HERODIANS ('Ἡρωδιανόι'). – Mentioned together with the Pharisees in Mt. 22:16 and in Mk. 3:6; 12:13. They were not a religious sect: Flavius Josephus considers only the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots as such; he uses a similar name, 'Ἡρωδεῖοι', to indicate the partisans of Herod the Great in opposition to those of Antigonus ('Ἀντιγανεῖοι') in the war of 39–37 B.C. It is therefore probable that the name H. used in the Gospels indicates soldiers or courtiers of the tetrarch Herod Antipas. There is no evidence that this name designated the anti-Roman political party that dreamed of the restoration of the Kingdom of Herod the Great.
BIBL.: W. Otto, Herodionoi, in Pauly-Wissowa, Supplem. II, cols. 200–202; B. W. Bacon, Pharisea and Herodium in Mark, in Journal of Bibl. Lit., 39 (1920), pp. 102–12; E. Bikerman, Les Hérodiens, in Revue bibl., 47 (1938), pp. 184–97.