Samson Agonistes: The Force of Justice and the Violence of Idolatry

Samson's violence can be understood in terms of how justice is understood. To engage the problem of how to understand John Milton's Samson Agonistes, then, is to approach the problem of divinely sanctioned violence. Milton's understanding of the force of justice is inflected by Exodus, in which God turns forcefully and swiftly against Israel when she is idolatrous, less to punish than to engage in a full-scale effort to deliver her from her own worst impulses. Idolatry encompasses many concepts, some almost at odds with each other. Idolatry is not just any error but injustice, and specifically the injustice of slavery. Milton unleashes, both in his prose and in Samson Agonistes, fury against the bondage of idolatry - and this helps to explain the remarkable appeal of his writing down the ages to those enslaved by the tyrants of nations or by the tyranny of instrumental worship.