HERODIANS ('Hpωδιαvoi), a sect or party mentioned in Scripture as having on two occasions—once in Galilee, and again in Jerusalem—manifested an unfriendly disposition towards Jesus (Mark iii. 6; xii. 13; Matt, xxii. 6; cf. also Mark viii. 15). In each of these cases their name is coupled with that of the Pharisees. According to many interpreters the courtiers or soldiers of Herod Anti pas (“Milites Herodis,” Jerome; “Diener Herodis,” Luther) are intended; but more probably the Herodians were a public political party, who distinguished themselves from the two great historical parties of post-exilian Judaism by the fact that they were and had been sincerely friendly to Herod the Great and to his dynasty (c∕. such formations as “Caesariani,” “Pompeiani ”). For the evidence which goes to show that neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducees as such could in consistency have been really thus friendly, reference may be made to Hausrath (especially his NeuTestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, and article “Herodianer” in Schenkel’s Bibel- Lexicon), and to Wellhausen (Pharisäer u. Sadducäer, 1873). It is possible that, to gain adherents, the Herodian party may have been in the habit of representing that the establishment of a Herodian dynasty would be favourable to the realization of the theocracy; and this in turn may suggest some explanation of Tertullian’s (De Proescr.) palpably absurd allegation that the Herodians regarded Herod himself as the Messiah.

a sect among the Jews at the time of Jesus Christ, mentioned Matt. xxii, 16; Mark iii, 6; viii, 15; xii, 13; but passed over in silence both by Josephus and Philo. The critics and commentators on the New Testament are very much divided with regard to the Herodians; some making them to be a political party, and others a religious sect. The former opinion is favoured by the author of the Syriac version, who calls them the domestics of Herod; and also by Josephus’s having passed them over in silence, though he professes to give an account of the several religious sects of the Jews. The latter opinion is countenanced by our Lord’s caution against “the leaven of Herod,” which implies that the Herodians were distinguished from the other Jews by some doctrinal tenets. M. Basnage supposes, that one thing meant by the leaven of the Herodians might be a conformity to Roman customs in some points which were forbidden the Jews: if this was the case, it is not strange that they are not mentioned by Josephus among the Jewish sects. St. Jerom, in his Dialogue against the Luciferians, takes the name to have been given to such as owned Herod for the Messiah; and Tertullian, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, and Theophylact, among the ancients; and Grotius, and other moderns, are of the same sentiment. But the same St. Jerom, in his Comment on St. Matthew, treats this opinion as ridiculous; and indeed it must be highly improbable. He maintains that the Pharisees gave this appellation, by way of derision, to Herod’s soldiers, who paid tribute to the Romans; agreeably to which the Syriac interpreters render the word by the domestics of Herod, that is, his courtiers. M. Simon, in his notes on the twenty-second chapter of St. Matthew, advances a more probable opinion. The name Herodian, he ...

HERODIANUS, the author of a Greek history of the period extending from 180 to 238 a.d. Of his origin and condition in life very little is known. He was in Rome in 203, and seems to have held some public office. It has been conjectured that he was first “procurator Caesaris”and afterwards “legatus” of the Sicilian provinces, and that, while fulfilling his official duties, he wrote at intervals the history which bears his name. It is entitled Ήρωδιανου της μcτa Μάρκον Βασιλείας ιστοριών βιβλία οκτώ, and it narrates the events of the fifty-eight years that intervened between the death of Marcus Aurelius and the proclamation of Gordianus III. The narrative is of special value for the reigns of the emperors subsequent to Alexander Severus, with whom the work of Dion Cassius ends. As an historian Herodianu3 has prominent merits and defects. His work has the value that attaches to a record written by one chronicling the events of his own times, gifted with respectable powers of observation, indubitable candour, and independence of view. But he prefers the interest of style to the interest of truth, and is thus led into exaggerations and errors. The inner life anl thought of Rome, the formidable barbarian pressure on her borders, are alike unheeded, that he may blazon his pages with the dazzling vicissitudes of the purple. Though the somewhat sober declamations which he introduces are apt to become tedious, his story is on the whole clear, graceful, and vivacious. The frequent antitheses and studied tricks of phrase savour of the rhetorical schools. Imitations of Thucydides and Latinisms are frequent. Yet in the main his style retains an original cast, a genuine unborrowed beauty, and contrasts favourably with the thin, ...