Samson Carries Away the Gates: Gaza at Midnight and the Gates of Hell
Old Testament: Judges 16:2-3
And when the Philistines had heard this, and it was noised about among them, that Samson was come into the city, they surrounded him, setting guards at the gate of the city, and watching there all the night in silence, that in the morning they might kill him as he went out. But Samson slept till midnight, and then rising he took both the doors of the gate, with the posts thereof, and the bolt, and laying them on his shoulders, carried them up to the top of the hill, which looketh towards Hebron.
Old Testament, also: Psalms 106:16
Because he hath broken gates of brass, and burst the iron bars.
New Testament: Ephesians 4:8-9; Apocalypse 1:18
Wherefore he saith: Ascending on high, he led captivity captive; he gave gifts to men. Now that he ascended, what is it, but because he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? ... And alive, and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell.
The connection
The Philistines shut Samson inside Gaza and set guards at the gate, "watching there all the night in silence, that in the morning they might kill him as he went out". The city meant to be his tomb could not hold him: "Samson slept till midnight, and then rising he took both the doors of the gate, with the posts thereof, and the bolt, and laying them on his shoulders, carried them up to the top of the hill" (Judges 16:2-3). Christ lay in the grave as His enemies watched it, and rose before the dawn. He did not only walk out of death; He undid its prison. He "descended first into the lower parts of the earth", and "ascending on high, he led captivity captive" (Ephesians 4:8-9). He comes back holding what bars the door: He "was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell" (Apocalypse 1:18). The psalm had sung it already: "he hath broken gates of brass, and burst the iron bars" (Psalms 106:16). St Gregory the Great reads the night at Gaza so: "For as Samson at midnight not only left Gaza, but also carried away the gates of it, so also our Redeemer rising before the light, did not only come out free from hell, but destroyed also the very gates of hell." The Catechism teaches that Christ went down to the realm of the dead not to deliver the damned but to free the just who had gone before Him (CCC 633).
Moral sense
The gates were carried off, not left standing open, so that no one could shut them again. A soul that has been loosed by Christ is not asked to live as a prisoner who might be locked up at dawn: "If therefore the son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). Samson himself fell later, through what he loved more than his vow; the type is a man, and the strength was always God's. What breaks the gates is not our strength but His, and what keeps us out of prison is staying close to the One who holds the keys.
Anagogical sense
The gates Samson carried off belonged to a city of enemies; the last city has gates that never need shutting. "The gates of hell shall not prevail" against the Church (Matthew 16:18), and of the heavenly Jerusalem it is written, "the gates thereof shall not be shut by day: for there shall be no night there" (Apocalypse 21:25). The midnight at Gaza ends in a day without night.
The Fathers
St Gregory the Great, in the Catena Aurea on Mark 16:9: "For as Samson at midnight not only left Gaza, but also carried away the gates of it, so also our Redeemer rising before the light, did not only come out free from hell, but destroyed also the very gates of hell."
Warrant
Patristic. St Gregory the Great sets Samson carrying away the gates of Gaza beside Christ rising before the light and destroying the gates of hell (in the Catena Aurea on Mark 16:9). The New Testament does not name Samson here, so the grade rests on Gregory. Psalm 106:16, the gates of brass broken, is the Church's song of the same victory, and Ephesians 4:9 and Apocalypse 1:18 teach the descent and the keys; on Christ's descent among the dead see CCC 631 to 635. The pairing came from Dunk's reading of Orpheus, the singer who went down for one soul and lost her by looking back; Christ went down for all and did not look back.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 633.
The verses
Judges 16:2 · Judges 16:3 · Psalms 106:16 · Ephesians 4:8 · Ephesians 4:9 · Apocalypse 1:18
