How does Samson foreshadow Christ? Samson is an Old Testament character that is often depicted from the pulpit as a womanizer of marginal character.  However, there seems to be a growing perspective that Samson foreshadows first advent Christ.  Is there any record in Church history that would support this growing perspective?
Early Christian theologians find many analogies or types of Christ, the church, and the world in the story of Samson.  Samson himself is often seen to be a type of Christ, but other times, he is considered a type of the church or even the world.  Caesarius of Arles (468–542) writes extensively on the analogies he sees in Samson's story, and summarizes his method of analysis:

What was the meaning of Samson? If I say he signified Christ, it seems to me that I speak the truth.  However, the thought immediately occurs to anyone who reflects: Was Christ overcome by the flattery of a woman?  How is Christ understood to have gone in to a harlot? [...] Inasmuch as Samson performed virtues and miracles he prefigured Christ, the head of the Church.  When he acted prudently, he was an image of those who live justly in the Church, but when he was overtaken and acted carelessly, he represented those who are sinners in the Church. (118.3)1

This is an important point: the authors identifying Samson with Christ do not do so blindly.  Their methods of biblical interpretation allow a variety of images to be drawn from the text, and sometimes more than one.  One stark example will suffice for our purposes here: when Samson kills the lion in Judges 14:5–9, Caesarius sees the lion as an image of Christ, since &quot;to us Christ is a lion in whose mouth we found the food of honey after His death&quot; (119.1).  Conversely, Samson, far from typifying Jesus, is said to represent the &quot;Jewish people who killed Christ&quot; (119.2). However, as we'll see, other writers make different connections in this particular story.
Turning now specifically to the connections drawn between Christ and Samson, we can put them into a few categories:

Samson's wife
Samson's humiliation
Samson's victories over his enemies

We'll draw primarily on the writings of Caesarius, but also those of Ephrem the Syrian (306–373), Augustine (354–430), and Gregory the Great (540–604).2
Samson's wife
One place where Caesarius sees Samson representing Jesus is in his relationship with his Philistine wife.  Like Christ, Samson takes a sinful bride:

The harlot whom Samson married is the Church which committed fornication with idols before knowing one God, but which Christ afterwards united to Himself. (118.3)

The analogy is extended to Samson's friend, who took away Samson's wife:

Then follow the words: 'Samson was angry because a friend married his wife.'  This friend prefigured all heretics.  It is a great mystery, my brethren.  Heretics who divide the Church have wanted to marry the wife of the Lord and carry her away. (118.4)

Samson's humiliation and death
Samson's final humiliation begins when his hair is cut in Judges 16:18–21.  Caesarius writes that the strength found in Samson's hair is analogous to the &quot;strength in a covering&quot; that Jesus had &quot;when the shadows of the old law protected him.&quot;  When the law was rejected by the killers of Christ, he suffered, and his purpose was revealed, like Samson suffered and had his secret exposed when his &quot;covering&quot; was cut. (118.6)
This humiliation led to Samson's imprisonment and death, paralleling Christ's:

Samson was condemned to prison, while Christ deigned to descend into hell.  Samson extended his hands to the pillars, and the house of the Philistines fell with its princes; Christ stretched out His hands to the two beams of the cross as to two pillars, overthrowing and destroying the house or kingdom of the devil and his angels. (120.4)
Notice here an image of the cross.  Samson extends his hands spread out to the two columns as to the two beams of the cross. (118.6)

Samson's victories over enemies
Lion
Unlike Caesarius, Ephrem the Syrian sees Samson as an type of Christ in his defeat of the lion:

The Nazirite, Samson, gazed at the type
of Your courage. He tore the lion apart,
the likeness of death.  You ripped [death] asunder
and made the sweet life emerge
from its bitterness for human beings3

Similarly, Augustine:

Who was in Samson, when he killed the lion that met him as he went to get a wife among strangers, but He who, when going to call His Church from among the Gentiles, said, &quot;Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world?&quot;4

Philistines with the jawbone
Caesarius notes several places where Samson's victory over his enemies parallels that of Christ.  For example, his defeat of 1,000 Philistines in Judges 15:14–16:

Before the coming of Christ all the Gentiles were torn to pieces by the devil and lay scattered like dry bones form the ass's body, but when Christ the true Samson came, He seized them all in His holy hands.  He restored them to the hands of His power, and with them overcame His and our adversaries. (119.4)

Philistines and their gates
Samson's capture and subsequent victory over the Philistines in Judges 16:1–3 is explained by Gregory the Great as an image of Christ's death and resurrection:

What does the city of Gaza signify, if not hell, the abode of the dead?  What is shown by the Philistines, if not the mistaken confidence of the Jews?  For, when the Jews saw that the Lord was dead, and his body placed in the tomb, they posted guards around it.  They were delighted that Jesus, whom the author of life had glorified, was now held captive by the gates of death, just as the Philistines were exultant that they had imprisoned Samson in Gaza.  However, in the middle of the night, Samson not only escaped, but carried the gates away with him.  Just so did our Redeemer, rising against before it was light, not only walk free out of death and of hell, but also destroy hell's very gates.5

Caesarius sees matters similarly, and, like Gregory, extends the image to include the ascension:

Moreover, he removed the city gates, that is, He took away the gates of hell.  What does it mean to remove the gates of hell, except to take away the power of death? He took it away and did not return it.  Furthermore, what did our Lord Jesus Christ do after He had taken away the gates of death?  He went up to the top of a mountain.  Truly, we know that He both arose and ascended into heaven. (118.5)

Philistines in death
Of course, Samson's greatest victory is associated with his death, like Christ's:

In the fact that he is written to have destroyed more enemies at his death than he struck before in the whole course of his life, the mystery of the Lord's Passion is shown, for through it the house of the devil fell and the kingdom of death was shattered. (120.4)

Ephrem connects the freedom Samson purchases with his life to that of Christ:

Samson is a type of the death of Christ the high priest:
Samson's death returns prisoners to their towns,
whereas the High Priest's death has returned us to our heritage6

Summary
Christian theologians in the fourth century identified Samson with Christ in particular ways, and additional analogies were developed by authors in the centuries immediately following.  In particular, the humiliation and victories of Samson lend themselves to parallels with the humiliation and final victory of Christ.

References and notes:

Caesarius of Arles, Sermons 118, 119, and 120, in  Sermons, Volume 2
Ambrose teaches on Samson in On the Holy Spirit, Book II, but does not connect Samson to Christ in the same way as do the other authors here.  Jerome says that &quot;every one of the popular leaders&quot; in Judges is a type of some kind in Letter 53.  Samson receives only fleeting mention in the surviving writigs of the earliest fathers.
Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns, Hymn 13.4, 137
Augustine, Reply to Faustus, Book XII, §32
Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies, 21, in Reading the Gospels with Gregory the Great, 36
Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns on Paradise, 13.12.13, in Ancient Christian Commentary, 167