Judges 14:18

Who ever was mightier or more richly endowed from his very cradle with God's Spirit than Samson the Nazarite? Yet was he betrayed by a woman, and by her means failed to retain God's favour...

But it happened on a certain day that a nuptial feast was held, and that the young men inspirited by the banquet provoked each other to sport by question and answer, and as they assailed each other with wanton jests, as is the wont on such occasions, the contest of pleasure waxed hot. And then Samson put forth this riddle to his comrades, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness," promising them as a reward of their sagacity if they guessed it, thirty sheets and as many changes of garments according to the number of the company, while they on their part, if they could not solve the riddle, were to pay a like penalty.

But they, unable to untie the knot and to expound the riddle, induced his wife, partly by intimidation, partly by importunate entreaties, to require from her husband the solution of the riddle to be a token of conjugal affection in return for her love. And she, either terrified, and won over as women are wont to be, as if complaining tenderly of her husband's aversion, began to profess grief that she, the consort and intimate of his whole life, had not learnt this, but that she was treated like the others as one to whom her own husband's secret should not be confided. "Thou dost but hate me," she said, "and lovest me not, thou hast put forth a riddle unto the children of my people and hast not told it me."

Samson's mind, otherwise inflexible, was softened by these and the like blandishments of his wife, and discovered to her his riddle, and she told it to her countrymen. And they, having thus but just learned it on the seventh day, which was the term prescribed for its solution, answered after this manner, "What is sweeter than honey, or what is stronger than a lion?" To which he replied, Nor is ought more treacherous than a woman; "If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle," and he straightway went down to Ascalon, and slew thirty men, and taking their spoils, bestowed on the men who had expounded the riddle their promised reward.

"What," answer they, "is sweeter than honey, and what is stronger than a lion?" To which he replied: "If ye had not farmed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle." O divine mystery! O manifest sacrament! we have escaped from the slayer, we have overcome the strong one. The food of life is now there, where before was the hunger of a miserable death. Dangers are changed into safety, bitterness into sweetness. Grace came forth from the offence, power from weakness, and life from death.

There are, however, who think on the other hand that the wedlock could not have been established unless the lion of the tribe of Judah had been slain; and so in His body, that is, the Church, bees were found who store up the honey of wisdom, because after the Passion of the Lord the apostles believed more fully. This lion, then, Samson as a Jew slew, but in it he found honey, as in the figure of the heritage which was to be redeemed, that the remnant might be saved according to the election of grace.

"And the Spirit of the Lord," it is said, "came upon him, and he went down to Ascalon, and smote thirty men of them." For he could not fail to carry off the victory who saw the mysteries. And so in the garments they receive the reward of wisdom, the badge of intercourse, who resolve and answer the riddle.

Let us see further what kind of a parable Samson proposed to the strangers. “Out of the eater came forth food,” he said, “and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” This parable was revealed, carried to friends and solved. Samson was defeated. If he was a just man, the fact is well hidden and the justice of the man is deep down. For since he is read to have been overcome by the flattery of a woman and went in to a harlot, his merits seem to totter in the eyes of those who do not understand so well the secrets of truth. Indeed, he is commanded by a precept of the Lord to take the harlot as his wife. Perhaps we can say that in the Old Testament this was not blameworthy or disgraceful, seeing that whatever was said or done was a matter of prophecy.

As to the question implied in the words “Out of the eater came forth food, and out of the strong came forth sweetness,” what else does it signify but Christ rising from the dead? Truly, out of the eater, that is, from death which devours and consumes all things, came forth that food which said, “I am the bread that has come down from heaven.” The Gentiles were converted and received the sweetness of life from him whom human iniquity loaded with bitterness and offered bitter vinegar and gall as a drink. Thus, from the mouth of the dead lion, that is, from the death of Christ who lay down and slept like the lion, there proceeded a swarm of bees, that is, of Christians. When Samson said, “If you had not ploughed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle,” this heifer is the church which had the secrets of our faith revealed to her by her husband. By the teaching and preaching of the apostles and saints, she spread to the ends of the earth the mysteries of the Trinity, the resurrection, judgment and the kingdom of heaven, promising the rewards of eternal life to all who understand and know them.