Mark 3: The Herodians

I was interested by Mark 3:6 today.  That verse says that "the Pharisees went out with the Herodians and began to plot how they might kill Jesus."  That seems an extreme reaction for a miraculous act of mercy simply because it was performed on the Sabbath.  It is quite amazing that those who claim to be God's followers could value human rules over mercy and the alleviation of suffering.  But I guess the same sometimes happens today.

As I read verse 6, I had a question though: who are the Herodians?  The Pharisees I know. They have been mentioned in Mark already.  We know them from the other Gospels.  Their reasons for hating Jesus are quite apparent.  But who are these Herodians?  A quick search of the NIV shows that the Herodians are mentioned 3 times in the Gospels.  In Matthew 22 and in Mark 12, they appear in parallel accounts, coming to Jesus in the Temple courts during the last week of Jesus' ministry before the crucifixion.  There, along with the disciples of the Pharisees, they ask Jesus a loaded question about paying taxes to the Romans.  The only other mention of the Herodians is here in Mark 3.  Who are these men?

In one sense, the best answer we have is that we don't completely know who the Herodians were.  We know they were a Jewish group.  And we know, as their name makes obvious, that they were allied with Herod.  Beyond this, details get sketchy.  They were most likely allies of the Sadducees.  It is possible that they thought the Messiah would come from the kingly line of Herod.  Both their alliance with the Sadducees and their hopeful outlook for the house of Herod would have made them unpopular with the people.  Most likely these things would have made them an enemy of the Pharisees as well.  The Pharisees were certainly no fans of Sadducees or Herod.  Yet, in every passage where the Herodians are mentioned, the Pharisees and Herodians are working together.

The reason for this strange alliance is obvious.  Both parties hated Jesus more than they hated each other.  While the Pharisees felt a religious threat from Jesus (Jesus challenged their claims of piety and holiness), the Herodians felt a political threat.  The Messiah was supposed to come from Herod's house not the house of a carpenter from Nazareth.  In Jesus, the two found a common enemy.

Some scholars suggest that the Herodians were priests.  If this is true, they were people who were deeply religious as well as deeply political.  Their mix of religion and politics actually became the thing that kept from the mercy that Jesus desired.  Could the story of the Herodians be instructive?  Could they be a warning about the danger of God's people falsely anointing a political stance with God's favor?  Perhaps those questions can't be answered on the little we know about the Herodians.  But perhaps in twenty-first century America those questions ought to be considered nonetheless.