XL.
"And[1] he found the jaw-bone of an ass."[2] It is to be observed that, after [Samson had committed] fornication, the holy Scripture no longer speaks of the things happily accomplished by him in connection with the formula, "The Spirit of the Lord came upon him."[3] For thus, according to the holy apostle, the sin of fornication is perpetrated against the bodv, as involving also sin against the temple of God.[4]
XLI.
This[5] indicates the persecution against the church set on foot by the nations who still continue in unbelief. But he (Samson) who suffered those things, trusted that there would be a retaliation against those waging this war. But retaliation through what means? First of all, by his betaking himself to the Rock[6] not cognizable to the senses;[7] secondly, by the finding of the jaw-bone of an ass. Now the type of the jaw-bone is the body of Christ.
XLII.
Speaking always well of the worthy, but never ill of the unworthy, we also shall attain to the glory and kingdom of God.
XLIII.
In[8] these things there was signified by prophecy that the
- ↑ This and the four following fragments are taken from mss. in the Vatican Library at Rome. They are apparently quoted from the homiletical expositions of the historical books already referred to.
- ↑ Judg. xv. 15.
- ↑ Judg. xiv. 6–19.
- ↑ 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17.
- ↑ These words were evidently written during a season of persecution in Gaul; but what that persecution was, it is useless to conjecture.
- ↑ Judg. xv. 11.
- ↑ That is, when he fled to the rock Etam, he typified the true believer taking refuge in the spiritual Rock, Christ.
- ↑ Most probably from a homily upon the third and fourth chapters of Ezekiel. It is found repeated in Stieren's and Migne's edition as Fragment xlviii. extracted from a Catena on the Book of Judges.
