Perhaps the central aspect of Samson Agonistes is that Milton has internalised the action; until the reported catastrophe at the temple of Dagon the action takes place within the mind of Samson. Milton records Samson's recovery of his vocation and return to divine favour not in terms of the hero's actions, but choosing to focus on the development of his spiritual awareness and education. The Aristotelian 'middle' of the tragedy (which Dr. Johnson found to be so wanting) is found here, in the spiritual dynamics of the play. Many modern critics would agree with A. Barker that 'Samson's experience is so far from having no middle that it is in effect all middle.'
For the most part, modern critics have read Samson Agonistes as Milton's study in spiritual regeneration. It has often been asserted that the ideas advocated in De Doctrina Christiana provided the backbone for Milton's poetic handling of Samson's spiritual development. Indeed, the 'process' of Samson's spiritual rebirth or 'regeneration' is taken from the Miltonic doctrines of renovation and regeneration outlined in De Doctrina.
Theological interpretations of the tragedy are useful in deciphering Samson's recovery from sin and death to divine grace - a spiritual journey from temporal darkness to inner light and from loss to restoration. This spiritual regeneration is paralleled in the time scheme of the play; according to the classical precepts of tragedy, Milton takes his reader from the first encounter with Samson at the prison in Gaza in early morning to the climax in the temple of Dagon at high noon. Indeed, Samson's recovery of divine grace is located at the centre of the plot.
Samson's renovation has already begun when we are first introduced at the prison in Gaza. The germ of the hero's regeneration emerges in the middle of his opening soliloquy (l.46).
'A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun or shade,
There I am wont to sit, when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,
Daily in the common prison else enjoined me,
Where I a prisoner chained, scarce freely draw
The air imprisoned also, close and damp,
Unwholesome draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of heaven fresh blowing, pure and sweet,
With day-spring born; here leave me to respire.' (1-11)
The ambiguous imagery of the 'guiding hand' by which the blind Samson is helped up the dark steps of the prison serves as both the hand of the unnamed figure, and more subtly, the hand of God. This allusion is emblematic of the mysterious workings of divine grace and the possibility for rebirth. Through subtle literary allusion, Milton indicates that for Samson, even though fallen from God's favour, free will is operative from the outset. The dark steps prefigure the latent stages of his enlightenment and regeneration. The embankment offers Samson 'choice of sun or shade', light or dark. The gentle leading of the unseen hand is as much spiritual as it is physical.
Samson's initial response to renovating grace issues lies in self-pity and vocational murmurings against the ways of Providence. However, like Adam, recognition of his own sin allows Samson to begin the journey towards reconciliation with God. Right reason is restored in Samson, and he takes his first step towards regeneration almost simultaneously by conceding responsibility for his present condition:
'Yet stay, let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine prediction; what if all foretold
Had been fulfilled but through mine own default,
Whom have I to complain of but myself?' (ll.43-6)
Samson's sense of guilt and recognition of his sin provides the germination of his gradual return to God. Conviction of sin is the first of the 'progressive steps' of repentance Milton outlined in De Doctrina Christiana. Nevertheless, in redemptive theology Samson's position at this point of the tragedy is still precarious. The hero still laments his vocation, and by implication questions God's ways,
'O impotence of mind, in body strong!
But what is strength without a double share
Of wisdom, vast, unwieldy, burdensome,
Proudly secure, yet liable to fall
By weakest subtleties, not made to rule,
But to subserve where wisdom bears command.' (ll.52-7)
In Paradise Lost, Adam questioned God's wisdom for not arming him against the threat of passion; so Samson's words here rebuke God's 'failure' that he was not granted wisdom equal enough to his strength. Samson's sense of guilt is the first step in his potential recovery. Conversely, his sense of abandonment by God and doubts about his vocation, lead him to despair. The Chorus first describes Samson, 'As one past hope, abandoned, / And by himself given over' (ll.120-1). During the first two acts of the drama he is continually tempted to yield to despair. This mortal sin of tristitia, places man farthest remove from God - a sin for which no forgiveness is possible, as Milton notes, it 'falls upon the reprobate alone'.
However Samson's despair, his tristitia, is reversed by the first movements of repentance the hero he has taken by recognising his guilt and taking responsibility for his fall. The purpose of the first Act is to outline Samson's remorse, sense of spiritual despair, and the germination of his spiritual regeneration and return to his vocation. However, Samson is not by any means moving towards a predestined end - his fate lies in his own use of reason and free will as he is called to respond to renovating grace. It is significant, too, that Milton develops the theme of Samson's regeneration (that is, his response to the vocatio generalis) in terms of his growing understanding of his special vocation. His initial realisation is that he has, through sin, failed in his role as deliverer; and this recognition leads, as he discusses his two marriages with the Chorus, to further insight into the causes of his fall from favour and takes him a step further in repentance:
'The first I saw at Timna, and she pleased
Me, not my parents, that I sought to wed,
The daughter of an infidel: they knew not
That what I motioned was of God; I knew
From intimate impulse, and therefore urged
The marriage on; that by occasion hence
I might begin Israel's deliverance,
The work to which I was divinely called;
She proving false, the next I took to wife
(O that I never had! fond wish too late.)
Was in the vale of Sorec, Dalila,
That specious monster, my accomplished snare,
I thought it lawful from my former act,
And the same end; still watching to oppress
Israel's oppressors: of what now I suffer
She was not the prime cause, but I myself
Who vanquished with a peal of words (O weakness!)
Gave up my fort of silence to a woman.' (ll.219-36)
The marriage to the woman of Timnath contravened Nazaritic laws. However, it was divinely ordained and therefore Samson pursued it to 'begin Israel's deliverance, / The work to which was divinely called'. God's servants are required to obey His will, even if this entails contravening divine law. His marriage to Dalila, however, even though he sought to continue his vocation against the Philistines through it, was not divinely ordained; it was undertaken by Samson's own accord to pursue what he felt to be God's plan for the liberation of Israel ('I thought it lawful from my former act, / And the same end'). In marrying Dalila Samson was thus guilty of presumption - although his intentions were good, it was done without divine ordinance. Samson presumed that as God's elect his actions must always actively engaged in God's service, failing to realise God's will for the liberation of Israel must be executed in His own time.
As God's will is mysterious to mankind Samson must await further instruction. But the hero's desire for action led him to presume, and thus fall from grace. Presumption led to other sins which accentuate its gravity - namely the loss of his humility and pride. Samson's victories were God's will. However, Samson took personal pride in and credit for these feats, forgetting the divine origins of his strength, he acted 'like a petty god / ...admired of all and dreaded / On hostile ground, none daring my affront' (ll.329- 31). With this Samson's humility before God inevitably eroded.
Therefore, a precondition for Samson's reinstatement as an instrument of God is that he must be educated. He must learn the lesson of humility so that he can manifest absolute submission before God. He must learn the lesson of patience to patiently await God's commands. Furthermore, Samson must learn the lesson of faith - in spite of his sins and his present situation, he must trust divine mercy and have faith in his special calling. These are the preconditions or virtues that Samson must freely embrace to bring his spiritual regeneration and compensate for the three sins of pride, presumption and doubt he is guilty of. It is only through suffering and a series of 'good temptations' that Samson passes to purification and the fulfilment of his divinely ordained vocation to deliver Israel.
The Messenger describes in detail the circumstances of Samson's death (ll.1596-1659). He relates that, in spite of the scorn and derision which rang out at his appearance, Samson in pursuit of his vocation was 'patient and undaunted' and that he stood before destroying the temple:
'with head a while inclined,
And eyes fast fixed... as one who prayed,
Or some great matter in his mind revolved.' (ll.1636-8)
Even here Samson is governed by free will. The act of pulling down the temple is an act of responsive choice, a free action in which Samson's will co-operates with the will of God. Although Samson or the other characters are unaware of it, the hero's 'great act' prefigures Christ's mission of universal salvation - his posture in the temple, and his physical deliverance of his nation from bondage.
In accordance with Milton's theology, it is not only Samson to whom spiritual recovery is available - Manoa and the Chorus are 'called' by their involvement in Samson's experience. At the end of the tragedy they are invested 'With peace and consolation /... And calm of mind all passion spent' (ll.1755-8). In the first four acts of the tragedy Samson achieves 'true experience' and understanding of God's ways to men. The purpose of the fifth act, in the context of Milton's theological concerns, is to educate Manoa and the Chorus in these same virtues.
Equally, Dalila and Harapha are also 'called' to co-operate with universal grace, and Samson's development must be seen as being, potentially, an analogue of the regenerative experience offered to but declined by them through their own free will. Like Satan and his retinue of followers, their ambition and selfish behaviour renders them 'self-condemned' and 'self-blinded'. Ironically, as they serve as 'good' temptation that ultimately strengthens Samson, visiting him in the prison at Gaza weakens their respective faiths. This is the working of the freedom to accept or reject God that Milton believed so strongly in.
At the beginning of the last act Manoa arrives to reveal to the Chorus hope that he can ransom Samson from the Philistines. Lacking understanding of God's mysterious ways and the process of Samson's regeneration, Manoa attempts to substitute himself for God (thinking God has deserted the hero) in pursuit of his son's redemption:
For his redemption all my patrimony,
If need be, I am ready to forgo
And quit,' (ll.1482-4)
The great irony lies in that while Manoa has been engaged with the Philistines for Samson's physical release, with God's aid Samson has experienced spiritual regeneration that has released him from bondage and departed to fulfil his vocation. Manoa has understood the possibility of Samson's redemption purely in human terms, failing to realise that his attempt to assist his son would merely change Samson's physical location without the necessary transformation of his spirit. During the discussion between Manoa of the attempt to ransom Samson, the hero performs his 'great act' of deliverance at the temple of Dagon.
Such limited awareness is not confined to Manoa. The Chorus fails to recognise the significant spiritual pattern of Samson's responses to his visitors in the earlier acts. They cannot comprehend Samson's initial decision to disobey the Officer's command or his ultimate resolution, which is prompted by the 'rousing motions' of divine instruction, to accompany the Officer to the temple.
Because of Samson's particular calling (i.e. a degree of grace higher than their own), neither the Chorus nor Manoa can share directly in Samson's experience. However, they are expected to see in Samson the pattern of their own vocation (albeit higher than that expected of them by God) to spiritual rebirth. Samson serves as an exemplum of the spiritual heroism that frees the responsive servant from the innermost prison of sin and death. Finally in the fifth act Manoa and the Chorus begin to comprehend the spiritual pattern of Samson's victory.
The Chorus realise 'living or dying' Samson has 'fulfilled / The work for which foretold / To Israel'. They comprehend Samson has given his life to God, and to Israel, in answer to divine calling. They are also aware of the importance of Samson's actions for Israel. With unconscious irony the Chorus expresses its sense of the momentousness of Samson's great act,
But he though blind of sight,
Despised and thought extinguished quite,
With inward eyes illuminated
His fiery virtue roused
From under ashes into sudden flame,
...
So virtue given for lost,
Depressed, and overthrown, as seemed,
Like that self-begotten bird
In the Arabian woods embossed,
That no second knows nor third,
And lay erewhile a holocaust,
From out her ashy womb now teemed,
Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most
When most unactive deemed,
And though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird ages of lives.' (ll.1687- 1706)
Manoa's approach to Samson's death is altogether more pragmatic. Nevertheless with his limited vision, Manoa manages consolation and spiritual insight - 'Samson hath quit himself / Like Samson', declaring his son has conferred upon Israel,
'Honour... and freedom, let but them
Find courage to lay hold on this occasion,
To himself and father's house eternal fame;
And which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him, as was feared,
But favouring and assisting to the end.' (ll.1715-20)
For the Chorus and Manoa it is apparent that through his recovery of virtue Samson has been restored to his vocation as God's 'faithful champion'. They understand his victory is as much spiritual as physical - the catharsis of his inner triumph is as important as that over the Philistine oppressor and idolatrous religion. Having received a new understanding of God's ways and a new sense of religious purpose the Hebrew Chorus concludes,
'All is best, though we oft doubt,
What the unsearchable dispose
Of highest wisdom brings about,
And ever best found in the close.
Oft he seems to hide his face,
But unexpectedly returns
And to his faithful champion hath in place
Bore witness gloriously; whence Gaza mourns
And all that band them to resist
His uncontrollable intent,
His servants he with new acquist
Of true experience from this great event
With peace and consolation hath dismissed,
And calm of mind all passion spent.' (ll.1745-58)
Finally, the reader, with the knowledge of written revelation and typology Milton would have taken for granted, is expected to lay down Samson Agonistes with new insight into the mysterious workings of Providence.