When Samson was shut in at Gaza by the Philistines, the double leaves of the city gate were held together by a bar, without the lifting of which the doors could not be opened. “And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts [the upright stiles, at the bottom of which were the knuckles that turned in the threshold sockets], and plucked them up, bar [cross-bar or latch] and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.”[674] I have in my possession a bronze door-socket and knuckle of an ancient gate or door, unearthed from a mound in the vicinity of Ghuzzeh, the site of ἡ τύχηancient Gaza, that meets this description. [Illustration] In primitive symbolism, as shown in Babylonia, Egypt, and India, the circle or ring, like this socket, represents woman. It would be interesting, in this connection, to follow out the meanings and uses of the Greek words πυθμήν (_puthmēn_), root φυ (_phu_); and φλιή (_phliē_), doorpost, root φλι (_phli_); compare φλέω (_phleō_), φίλος (_philos_). It is evident that the twofold idea of the threshold of life, and the threshold, or sockets, of the door, is in the uses of these terms and their derivatives in earlier and later Greek. But only this suggestion can be made here. The correspondence of “woman” and “door,” or of “wife” and “threshold,” in the Arabic, has already been pointed out.[675] A similar suggestion is in Sanskrit terms.[676] In Germany, even at the present time, a common term for “woman” is “woman chamber” (_frauenzimmer_), as in Arabic _hareema_ is a woman, while _hareem_ is the women’s apartment. A remark attributed to a prominent American clergyman, as showing the naturalness of the figure of woman as a door, is: “He who marries a wife opens a door, through which unborn generations shall troop.” A Chinese character is the representation of “threshold,” of “door,” and also of “woman.”[677] It is suggested by the lexicographer that the origin of this character was a small door in a large gate, as the inner door to the hareem or women’s apartments; but it seems probable, from the correspondence of this twofold idea with the primitive thought of woman as the door of humanity, that the Chinese character must have had an origin prior to that degree of civilization which recognized such a classification in household apartments. The combination of “door” and “border” is another Chinese character[678] that stands for “threshold” or “door-sill.”[679] Confucius said that this threshold “should not be trodden on when walking through” the door. ----- Footnote 668: See, for example, 197 f., _supra_. Footnote 669: See also citations from Buxtorf at p. 200, _supra_. Footnote 670: See pp. 127, 132 f., 207 f., _supra_. Footnote 671: See p. 207 f., _supra_. Footnote 672: _Handwörterbuch_, Mülhan and Volck, 11th ed., s. v. Footnote 673: