The history of the Herodian family presents one side of the last development of the Jewish nation. The evils which had existed in the hierarchy that grew up after the Retm-n, found an unexpected embodiment in the t}Tanny of a foreign usuri^er. Religion was adopted as a policy ; and the hellenizing designs of Antiochus Epiph- anes were carried out, at least in their spirit, by men who professed to observe the law. Side by side with the spiritual " kingdom of God" proclaimed by John the Baptist, and founded by the Lord, a kmgdom of the world was estaljlished, which in its external splendor recalled the traditional magnificence of Solomon. The simidtaneous realization of' the Us'o principles, national and spiritual, which had long variously influenced the Jews, in the establishment of a dynasty and a chiurch, is
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a fact pregnant with instruction. In the fulness of time a descendant of Esau established a false counterpart of the promised glories of tlie Jlessiah.
Various accounts are given of the ancestry of the Herods. The Jewish partisans of Herod (Nicolas Dam- ascenus, ap. Josephus, A nt. xiv, 1, 3) sought to raise him to the dignity of a descent from one of the noble fami- lies which returned from Babylon ; and, on the other hand, early Christian writers represented his origin as utterly mean and servile. Africanus has preserved a tradition (Kouth, Rell. Sacr. ii, 235), on the authority of " the natural kinsmen of the Saviour," which makes An- tipater, the father of Herod, the son of one Herod, a slave attached to the service of a temple of Apollo at Ascalon, who was taken prisoner by Idumcean robbers, and kept by them, as his father could not pay his ran- som. The locality (comp. Philo, Leff. ad Caium, § 80), no less than the office, was calculated to fix a heavy re- proach upon the name (comp. Routh, I. r.). This story is repeated with great inaccuracy by Epiphanius (//«;;•. xx). Neglecting, however, these exaggerated state- ments of friends and enemies, it seems certain that the family was of Idumnean descent (Josephus, Ant. xiv, 1, 3), a fact which is indicated by the forms of some of the names that were retained in it (Ewald, Geschichte, iv, 477, note). But, though aliens by race, the Herods were Jews in faith. The Idumreans had been conquered and brought over to Judaism by John Hyrcanus (B.C. 130 ; Josephus, .1 nt. xiii, 9, 1) ; and from the time of their conversion they remained constant to their new religion, looking upon Jerusalem as their mother city, and claim- ing for themselves the name of Jews (Josephus, Ant. xx, 7,7; TFrtr, i, 10,4; iv,4,4).
The general policy of the whole Herodian family, though modified by the personal characteristics of the successive rulers, was the same. It centred in the en- deavor to found a great and independent kingdom, in which the power of Judaism should subserve the con- solidation of a state. The protection of Rome was in the first instance a necessity, but the designs of Herod I and Agrippa I point to an independent Eastern empire as their end, and not to a mere subject monarchj-. Such a consummation of the Jewish hopes seems to have found some measure of acceptance at fu-st [see Heko- dian] ; and by a natural reaction the temporal domin- ion of the Herods opened the way for the destruction of the Jewish nationality. The religion which was de- graded into the instrument of unscrupidous ambition lost its power to quicken a united people. The high- priests Avere appointed and deposed by Herod I and his successors with such a reckless disregard for the charac- ter of their office (Jost, Gesch. d. Judenthums, i, 322, 325, 421), that the office itself was deprived of its sacred dig- nity (compare Acts xxiii, 2 sq. ; Jost, i,430, etc.). The nation was divided, and amidst the confiict of sects a universal faith arose, which more than fulfilled the no- bler hopes that found no satisfaction in the treacherous grandeur of a court. See the name of each member of the family in its order in this Cyclop.^dia.
1. Herod the Great, as he is usually suniamed, mentioned in IMatt. ii, 1-22 ; Luke i, 5 ; Acts xxiii, 35, was the second son of Antipater and Cypros, an Arabi- an lady of noble descent (Josephus, Ant. xiv, 7, 3). See AxTiPATER. In B.C. 47 Jidius Cassar made Antipater procurator of Juckea, and the latter divided his territo- ries among his four sons, assigning the district of Gali- lee to Herod ( Josephus, .4 ;??. xiv, 9, 3 ; I^a?-, i, 10, 4). At the time when he was invested with the government he was fifteen years of age, according to Josephus {A nt. xiv, 9, 2) ; but this must be a mistake. Herod died, aged sixty-nine, in B.C. 4, consequently he must have been twenty-six or twenty-five in the year B.C. 47, when he was made governor of Galilee {iriVTE Kai HKoai, given by Dindorf in the ed. Didot, but no stated authority). One of his first acts was to repress the brigands who were infesting his provinces, and to put many of their leaders to death upon his own authority. This was