Herod Antipas, (; ) was a 1st-century Herodian ruler of Galilee and Perea, in the time of the Herodian Tetrarchy. He bore the title of tetrarch ("ruler of a quarter") and is referred to as both "Herod the Tetrarch" and "King Herod" in the New Testament. He was a son of Herod the Great and a grandson of Antipater the Idumaean. Known for his role in the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth (, ), his name is often associated with tyranny and persecution.
Following the death of his father (4 BC in Schürer's 1890 publication,Emil Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, 5 vols., trans. John Macpherson (reprint: Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009); original publication in 1890. 1 BC according to Jack Finegan,Jack Finegan, A Handbook of Biblical Chronology rev. ed. (Peabody, MA: 1998), 301, W. E. Filmer, and Andrew Steinmann), Herod Antipas was recognized as tetrarch by Caesar Augustus and subsequently by his brother, the ethnarch Herod Archelaus. Antipas officially ruled Galilee and Perea as a client state of the Roman Empire.Marshall, Taylor, 2012. The Eternal City, Dallas: St. John, pp. 35–65. He was responsible for building projects at Sepphoris and Betharamphtha, and for the construction of his capital Tiberias on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Named in honour of his patron, the emperor Tiberius, the city later became a centre of rabbinic learning after the Jewish–Roman wars.
Antipas divorced his first wife Phasa'el, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, in favour of Herodias, who had formerly been married to his half-brother Herod II. (Antipas was Herod the Great's son by Malthace, while Herod II was his son by Mariamne II.) According to the New Testament Gospels, it was John the Baptist's condemnation of this arrangement that led Antipas to have him arrested; John was subsequently put to death in Machaerus. Besides provoking his conflict with John the Baptist, the tetrarch's divorce added a personal grievance to previous disputes with Aretas over territory on the border of Perea and Nabatea. The result was a war that proved disastrous for Antipas; a Roman counter-offensive was ordered by Tiberius but abandoned upon that emperor's death in 37. In 39 Antipas was accused by his nephew Agrippa I of conspiracy against Emperor Caligula, who sent him into exile in Gaul, according to Josephus. Accompanied there by Herodias, he died at an unknown date.
The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was first brought before Pontius Pilate for trial, since Pilate was the governor of Roman Judea, which encompassed Jerusalem where Jesus was arrested. Pilate initially handed him over to Antipas, in whose territory Jesus had been most active, but Antipas sent him back to Pilate's court.
Early life Antipas was a son of Herod the Great, who had become king of Judea, and Malthace, who was from Samaria.Josephus, Antiquities 17.20, War 1.562. His date of birth is unknown but was before 20 BC.Milwitzky 638. Antipas, his full brother Archelaus, and his half-brother Philip were educated in Rome.Josephus, Antiquities 17.20–21.
Antipas was not Herod's first choice of heir. That honour fell to Aristobulus and Alexander, Herod's sons by the Hasmonean princess Mariamne. It was only after they were executed (c. 7 BC), and Herod's oldest son Antipater was convicted of trying to poison his father (5 BC), that Herod fell back on his youngest son Antipas, revising his will to make him heir.Bruce 6–7; Schürer 320–325. During his final illness, Herod had yet another change of heart about the succession. According to the final version of his will, Antipas' elder brother Archelaus was to become king of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria, while Antipas would rule Galilee and Perea with the lesser title of tetrarch. Philip was to receive Iturea, Trachonitis, Batanea, Gaulanitis, Auranitis, and Paneas also with the title of tetrarch.Josephus, Antiquities 17.188–189, War 1.664.
Because of Judea's status as a Roman client kingdom, Herod's plans for the succession had to be ratified by Emperor Augustus. The three heirs therefore travelled to Rome to make their claims, Antipas arguing he ought to inherit the whole kingdom and the others maintaining that Herod's final will ought to be honoured. Despite qualified support for Antipas from Herodian family members in Rome—who favoured direct Roman rule of Judea but considered Antipas preferable to his brother—Augustus largely confirmed the division of territory set out by Herod in his final will. Archelaus gained the title of ethnarch rather than king.Josephus, Antiquities 17.224–249, 299–323.
Reign
After the death of Herod the Great, Augustus confirmed the testament of the dead king by making Antipas tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, a region he ruled for 42 years.Bruce 8. The two territories were separated by the region of the Decapolis, with Galilee to the north and Perea to the south. Threats to stability in both areas would have been clear to Antipas when he took office. While he had been making his case to Augustus in Rome, dissidents had attacked the palace of Sepphoris in Galilee, seizing money as well as weapons which they used to terrorize the area.Josephus, Antiquities 17.271–272, War 2.56. This Judas may be identical with the Judas of Galilee who led resistance to the Census of Quirinius (Schürer 381). In a counterattack ordered by Quinctilius Varus, Roman governor of Syria, Sepphoris was destroyed by fire and its inhabitants sold as slaves.Josephus, Antiquities 17.288–289, War 2.68. Perea, meanwhile, bordered on the Kingdom of Nabatea, which had long had uneasy relations with Romans and Jews.For Nabatean history, see Schürer 574–586.
Part of Antipas' solution was to follow in his father's footsteps as a builder. He rebuilt and fortified Sepphoris, while also adding a wall to Betharamphtha in Perea.Josephus, Antiquities 18.27, War 2.168. The latter city was renamed Livias after Augustus' wife Livia, and later Julias after his daughter.Bruce 9; Schürer 342. However, the tetrarch's most noted construction was his capital on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Tiberias, so named to honour his patron Tiberius, who had succeeded Augustus as emperor in 14 AD.Josephus, Antiquities 18.36. Residents could bathe nearby at the warm springs of Emmaus, and by the time of the First Jewish-Roman War the city's buildings included a stadium, a royal palace, and a sanctuary for prayer.Schürer 342–343. It gave its name to the sea and later became a centre of rabbinic learning after the Jewish-Roman wars.Bruce 9, citing and for the "Sea of Tiberias". However, pious Jews at first refused to live in it because it was built atop a graveyard and therefore a source of ritual impurity. Antipas had to colonize it with a mixture of foreigners, forced migrants, poor people, and freed slaves.Josephus, Antiquities 18.37–38.
At other times Antipas was more sensitive to Jewish tradition. His coins carried no images, which would have violated Jewish prescriptions against idolatry.Schürer 343 and n. 16. When Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea from 26 to 36, caused offence by placing votive shields in the Antonia palace at Jerusalem, Antipas and his brothers successfully petitioned for their removal.Philo, On the Embassy to Gaius 299–305.
John the Baptist and Jesus
Marriage to Herodias Early in his reign, Antipas had married Phasa'el, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea. However, on a visit to Rome he stayed with his half-brother Herod II and there he fell in love with his wife, Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great and Mariamne I, and the two agreed to marry after Herod Antipas had divorced his wife.Josephus, Antiquities 18.109–110 Phasa'el learned of the plan and asked permission to travel to the frontier fortress of Machaerus, whence Nabatean forces escorted her to her father. With his daughter safe in his custody, Aretas declared war on Herod.Josephus, Antiquities 18.111–113. Josephus states that Aretas was joined in this war by "fugitives from the tetrarchy of Phillip",Josephus, Antiquities 18.109 (18.5.1). whereas Moses of Chorene states that Aretas was joined by the Edessan army.Moses of Chorene, History of Armenia 2:29. It is said that the joint Petra-Edessan army prevailed over the forces of Herod Antipas.
It is generally agreed that the war, in which Herod was defeated, occurred in 36, a year before the death of Tiberius.Stewart Perowne, The Later Herods p. 49, (Bruce 10 n. 16; Schürer 344 and n. 19)
John's ministry and execution Antipas faced more immediate problems in his own tetrarchy after John the Baptist (in 28/29 according to the Gospel of Luke. or 27, if the co-regency of Augustus and Tiberius is included in Luke's reckoning of time, for which there is some evidence) began a ministry of preaching and baptism by the Jordan River, which marked the western edge of Antipas' territory of Perea. The Gospels state that John attacked the tetrarch's marriage as contrary to Jewish law (it was incestuous, as Herodias was also Antipas' niece, but also John criticized the fact that she was his brother's wife (), lending credence to the belief that Antipas and Herodias married while Herod II was still alive), while Josephus says that John's public influence made Antipas fearful of rebellion.; ; ; Josephus, Antiquities 18.118.
John was imprisoned in Machaerus and later executed by beheading.Josephus, Antiquities 18.119. According to Matthew and Mark, Herod was reluctant to order John's death. However, during his birthday banquet, he had been so pleased by the dancing of Herodias' daughter (unnamed in the text but named by Josephus as Salome), he had sworn an oath and promised to grant whatever she asked. Her mother then prompted her to ask for John's head on a platter. Compelled not to violate his oath to the girl or the guests, Antipas ordered John beheaded.; .
Jesus' ministry and trial Among those baptized by John was Jesus of Nazareth, who began his own ministry in Galilee, causing Antipas, according to Matthew and Mark, to fear that John had been raised from the dead.; ; cf. . Luke states that a group of Pharisees warn Jesus to flee because Antipas was plotting his death, whereupon Jesus denounces the tetrarch as a "fox" and declares that he, Jesus, would not fall victim to such a plot to run from heading towards Jerusalem because "it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem".. The "fox" had been interpreted as a symbol of either cunning or destruction (Schürer 342 and n. 5). Robert H. Gundry, noting that the Greek word is feminine, suggests that "Jesus is calling Herod a vixen ... not an animal to be afraid of or to run away from" (Gundry 3).
Luke also credits the tetrarch with a role in Jesus' trial. According to Luke, Pilate, on learning that Jesus was a Galilean and therefore under Herod's jurisdiction, sent him to Antipas, who was also in Jerusalem at the time. Initially, Antipas was pleased to see Jesus, hoping to see him perform a miracle, but when Jesus remained silent in the face of questioning, Antipas mocked him and sent him back to Pilate. Luke states that these events improved relations between Pilate and Herod despite their earlier enmity..