the deliverance of 
> Israel? There isn't much evidence that it waas fulfilled.
>>  Best wishes,
>>  Derek Wood.
>>
>
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