Herodians meaning

Meaning

Fear-Driven Wusses

Etymology

From the name Ηρωδης (Herodes), Herod, perhaps from ערד ('arad), to flee.

Related names

• Via Ηρωδης (Herodes): Herod, Herodias, Herodion

The Herodians were a Jewish party, active in the first century — and it must be immediately emphasized that in that time, there was no distinction between theology and statecraft or religion and politics. The Herodians are mentioned by name in Matthew 22:16, Mark 3:6 and 12:13 only, and alluded to in Mark 8:15 and Acts 4:27. They are invariably mentioned together with the Pharisees, with whom they got along well and most probably somewhat overlapped (meaning that some Pharisees were Herodians as well).

The Herodians, as seems obvious, supported the monarchy and family of Herod, who was an Edomite (not even an Israelite) and nominal convert to both Judaism and Roman Imperial State Theology, which deified both the Roman Emperor and the State and acknowledged a broad array of other gods, all supposedly subservient to, but in practice often rebelling against, the chief of the gods: Jupiter. The great Julius Caesar had been the first to be deified, so that his legal son Octavian not only became the first Emperor, Augustus, and dubbed king-of-kings and savior-of-the-world, but also the son-of-god whose birthday was celebrated as the good-news, or evangel. A century after all this, a small group of Jewish authors hijacked these lofty imperial terms and applied them to Jesus of Nazareth.

As a political-religious party, the Herodians sought to preserve the peace by consolidating the demands of Rome and the desires of Israel. This wasn't only doomed from the offset but also required a stupendous ignorance of both. But still, as such, they opposed:

• The Hasmonean supporters, who demanded that Israel's independence was restored and a native Jew, a proper descendant of David even, placed on the throne. Since such a person was invariably referred to as the Anointed, or Messiah in Hebrew and Christ in Greek, the Greek-speaking Hasmoneans were probably the ones who were originally referred to as Christians (which means "under the anointed"). These people are spoken of in John 6:15: "So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone."
• The Pharisees, who cooperated with the Romans in matters of statecraft and tax raising, and even supported the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew canon. Their comprise was possibly well-intended but inevitably resulted in idolatry. Much of the tension between Jesus and the Pharisees in the New Testament arises from Jesus showing that the Greek Septuagint didn't work and could not demonstrate the Living God as the Hebrew original does. Jesus, famously, urged to separate the things of Ceasar and the things of God, and give each their own, possibly meaning that true disciples of the Word don't bother with nation states and their self-declared identities and borders and warcraft (Revelation 22:2 implies that a state is a sickness).
• The Sadducees, who rejected the idea of resurrection, which caused the Romans to reject them because, as part of their Imperial Theology, the Romans figured that the Empire was a resurrected version of the Republic.
• The Zealots and Sicarii and such, who were terrorists and believed that the only language violent people understand is more violence. This is of course perfectly true, but dispensing clarification in such a manner can only be effected by the strongest fighter in the ring. The Zealots foolishly took up arms against the Romans and after some surprise victories (the battle of Beth-horon comes to mind) demonstrated that one shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight and were utterly obliterated. Their destruction coincided with the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD and triggered the Jewish diaspora.
• The People of the Way, whom Luke identifies as the true followers of Jesus Christ, who rejected the Septuagint and returned to the Hebrew Scriptures, obeyed but otherwise ignored national or imperial governments, refused any sort of creed or dogma or tribal identifier, and devoted themselves to conversation, communication, information technology (i.e. alphabetic script, paper production, libraries and schools, the postal service), the study of natural law (Romans 1:20) and freedom-by-law (Galatians 5:1) as revealed to the prophets of old.

The name Herodian obviously comes from the name Herod, which is of unclear meaning (see our article on that name for the details) but would have reminded any Hebrew speaker of the verb ערד ('arad), to flee, which would have made the Herodians seem like the Flight-Takers, the Fear-Driven Wusses.

In our article on the name Isaac, we discuss at length the crucial difference between toe-walking animals and flat-footed animals. Herod was an obvious toe-walker, whose every move was informed by his fear. He was the embodiment of the violation of the single most repeated command in the Bible, which was also the first thing the Word said to Abraham, namely: have no fear (Genesis 15:1).