And he struck them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock of Etam.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
Moreover, Samson did not live with the girl whose treachery he had discovered but, instead, returned home to his own country. But the maid, in fear and dread of the wrath of one so wronged, afraid lest his wrath be vented on her, agreed to marry another man, one whom Samson considered a friend of his, a bridal companion on his wedding day. Even though their union was offered as an excuse, she did not escape the peril of his hatred. When this became known and he was denied an opportunity of going to his wife, for her father said that she had married someone else, but that he might, if he wished, marry her sister, sorely stung with wrong, he made plans to wreak public revenge in anger over his personal affront. He caught three hundred foxes and, at the end of summer when the grain was ripe in the fields, coupled them tail to tail and fastened torches between their tails, tying them with unbreakable knots. Then, to avenge the affront, he sent them into the standing corn fields which the P...
Then follow the words “Samson was angry because a friend married his wife.” This friend prefigured all heretics. It is a great mystery, my brothers. Heretics who divide the church have wanted to marry the wife of the Lord and carry her away. By departing from the church and the Gospels, they attempt through adulterous wickedness to seize the church, that is, the body of Christ, as their portion. For this reason that faithful servant and friend of the Lord’s bride says, “I betrothed you to one spouse, that I might present you a chaste virgin to Christ.” Moreover, through the zeal of faith and a rebuke he touches the person of his wicked companion: “And I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve, so your minds may be corrupted from the truth which is in Christ Jesus.” Who are the companions, that is, the heretical deserters who want to seize the Lord’s spouse, unless Donatus, Arius, Manichaeus, and other vessels of error and perdition? - "Sermon 118.4"
