Samson in rabbinic literature x. 13), was a member of that clan (comp. I Chronicles iv. 3). The name "Samson" is derived from "shemesh" ("sun"), so that Samson bore the name of God, who is also "a sun and shield" (Psalm lxxxiv. 12 [A. V. 11]); and as God protected Israel, so did Samson watch over it in his generation, judging the people even as did God. Samson's strength was divinely derived (Sotah 10a); and he further resembled God in requiring neither aid nor help (Genesis Rabba xcviii. 18). In the blessings which Jacob pronounced on the tribe of Dan (Genesis xlix. 16-17) he
Samson of Tottington as Samson was trying to undermine his rival William the Sacrist, who had business links with the town's Jews. Samson also seems to have promoted the cult of the alleged boy-martyr Robert of Bury at a time when the abbot of Norwich was attempting to assert authority over Bury. Norwich was the home of the rival boy-martyr William of Norwich. Pope Lucius III made Samson a judge delegate in ecclesiastical causes; he served on the commission for settling the quarrel between Hubert Walter and the monks of Canterbury; and on the Royal Council in London, where he sat as a