SALOME. - Name of several Jewish women. The best known are:

1. S., wife of Alexander Jannaeus (v.); she reigned after him under the name Alexandra-Salome (v.).

2. S., sister of Herod the Great (v.). She urged him to kill his own wife Mariamme and his own sons Alexander, Aristobulus, Antipater.

3. S., daughter of Herodias (v.) and of Herod Philip (v. FILIPPO ERODE), not named in the Gospels, but presented as the "girl" (κοράσιον) dancer who, on the occasion of a birthday feast of Herod Antipas (v.), celebrated at Machaerus, obtained from the tetrarch, on her mother's advice, the head of John the Baptist (Mt. 14:1-12; Mk. 6:14-29).

S. later married her uncle Herod Philip, tetrarch of Iturea, and, after his death (A.D. 34), married her cousin Herod, king of Chalcis, by whom she had three sons: Herod, Agrippa, Aristobulus (Fl. Josephus, Antiq. Jud., 18, 5, 4; 20, 8, 4). A legend of Nicephorus (Hist. eccl., 1, 20: PG 145, 692) claims that S. perished, decapitated by the ice, while crossing a frozen river.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: G. Vitaletti, S. nella leggenda e nell'arte, Rome 1908; U. Holzmeister, Chronologia vitae Christi, ibid. 1933, pp. 205-207; G. Ricciotti, Storia d'Israele, II, Turin 1934, nos. 368, 370-71.

4. S., daughter of Herod the Great and of Elpis (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Jud., I, 563; Antiq. Jud., XVIII, 21).

5. S., wife of Zebedee (v.), mother of the apostles James the Greater and John. She was among the pious women who followed Jesus and ministered to him (Mk. 15:40-41; Lk. 8:2-3). She asked Jesus for places of honor for her two sons and was rebuked for it (Mt. 20:20 ff.). She followed the Master on the last journey to Jerusalem, up to Calvary. She was among the first to receive the message of the Resurrection (Mt. 27:55 f.; Mk. 15:40 f.; 16:1).

SALOME - St. carries the head of St. John the Baptist. Painting by Titian (ca. 1550) - Madrid, Prado Museum.(phot. Anderson)

Divergent opinions on the kinship of S. are set forth by ecclesiastical writers. St. Epiphanius believes that S. was a daughter of St. Joseph, born of a first marriage (Haer., 78, 9: PG 42, 712); Hegesippus considers her the daughter of Clopas, brother of St. Joseph (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 3, 11; 4, 22: PG 20, 248, 380); Nicephorus claims that she was the daughter of the priest Zechariah, father of John the Baptist and brother of St. Joseph (Hist. eccl., 2, 3: PG 145, 760). Nothing certain can be said on the matter. Equally untenable seems the interpretation given by some Protestants to the text of Jn. 19:25, paraphrased thus: "Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his Mother's sister [S.], Mary [wife] of Clopas and Mary Magdalene." Since in the New Testament there is never any allusion to a kinship of the sons of Zebedee with Jesus, whereas that of James the Less (v.) and of Jude Thaddeus (v.), called "brothers (that is, cousins) of Jesus," is emphasized, the insertion of S. at the point indicated is arbitrary. The exact paraphrase is "his Mother's sister, [that is] Mary [wife] of Clopas."

In the apocrypha Gospel of the Egyptians (v.), Pistis Sophia (v.) and among the Carpocratians, S. enjoyed great authority.

Bibliography

BIBL.: L. Fillion, s. v. in DB, V, coll. 1380-82.

Pietro De Ambroggi

@incollection{ec10_salome, author = {De, Ambroggi Pietro}, title = {Salomè}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {1689--1690}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/salome} }

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